Dance Pad

There are different difficulty levels in DDR, as well as fast and slow songs. While it may seem that slow songs are easier to play than the fast ones, the opposite is actually often the case. The difficulty level is expressed in "feet," and the game will display a song's difficulty level in feet before the player chooses it. Higher foot ratings have more elaborate arrangements of the flashing arrows for the player to match. As such, DDR is a game that requires an uncommon amount of physical dexterity to excel at.

Naturally, it was only a matter of time before Dance Dance Revolution had a home edition. Such a version was first released for the PlayStation 2, with the Xbox version coming approximately a year later. DDR Mario Mix is the GameCube version. To play this game at home, the player needs a dance pad to be attached to the machine.

These dance pads can be relatively inexpensive, in the form of soft mats, or pricey, in the case of hard dance pads. The hard mats are superior to the soft ones, since they better approximate the arcade experience. Still, for sheer convenience and storage purposes, most home players use a soft DDR mat.