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I see what they did there. I see what these jokers did. Sure, you can mention Fantavision
all you want, what with the fireworks display during a flyby of a city scene at night. That’s
all well and good. But every other aspect of this game - EVERY other aspect of this
game - is dripping with sweet, syrupy, Dance Dance Revolution nostalgia. I’ve needed
this kind of nostalgia for a while now. But the problem with nostalgia is that you can
never go back... I’m gettin’ all teary. Blow some things up while a techno remix of
classical music plays in the background, I need to compose myself.
There we go. Boom Boom Dollar... erm, Rocket... broke into the music-gaming scene long after
said music-gaming scene shriveled and was put on life support. This wasn’t going to
go toe-to-toe with Guitar Hero or Rock Band. It was positioned in an entirely different
direction - toward the then-dormant DDR end of the spectrum. Heck, the name itself evokes
DDR, and specifically a song from 1st Mix that I’ve already cited by accident. They
even used the same font as the original DDR logo! It’s quite obvious that this thing
wanted to be a refreshing return to the arrow-based dance gaming of yore. As such, it supports
your DDR pad, in addition to the standard XBox controller or even your favorite guitar.
But while its range of support is admirable, I have to say, this particular setup for actual
gameplay is confusing as all hell. Music is a linear progression, bar after bar, note
after note. That’s how you can tell what order to play them in. What BBR tries to do
is mix it up a bit, and spread the fireworks out across the screen, meaning you sometimes
have to read backward and forward and sideways and... frankly, it’s enough to make an experienced
DDR player’s eyes bleed. You thought Boost and Reverse were bad; try having two notes
on extreme opposite sides of the screen, as you try to judge whether they’re to be hit
simultaneously or a half-beat apart from each other. As much as I dig this brave new aesthetic,
from a practicality standpoint it doesn’t really work that well. If you’re not working
toward a uniform point, timing is very difficult to judge, especially when sightreading. It’s
the same problem I had with Samba de Amigo.
But the music almost makes up for it. Included are 10 tracks which bring classical music
into the new millennium, with titles like “1812 Overdrive,” “Game Over Beethoven,”
and a downloadable 5-song expansion featuring “Sting of the Bumblebee” and “Explode
to Joy.” It’s not quite BanYa-tier, but don’t hold that against them. I’d still
pick up this soundtrack as an album if it were made available as such. And then it’d
make me want to go play Canon-D and Beethoven Virus. But that’s just how I roll.
You can’t go back to the days when DDR was relevant. It just ain’t happening. Konami
managed to show up late to the genre they themselves created, whether it’s their misexecution
of DDR here in the states, or their misexecution of Beatmania (which I’ve already covered,)
or that train wreck they called Rock Revolution. Boom Boom Rocket evokes the ghost of the prime
of the dance game era, but then calls into conversation its very existence as a ghost.
And then shoots a firework through it, just to prove that it’s no longer substantial.