Despite being someone who, until recently, wasnt thoroughly into the Dance Dance Revolution games, I was genuinely looking forward to what Nintendo and Konami had to offer. The existing Arcade, PlayStation 2 and Xbox incarnations of the DDR license have been nothing short of stellar -- a fun and addicting workout to notoriously well-known music, remixed and set to insane dance steps. I was expecting the Mario version to be much the same but with a slight twist.

The story goes something like this... Someone has stolen the Music Keys and released the music held within. Without the Music Keys, the unstable power of the music is wreaking havoc on Mushroom Kingdom. Mario must recover them before the chaos destroys everything. The path to the keys is simple: Left, Right, Up, Down, Right, Down...

Nintendo boasts "over 25 tracks" in the final version, and knowing Nintendo, that means 26. There were 18 songs available in the E3 demo. So does this mean we can only expect eight more songs to be added to the list before release? I certainly hope that number will rise -- as the PS2 versions have upwards of 35 songs to play through on varying levels of difficulty. The following was the track listing at E3:

Garden Boogie - Carmen
Destruction Dance - Wrecking Crew
Jump! Jump! Jump - Super Mario 3
Fishing Frenzy - Csikos Posl
In The Whirlpool - Pomp and Circumstance
Blooper Bop - Super Mario Brothers
Hammer Dance - Super Mario 3
Rollercoasting - Mario Kart: Double Dash
Boo Boogie - Super Mario 2
Starring Wario! - Wario World
Frozen Pipes - Old Folks at Home
Cabin Fever - Mario Party 5
Deep Freeze - Dr. Mario
Rendezvous on Ice - Les Patineurs
Always Smiling - Tritsch-Tratsch Polka
Up, Down, Left, Right - Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
Here We Go! - Super Mario Brothers
Underground Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

As you can see by the list above, there is a nice mix of nostalgia-inducing Nintendo originals, as well as some remixes of classical music; hopefully Nintendo doesnt "kiddy" this one up as the DDR license is something of a sacred property in my eyes. If they mess it up, Nintendo and Konami should get 'served' for defiling something that could have been great.

You can dance to all of the songs through five different difficulty levels. Despite the different levels of difficulty, Im sure many of you have already read about the lack of difficulty in this version, and I agree; even the Very Hard mode didnt hold a candle to the Standard Mode in PS2s "Dance Dance Revolution: Extreme". I certainly hope Nintendo and Konami will fix this and gear this game towards the already established DDR userbase rather than primarily a bunch of 12 year olds who think dancing as Mario would be fun. They would be smart to remedy this issue given the feedback at E3.

On to the game itself; there are two distinct modes that were present in the E3 version: Mush Mode and Versus Mode.

Mush Mode is akin to Super Smash Bros. Melees adventure mode. You dance your way through levels (well, you do the dancing, Mario progresses on screen) by defeating enemies by correctly hitting the steps on the screen to pass through.

Versus mode is what most DDR users are familiar with. You can play solo or against someone else using any one of the songs or characters youve unlocked. For anyone who hasnt played a DDR game before, this is how it works. According to the amount of steps you perform correctly, you receive a number of points based on how many steps in a row youve gotten (combos), and then at the end of the song, you are assigned a letter grade. The higher the letter grade, the more songs and dancers you can unlock. This mechanic is the same in Mario Mix. As players clear songs, they will unlock more songs, minigames and difficulty levels.

This game boasts your standard assortment of Mushroom Kingdom characters that you would likely see in Mario [insert sports title here] and places those characters in familiar locations from within the Mario universe. The list of characters will include Mario, Luigi, Toad, Waluigi, Wario, and Bowser.

As mentioned previously, mini-games will be unlocked as you perform songs. The following is a partial list of mini-games:

  • Whee!
  • Note Pickup
  • Fire Up the SS Brass
  • Flagpole Leap
  • Banana Storm
  • Punch Up
  • Avalanche!
  • Hidden Treasure
  • Coin Collection

The game itself is fun, yet as stated before, slightly unchallenging. Hopefully given enough feedback and development time, DDRs first foray onto a Nintendo platform will be a huge success. Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix is currently scheduled for release in October 2005. Check out a trailer for the title here.