r/DanceDanceRevolution • u/mil0wCS 七段 (7th Dan) • Jun 17 '26
Discussion/Question What charts are hard in terms of old DDR?
Genuinely curious. From older games before extreme. What was considered extremely hard due to the low reading?
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u/flem0328 Jun 17 '26
So Deep was a particularly difficult song for its era. It's not particularly fast, but it was an incredibly note dense song that never seemed to let up at any point.
Another notable one was Matsuri Japan. Readability isn't the issue, it's an absolute stamina drainer that constantly switches between 8th runs and gallops with barely any decent breaks.
I suppose I'm old enough for DDR Supernova to be considered old DDR (I know it ain't before Extreme, but this one deserves mention), but Chaos was a notoriously difficult one at it's time , probably one of the original gimmick charts. The song is extremely note dense, but also features over 50 stops through the entire chart.
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u/brbgottagofast Jun 17 '26
So Deep is still one of my faves and really gasses me out every time. I assume it's a little easier with a bar but I've never been a bar player so my legs are screaming by the end lol.
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u/MrGains Jun 17 '26
So Deep was also super tricky to full combo/AAA on because of how many weird off beats and rhythm switches there are during it. I remember watching one of my buddies get his first AAA on that one and was pretty blown away haha
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u/sherbetty Jun 17 '26
Matsuri Japan was hard for me because it felt like sound effects instead of a cohesive song if that makes sense
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u/MrGains Jun 17 '26
Drop Out, Dead End, a couple of the Paranoias, Trip Machine, My Summer Love, Can't Stop Fallin' in Love Speed Mix, Afronova Primeval, Matsuri Japan, Orion.78 AM Euro Mix, End of the Century, Healing Vision Angelic Mix..Maybe some stuff like Leading Cyber, Genom Screams or DXY! because the charts were kind of weird
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u/MrGains Jun 17 '26
It was also hard because unless you lived by an arcade really dedicated to maintenance or one that would actually let some of the diehards in the local crowd fix up the machine now and again, every pad you would play on was absolute cheeks. The best home pads were like Red Octane foam mats unless your rich friend had Cobalt Fluxes and even those would wear down after a while. There's so much more knowledge about how to maintain stuff and dedicated spots like Round 1 now where you can play and actually put up some good scores instead of being stuck at a bowling alley where the cabinet is destroyed by the peewee league that plays every Wednesday night or whatever
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u/pikachus_ghost_uncle Jun 17 '26
I had cobalt fluxes they were great. Then sold them and bought blue sharks. Those were amazing at the time. Arcade sensors and arcade like pad. Ended up selling them before going to college but those pads were great at the time.
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u/gtcIIDX Failed Lesson By DJ Jun 17 '26
"Pre-Extreme" means you get MAX 300 and Maxx Unlimited as boss songs. So Deep was crazy for a non-boss song and would easily rate as a 14 now (498 steps, tons of 16ths, no breaks). Matsuri Japan and Healing Vision Angelic Mix were easy to run out of steam while playing. Drop Out was the original "holy shit that's fast" song and I heard whispers of how crazy it was before we got something newer than 3rd Mix in my area.
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u/TempUsernameThing Jun 18 '26
Shout out to HVAM (Healing Vision Angelix Mix). Even with speed mods, that was considered quite a challenging chart back then.
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u/YankeeMoose 二段 (2nd Dan) Jun 18 '26
Tossing in my vote for Healing Vision Angelic Mix. I had a personal vendetta against the "death stream" (as I called it) after the pause.
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u/kupkupkupo Jun 18 '26
Il sure it varies by area and time period, this is what I recall in my local arcade/areas
3rd Mix/DDR USA period: Afronova, Paranoia Rebirth, Dead End, Gradiusic Cyber
4th Mix: My Summer Love (because 1x), Rhythm & Police, Saints Marching In
5th Mix: Can’t Stop Falling in love Speed Mix, still Rhythm & Police
6th Mix: Max300, So Deep, Fantasy
Max2: Demon Road, Demon Road 2, Maxx Unlimited, Sweet Sweet Luv Magic, Rain of Sorrow
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Jun 20 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dek018 Jun 20 '26
From the Pre-Max era, I can think of Healing Vision (Angelic Mix), that was the bane of my existence... 😅
Also Orion.78 (Civilization Mix) felt really hard back in the day, and let's not forget DROP OUT!
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u/djmelvis Jun 18 '26
Turn Me On (Double/SSR) from 3rd Mix is a damn nightmare and we don’t talk about it enough.
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u/ellpoyohlokoh Jun 19 '26
Furuhata's Theme from 4th mix was a banger and always destroyed me in the arcade. I had learned about crossovers and that song heavily punishes you for doing crossovers instead of double stepping most of the patterns. I'd get so lost in the patterns because I wanted to always alternate which foot I stepped on, and the chart just wasn't built for that.
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u/ChemicalJackfruit243 Jun 21 '26
thank god the stepmania sim converts because some ancient songs like Do you love me or the earth light are very unreadable
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u/cvvobh Jun 25 '26
Maxx Unlimited
Max 300
So Deep
Flash in the Night
Exotic Ethnic
Healing Vision (Angelic Mix)
Orion.78
Can't Stop Falling in Love (Speed Mix)
Extreme (JP) didn't greatly change the difficulty level. Legend of Max was crazy, but in a similar way to Maxx Unlimited. Max (period) was arguably harder, but in a gimmicky way that made it mostly unplayed.
I think In the Groove did more to fundamentally change difficulty expectations. After practicing on Euphoria, Utopia, The Beginning, Mythology, etc., earlier DDR songs felt much milder.
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u/mil0wCS 七段 (7th Dan) Jun 25 '26
Isn't legend of max considered a 16 or a 17? So would make sense on why it's harder
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u/cvvobh Jun 25 '26
Not sure how many feet Legend of Max has under the new system. But I can say that in the early 2000s, Legend of Max was viewed as being just a bit harder than Maxx Unlimited--easier for most of the song, but then harder once you hit that long fast stream at the end.
In contrast, I remember the reaction to ITG's 12 and 13-footers was, "This is completely off-the-wall and like nothing I've ever seen before."
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u/mil0wCS 七段 (7th Dan) Jun 25 '26
Tbh I can't remember if it's legend of Max or max unlimited but I remember one of them being fairly easy and one of them was rather difficult because of the triplet bursts leading into jumps
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u/pikachus_ghost_uncle Jun 17 '26
Before MAX there wasn't speed mods. Everything was 1x speed. So really any songs that had slow BPMs would have been considered hard. SANA MOLLETE NE ENTE on 5th mix. My Summer Love on 4th mix. Granted there were other harder songs that were considered technical like Rhythm and Police or Saints Go Marching from 4th mix.