DISCLAIMER: These early Las Vegas entries were the first blog posts I ever did. They’re VERY antiquated compared to the rest of the blog.
Let’s start today with a lesson on DDR!
This song is “Max300” from 2001’s DDR Max. Before this song was released, the highest difficulty level in the game was level 9. This song was hard enough to earn the title of first level 10 song. Songs kept getting harder and harder after that, but DDR was adamant about 10 being the most severe possible difficulty. Songs ten times harder than Max300 wound up being rated the same difficulty.
With DDRX in 2010-ish, they finally revamped the scale. Now, the maximum possible difficulty was 19, so every song had to be rescaled. Max300 became a 15, for example. The 15 difficulty remains a benchmark even today because it’s such a significant step up from what comes before it. A person can eventually pass 13s and 14s through casual play but will probably never pass a 15 or higher without really pushing themselves.
I can pass a few easier 15s like the Max300 mentioned above. I had an unrelated foot injury right around when I started to do them consistently, so my progress was reset. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve gotten through one. I’ve come to Las Vegas to get back in shape, so my goal is simple:
Pass a new 15 before going home
With that said, let’s see where we’re going today.
Gameworks arcade! You may remember that I mentioned there used to be another business between World of Coke and M&M World. This is it. When it was still in that location, it was significantly more expansive. It was even big enough to rival Circus Circus for most arcade machines in Las Vegas. Nowadays, it’s not in such great shape.
They have an unplayable Super Monkey Ball machine with the banana controller missing. I was hoping you could take this as a metaphor for the inside of current Gameworks compared to what it used to be since I couldn’t get a good shot of the entire interior. It’s about a third of the size, with most of the exciting machines long gone. Thankfully, there’s only one game I’m here for at the moment.
Dance Dance Revolution Supernova 2! While the first Supernova is one of the easiest DDR games to find in this wild, its upgraded cousin is significantly rarer. Among other revisions, this game replaces the ugly red interface with a more mellow blue color. The original Supernova also had an oversight where it was impossible to unlock the boss songs for regular play in the US version. That’s been fixed here, so you’re free to play any of the tough songs you want. It also has new features like the Marvelous scoring during regular gameplay and the ability to slow down arrow scrolling. I’m not the biggest fan of SN1, but SN2 is one of my favorite installments of the series.
This machine isn’t quite “rare”; I’ve never lived in a town that had it. Most places were content to leave their Supernova machines as Supernova. The last time I managed to find Supernova 2, I had to go on a wild goose chase.
For 20 bucks, you get two hours of Freeplay and a pizza, but I was so out of shape that I could only make it an hour and a half before having to quit. Even easy songs like Sunkiss Drops pushed my endurance. I guess I still have a lot of training to do if I want to make it through a 15 within the next four days.
On the way out, I ran into this. This is the legendary Fry’s Electronics, best known for its ridiculous sales on video games and other electronics. I’m sure someone reading this lives near a Fry’s and wants to know what the big deal is, but they’re pretty rare where I come from. I’ve heard talk of them for decades but had never seen one in person. It turns out that they’re like a cross between Best Buy and K-Mart.
Every Fry’s location has a unique gimmick, much like the casinos around here. This one’s gimmick is just “Las Vegas.” The outside is a giant slot machine, and the inside is full of pictures of Las Vegas. I’d have liked to see something less underwhelming, but what can you do?
Here’s another place we don’t have in the Twin Cities. I grew up right next to a 7-11 in Michigan, so I always make it a point to grab a Slurpee when I can.
There was a special promotion where you could get Shark Week-themed cups, but they were long since sold out. I had to settle for a regular cup and a tube of Slurpee-flavored Warheads Jelly Beans. We live in a wondrous world where Warheads, Slurpee, and jelly beans can be condensed into a single product. I can’t tell if they taste any different than regular Wardheads jellybeans, but it’s still amazing.
Slurpee obtained, it’s time for one of the two biggest rhythm gaming arcades in Las Vegas.
By “biggest,” I meant “most popular.” It’s tiny.
This is the whole thing. PC gaming in the front, a few consoles to the side, and some arcade games along the back wall. You probably wouldn’t think much of PSG if you didn’t know any better. Let’s see what those arcade games are, shall we?
First up are DrumMania and GuitarFreaks v6. These two series are under the Bemani umbrella, along with games like DDR and Pop’n Music. They are unique because these two games can work as a set. If you have two compatible versions at the same arcade, you can link them up and play multiplayer between the two machines. One person on drums, one on guitar, and one on bass. These series predated Guitar Hero and Rock Band by quite a few years but never really caught on in the west. These machines are also known for breaking easily, so out-of-order DrumMania machines aren’t unusual. It’s pretty rare actually to see two of them linked up like this.
By the way, these two series were later merged into “Gitadora.” This is what the modern-day versions of these games look like.
Speaking of old series, the collective name for all of Konami’s rhythm games, like DDR and Gitadora, is the “Bemani series.” Bemani is an abbreviation of “BeatMania,” the oldest game in the series. Despite how important it is to the rhythm game genre, it’s only played by a sect of hardcore fanatics in the west.
There are three major “versions” of Beatmania. The original, Beatmania II(DX), and Beatmania III. All three are considered separate series, despite sounding like software upgrades. The original had five buttons, IIDX had seven buttons, and III had a foot pedal, so they all played differently. The original and III are both long dead, while only IIDX remains. What we see here is a relatively recent version of IIDX.
I’ve dabbled in BeatMania before, but I much prefer Pop’n Music. They had Pop’n here too, but I forgot to grab a photo.
DJ Technika. Some Korean game. I think it’s based on an iPad game. It wasn’t an enjoyable game, regardless of where it came from. I’ve heard the series is dead.
Here we go. Ignore the banner; this is DDR X3. This is the most recent version that most arcades can legally run in public. It looks like this place used to use illegitimate means to run a more recent version but had to stop after Konami took legal action a while back.
Say hello to Super Samurai. Since my goal was to pass a 15, this was the song I spent most of my time here practicing. It’s one of the easier 15s, so I thought I had a chance. Unfortunately, those fast Eurobeat-Esque trills near the end are a bit too fast for someone as out of shape as I am. I managed to get through the song without failing midway, but I couldn’t pass. I ultimately left defeated.
On the way out, I talked with a local DDR player outside, having a smoke. He was a mostly retired player from Chicago. We had a long discussion where we spoke of many things. He mentioned something interesting that I’ll have to look into tomorrow.
After the day of play, I felt like running despite being exhausted. As I found out while hitchhiking a couple of years back, two days of DDR and long walks “reactivate” my legs. This is a good sign.
