Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

That One Boss / DanceDanceRevolution

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/capture2_7.PNG
Sections in the Groove Radar spilling over? A rapidly pulsating speedometer? A huge number of steps even in the Beginner level? Yep, This Is Gonna Suck.

You have overcome many obstacles to unlock the song "MAX 300" by Ω. Clocking in at a blazing 300BPM, this is one of the hardest and fastest songs you will ever encounter.
— Song unlock info for "MAX 300" in DDRMAX -DanceDanceRevolution- (NA PS2)

With the steady increase in difficulty in every installment in DDR, there seems to be one way or another for boss songs, or just straight up "hard songs," to get more and more challenging for even the most experienced of players. As this is a game with a focus on intense body movement over the course of two minutes at a time, it's quite possible that a song becomes That One Boss for the player not because of the technical challenge, but because their body cannot physically keep up. Better hit the gym if you want to take on the game's hardest challenges!

Note that the songs, charts, and courses listed below are based on when they were released.

"Let's heat it up with this number! Ready? Okay, here we go!"

    open/close all folders 

    General 
  • In general, any chart rated level 15 (10 and flashing 10 in DDR versions before X) to level 18 are the most challenging songs to play, requiring not only dexterity but also intense amounts of stamina. A good number of boss songs (Extra Stage and One More Extra Stage) are usually in this range. And then there's the songs rated level 19, which still currently remains the highest level. To keep in put, here are the levels of difficulties that are generally this:
    • 1st - 2nd, and Solo: 8-Footer.
    • 3rd - 5th: 9-Footer.
    • Max 2 - Supernova 2: 10-footer and flashing 10s.
    • X: Level 18.
    • X2 - Present: Level 19.
  • Nonstop courses are like this:
    • Regular nonstop just means you have to do generally 4 songs songs in 1 nonstop session.
    • Oni/Challenging mode uses the battery bar (now risk bar). You are given 4 batteries, with having anything that breaks combo decreases the bar and completing a song may or may not replenish batteries. While you play more songs than regular nonstop (5 or more), you have to be precise on your play at all times.
  • Extra Stages.
    • MAX - Supernova 1: Your bar starts at maximum lifebar, but you cannot gain any lifebar. Bosses are highlighted in red.
    • Supernova 2 - Present: You have the risk bar (see Oni above).
  • Any song that has a mislabeled difficulty rating can make things worse. The below list has quite a bit of that. Here are some examples of this:
    • In the earlier days, for singles, songs that have no 16th notes at all could disqualify itself from being a 9-footer, though very few 190 BPM or 200 BPM songs escaped this. This did not get remedied until DDRMAX 2.
    • Doubles was a very special case. Various patterns that involve going back and forth through the pad were not taken in consideration when rating charts. DDR X's new rating system averts this.
    • Charts that try to deflate difficulty so that it looks less of a Final Boss song than the actual True Final Boss song. Unfortunately, this attempt comes at the expense of ignoring the ratings of previous songs. DDR A's release averts this entirely.
  • Machines that were earlier than DDR X had a major problems with quantization. Before DDR X, 3/4 intervals did not exist. This means no 1/3, 1/6, 1/12, etc. Chart designers had to use the closest 1/64th note to align with the rhythm as much as possible. However, this also leads to chances of programming errors. Also, because of the proximity of the note colors being close to 1/64th notes, some songs end up having wrong rhythms.

    1st - 5th MIX, Konamix 

1st MIX

  • Early "PARANOIA" or "Trip Machine" songs could qualify, but thanks to Sequel Escalation in the difficulty department however, these songs aren't really as hard today's DDR bosses. But factor in the engine differences in early mixes (including a lack of speed modifiers and no way to identify the beat of an arrow by looking at it), and they were in fact quite hard.
    • PARANOIA's and PARANOiA MAX ~DIRTY MIX- Doubles SSR/MANIAC charts were considered easier than their Another/Trick counterparts due to how awkward doubles step patterns were back then. This did not get noticed until DDR X overhauled the difficulty ratings system.

Dancing Stage Internet Ranking Version

  • "Uh La La La", a song exclusive to this version, has an 8-foot Maniac chart that has a myriad of Fake Difficulty for a relatively benign pop song, including but not limited to:
    • Poor sync (it gets better as it goes on, however)
    • Excessive jackhammers
    • Awkward jump streams and note placements.
    • One of said jump streams also containing a jump with three arrows in it. No other 4-panel chart in the franchise has had jumps with more than two arrows in them.note 

2nd MIX

  • The song "Hero," from 2nd Mix, featured mini-gallops after the chorus. It was a tricky pattern at the time.
  • Due to Early-Installment Weirdness, many of the 2nd MIX and 3rd MIX doubles charts in ANOTHER or MANIAC were pretty much this due to awkward patterning that isn't friendly for doubles. Later sequels after that toned it down and use the awkward arrow placement patterns on boss songs.
    • The most notorious stepchart is "GRADIUSIC CYBER". While ANOTHER is the highest difficult in doubles, Gradiusic Cyber has the notorious death end part. The patterns 1L, 1L, 1D 1/16ths to 1R, 2L, 2D 16th to 2R is a painful transition even to today's standards.
  • Speaking of "GRADIUSIC CYBER", the singles BASIC and ANOTHER have a 2 note 1/16th that requires the same foot (jackhammer), twice in BASIC and 3 times in ANOTHER. At 160 BPM, this is very painful to do and to this day unheard of for BASIC. For ANOTHER, the only song to do such a pattern is Maxx Unlimited (see below).

3rd MIX

  • "Flashdance (What a Feeling)" and "End of the Century" from 3rd Mix (both Singles Maniac) were introduced as 8 footers out of 9 at the time. They might seem easy on a controller, but when one actually steps to the notes, these songs will brutally murder one's stamina, even if some time was spent practicing them.
  • "End of the Century" Expert was so notorious for its incredibly awkward stepping and step-jump patterns at a fast 170 BPM that it actually got re-rated later to a 9. Using the same foot twice in a row on different panels at high BPM is hard and stamina draining, and no amount of twisting can avoid it for this song. And the game it was in at the time (3rd mix) penalized misses much harder than any other game before or since. Ouch!
    • Most DDR games have a default difficulty of 4 (Normal, ranges from 1 to 8). This difficulty affects how much energy is lost or gained. The home version of 3rd mix had a default difficulty of 2 (very easy). It still penalized you a bit more than every other game did when set at difficulty 4. 3rd mix difficulty can go clear to 8.
  • "In the Navy." This song, especially on the Maniac difficulty, taught many players to master the gallop steps. Its fast jump jump jump sections are also quite draining, and twisting is required during the verses.
  • The introduction of level 9 MANIAC charts, appropriately labeled CATASTROPHIC. While they're certainly not as difficult as the highest-end charts today (they usually range from 11 to 14 on the X-Scale), they still prove to be both quite difficult and fun even today. This mix is the first one that had songs that really drained stamina, even when done correctly.
  • "CAPTAIN JACK (GRANDALE REMIX)" stood out because it's the only licensed chart to be on equal footing as Konami Originals in terms of difficulty, which came off as a shocker in the earlier days of the franchise. While most licensed songs could only hope to reach such levels of difficulty, CAPTAIN JACK is one of the few songs that pushes players with quick 16th triplets, 8th note jumps, and gallops. It also doesn't help that parts of the song used wrong notes, particularly the green arrows in the gallops as well as the end's 1/32nd or 1/64th random gallop.
  • "AFRONOVA" is remembered for both using quick 8th note crossover streams at 200 BPM, and a unique crossover pattern that required players to hit side arrows with the opposite foot, known today as the "Afronova Walk" after this song's MANIAC chart. Its Double Maniac Chart has a lot of twisting. It also has triplets at the end, in an engine that doesn't really support them, making the elusive full combo nearly impossible.
  • "DEAD END" may not have any particularly tricky or disorienting movements and rhythms, but continues to push players through its many 190 BPM 8th note streams, nine of which are 15 arrows long! Clocking in longer than most other DDR songs of the time, DEAD END is a true test of stamina, the likes of which was never seen in 2nd MIX. Widely considered to be the first "stamina cata," It would later receive a new Groove Radar Special chart in SuperNOVA 2, which is still considered to be one of the most difficult charts to this day.
  • The other 9-footer that was the bane of many players is "DYNAMITE RAVE". With the combination of SSR mode, the chart can be very complex to read due to the 16th note usage. Like "Uh La La La" in Dancing Stage, it contains a design mistake that leads to Fake Difficulty: at one point, you have to do a jump(left+right)-down-left 16th note session which is extremely hard to do and the reason of combo-breaks; it was intended to be a Left-Down-Left motion in 16ths instead, but this came to pass even to this day and is also replicated on the OMES DDR Extreme (see below). Until you learn how to both read the chart accurately and rapidly, and step it in a fashion that doesn't leave you off balance, it saps your stamina much more then Dead End ever did. Once you have got the hang of it, it's not actually very tiring, but it takes a lot of real work to get to that point. This one is the archetypical "technical cata".
  • "GRADIUSIC CYBER ~AMD G5 MIX~" isn't as stream-driven as the above-mentioned 9-footers, but it makes up for it with its complexity. The rhythm is hard to pin down with many off-beats in it that aren't even attached to any note or percussion at all so the timing is impossible to feel, the patterns force enough double stepping to throw you off, and the 16th stream bombardment in the middle is simply brutal. All of these factors pushed this song beyond its time when it made its debut.
    • The death end part from the previous "GRADIUSIC CYBER" Double ANOTHER is carried on to the "~AMD G5 MIX~". You might think this is passed on to MANIAC. Sadly, this was passed on to ANOTHER, making this song harder to Full Perfect than its harder MANIAC counterpart.

Solo Mix

  • During the Nonstop I course which was rated an 8 (DDR Solo's highest level), "Drop Out" was the fastest song in DDR at the time at 260 BPM (a record it would hold until "MAX 300" came out in DDR MAX), the song was also intensely tiring by the standards of the time, with extremely rapid sequences of high speed jumps. What really made it was the climax; there are 2 sections of nonstop streams that will make your feet hurt with the first stream having a crossover for such ridiculous speed, culminating in one final sequence of stomps to finish off a worn-out player. While easy by comparison with today's boss songs, back in the day if you wanted to beat "Drop Out" you had to earn it! Since the highest level cap of DDR Solo was an 8, it was rated that, which carried on to DDR 4th.

4th MIX

  • This mix released newer charts called MANIAC-S or MANIAC-D for some of the older licensed songs. Of all of the charts, Butterfly - Upswing Mix on MANIAC-D was notoriously difficult for having a section of 3-set 1/16th notes at 170 BPM and over 400 steps.
  • "Drop Out" returns from the Nonstop I. While it did tone down the first gun run by making them 8th-note triplets and remain the "8" difficulty, the chart is still hard. Konami did not update the "8 Difficulty" until DDRMAX 2 that made it a "9".
  • Ninzaburo (renamed as Furuhata's Theme). Despite being the 2nd song in Nonstop mode, it is harder than it looks and the hardest Dancemania chart pre-4th Plus. The singles Maniac stacks itself with predictable-yet challenging doublestepping and its doubles require stamina and twisting.
  • "Rhythm and Police" in 4th MIX Plus (a 9-footer) brings back the gallops with a vengeance, but they are timed such that the first arrow is on the beat instead of the second, which really messes with you after learning the other way for every earlier song with them.

5th Mix

  • PARANOiA ETERNAL. While its heavy chart for most of the song isn't that outstanding for a 9, what sets it apart is that towards the end it has two 14 note long jackhammer sections note . It was so notorious for this, that the chart would later be scrapped altogether and replaced with a different and more up to date heavy chart in DDR Extreme. The original Heavy chart's jackhammers would later be paid homage in PARANOiA ETERNAL's X-Special and PARANOiA Revolution's Heavy charts.
  • 5th MIX is also the only game in the franchise to have double-length songs; the player could choose up to three songs per play, and each of these counted as two songs. "HOT LIMIT" is more known for its Word Salad Lyrics than its difficulty, and "B4U Glorious Style" is only slightly harder than its shorter namesake. However, "Dynamite Rave (Full Version)" is Exactly What It Says on the Tin - take an already-difficult song from 3rd MIX, then make it twice as long. Clearing any three-minute song is a test of stamina, but the full version of Dynamite Rave is a workout all by itself.
  • Healing Vision - Angelic Mix (Console only) on doubles was so hard that it got rated a 14 on the X scale, awarding this as the hardest stepchart in the old mix saga.

    MAX, MAX2, Extreme 

MAX

  • So Deep (Perfect Sphere Remix) on Heavy tends to throw people off thanks to a high notecount nearing 500 steps and frequent gallop steps from beginning to end.
  • "MAX 300," the first ever extra stage. It was the fastest chart at the time (at 300.1 BPM), a speed mod of 1.5x was applied for you, the arrows scrolled down instead of up, and any mistakes could not be fixed due to the lifebar not going up on successful combos. At this time, no song can even compete with its difficulty.
    • When this song finally gets unlocked, it still remains untouched. Even its STANDARD difficulty is hard, having some death runs that most players at STANDARD level cannot keep up with.
  • If you can get an AA on "MAX 300" on Extra Stage, say hello to One More Extra Stage (OMES for short) with the song "Candy ☆" which forces you to full combo and not miss freezes or fail.
  • Failing a freeze penalized you extremely severely in this game compared to future games, with people often failing songs simply due to not keeping enough weight on the pad, depending on its quality. This of course included Candy ☆, with many players failing because they let up on the pressure at the wrong moment.

MAX2

  • Like in MAX, The Extra Stage and OMES still applies. MAxX Unlimited not only increases the BPM record to 320 BPM, but you also have to deal with the ridiculous BPM changes (300-280-300-140-300-140-320) and more difficult patterns, specifically the step-jumps at such fast speed. On top of the overwhelming mods in DDR MAX, you have the put up with Dark as well.
    • Maxx Unlimited Heavy, both singles and doubles, remain untouched that not even Max 300 can compete with it. Even its single STANDARD has a 1/16th jump-jump at the end to throw off players.
  • If you AA that, the OMES is "Kakumei," which has weird BPM placements that make it easier to fail than "Candy."
  • The Oni course Kidou/Demon. Can your body take 10 songs nonstop, with MaxX Unlimited on reverse as your final song?. The console version replaces this with Ultimate 12; while no Oni mode, 12 songs is a LOT to deal with. Oh, and Maxx unlimited is played in Dark and Reverse.

Extreme

  • Cartoon Heroes (Singles Heavy). This chart was very hard to play at 170 BPM with step-jumps and very complex patterns. The patterns for DDR A20 exists for its remake and re-rates it a 14 on the X scale.
  • During the second and final stages, Trip Machine Survivor and PARANOiA Survivor become available to play. PARANOiA Survivor in particular is another 10 that clocks in at 270 BPM, includes slowdowns, and even starts using crossover patterns near the end. However, if the arcade operator enters the unlock codes, these stages will be unlocked from the start, along with PARANOiA Survivor MAX. It's slightly faster than PARANOiA Survivor at 290 BPM, and all charts up to heavy use the same patterns as Survivor, except mirrored. However, it also has a Challenge chart that's even more difficult than its heavy chart! In fact, it was pretty much universally considered the hardest chart of the game, and since the series went on hiatus, it kept that title for almost four years. When you say PSMO (PARANOiA Survivor MAX Oni), it doesn't matter if no one's called Challenge "Oni" in ages. They remember.
  • Like the above, the Extra Stage and OMES still applies. The Legend of MAX notches it up to 333 BPM and follows that of DDR MAX. This sounds much easier to handle, though the end might kill you due to difficulty spike. If you AA that, the OMES is Dance Dance Revolution, which plays tribute to the obvious game's title and copy-pasted steps from previous songs. Oh, and the silly Fake Difficulty part on Dynamite Rave returns.
  • The Oni course Legend Road is essentially a Boss Rush. If you thought 10-12 songs were bad, try dealing with 5 songs that are ALL 10's, with the hidden Paranoia Survivor MAX Challenge steps having the most notes in the game, both Singles and Doubles.
  • On top of that, the Japanese PS2 version adds "MAX. (period)"; the only thing that must be said are that it has a part that runs at 600 BPM, and it never made an appearance outside Extreme CS JP until over a decade later. A 3/9/9/10/10 scale is the highest in the series at this point.
  • PARANOiA -Respect- (Console only). Get ready for crossover hell at the end of the song.
  • Max 300 -Super Max Me Mix- (Console only). Perhaps the most awkward stepping at a fast BPM. The end part will require major endurance.

    SuperNOVA 1 - 2 

SuperNOVA 1

  • SuperNOVA had this issue with Sunkiss Drop. The Expert chart was rated a 7, but didn't take in account that this many crossovers at such fast 185 BPM speed.
  • Xepher Challenge. For the first time in the series, it is the only new 10 in the game to be available from the start and the only 10 for both singles and doubles to have a consistent BPM (not Max 300's 2x BPM nor Genom Screams only being a 10 on double only). While it may seemingly not be as hard as the other 10s, the end part of the song does provide a challenge, given the amount of arrow-density with separated 1/16th notes.
  • Chaos Expert, the OMES, comes loaded with very tricky BPM stops, different colored arrows, and very tiny arrow density with the stop usage. Compared to the previous installments with OMES, nothing comes close, especially when rated a 10.
  • Fascination MaxX (pictured above) was considered by many to be the new hardest canon DDR song. It's a relentless stamina drainer, and some consider it to still be the one of the hardest. That is just on Expert. Challenge has Hard Mode Filler in use, with the worst bits right at the beginning and end.
  • The 2MB remix Fascination Eternal Love Mix, whose challenge chart is widely considered to be just as hard, if not harder than the above. While its stepcount is nowhere near as high, it more than makes up for it with some very technical Jump sections, especially nasty at the end, where you have to do multiple jumps in a row with a few 8th note streams thrown in too.
  • Healing-D-Vision: While it's not too bad at first, it's the final 360bpm speed-up where the song shows its true colors, bombarding you with streams, with the final one being one of the most infamous crossover streamsnote  in the entire game.
    • If this song was played in a Challenge/Oni course (see below), the song's rhythm for most of the song up until the end can be ear-brutal because the song itself was written in 3/4th interval (using 1/6ths and 1/12th notes) but the chart itself uses 1/8th and 1/16th notes. If you do not have the eyes to read the song properly and rely so much by ear, you could end up losing Lifebar here due to Goods and Bads. The stepcharts did not get fixed until DDR X.
  • The Challenge/Oni Courses have given a Supernova explosion in difficulty increase since Extreme, adding a lot more Challenge Courses with 10s in them.
    • Max of MaxX (all 5 Maxes on Expert). While it is all Expert, hope you got the stamina to endure all 5 songs.
    • The 4 Episode courses of Boss Rush, each ending with a 10. The final Boss Rush, Episode IV, is notorious for having 3 different version of this course. This is due to an arcade update that added Fascination -eternal love mix- later in the game to align with the console's release, but not adding any more nonstop courses like Episode V.
      • Arcade: The original SN arcade contains Healing Vision (Angelic Mix) (E), Paranoia Survivor Max (C), Chaos (E), Fascination Maxx (C), and Healing-D-Vision (C). This is considered canon due to resurfacing in DDR SN 2.
      • US Console: MAX 300 (Super-Max-Me Mix) (E), CHAOS (E), Fascination MAXX (E), Xepher (C), Healing-D-Vision (C), and Fascination -eternal love mix- (C). Due to having 6 songs all marked as 10s, this is the hardest of the 3 courses.
      • Japan Console: Centaur (E), CHAOS (E), Fascination MAXX (C), Healing-D-Vision (C), and Fascination -eternal love mix- (C). Why Centaur is even listed as the first song is unknown, but doesn't make the course easy.

SuperNOVA 2

  • Many of the higher-end boss songs in SuperNOVA and SuperNOVA2 pushed the limits of exactly what a level 10 chart was. Especially in SuperNOVA2, boss's charts below Expert were misrated two levels lower than they actually were to make room for the higher difficulty, which made charts like PARANOiA Hades Difficult that could have been bosses in their own right look average. Understandably, this annoyed players who could pass songs on the designated level, only to get nuked by the charts, fail and lose their money. Here are the big 5 difficulty offenders, using the actual ratings in the game, what they probably should have been rated instead, and what DDR X currently fixed with the new ratings (old ratings formula is approximately x1.5 minus 1):
    • Arrabbiata.
      Expect: 3/8/9/10 and 9/10/10.
      Actual: 3/7/8/9 and 7/8/9.
      Current: 5/11/13/15 and 12/14/16.
      225 was already very fast for a 9 (they mostly capped out at 200), but add long, complex crossover streams and tons of jumps and this is around MAX 300 level, harder for some. Turn mods make it easier, but it's still nowhere near a 9. Singles contain a bit of double-stepping at such a fast rate, while the doubles have you crossing over both pads nearly nonstop, while having a Fake Difficulty errored step-jump-step at the end.
    • Unreal.
      Expect: 3/6/9/10 and 6/9/10.
      Actual: 2/5/7/9 and 6/8/9.
      Current: 4/8/12/15 and 8/12/14.
      Like DXY and Trip Machine Climax had a baby. All the difficulty is from tons and tons of stepjumps. The only thing unreal is the sync, which was way off 15 years ago and way off today.
    • NGO.
      Expect: 4/7/8/10/10 and 7/8/10/10.
      Actual: 3/6/7/9/10 and 5/7/9/10.
      Current: 6/10/12/15/18 and 10/11/16/17.
      Remove the G in NGO and it sounds more accurate. Expert's a souped-up PARANOiA Survivor, and while large parts are just quarter notes, the gallopy sections are hard enough for a 10 and the ending stream is almost as bad as PSMO's. Challenge may feature the lowest stepcount of any 18 in the franchise, but it accommodates by being absolutely loaded with stepjumps, including many cases with 8th notes between jumps at 274 BPM. Definitely not a chart to be underestimated.
    • TRIP MACHINE PhoeniX.
      Expect: 2/6/9/10/10 and 6/9/10/10.
      Instead: 1/4/7/9/10 and 4/7/9/10.
      Current: 3/8/12/15/15 and 8/12/16/16.
      The trickiest Trip Machine back then. Challenge may be faster, with tons of sixteenth bursts at 160 BPM, but Expert is very technical.
    • PARANOiA ~Hades~.
      Expect: 5/8/10/10/10 and 9/10/10/10.
      Instead: 3/7/8/9/10 and 7/9/10/10.
      Current: 7/11/15/16/18 and 12/15/17/18.
      People would have the right to feel Paranoia Fuel here even without the spoopy background video. The Difficult single and double are two of the hardest Difficult charts of all time, and some say Single should be a 16 (there were no 16's on Difficult until A3). Both are jumpfests, like slower Fascination Eternal Love Mixes, though Single gets much easier in the second half. Expert cuts down on jumps but adds more stream, with tricky crossovers at the end (cross over on the second arrow, not the fourth). Challenge is hard even for an 18. Almost every step in the first half is part of a crossover or a jump, including crossovers into jumps at 300 BPM. The slowdown includes reading streams just as fast but compressed into 1/4 the spacing, and streams of twelfth jacks as fast as MAX 300's last few notes. The ending is more of the first half.
    • To their credit, Sakura Expert, which was rated a 10 and got downgraded to a 9, actually deserved it (although Challenge Double was accidentally boosted to a 10).
  • Trim is a song that was introduced with a 10 rating. Even in a game with Paranoia Hades and Pluto Relinquish, it deserves the Supernova 10, and X-Scale 16. The song is pretty easy in its first half, its initial difficulty being in the form of 170 BPM 16th note drills of five arrows at most. The song slows down to 85, and in the background the music builds up to a drop. When it drops, the song speeds up to 340 BPM, with 8th note drills all over the panels, including 8th note jacks on one panel from time to time into lengthy 8th note runs. Oh, and at the beat drop, the song's rhythm begins to go to blue 8th notes rather than red quarter notes.
  • DDR SuperNOVA2 brings two of the currently three Pluto boss songs. Pluto does not use as many stops as Chaos, but it does not have a consistent BPM. It also does not make it easy for the player to tell when the song stops during the fast part. Oh, and enjoy an erroneous random 1/16th gallop at 200 BPM that would throw people off in Singles Expert.
  • Pluto Relinquish Challenge was critically acclaimed as one of the hardest songs to date, unchallenged for that title until DDR X2. Remember the notorious death runsnote  of classic songs like Exotic Ethnic Expert or PSMO? Now imagine those, but at 400 BPM, observe. The saving grace is the rest of the song plays like an easier 10, like MAXX Unlimited, but a complex crossover stream at 400 is no joke. It's also the only song in pre-X history to have a Single Difficult 10-footer in the old scale (though it was a very easy 10, and PARANOiA Hades would have done it too if it wasn't misrated, see above).
    • For later installments using the newer rating, many have disputed the doubles chart to be too hard for an 18, and instead be a level 19. The only reason why it isn't a 19 is because of its Schizophrenic Difficulty. By removing the middle 1/6th 400 BPM run (equal to an 18) and the 1/8th note death runs at the end (equal to a 19), the chart would be literally a 16.
  • It also brought back songs from previous games with a gimmick that maxes out one of the aspects of the groove radar. But there was one that maxed out everything: Dead End (Groove Radar Special).
    • To elaborate on Dead End (Groove Radar Special), or DEGRS, much of its difficulty stems from its... unusual chart style. Many of the steps are very uncomfortable to play and/or leave the player in awkward positions. A few examples of these types of steps within the chart are 16th crossovers, spins, holds, crossovers into spins that lead into holds, 16th jackhammers into jumps, altered notations to throw the player off further, and a particularly infamous section with 16th jackhammer jumps. Keep in mind the BPM's 190, so it's like 8ths at 380 doing all of this. More often than not, the best solution is to cheese and power your way through these awkward sections, which isn't exactly the easiest thing to do. For the longest time, the chart was widely considered impossible to Perfect Full Combo because of the "techniques"...until almost ten years later, when rhythm game veteran Chris "iamchris4life" Chike accomplished this very feat.
  • The Barrier challenge course. Sure, it may seem just 4 songs with a 9-9-9-10 difficulty rating. However, as mentioned on the misrated songs, those first 3 songs that are rated 9s are not 9s at all. Since the previous version did not have Fascination -eternal love mix- from the start nor added to a course, it makes its way here. This is a course not to be estimated as easy.
  • Special mention goes to the Boss Rush (Ver. SuperNOVA2) Challenge course, one of the most difficult challenge courses in the history of the franchise, and all 10s like the original Legend Road course. Using the newer DDR ratings, it is 18-18-15-16-18 for singles and 18-17-16-17-18 on doubles. It brings out potentially its hardest song, PARANOiA ~Hades~, first, and many players fail on the first level. Complete that and you get just 1 life (out of 4) of healing for NGO which doesn't give you any replenishing. Thankfully, Trip Machine Phoenix and Pluto aren't as hard, especially Trip Machine which is straightforward (for this course, anyway) and gives you 1 more life, but not knowing Pluto's stops can still kill you. If you think your lives will be replenished for Pluto Relinquish, think again because you get NO Lifebar. You may have had four minutes of "rest" (counting most of Relinquish, which isn't that bad), but its ending stream is still one of the hardest in DDR history even in A20+, and at this point you'll have to full combo it or close. And that's on top of Challenge Mode's no breaks nature.
    • Most people say Boss Rush SN2 is the hardest course in DDR history. No one could beat this course when SuperNOVA2 came out, and by the time people were good enough it was inconvenient to find an SN2 machine to practice on. As a result it took 11 whole years for anybody to clear it on video while later courses have been passed much quicker. The reason why later courses have been passed much quicker are due to a few factors:
      • DDR SuperNOVA2: Like other courses this was only playable on its own version, so once people stopped playing SuperNOVA2 they stopped practicing it. Eventually it got harder to find these old machines.
      • DDR X: Decreased boss difficulty (Trigger debatably shouldn't be an 18, and nothing else was even close to NGO, let alone Hades or Relinquish).
      • DDR X2 and X3: Using bosses' Expert charts instead of Challenge.
      • DDR A20 to present: No Challenge Mode (so courses only use the normal lifebar instead of the battery), with A's timing system (i.e. easier to mash) and 60-second rest breaks. The Dan courses have an "expanded" golden lifebar that makes gaining and losing life harder, so you can rack up a full bar, then survive streams you couldn't normally beat. Kaiden might come close, with four 19-footers, but Boss Rush SN2 is still seen as harder because of those conditions.
    • Doubles is even worse, which is natural, since Doubles 18's are often as hard as 19's on Single. As of 2020, all we have is a pair of videos by FEFEMZ and TAKASKE, neither of which get past the second stage. In fact, the world record for Pluto Relinquish CDP alone has more than 4 misses (7 misses to be exact), meaning that clearing the course would require a performance better than world record on a machine that's now over a decade out of date, while at the same time having enough stamina and strength (and lives) left from the previous 4 songs.

    X 1 - X3, Hottest Party 

X1

  • Horatio Challenge, both difficulties. Not because the chart is hard overall but due to a bug that forces you to either hit the arrows and get shocked or purposefully miss an arrow but avoid a shock arrow. This is due to the distance between arrows and shock arrows. Since this is a new concept for DDR X, developers didn't expect that having a 1/16th distance between arrow and shock would trigger the shock. The chart got fixed in DDRX 2; the shock arrows are farther away and less frequent, and the bug that let this happen to begin with was fixed.
  • Trigger from DDR X. A lot of the speed changes in it are pretty unnecessary, and it features 8ths at 400 BPM. That might not be as bad as the shit 888 throws at you, but it's still not far behind.
  • The newly added X-Special challenge charts for older songs from Extreme and earlier to modernize the difficulty. Here are the more notorious ones:
    • Max 300 Double. The second half of this song will rip your torso if you are not used to crossovers and going back and forth from the pad. Later installments re-adjusted this chart from 17 to 18.
    • Maxx Unlimited, both Single and Double.
      • The Single chart is notorious for having jackhammers combined with tons of awkward patterns. It doesn't help that it has the most notes of the X-Special charts, and it's the only Single 18. Good luck.
      • Like Max 300 Double Challenge above, expect to move back and forth a lot, with more awkward patterns. Later installments re-adjusted this chart from 17 to 18.
    • The Legend of Max. Lots of more awkward patterns like the above 2 at such high speed. Some people make fun of this chart for being an "18-footer" that's barely harder than PSMO (downgraded later to a 17 for this reason), but it's still one of the only X-Specials with a good reputation.

Hottest Party

  • While Hottest Party for the Wii is mostly tame, SUPER SAMURAI often becomes a stumbling block, especially when attempting to unlock it. The lack of speed mods forces players to read the chart at the default x1 speed. The song does not flash its receptors to the beat at all times: this makes the quarter notes blue during the early and later stages of the song...
  • ... on second thought, Pluto the First, perhaps the only DDR song that is universally That one boss to be, sometimes for its erratic music, sometimes for its chaotic steps, unpredictable BPM stops at 440 BPM, and often for both. When finally released on X2 CS and then AC X2, it added a filler challenge chart that places shock arrows in very difficult areas, making it one of the hardest 18s in the game, both singles and doubles.

X2

  • POSSESSION's Challenge Doubles Chart in X2 was so painfully hard for an 18 that in DDR II / Hottest Party 5 (Wii) and DDR X3, it was re-adjusted to a 19, making it the only song where its counterpart (singles) does not have a 19.
  • Valkyrie Dimension was the True Final Boss of the arcade version of X2, which meant players initially had to jump through a large number of hoops to even get to it in the first place. Then, because it was always played on Sudden Death mode, everyone kept failing on the trills right at the end. When it was finally unlocked for normal play, cue the disappointment from fans who learned it was yet another Level 18. For many, that wasn't hard enough. Even with that, Valkyrie Dimension also has a pretty brutal difficulty spread across its charts. Its Single Beginner chart is rated a 9, which is around a rating range typically reserved for Difficult charts. The Single Basic chart is rated a 13 (for reference, MAX 300 on Single Expert is a 15).
  • 888 and Mei. Each Challenge chart has over 700 steps, whereas a normal DDR boss song has about 550. And the latter is well-known as being one of the hardest beatmania songs. Think about that for a second.
  • If you thought Nonstop courses being tough was either going to be a lot of songs or the few very hard songs, VS Replicant Boss Nonstop Course is a combination of the 2. You play 7 of the Replicant D-Action songs in a row with difficulties 14-14-14-17-17-17-18, including the above mentioned Valkyrie Dimension. This is a test of stamina and precision.

X3

  • Trip Machine Evolution will get you in 2ndMIX mode. Sure, 9-footers didn't exist back then so the fact that it is one might tip you off, but not everyone knows that (they came out a few months later) and you'd still think a 9-footer here would be as hard as a 9-footer in other games, since 9 feet wasn't open-ended like 10 was. Instead, you blow your credit on a chart as hard as PSMO. Also, its Expert Double chart may say 16, but it was re-adjusted to a 17 for a good reason. And of course both Challenge charts are still some of the harder 18's even in A20+.
  • And now, we have "PARANOiA Revolution", which premiered as an Optional Boss for 2nd Mix Mode; despite (almost) conforming to the limitations of the early era of DDR (i.e. no freeze arrows, but still a stop; stops only started appearing on 5th Mix), it does not conform to the difficulty of the era at all. Add forced 1x (no speed mods until DDRMAX) and Flat (the arrows only became colored by beat position on the very next version), and you've probably got the most ridiculous bosses in recent DDR histories.
    • Oh, and the Challenge chart? It's rated 19 and it contains 16th notes at 360 BPM. No, that wasn't a typo, see for yourself.
  • Any song that contains the word Evolved in it. Not only are the songs hard to figure out, but one gets a different chart every playthrough.
  • It wouldn't be a DDR game without a Nonstop Boss Course. This time, it is called Revolution. While less songs and less difficulty average than the previous VS Replicant, both Trip Machine Evolution and Paranoia Revolution are very tricky to play and shouldn't be taken lightly.

     2013 - 2014 

2013

2014

  • Meet EGOISM 440. Even when cut down to just quarter notes, it's fast and has a lot of interesting pauses. The singles charts saying "17" should not be underestimated at all, especially when the the later DDR A changed its difficulty to an 18.
    • And then it got a challenge chart with a 19 rating, the 3rd to date. Given that the chart features a total step count (811) second at the time only to Elemental Creation challenge (which is more than 30 seconds longer) and has 16th notes at 440 bpm, its rating is probably warranted.
    • If you thought the singles challenge was hard, its double chart is much harder to the point where players scream "20". For passing singles, you can literally shortcut the chart (heel and toe) because it is straightforward. The doubles challenge? No mercy. Observe. To this date, it rivals even that of the hardest chart in the game (see Endymion in DDR A below).
  • After spending a very long time as a console exclusive, Max. (period) finally made its arcade debut as the semi-final boss song of DDR (2014). While it was already pretty far ahead of its time as far as boss songs went, it now got a new 18 challenge chart to truly put it on par with the very hardest songs in the game. Loaded with crossovers, taps, and then featuring 6th note streams and closing out with a quite long one during the infamous 600 bpm section, this challenge chart is truly not for the faint of heart.
  • And now we have "Over the 'Period'"; much like "Love is the Power Re:born" on X3, this is not only on Sudden Death mode, but a sudden death that causes an instant fail on anything worse than a Perfect. Cue the sea of players failing on the very first arrow. What's particularly painful is that it starts at 32.5 BPM, forced on the same speed mod as the 600 BPM MAX.(period) that preceded it, then slows down further, then after the 25 BPM section has a stop - and that's just the start of the Fake Difficulty. To top it all off, the song is rated a 15 on Single Difficult, and many feared having to do the same with the expert charts... But, that didn't happen, though that doesn't make its Expert chart, which is the 3rd (4th for doubles) expert chart to be rated an 18, any easier.
    • Its challenge chart is yet another 19, more than warranted with its streams loaded with crossovers, 160 bpm sections full of 16th streams with 24th streams peppered in, a very complex slowdown/speedup section, speed up sections with even more streams with tons of crossovers (Including one reminiscent of Healing-D-Vision's infamous crossover stream, but at 420 bpm), and a semi-final section that eventually reaches 840 bpm. Oh, and did we mention the chart is (initially) only available when playing the song as an extra stage, meaning you can't miss any more than 3 notes?

    A - A3 

A

  • DDR A added a new Extra Stage system. Activating it is similar to DDR 2014's Extra Stage, where you fill up a gauge as you clear songs. However, unlike 2014, your life option is limited to LIFE-4; Instead of giving you a non-refillable life bar, you have 4 lives. Miss 4 steps, and you fail. This makes it especially challenging to unlock upper-level Extra Savior songs (To unlock the song, you have to either clear it, or slowly fill up a meter over multiple different play sessions), and any song with BPM changes will certainly end your game quickly.
  • After clearing the Baby-Lon's Adventure event, accessible only through the use of an eAmusement card, players now have another event to clear: Rinon's Adventure. Unlike Baby-Lon's Adventure, Rinon's Adventure requires you to clear the Extra Stage in order to unlock new challenge charts for Extra Exclusive songs. Luckly for players, clearing these charts on the Extra Stage isn't required, but there's little comfort in that...
    • New Century, originally a 17 on hard, now has a level 18 challenge chart. It has lots of crossovers, shock arrows, and crossovers through shock arrows. The doubles chart even splits the rows of shock arrows up between the two pads!
    • Rising Fire Hawk makes a big jump from a level 14 to level 17.
    • Astrogazer, another level 18, has long streams interleaved with 24nd notes, reminiscent of high-end In the Groove charts.
    • Ishtar got a level 16 Challenge chart that fills every parameter of the Groove Radar, it's easier that DEGRS above, right. But the main difficulty and its major difference, is that DEGRS does not have Shock Arrows! And there's a group of eight gallops between Shock Arrows mid-way through the song! It's not as bad as Horatio's US Challenge chart, but still!
  • Ladies and gentlemen, presenting DDR A's final boss song, ENDYMION, with a Beginner chart rated 9, a Basic chart rated 13, a Difficult chart rated 15, an Expert chart rated 18, and a Challenge chart rated 19. The Expert chart is already quite brutal, with streams, sudden slowdowns, speed-ups, a max bpm of 880, and a very high step count of 783.
    • As if that weren't bad enough, its Challenge chart is, naturally, another 19, generally considered the hardest one yet. To start, it shatters Elemental Creation's record with a new highest stepcount of 925 (Singles) and 900 (Doubles), and yet, that will be the least of your worries with the song bombarding you with most every difficult thing it possibly can. And, it has to be initially beaten without more than 4 misses. While DDR A's more forgiving than many previous games in that goods don't count as misses, it's still so brutal that it took over a month before anybody successfully passed it, and the first one to do so only managed by one miss away from death. Witness the madness of this chart for yourself here.
  • If you manage to complete the hellish ENDYMION with a 950,000 or higher, meet your encore extra stage afterwards with minimal rest: ACE FOR ACES, sudden death Perfect Full Combo (a great or lower instantly fails). To make matters much worse, the song is the first of its kind to have different BPM changes and stops in each difficulty. Okay, so Basic has no BPM changes at a consistent 200. Sounds easy enough? Difficult has some of those 100-200 BPM changes and stops. Expert has BPM jumps to 800 and it only was completed so quickly because of a datamined chart. Challenge, while available without the "Attack! PFC" requirement, has tempo shifts and pauses everywhere in a 786-step Single chart and 765-step Double chart, at one point even looking like the "Wave" modifier!
  • In celebration of the franchise's 20th Anniversary, brand new remixes of songs from older eras of DDR have been released for DDR A. One of them is MAX 360, a remix of MAX 300 from DDRMAX. Its Expert Chart on Singles currently boasts a whopping 888 steps, the highest of any Expert Chart and the second highest overall, behind the aforementioned ENDYMION. The steps are fast and relentless, in keeping with the spirit of the MAX song series. Imagine if it had a Challenge chart...

A20

  • Cartoon Heroes 20th Anniversary. This is not what you had though 16 years ago since DDR Extreme.
  • Currently, the trend of Extra Exclusive songs and Silver/Gold Class are harder than the previous DDR A installments, with doubled BPM on some songs.
  • Nonstop courses have been reintroduced again. While it does not force LIFE 4 and is only 4 songs, it does not mean the following courses are going to be easy:
    • 9th Dan has 17, 17, 17, and 18. If you played through the final boss nonstop/oni courses before, this is a similar feel.
    • 10th Dan, all Challenge charts, has 18, 18, 18, and 19. For the first time ever, a 19 appears on a nonstop course. This is not to be taken lightly, especially when the tricky PARANOiA Revolution is that song for both singles and doubles.
    • Kaiden are all 19s (challenge charts of course). Oh bloody Oni hell. This Is Gonna Suck. We seriously hope you are ready to tackle all 4 songs nonstop..
      • For Doubles Kaiden. behold!. This course was so hard and tiring, that Konami made a 60-second BREAK TIME. That was "nice" of them. In addition, the next 10Dan and Kaiden received decreased difficulty.
  • Remember those songs they added to mark the beginning of the game's 20th anniversary year? Well, one year later they received Challenge charts, and some of them are quite vicious:
    • POSSESSION (20th Anniversary Mix). It's an 18 for both. Have fun with a ton of shock arrows thrown at you in hard spirits while hitting those 6th note jumps. The doubles have the most shock arrows in the game. If you thought Pluto the First Challenge was bad with shock arrows, this one is just as bad, if not worse. This is considered one of the hardest 18 charts in the game.
    • MAX 360. If you thought MAX 360 having the most steps in Expert was bad enough, its challenge chart is a 19.... a 19 with 1,000 steps on singles and almost 950 steps on doubles; the most in the entire game! Not surprisingly, at 360 BPM, it is filled with 12th note guns, followed by a few 16th note guns that made PARANOiA Revolution tame in comparison. Top players managed to get high scores for the singles 19 due to having no crossovers, but that doesn't mean they aren't tired as hell afterwards. Doubles, on the other hand, shows no mercy.
  • DDR Challenge Carnival released Prey's Challenge Chart. While it has no notes higher than 1/8th, those 1/8th at 210 BPM are a stomp load of jumps that will prey on your knees.
  • Floor Infection released Lachryma《Re:Queen’M》. Both Expert charts are rated 18, BPM is 236 containing 1/12ths and 1/16ths, and have over 800 steps. The doubles chart is the most notorious one. Have fun not ripping your torso on the second half of the song filled with 1/12th running all over the pads and massive twisting. The doubles chart is considered to be he hardest Expert Double chart in the game that rivals even that of Endymion Expert Doubles and is considered a 19 to players.

A20 Plus

A3

  • Do you wanna have a bad time? Then look no further than "MEGALOVANIA", added in the May 19, 2022 update. Yes, the Sans boss fight theme from Undertale. Rated an 18 on both Single and Double play and with Shock Arrows all over the place, with the Double Challenge chart in particular having the most Shock Arrows of any chart in the series and the largest groove radar in the game that broke the scale. Don't think that you're safe from Shock Arrows on the lower difficulties, because they are present on Difficult and Expert difficulties as well, a first for the series! Oh, and before it was patched on May 31, 2022, there was a part where 3 arrows were present in 1 line (1 hold but 2-arrow jump), reminding you of Uh La La La. And you thought only Konami originals and Touhou Project remixes were eligible for boss charts...
  • Avenger Challenge, as expected, is an 18 on both singles and doubles. While leveled as an 18, this is going to require a lot of stamina. For doubles, make sure you are flexible enough to go back and forth. Otherwise, you will fail this song within a snap of a finger.
  • 令和 (Reiwa) Challenge. How do we explain this? The Expert charts are rated a 10/11. Normally, a challenge chart with that type of expert rating would have at least a 15/16. This song? Nope. An 18 on both and with twice the amount of steps. For a 142 BPM, licensed J-pop song (specifically, one produced by recurring beatmania producer Dj MASS Mad Izm*) that is not even a boss song, throwing in 1/16th jackhammers and 1/24 runs with deep crossovers resulted (especially on the double chart) in many comparisons to the infamous "Hot Issue" D26 from Pump It Up. In fact, it was reported that Goldenbomber's lead singer specifically suggested this chart be made.
  • Continuing the trend of Challenge charts that are 18 but don't feel like a 18, from jubeat we have 量子の海のリントヴルム (Ryoushi no umi no Lindwurm). Only available to those who purchased the two Jubeat packs on DanceDanceRevolution GRAND PRIX with an active subscription will unlock it on A3 (purchasing the second pack will get you the song, both packs will give you the Challenge chart). This chart looks like the unholy child of both Unreal and NGO, with many stepjumps through the song and almost as many notes as the former's Expert and the latter's Challenge combined! And with random 24th streams designed to make you throw up! Yeah...maybe you should think twice before purchasing those packs.
    • From the same two packs, you can also unlock Megalara Garuda for A3 (yes, the song with at least a 10 in all difficulties in its home series). And so, Bemani decided that for sake of doing a Mythology Gag: The Challenge chart would have an 18 and the Expert a 17. So what does that mean? The very first 16 on Difficult! And it lives up to this rating regardless of the aforementioned Mythology Gag.
  • On February 2, 2023, the EXTRA SAVIOR system added a new Challenge chart for the IIDX crossover BITTER CHOCOLATE STRIKER. If you thought that Lindwurm was the only new Challenge chart with pure stepjumps...you're not prepared for this: triplets, step-jumps, step-jump triplets, some 24th twists at the most awkward time, and an ending with combines all of the above! Some question if the chart (both Single and Double) is indeed a 17.
  • BREAKING THE FUTURE, the main theme of the BEMANI PRO LEAGUE -SEASON 2- event from DanceDanceRevolution GRAND PRIX was released on A3. But, if the players bought all nine BPL Season 2 Music Packs and purchased a GRAND PRIX active suscription, they will be rewarded with its Challenge charts. And those are the first 19 (both Single and Double charts) not related to an unlock event or Extra Stage, and it shows! It has 924 steps on Single and 867 on Double, and those are loaded with triplets (yeah, seems that triplets are staying now), stepjumps during sudden BPM changes and after a series of sudden stops, a speedup to 720 BPM in the ending that ends early so to throw up any player who has still survived this onslaught. Ah, and it broke both Challenge charts of CHAOS as the most chaotic value ever with 211 and 218, surpassing the original of 200!
  • 鳳 (Hou) dropped on November 1, 2023, as the ENCORE EXTRA STAGE of BABY-LON'S GALAXY, and by the end of the month no player had yet cleared it. Not only does it require the unlock and clear of three tough CHALLENGE charts in Come To m1dy, SISYPHUS, and New Millennium, a 17 and two 18s respectively, but it comes with two new gimmicks. The first is a dynamic fade-in on the arrows, like a tempo-dependent SUDDEN+; arguably this makes the song itself slightly easier, but that's not the killer. The second is a new kind of gauge: FLARE GAUGE EX. It acts similarly to the pre-SuperNOVA2 EXTRA STAGE gauge, with one key difference: PERFECTs also drain the gauge. Even a PFC might not be enough to clear this one. With a patch on November 30, 2023, the FLARE GAUGE EX requirement was downgraded to FLARE GAUGE IX.

I'm so impressed I could cry! Thank you very much for your best dance!
DA-DA-DA-DA-DA—FAILED

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top