Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix, known as Dancing Stage Mario Mix in European languages and Dance Dance Revolution with Mario in Japanese, is a 2005 music video game by Nintendo and Konami and is the only DDR game for the Nintendo GameCube. It is a DanceDanceRevolution game starring Mario characters and is the first DDR game to be released on a Nintendo console outside Japan.
As the game starts, Waluigi is about to steal the four Music Keys, who can grant wishes, from Truffle Towers. However, when he opens the door to the room containing the Music Keys, three of them scatter across the Mushroom Kingdom, and the fourth one is kept by Waluigi. From a distance, Toad watches these events unfold and rushes to tell Mario or Luigi, depending on which character the player chose, who then rushes off to retrieve the missing Music Keys.
The keys are recovered after the player completes tasks for other characters who have found the scattered keys and then defeating them in a dance challenge. These characters are, in order, Waluigi, Pirate Lakitu, Blooper, Hammer Bros., Wario and Freezie.
This game came bundled with its own Dance Pad specifically, and only, for the GameCube (and, by extension, Wii models with GameCube controller slots).
This game provides examples of:
- Announcer Chatter: Luckily you can turn him off.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Wario says that he has an idea for a new game: he titles it "DDR: Wario Mix".
- Credits Gag: "Deep Freeze" is the only time Hirokazu Tanaka is credited as "Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka".
- Dancing Is Serious Business: Only dancing can return water flow back to normal and save Mario from certain death.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Waluigi is the one who unleashes the Music Keys into the world at the start of the game, plunging the world into chaos. However, he's beaten very early.
- Exergaming: This should be a given since it is DanceDanceRevolution.
- Going Through the Motions:
- The animations that Luigi and Mario make during songs are recycled quite often.
- Many of the animations during cutscenes are blatantly ripped out of the GameCube Mario Party games.
- Harder Than Hard: Very Hard and Super Hard.
- Hard Mode Filler: Inverted; not only does the main game not resort to repeating songs with harder charts, but there is a New Game Plus which is also comprised of new songs.
- Hijacked by Ganon: Waluigi is set up as the game's antagonist in the intro but is actually beaten very early on. Then after the player manages to collect all four Music Keys, they end up getting stolen again by Bowser, who serves as the Final Boss.
- Interface Screw:
- The Giant Boo and Freezie gimmicks cover up more of your screen if you miss an arrow, making it more difficult to see what the next arrows are. Stomping on the smaller Boos or Freezies pushes the giant versions down the screen.
- Arrow Cheeps bump into arrows so it changes the orientation, forcing you to adapt to the new step quickly.
- Lampshade Hanging: "Why do people jump on flagpoles? Why not?"
- Lethal Lava Land: The area around Bowser's Castle has this look before the Music Keys are used.
- Mini-Game Credits: During the credits, the game is put on NoFail, and a Stepchart for the Super Mario Bros. theme appears (not remixed or anything, the actual song). Mario enemies even replace the arrows, regardless of difficulty!
- Mooks: Exclusive to this game, Mario enemies will replace some of the arrows on higher difficulties. Goombas are arrows, Koopas are double steps, and Bob-Ombs are mines.
- Motive Misidentification: When Bowser steals the Music Keys, Toad assumes he's going to use them for some grand, evil purpose like he normally would. It later turns out his "grand plan" is to fix his tone deafness.
- Moveset Clone: Like all DDR games, every character here is exactly the same.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: When the Freezie doesn't respond to Toad's request for the Music Key it has, he instructs Mario/Luigi to kill it, which the plumber does so that they can retrieve the key from the Freezie's melted corpse.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Lakitus are not enemies in this game, and are instead shopkeepers.
- New Game Plus: Story Mode EX. All it is is just different songs.
- Not Named in Opening Credits: "Up, Down, Left, Right" is credited as "From Mario Paint". Even though the song is "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", which should be credited for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Justified that it's one of the pre-loaded songs in Mario Paint's music composer. However, he is credited for "Underground Mozart", which is not credited as "from Mario Bros.", even though that's where the song is from, Mario-wise.
- Rank Inflation: Rare aversion for a DDR game: it runs from E to A.
- Recycled Soundtrack: The original Super Mario Bros. theme taken straight from the source is used during the Mini-Game Credits.
- Schrödinger's Player Character: Pick either Mario or Luigi for the story mode, and the brother you didn't pick won't appear at all for the campaign.
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Oddly enough, inverted. Waluigi, the Starter Villain, is the only one actually trying to take over the world. The next boss with real characterization is Wario, who is simply trying to get his own game. And the rest of the music keys are held by generic bosses. Even when Bowser appears and becomes the final boss, the trope is still inverted! (See Motive Misidentification above for how.)
- Take Over the World: What Waluigi planned to do after he took the four Music Keys.
- Talk Like a Pirate: A Lakitu does this.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Dancing solves all their problems.
- "Can I call you a dancing master?"
