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Fixing what's broken, breaking the song list; UPDATE: DEFECTIVE AND UNWARRANTED

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 49 / 51
Date: October 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The sixth DDR released in North America for the PlayStation 2, "Supernova 2" isn't the best choice for the PS2 owner (that would be the previous "Supernova"), nor the second best (that would be "DDR MAX 2"), but it's a solid third place. What it does right, it largely inherits from its prececessor. What it does wrong can be squarely laid on the shoulders of its music producers and licensers.

By this point, pretty much everyone in gaming knows DDR, so a summary of basic gameplay can be skipped. The key is how the game is presented and what varieties are available. In addition to the basic arcade-style game, Supernova offered solid "advanced" games such as a versus mode, the best exercise mode the series has ever known, and then sabotaged it with the aggravating "Stellar Master Mode", a confusing mission mode that had to be completed to unlock over a third of the game's soundtrack and all the extra modes. Supernova 2 simplifies this with a "Hyper Master Mode" which at least allows players to progress more quickly through unlocking new stuff. However, it shares the same dubious design decision as Stellar Master Mode: most of the challenges change the nature of the game, sometimes radically (arrows are rearranged, superimposed, invisible, move at confusing speeds, etc.).

Given how much effort has to be invested in these Master modes to unlock much of the soundtrack and gameplay, you wonder: what's the real game, arcade mode, or Master mode? It's as if "Madden NFL 2008" only offered the NFC teams at the start, and made you play silly quarterback challenges and punt/pass/kick contests to unlock the AFC, team-by-team.

Fortunately, Hyper Master Mode is a lot easier to beat, since you can buy "support modules" to help you clear difficult challenges. For example, if a challenge requires you to hit a certain number of combos, a module that turns "good"s into "great"s will keep your combos going. So you're less likely to hit a brick wall in Hyper Master Mode than in the previous game's Stellar Master Mode. But it's still annoying to have to invest so much time in this mode at all.

I exercise with DDR every day, and I appreciate how good Supernova's exercise mode was, and am grateful it is copied lock, stock, and barrel for Supernova 2. You can maintain multiple profiles and histories for exercise players, protect them with passwords, and design your own custom exercise courses (also possible in MAX 2, but not in the "Extreme"s).

The catch is that you need to start unlocking songs quickly to build a tolerable workout. Supernova 2's default song list contains a lot of low-speed R&B and slow pop from popular performers like Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, etc. Some of the licensed songs, like Chris Brown's "Say Goodbye" and especially Gwen Stefani's "Wind It Up" are particularly ill-suited to DDR-style dancing. There are licensed songs that work in this format, like Fatboy Slim's "The Rockafeller Skank", but sadly, they're the exception. Doing a workout of 17 all-random songs, on "basic" for the first and last and "difficult" otherwise, I found I was only burning 350 calories, compared to 450 for similar workout schedules on Supernova. Only after unlocking the usual DDR J-pop suspects like Be For U, Riyu Kosaka, Naoki Maeda, Anettai Maji-Ska Bakudan, etc., could I get the speed to a point where it was interesting and valid exercise.

So, full points for taking the best of Supernova, addressing the worst problems of Stellar Master Mode (though a timed unlock system, ala MAX 2, would have been preferable), but points off for terrible taste in licensed music. It shouldn't be your first DDR game, but if you're already playing the series and want more, it's not a bad choice.

UPDATE: After two and a half months, a chunk of the disc broke off while returning the disc to its case. I contacted Konami customer support and even though I'm within the 90-day warranty period, they refused to honor the warranty and replace the defective disc. As Konami is apparently in the business of selling defective and essentially unwarranted product, I've got to say: BUYER BEWARE. Amazon won't let me change my rating, but defective products should surely get one star, if not zero.

Solid addition to the DDR series

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: October 11, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Supernova 2 is a solid addition to the DDR series.

Even though the tasks in "Hyper Master mode" are just as annoying as in previous DDR games, the interface is much less confusing that in Extreme 2 or Supernova.

And I'm very happy to report that you don't have to play in Hyper Master mode to unlock songs. The songs will unlock automatically after playing enough in Game mode, although it takes longer.

Dancing into the mainstream.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: October 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you want to dance to music you hear on the radio everyday and that is not even remixed so that it is danceable, then buy supernova 2. Yes, there are a few dance tracks and some fun japanese songs on here, but most of the time you will be flipping through that song wheel trying to find something appealing.

If they are going to put hits from the 70's on DDR, why can't they remix them.

This DDR seems to love the quick step-jump sequence and uses it a lot.

Step charts overall are easy, even for Heavy mode. They seem to dumb down the songs that you here on the radio everyday. Who do they think is buying this game and why can't they appeal to those long time fans? I think right now they are trying to gain a new audience, but are leaving the fans continuously wanting more. Sometimes their song selection just boggles my mind..."Let's appeal to everyone and no one at the same time." Why not stick to music we all know sounds good and is danceable.

This game is an improvement over Supernova PS2, but not by much. It contains mostly the same graphics and same voice overs as Supernova. I think it's about time they get a new announcer.

If you are new to DDR, it's a good buy; however, long time fans will again miss the song lists and overall feel of the game from years ago.

A disappointing addition to the series

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: December 12, 2007
Author: Amazon User

As a fan of all the PS2 DDR games from Max through to SuperNOVA, my wife and I expected SuperNOVA 2 to be no different - but unfortunately, it just isn't up to scratch. The game mechanics are the same, but they've made some things worse.

- The 2-player Stellar Master Mode, where you unlocked most of the songs, is replaced by the 1-player Hyper Master Mode. You can't unlock much if you want to play together rather than one at a time.

- The song list is awful. Only a small handful of songs are worth playing, and the starting licensed line-up is terrible, apart from Fatboy Slim's Rockafeller Skank. That song's great and has good, fun steps, so it's a pity it has to show up here in such weak company.

- The steps are just not FUN in this game. The game's acquired a taste for step-jump combinations, and also for stuttering sequences that don't really allow you to get into a rhythm. The game actually manages to make dancing annoying - that's something I never thought any DDR game would do.

At the end of it, I rate SuperNOVA 2 as the worst home DDR game I've played. We own all the others, but SuperNOVA 2 is getting returned, as we're simply never going to play it. I give the game 2 stars overall, and they're both for Fatboy Slim's "Rockafeller Skank". The rest of the game can go jump in a lake.

One of My Keepers

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 14, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova 2 brings a new set of songs into the Dance Dance Revolution world. As usual, depending on the songs you personally enjoy, this could be a good or a not-so-good thing.

I always find it fascinating where one person says they hate game X because the song set sucks - and then another person says they adore game X because the song set list is to awesome!! We all have very different tastes in music. It is well worth it to look at the song list for yourself and see if the songs appeal to you or not. No game will ever have 100% songs you love - but there should at least be a few that you're going to enjoy playing.

I have several DDR games and I use SuperNova 2 as my "warm up set" before I move on to the other games. So when I go downstairs to where my DDR mat and such are set up, I'll start with this SuperNova 2 game. It tends to have slower songs that get my muscles and legs warmed up. So it has Unbelievable, Got to Be Real and Take On Me (with the actual music video). These are all relatively slow but are fun to dance to (for me!) and get me moving. After I do two sets of these three, I pop out the DVD and move on to the actual high energy songs I plan on playing with for the afternoon. Then when I'm winding down I'll go back to these to end up with.

What if you hate the 3 songs I mentioned? Well luckily for you there are tons more :) So what one person likes, another person hates. It's the way these games work.

The graphics are certainly nice enough for a PS2 level system, and I've played it on everything from a little laptop to a bit high definition TV. It works fine in all situations. Right now I have my laptop set up in the basement with the mat and I can see the arrows and moves quite easily on it.

I have played with workout mode, but really it's easier for me to just hit 'sort' a few times to get them into the most-played order, play through the few songs I want to warm up with, and then move on.

I like the steps on the songs I play, but again your mileage may vary depending on the songs you tend to play with.

In general I suggest you look through the full song list and if you see things here you like - enjoy! If the songs just don't appeal to you, there are certainly enough other DDR games for you to choose from. For me this is a keeper!

This is a super fun game and great as form of exercise too!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I think the game is great. This was my first experience with one of these dance games and my 9 year old son and I both love it. We had no idea what to do at first but figured it out within a few minutes. My 5 year old daughter can't quite get the hang of yet though. It is a lot of fun and I love that you are getting good exercise while having fun! What a perfect combination! I am now using it to do my daily workouts (in workout mode) and find myself continuing to play for several hours after my workout is complete just because I'm having so much fun! You sure don't see that happening on a treadmill! The only complaints I have are that commands are somewhat hard to understand because you can get any kind of mat to go with it and the symbols don't always look alike. The way we found to combat this is by hooking a regular game controller up to the "player 2" slot and navigating with that. Works great. I also don't like how sometimes it doesn't register your steps even when you did hit the right key but that is a mat issue too. The game itself has no problems and we are thrilled with our new toy! We can't wait to buy a second mat so we can battle against each other! We already tried that on the online option which was really cool. Enjoy!

Great fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 07, 2008
Author: Amazon User

The very first DDR game I purchased was DDR Extreme 2 for my wife's birthday. It was a great hit, and we've played it a lot. After we began to get bored with the music and features, I bought DDR SuperNova 2 for my wife for Christmas. The new music and improved graphics are fantastic. The added functionality to the gameplay, such as Battle Mode, add to the fun factor.

xmas gift

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Bought this for my 14yr old daughter for Christmas and she loves it. In fact, I just asked her what she thought about it and she said its really awesome! I wanted to get her something that would get her off the couch and this has helped. At first she was really frustrated because she was having trouble with the steps but after a few days she was doing pretty good. She was on that thing for hours and really worked up a sweat. I thought it looked pretty easy and gave it a try and boy does it work you out. I am not as good as my daughter and I have it on easy. All in all I think it was a good buy.

About the 2 days arrival

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 29
Date: October 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It will be arrived in after you order it 2 days if you click 2 day for free and then it is pretty new but need signature

One Of The Best Games Ever!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: January 09, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I love this game, and you will too! For any DDR fan this is a must have! Even non DDR freaks will love this game. The music is just so much fun.

Thank You For Your Time,
Mr. Flores

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