Hello everyone this is DDREncore.com's webmaster and theme writer, Myst. Due to large demands (and death threats in my e-mail box) We have completely overhauled the DDR Encore 2 theme, in addition we will be using a special build of the theme specifically designed for the DDR room rules for here at NDK so hopefully the line will move smoothly.
In addition to the 2-song regular mode, we will have the option of choosing 1 of 2 special NDK Ranking Courses each with 4 designated songs. We choose 4 songs knowing there is not much difference in the overall time between 4 songs back to back and 2 songs in regular mode with 90+ seconds to select each of them. I won't reveal what each of the two courses have in them, however I can say the first course is Japanese Pop Culture themed and the second is a rounded sampler of DDR Encore. At the end of the convention, whomever provides the highest score in a course will receive a prize to be announced.
Quick tips to remember when playing on our machine to maximize your enjoyment experience.
Choosing your song quickly
The machine will have a default song list when you first access the "Choose your Song screen" not all of the songs that are on the machine are on the default list, in fact only about 5% of said songs will be on the default list. The default list is pretty well geared to non-hardcore players giving a good variety of popular favorites in addition to songs that haven't been seen in ages on the official arcade versions.
To access all of the songs simply press on the dance platform up-down-up-down. This will send you to a sort menu where you can access sorting options to find your favorite, such as sort group (which sorts to the chronological releases of ddr) sort title (alphabetical sort) and sort difficulty (sorts to a specified difficulty). If you are not sure of a song's specific title, give us a name and we will tell you if we have it or not and will help you get to it quickly. Nevertheless a good idea is to try and figure out what song you want to play before getting up to the machine. Remember you and the player you play with will only get one song each unless you both want to play one of the NDK ranking courses.
There will be no long songs or marathon songs available to play, so no 5th Mix longs, Solo Nonstops, or DDR X X-mixes. There will be no extra stage.
Options
The options in DDR Encore will be geared to mirror a majority of the new features in DDR X2 arcade recently released in Japan. Most of the mods will help you, some will be hindering if you want a challenge. Here is the full list:
Speed Modifiers (modifiers that increase the rate of the arrow scroll but not the music playback)
-1x through 8x at .5x intervals will be available.
-In addition there will be a 0.25x and .5x speed mods too.
-Sorry no C Speed Mods.
Boost (modifiers that change the arrows approach to the step zone
-Off
-Boost (increases the rate of arrow velocity as it approaches the step zone)
-Brake (decreases the rate of the arrow velocity as it approaches the step zone)
-Wave (causes the arrows to speed up and down as it approaches the step zone)
Appearance (modifiers that change the appearance and disappearance of arrows as they approach the step zone)
-Off
-Sudden (arrows will appear suddenly on screen)
-Hidden (arrows will disappear suddenly on screen)
-Stealth (arrows will be invisible at all times requiring you to play the chart from memory)*
Turn (changes the stepchart's rotational position)
-Off
-Left (rotates the stepchart 90 degrees to the left)*
-Right (rotates the stepchart 90 degrees to the right)*
-Mirror (rotates the stepchart 180 degrees)*
-Shuffle (randomly reorders the patterns in the stepchart)*
Dark (turns the visibility of the step zone on or off)
-Off
-On (Makes the step zone invisible forcing you to rely on the timing of the music)
Scroll (determines the direction the arrows scroll on screen)
-Standard (Makes the arrows scroll from bottom to top)
-Reverse (Makes the arrows scroll from top to bottom)
Arrow (determines the colors of the arrow)
-Vivid (the classic default arrow that changes color as it scrolls to the step zone, but is still color cordinated to the rythym of the steps)
-Flat (it looks like Vivid, but all the arrows are the same color at the same time, giving no way to use color to determine rythym)
-Rainbow (organizes the arrows into vibrant solid colors to the 12th beat only (3 colors))
-Note (organizes the arrows into solid colors to the 64th beat (several colors))
Cut (reduces the complexity of a stepchart)
-Off
-On (makes only 1/4 beat arrows (the most simple) appear only. Will affect score.)*
Freeze Arrow (determines to show freeze arrows)
-On
-Off (disables freeze arrows. Will affect score.)*
Jumps (determines to show simulatanious steps)
-On
-Off (removes jump steps. Will affect score.)*
Rate (determines the music playback rate of the song)
-1.0x through 2.0x will be available. Increasing the rate also increases the actual BPM and reduces overall length. Both players must agree to the same setting.*
Risky
-Off
-On (enables Sudden Death, which means a good, almost, boo, or N.G. on a freeze arrow will end your game immediately. Both players must agree to the same setting.)*
*Mods not legal in Saturday's tournament
I might write more to what's to know about the machine but right now I am getting some overdue sleep!
