It looks like I was a slacker and didn't blog about a Dance Dance Revolution game in 2020. In the past few years I've been skipping around the series and after playing 2005's Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 I'd skipped ahead to the 2007 release, Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party on Wii and two September 2008 releases, Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2 (also on Wii) and Dance Dance Revolution: Disney Channel Edition. This time around I went back to the game after DDR Extreme 2, which was Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova, on PS2.
As usual, the differences to the core gameplay are minor to all but the most diehard DDR players. The mission mode has a different setup than in the DDR Extreme games. Rather than select missions to tackle, instead you navigate through a series of planets. On each planet you're given a set of songs and a set of missions that you can tackle in any order (e.g. "Complete 4 songs on the Beginner difficulty level with an A or higher"), some of which overlap. After you complete a certain number of them you unlock the "Showdown", a series of four or five short challenges, of which you have to pass a certain number of them to receive a "VIP Card". A VIP Card will unlock the next planet, and the mode continues in the same way. There also EX Showdowns and Diamond EX Showdowns that are unlocked when you complete more missions on a particular planet. I didn't spend much time trying to be a completist in this mode and have pretty much just done the minimum required to progress to the next planet. The tracklisting is pretty much par for the course, and when you encounter songs in this mode you unlock the opportunity to buy them in the in-game shop with points you earn playing through songs. This shop also includes other miscellaneous aesthetic bonuses, such as characters and differently shaped arrows.
It's a bit sad to think I'm starting to run out of DDR games to play, especially considering that it's been a decade since they've released a new version for consoles. Still, I'm not sure I'd ever be able to be skilled and athletic enough to 100% any single entry anyway, so I'm sure there's plenty more gameplay to be had from DDR games I've already played. As for what I'll tackle next, I'll probably go back to one of the Wii games I haven't played through yet before coming back to DDR SuperNova 2.