Universe features more than 100 minutes of music and the title brings forth a ton of original music that is sure to please fans of electronic. Very few of the title’s tunes fall into the mainstream category, bringing out the fresh change of pace most music games (many of which have been other DDR titles admittedly) have been lacking recently.
Konami really opens the vault for Universe, featuring throwback tracks, a few recent pop hits, a number of original tracks from low-key electronic artists and some great Konami video game themes that really add variety and flair to the song list. A sprinkle of a few DDR original tracks and exclusive remixes are there to remind players they are playing a DDR title, but, much like in the Ultramix titles, the list is so unique to the version, it doesn’t seem like you are playing yet another arcade ported Playstation 2 game.
Konami made the most use out of the Xbox 360 hardware by pushing video effects and trippy visuals that nearly burn straight through the retina. Colors explode everywhere and the characters look very detailed and crisp with fluid dancing animations, but this is seriously the first DDR title where I found the backgrounds and animations to be so distracting I had to turn them off. Coupled with the fact the HUD is changed in some modes and the step rating/combo indicator is relocated, enlarged and animated even more, the fantastic visuals unfortunately come across as an occasion hindrance that obstructs a player’s view of the scrolling arrows.
As a DDR enthusiast, it’s great to finally see more songs feature oni (“demon”) difficulties, including in songs that never had the difficulty option when it originally appeared in arcades, most notably in Johnny Desire’s version of Hot Limit of DDR 5th Mix’s long version fame, where the lyrics are so indiscernible, people make the joke of “We drink Ritalin” as being part of the chorus. The difficulty really throws some tough step charts at expert players that should keep them satisfied, and if not, the challenge mode features some truly brutal stipulations that should illicit many a curse word.
Article comments