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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 (thoughRead full review
I bought this game because I used to have the earlier games of the series as a kid and loved them. Of course I adore this game, I play it at least a couple of times a week and my little sisters play almost every day. I've never found many things that make exercise as easy and as fun as this game does. You almost forget you're getting exercise, and the songs are so upbeat and fun, but also still challenging. There are lots of convenient and fun alternatives to normal gameplay too, such as workout mode, which counts the calories you burn per song. The only thing I dislike is that the mats can sometimes slip or not catch your movement, which can be a pain if you're aiming for a specific score goal. I tried using the little stoppers that it came with, but the ends of the mat stand up a little so they didn't really work. This isn't a significant enough issue though, for me to not enjoy gameplay. I still love it. I definitely recommend any game from the DDR series.Read full review
I bought this game because I just got into ddr and this was the newest game out there. Some of the songs have are hard just because they have such a slow beat. There are many good songs also. I am only a basic player I can only play a few songs on difficult. So getting through the hyper master mode where you can unlock songs has proven to get quite difficult you can purchase things to make it a little easier to get through the songs. I have unlocked several but now I am having trouble beating the boss. You have to play the boss at the end of each level to advance to the next level and unlock characters songs and help items. But with that said the battle mode is fun the arrows do crazy things. My kids and I have a blast for hours playing and competing with each other. We usually play battle mode or arcade mode. With that said I give it and A-.Read full review
Supernova 2 keeps the same format as the original, offering more songs at the cost of a harder mission mode. This could be a bit frustrating if you're looking to play the boss songs right off the bat, as you'll once again need to go through the chore of Hyper Master Mode. For me, I was disappointed that the boss songs were not as appealing as the first Supernova, with one repeated song and another mediocre one. However, its still just the same as all the other DDR's, showing off flashy backgrounds to strange but catchy songs and options to change the difficulty to your liking.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The short and simple. SuperNOVA 2 is a good stand-alone game, but when compared to the original SuperNOVA it becomes significantly inferior. The developers and the fans harped about how great the second SuperNOVA would be; I mean SuperNOVA was one of the more successful DanceDance Revolution games on the console. It's wide variety of music and might I add catchy tunes, that you just wanted to play over and over again. The different styles of gameplay endorsing teamwork and cooperation or battle and competition. And he graphics and animations were a nice addition to the upbeat music. With such a large fan-base, but old and new DanceDance fans, it was a perfect time to produce a new smash-hit sequel. Or release a major disappointment to the fans. SuperNOVA 2 just lacked many of the qualities that SuperNOVA contained. More songs were hidden and locked in the campaign, and many of those 'hidden' songs were the more superiors songs; the ones that you wished and/or wanted to play, but had to go through the torturously easy (or hard) campaign mode. Although many of the issues of difficultly were fixed in the SuperNOVA 2 (such as items that allow you to make more mistakes but still pass the song) it still was as painfully or in my opinion more painful to drag through the campaign mode. I just want to play the game! Right? While still talking about the songs, I'd like to add that the song selection felt more limited or restricted. The music either seems to be famous pop-artist songs or these really generic beat-box rap. Perhaps it was to appeal to the general public or something to that effect, it just didn't seem to fit the DanceDance game-play. At least for me, I always enjoyed the techno/trance feel of DanceDance, that strong bass, and the catchy eletronica noises that made your feet want to move; and with most of the Dance Dance game lines there has always been a good handful of songs that endorsed that, such as Butterfly, Xephyrs, or MAX even Captain Jack. With SuperNOVA 2, it felt that is lost that sense of the Dance Dance ways. The final and last thing was that SuperNOVA 2 did not evolve. With every sequel to a game, you usually make an improvement of one or the other. For example, many of you may know the Halo series. When Halo moved to the sequel Halo 2, it make several improvements including graphics, dual-wielding gameplay, and of course the famous cooperative play campaign. But with SuperNOVA to SuperNOVA 2, it made no improvements; the graphics remained the same, the gameplay options were the same, and there was no special improvement to the game. The only difference from SuperNOVA and SuperNOVA 2 was the music. I felt that the designers of DanceDance just the programming code of SuperNOVA, replaced the music, repackaged it, and renamed it SuperNOVA 2. Perhaps the title of SuperNOVA 2 should have been SuperNOVA: The Expansion. When you think about it, doesn't the Playstation have a USB port, and online capabilities? Couldn't you have released extra song packages over the internet, and charged something, similar to iTunes or X-box Live? I guess not, that would be too good of an idea; and we couldn't have that. Overall, the game isn't necessarily bad. But when it's compared to any other Dance Dance game it becomes inferior. SuperNOVA 2 is a great stand-alone game, but whenever I have the choice to chose between which DanceDance game I would like to play; this one runs near the bottom. So if you want the game, buy it used - eBay?Read full review
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