The Main Menu in the new
DanceDanceRevolution II is a bit more simplified from the last releases. There are four choices: Dance Mode, Workout Mode, Training Mode, and DDR School. If you've never played before, then you'll probably want to start with learning how to play the game. Training Mode is not where you learn to play anymore. Now, when you want to learn how to play the game, you choose DDR School. It'll give you step by step instructions on the game. Training Mode is where you can go to work on specific sections of a song that you might be having a difficult time getting right. This is really handy if you're just stuck on one spot and sick of failing the entire song just to play that little piece again.
The places that you'll spend most of the time are Dance Mode and Workout Mode. In Dance Mode, you choose how many people are playing and then select a song and choose short song or full song. As I mentioned before, there are only 31 songs to play at the beginning, but you'll unlock them quickly. You unlock songs by completing Challenges and you also unlock new outfits for your dancers with the Challenges. There are Challenge Tasks that you will be expected to clear. The first one is really easy! Some of the Challenges let you play any song and some give you a specific song. Once you complete one challenge, you'll be given the next one. If that one requires a specific song, you will automatically be on that song when you go back to the song list. You don't have to choose it, of course, but I like that it takes you right there so that you don't have to continually find the correct song. Once you get enough points to complete a Challenge, it goes on to the next one, even if you didn't finish all 4 tasks. You simply have to finish enough to get the points that you need. If you have a video for the song, then you don't see your dancer. If there's no video though, then you will get a dancer. There's no real reason to play the full song that I can find. The score is adjusted so that it's still the same max points, so playing the full song just means that you are playing longer for the same points. Of course, if you like the songs, that's probably a good thing.
On Workout Mode, you can set a password to protect your data from prying eyes. You set your weight and height and the game will tell you what your ideal weight is and what your current BMI and Obesity Index are. You can choose to workout by Calories Burned or Play Time and set goals. You can also leave it blank and just workout with no goal. You can still complete Challenge Tasks in Workout Mode, so really the only difference in Workout Mode and Play Mode is that Workout keeps up with your calories burned while you play.
