Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix Bundle [GC]

Dancing games are all the rage these days, but the genre tends to be inaccessible to newer players and children. That's a pity because dancing games are just the exercise and co-ordination training kids need. Worse, there's never been a quality dance game for Nintendo's family friendly GameCube. Well, all that's changed now that Konami and Nintendo have teamed up, putting Mario on his boogie shoes for Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix.

"It's just Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) with Mario in it," my editor said when he assigned me the review. Actually, it's a lot more than that. Aside from adding a kid friendly veneer and a few choice Mario tunes to DDR's usual bump 'n grind electronica, they've given the game a gentler learning curve, a Mario-style single player storyline, a handful of clever mini-games, and a needed dose of personality.

Single-player mode consists of five worlds in the familiar Mushroom Kingdom. Apparently Waluigi has stolen the magical music keys and it's up to the player's happy feet to save the day. Without these music keys, the Toadstool kingdom will suffer -- or something! Toad puts it more succinctly: "If you don't find the key, we'll all be doing this dorky dance forever!" Not necessarily a bad thing, really, the game is addictive enough to make players want to dance dorky long after the bad guys are defeated.

Mario Mix includes all the normal DDR features, including the calorie counting work out mode. It comes with a nice vinyl dance pad with a no slip backing (with a cool silhouette of Mario break-dancing at the center) and the mix of music includes some classical tunes (remixed as dance tunes), Mario music, and family friendly dance tracks. Mini-games range from playing whack-a-mole with a dance pad to hitting arrows to grab bananas. Dancing is also incorporated into the game cleverly; for example, in some levels Koopas appear on some of the arrows. These have to be hit twice, and they sail to knock other moves aside. Konami has innovated DDR for the first time here, making it more gamey than ever. Turns out that's a good thing!

Also, the game looks great, and the animation and dancing characters in the background are good enough to draw the eye away from the arrows. They're a far cry from the usual low-res characters and dancers in most dancing games.

Mario Mix does have a few drawbacks. For one thing, nobody bothered to hire that guy who does the voice of Mario; instead we're left with that DDR guy telling us we're cool and stuff (DDR fans know what I mean). It doesn't fit. The complete lack of voice at all in the Story Mode is another problem for smaller kids, which is just wrong, because the easiest difficulty is friendly for kids as young as four or five. Another problem is that the entire game, except for one song, is locked at the outset. Players must play Story Mode to unlock the rest of the tunes and DDR veterans should be warned -- even the unlockable SuperHard mode isn't as challenging as the dancing they're used to.

But then, how hard do you expect it to be? It's a family game and a great introduction to dance gaming for new players. It isn't just DDR with Mario in it. Yep, Dance Dance Revolution has finally arrived on the GameCube. Let's get this party started!