Dance Dance Revolution Disney Grooves

Dance Dance Revolution Disney Grooves is the third Disney-themed Dance Dance Revolution game, featuring the mouse house's characters and songs. It shares much of its musical style with Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2.

Debug Menu#

Swapping the ddrmodeseldll.rel and ddrmodeseldll.str files with selmenuDll.rel and selmenuDll.str makes the game boot into a debug menu.

Other#

Sometimes, pressing - on the main debug menu will display a system font.

Alternatively, pressing + on the main debug menu will redirect to a series of options, which determine the selection parameters should the "BHE CAMERA TEST", "DDR_27", "STG TEST" or "SSQ TEST" functions be chosen.

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BHE TEST

Function	Description
BHE TEST	Opens a testing menu which contains many functions. Due to this, they are documented on the subpage linked above.
BHE CAMERA TEST	A camera testing function. stage - Chooses the dancing stage. eff - Chooses the song to be played, and its steps. camera - Sets the camera type. Measure 1 ( DCAM_01 - 30 ) Measure 2 ( DCAM_01 - 30 ) Measure 3 ( DCAM_01 - 30 ) - All three "Measure" options seem to force the player into the steps of A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes, though the song determined by the eff parameter will still play. Stage Random - Chooses the camera settings of a random stage. CAM 1 - An unused, continuously moving camera that is set far from the stage. CAM 2 - An unused, continuously moving camera that is set on the center of the stage. Normal - Chooses the camera settings based on the stage parameter.
Game Start	Reboots the game.

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PAGE 3#

Function	Description
STG TEST	Would load the game's stages, as well as charts for songs with the same ID, but softlocks at the gimmick instructions screen due to the game no longer receiving input.
DANCE VIEW	Views a still frame of each of the characters' animations, including several characters that are leftovers from Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party. Automatically plays the song A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes upon entering. Controls: 1 / 2 - Change character Nunchuk Stick - Move camera Nunchuk Up / Down + C / Z - Zoom in/out Nunchuk Left / Right + C - Zoom in/out (faster) Nunchuk Left / Right + Z - Move camera left/right Nunchuk Up / Down + C + Z - Move camera up/down
Camera Test	A viewer for the camera animations. Controls: - / + - Change animation Nunchuk Stick - Move camera Nunchuk Up / Down + C / Z - Zoom in/out Nunchuk Left / Right + C - Zoom in/out (faster) Nunchuk Left / Right + Z - Move camera left/right Nunchuk Up / Down + C + Z - Move camera up/down
BHE STAGE VIEW	A viewer for this game's stages, this time without gameplay. A - Change song - / + - Change stage 2 / 1 - Change stage (by 10) Nunchuk Stick - Move camera Nunchuk Up / Down + C / Z - Zoom in/out Nunchuk Left / Right + C - Zoom in/out (faster) Nunchuk Left / Right + Z - Move camera left/right Nunchuk Up / Down + C + Z - Move camera up/down
RESULT TEST	A viewer for the Groove mode messages. Several of them are leftovers from Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party, and can be seen here.
MES TEST	A viewer for some of the system messages.

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Unused Graphics#

All of these take in consideration the folder data.

Early Warning Screen#

boot.bin contains assets for an untranslated warning screen that is known to be found unused since Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party.

Hottest Party Leftovers - Menu#

Many sprite assets from Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party can be found unused within the game's files, which is somewhat to be expected, since Disney Grooves uses the same engine. Some unused textures, such as those for the scrapped "Minigame" mode in Hottest Party 1, were carried over as well.

crtsel.bin

ddrmodesel.bin

testsel.bin

Hottest Party Leftovers - Songs#

Also leftover from Hottest Party 1 is graphic data for several songs from its Japanese release, which go unused. The banners can be found in selcom.bin, while the title cards can be found within ddrmodesel.bin.

Placeholder Textures#

Inside of testsel.bin, alongside assets from Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party's character selection screen, several placeholder portraits can be found. They're rather bizarre, featuring pixel renditions of characters from the Kinnikuman manga/anime series, as well as artwork by French painter Odilon Redon.

Image	Character/Work
Kinnikuman Characters
	Kinnikuman
	Buffaloman
	Terryman
	Black Hole
	Robin Mask
	Ramenman
	Sunshine
	Warsman
	Springman
	Brocken Jr.
Odilon Redon Artwork
	Anthony: What Is the Point of All This? The Devil: There Is No Point! from The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1896)
	Tailpiece from The Flowers of Evil (1890)
	Eye Balloon (1878)
	...And a Large Bird, Descending from the Sky, Hurled Itself Against the Topmost Point of Her Hair... from The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1888)
	Death: My irony surpasses all others! from The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1888)
	There Was Perhaps a First Vision Attempted in the Flower from Les Origines (1883)
	Strange Flower (Little Sister of the Poor) (1880)
	The Smiling Spider (1887)
	Vision from In The Dream (1879)
	Anthony: Help me, O my God! from The Temptation of Saint Anthony (1896)

Locked Default Stages#

ddrmodesel.bin also contains graphics indicating that Stages 33 to 38 are locked, though this never happens as they are already available by default.

Mario Mix Leftovers#

win.bin still contains many leftover graphics from Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix.

Dialog

Button Prompts

Miscellaneous

Unused Characters/Stages#

By using the DANCE VIEW and BHE STAGE VIEW functions, it is possible to see unused characters and stages, respectively. Most of them have their data untouched since Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party.

Characters#

	Palette 1	Palette 2	Palette 3	Palette 4
Chordia
Harmony
Gaku
Danca
Forte / Sharp				N/A
Pia / Gliss			N/A	N/A

Stages#

40 / 45	41	42	43
44	46	47	48
	49	50

Unused Sounds#

sound\stream\mu_dummy32k.brstm contains a testing beep.

Inside sound\ddr.brsar, two more testing beeps can also be found.

Unused Text#

Within the game's text data, located in the folder mess, are two unused strings that come from Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party. These can be seen by using the RESULT TEST function.

Unseen Foot/Hand Pong Behavior#

Watch on YouTubeAs the game is directly based on Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party, a normally unseen behavior in the Foot/Hand Pong gimmicks is retained.

To recap, these gimmicks are exclusive to Dance-Off Mode, in which two players compete for the highest score while playing in the same difficulty.

When hitting these gimmick notes under normal conditions, they move towards the other player's side, except for when it is the last one in the chart, in which it shrinks until it disappears. Should they not be hit, however, the player's Dance Gauge is decreased significantly, and there's a chance the next Foot/Hand Pong that should appear is "skipped", likely to prevent more than two of these gimmicks from appearing at once.

However, through the game's debug menu, it is possible to play a song in Dance-Off Mode with both players playing separate difficulties, in which these gimmicks display an unused behavior; they always shrink upon being hit, and they never "skip", even when not hitting such notes. As such, more than two Foot/Hand Pongs can appear at once.

The video on the side is a demonstration of this behavior on the song Mickey Mouse Club Mix, in which the Hand Pong gimmick is used.

Crash Handler#

Should the game ever crash, it will display a basic crash handler:

References#