Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA (Arcade)

To do: There are more unused graphics Investigate the European release(s) further

Wait, Extreme wasn't the last DDR game ever?

NOTE: All data can be found within the partition PC.KNAC_00001.00672.FDH-?A, in which ? refers to the game's region (E → Europe; U → USA, J → Japan; A → Asia).

Debugging Functions#

Toggling the following pnach patches allow several debugging functions to be accessed from the operator menu.

DEBUG MENU( debug only )#

A debug menu with many testing functions. On the surface, it is quite similar to what is seen in Dance 86.4 Funky Radio Station.

GAME START#

Warps the player to the attract sequence.

VIEWER & PLAYER#

Contains viewers for images, music, sound effects, videos, and animations.

• PICTURE VIEWER - An image viewer. Viewing the images no longer seems to work.
  • P1 Select L / P1 Select R - Move cursor
  • P1 Start - View image
• SOUND PLAYER - A player for music and sound effects.
  • P1 Select L / P1 Select R - Move cursor (Music)
  • P1 Start - Play music
  • P2 Select L / P2 Select R - Move cursor (Sound effects)
  • P2 Start - Play sound effect
• MOVIE PLAYER - A video player.
  • P1 Select L / P1 Select R - Move cursor
  • P1 Start - View movie
• REP PLAYER - An animation viewer.
  • While not viewing a package:
    • P1 Select L / P1 Select R - Move cursor
    • P1 Start - View package
  • While viewing a package:
    • P1 Select L / P1 Select R - Move cursor
    • P1 Start - View animation
    • P1 Select L + P1 Select R - Exit package

2D TEST#

Plays a simple animation. This also doubles as an input test, as they are displayed on-screen.

TUTORIAL#

Goes to the tutorial which would otherwise be seen when selecting Tutorial Mode, but without any background.

HDD MENU#

Goes to a series of HDD testing functions.

• Change Stream - Doesn't work.
• Check File - Verifies the game's database files. A test can be stopped by pressing 1P Start.
• Checksum - Verifies the checksum of the game's database files. Like with Check File, a test can be stopped by pressing 1P Start.
• Install - Installs one of the database files.
• Format (DEBUG) - Would format the HDD.

DANCE TEST#

Warps the player to gameplay, with the song A LOVE LIKE THIS being selected. However, no steps are loaded.

NAME ENTRY#

Warps the player to the name entry screen.

CREDITS#

Warps the player to the credits.

QC MODE#

An elaborate input and lamp test menu. This is similar to the Manufacture Mode seen in Dance 86.4 Funky Radio Station. While in this screen, the menu music plays continuously.

The controls are as follows:

• Test + 1P Start - Changes the FOOT MODE AUTO parameter. It lists a 90 second cooldown after it can be toggled OFF again, but it can be done anytime.
• Test + 1P Select L - Changes the panel lighting to UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, and then AUTO again. Changing this while FOOT MODE AUTO is ON resets the cooldown.
• Test + 1P Select R - Toggles whether the upper lamps are triggered at once or sequentially.
• Test + 2P Start - Saves something to the memory card.
• Test + Service - Goes back to the operator menu.

Unused Graphics#

Song Banners#

The directory DATA\MDB_SN1\TH contains banner files for each of the songs in-game. Among these files, there are banners for songs that are completely unavailable, as well as early variations for already-existing songs.

DAND_TH_E.TM2
An early version of the English banner for the song DanDanDO (The true MAN's Road) The final version can be found inside of the folder ENG, and uses a different font for the title and artist.

Early	Final

DOSE_TH.TM2
A noticeably placeholder variant of the banner for the song DOESN'T REALLY MATTER. The song's ID is also misspelled - the correct spelling would be DOES.

Early	Final

KONO_TH_E.TM2
An early version of the English banner for the song Konoko no nanatsu no oiwaini, which uses a much heavier font for the artist name.

Early	Final

LABA2_TH.TM2
A banner for a cover of La Bamba by Baha Men. While this cover ended up not being used, a different one by LH MUSIC CREATION can be played - its banner is very similar in style to this one.

MAXP_TH.TM2
A banner for the song MAX.(period), which had previously appeared in the Japanese PS2 release of Dance Dance Revolution Extreme. While it goes unused here, the song would officially appear in arcade installments with the 2014 release of DanceDanceRevolution. No other files are present.

MUGE_TH_E.TM2
An early version of the English banner for the song Mugen, with the text being fully capitalized. The final version can be found inside of the folder ENG.

Early	Final

SAN2_TH.TM2
A banner for the song SANA MOLLETE NE ENTE (B.L.T. STYLE), which had previously appeared in several home releases. The song, however, never made a proper appearance in an arcade release. No other files are present.

THEF_TH.TM2
A banner for the licensed song BURNIN' THE FLOOR (MOMO MIX), which was only present in Dance Dance Revolution Extreme and its Japanese PS2 port. No other files are present.

TIKA_TH_E.TM2
An early version of the English banner for the song CHIKARA. The final version can be found inside of the folder ENG, and features a drawing of singer Riyu Kosaka, alongside simplified text effects.

Early	Final

WITE_TH.TM2
A banner for the song White Lovers, which was only present in Dance Dance Revolution Extreme and its Japanese PS2 port, despite being an original song.

Other Graphics#

These graphics can be found within DATA\IMAGE.DAT.

Location Test Leftover#

The following graphic, which can be found in LOGO\usn_come00.TM2c, was seen during the location tests of the European version.

A Japanese variant also exists; it is stored in ending\thankyou\jsn_come00.TM2c.

Japanese Translated ロケテスト版を プレイしてくれて有難う！ 製品版を楽しみに！ Thank you for playing the location test version! Look forward to the product version!

HUD Graphics#

All of these are uncompressed TM2 files, and can be found in the folder test\Sample2D. They appear to be taken from Dancing Stage Max and Dance 86.4 Funky Radio Station, and are called by some of the test animations that can be seen via the debugging functions.

dummy_gauge.TM2

AEPsample00.TM2

testMenu\AEPlanguageT.TM2

testMenu\ue2_so00.TM2

testMenu\gmx_so00.TM2

testMenu\emx_sc1315.TM2

AEPalpha00.TM2

Unused Chart Data#

The folder DATA\MDB_SN1\SSQ contains the step files for each of the game's songs. Some of them have new, unused charts, while one is not called at all. Note that this will not cover unused charts that had appeared in previous releases and that are still in the data, which is, for example, the case of the Single Challenge chart for LOVE SHINE.

Challenge-exclusive Songs#

Each of the Challenge-exclusive songs from DDRMAX2 have unused Single Beginner charts, created from their existing Single Challenge charts. It is important to note that many of the new songs in SuperNOVA had Beginner charts directly based on their Single Basic charts, so the creation of these for the Challenge-exclusive songs was likely done for testing purposes or was simply an oversight.

Download Unused Beginner Charts File: DDRsnAC-beginnercharts.zip (13,0 KB) (info)

Double Beginner Charts#

The songs Brazilian Anthem (BRAZ.SSQ), Brilliant R.E.D (BRED.SSQ), cachaca (CACH.SSQ), Drivin' (DRIV.SSQ), Himawari (HIMA.SSQ), Hunting for you (HUNT.SSQ), MONDO STREET (MOND.SSQ) and rainbow flyer (RBOW.SSQ) have data for Double Beginner charts, despite this difficulty never being officially supported by any arcade release - only being used in the Xbox games starting from Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2, though only a measy three songs had proper data for them.
It is noteworthy that all of these songs have appeared in the Ultramix/Universe series from Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3, which was when Double Beginner charts started to become a "norm", with virtually every song having proper data for this difficulty; Brazilian Anthem, Brilliant R.E.D, Himawari and rainbow flyer appeared in that game, with the former song being DLC, Hunting for you and MONDO STREET appeared in Ultramix 4, and cachaca and Drivin‍ '​ appeared in the first Universe game, and that the charts that exist in SuperNOVA match those that are used in those games.
It is also rather curious to note that Ultramix 4 and Universe were released after SuperNOVA. Given that Drivin' had previously appeared in a pre-release screenshot for Ultramix 3¹, the existence of the Double Beginner charts for the songs that appeared in those two games puts into question when they were supposed to appear first.

Mugen#

The song Mugen (夢幻ノ光) contains two unused chart files, labeled as MUGE_.SSQ and MUGE__.SSQ.
While the former file is only different in the terms of a different sync and lack of a Single Beginner chart, the latter contains placeholder steps that feature a very early draft of the Single Expert chart - while notes are placed, they are all Left arrows. It is also worth noting that the arrows are all placed a measure earlier than they should be. A download for this file, converted to be readable in programs like StepMania and ArrowVortex, is available below.

Download Mugen no hikari (MUGE__ steps) File: DDRsnAC-muge unused.zip (1,83 KB) (info)

White Lovers#

WITE.SSQ contains the steps for the aforementioned unused song White Lovers, completely unmodified since its last appearance. This and the banner are the only remaining files for this song; no music data exists.

Regional Differences#

• The Japanese release of the game supports e-Amusement, which allowed players to save their high scores and settings, such as game options and character selection. This game and its sequel used magnetic stripe cards.
• The e-Amusement service offered a limited-time event to promote the movie Backdancers!, with the song "Beautiful Life" by ARIA being playable from September 13th to October 11th, 2006. A course with this song was also available. While the data for the song was recovered and can be played in the Japanese version, the song itself is not available at all in other releases.

• The final European release offers five language options: English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. For non-English languages, however, few aspects are translated. All languages display "MARVELOUS!" with the American spelling, as opposed to "MARVELLOUS!" with the British and Canadian spelling. This limited localization is in contrast to the previous arcade game, Dancing Stage Fusion, and to Dancing Stage games on the PlayStation 2. Two future arcade games, DanceDanceRevolution X and DanceDanceRevolution X2, received proper translations.
• Certain songs had their song titles and/or artists changed or romanized, along with their banners altered in non-Japanese releases.

Japanese	English

Revisional Differences#

• The original American and European releases of the game lack the songs Flow (True Style) and Fascination -eternal love mix-, the latter of which is an Extra Stage song. They were later added via update discs. In the Japanese release, both songs are available, whereas the latter is unavailable in the Asian release.

Original release	July 2006 update

• The original European release uses an early recording of the song My Only Shining Star, which has notably rougher mixing. The preview audio doesn't fade out either. Curiously, this version is also used in Dance Dance Revolution Universe.

• The original European release lacks PEACE(^^)v‍ '​s music video.
• The July 25, 2006 build of the game also fixes some syncing issues, adds the ability to sort songs by difficulty, and allows for faster scrolling on the song selection screen. Both of these fixes are available in the Japanese and Asian releases, with no need to install updates.
• In Japan, the game received an online update on September 6, 2006, which added the data for the Backdancers! promotional event, as well as the ability to unlock boss songs in regular gameplay.

References#