Of all the music I have rattling around in my brain, I’d have to say that music from video games comprises a fairly large percentage of the whole. That’s why when Nintendo and Konami announced that they were bringing the beloved Dance Dance Revolution to the Nintendo GameCube with a mix of Mushroom Kingdom antics, I knew I had to give it a go. I’m much more adept at pressing the buttons than moving my feet with any rhythm, but after spending an hour with Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, I’ve come to realize that dancing to the beat is, so far, highly enjoyable.

After unpacking the included dance pad and navigating the GameCube’s system menus with my feet, I jumped right into Mario Mix’s story mode. The storyline is fairly innocuous: Waluigi has stolen the Music Keys and brought musical doom down upon the land, causing everyone in the kingdom to do (in the words of Toad himself) a "dorky dance." Toad’s darn right. While moving frantically on the dance pad I caught sight of myself in the mirror several times and decided to close the window curtains before continuing any further. After a few minutes of introductory story sequences it was time to finally dance for real.

Those of you familiar with the Dance formula will take right to the game. A series of arrows move up the screen, indicating which spot on the dance pad to step. The steps should line up with the beat of the song. While most Dance titles include all kinds of remixed licensed pop tunes about which I myself could not care less, Mario Mix is loaded with tunes from the various Super Mario games released over the years, along with a handful of public domain classical music. My first performance was set to what Mario Mix labels “Here We Go,” better known as the famous overworld theme from Super Mario Bros. remixed with modern instruments. Don’t fret; the remix actually includes the original Nintendo Entertainment System blips and beeps in the melody.

I first danced through "Here We Go!" on the easiest level of difficulty. The game sent me a series of left and right steps equally spaced out for plenty of time to react and shift my weight from one leg to the other. The normal mode of difficulty included more steps during the course of the song and added the use of the up and down arrows. There were also times when it was required to simultaneously step on, say, the left and right arrows or the top and bottom arrows. That kind of footwork requires a small jump. Hard Mode featured more and more rapidly occurring steps, many more double steps, and hardly any pauses. I held off on trying the most difficult mode, wary that either the dance pad would catch fire or my heart would explode. I’m new at this Dance Dance Revolution thing, so there’s plenty of practice ahead for me if I want to left step, right step, left step with the pros.

The story rolled on through songs from Super Mario Bros. 3 and even Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. There were even cameos from Toadette and Wario. In between proper dance sequences are Marioesque mini games that require some nonrhythmic steps. Consider what is, so far, my favorite mini game, in which I had to run on the pad’s left and right spots rapidly to build up Mario’s running speed. Then, when running at the peak of speed, I jumped and landed on the up arrow spot, causing Mario to jump and grab hold of the beloved flagpole before sliding down it for a small bonus. Other mini games I’ve seen so far are intriguing, such as a banana catch challenge and a chance to break blocks by jumping at them.


DDR Mario Mix
I have lots more to explore in the world of Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, such as freestyle dancing and the game’s multiplayer mode. I’ll be back soon with the full review (provided that my heart doesn’t explode first).