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Part of Dance Dance Revolution's widespread appeal is its simple gameplay. In the arcade game, players stand on a raised platform connected to the machine that are marked with large arrows pointing up, down, left and right. Arrows scroll upwards across the video screen while the chosen song is playing, finally connecting with a matching arrow that remains fixed at the top of the screen. Players must step on the corresponding arrow on the platform at the same time as the scrolling arrow reaches the arrow at the top of the screen, usually matching the beat of the upbeat Japanese techno playing. The player's accuracy is determined by the score given to each step.
When a player begins a game, he or she must first choose an overall difficulty setting. The settings determine the speed and step complexity of the songs. Each song in the game has a step routine for each difficulty setting, which are usually Light, Standard, or Heavy (or sometimes also known as Basic, Trick, and Maniac).
Once a difficulty is chosen, the player then chooses the play mode. Both the arcade and console versions offer three ways of playing. The first is Single Player, which is one person playing with one mat (or in the arcade game, one half of the platform). Two Player accomodates two people playing with two dance mats (or one on each half of the dance platform) and final mode is Double, which allows one player to play using two mats (or both halves of the arcade platform) thereby having two sets of arrows to contend with. Once all this has been determined, the player finally chooses a song. The songs can be sorted alphabetically, or by difficulty, which is marked by a number of small feet. A song with one foot is much less difficult than a song with six feet. The Select screen also breaks down each song for the player into several elements including Freeze, Chaos, and Air.
There are some discrepancies in the original Japanese games and the American releases as far as the names of the step scores are concerned, but the concept is the same. The steps are Perfect, Great, Good, Almost (Boo on Japanese versions), and Boo (Miss in Japanese versions). The player should aim to have as many Perfect steps as possible. Point values are assigned to each step rank, and increase in bonus or penalty as the song progresses. For instance, a Perfect near the end of the song will be worth more than a Perfect at the beginning. By the same token, a Boo close to the end of the song will result in a bigger penalty than at the beginning.
The final aspect of the gameplay is the Life Bar. The life bar remains at the top of the screen and is about half-full when the song begins. As the player accumulates more and more accurate steps, the life bar will increase, until it eventually starts flashing and causes the game to applaud and cheer on the player. When the player misses, the life bar will decrease. Once the life bar is completely depleted, the song will stop, and the performance will result in a Failure.
When the song is finished, the player's steps are tallied along with the point score, and the player's performance is given a final grade, based on how many Perfect and Great rankings they received. The grades range from AAA (All Perfect steps) to E (Did not finish the song).
The PC and console versions of the game offer several different styles of play, or modes. The Game Mode is the classic way of playing DDR in which the player's performance is scored and graded. Battle mode allows the player to compete against a friend using a second dance mat, or against the computer. A player choosing Challenge Mode can hone their accuracy by performing little "tests" such as performing several bars of a song at a faster speed, or with advance modes such as Sudden, when the arrows do not appear on the screen until they reach halfway. Training Mode lets a player finetune their dancing by selecting all or parts of a song to practice. The player can also control the speed of the song and the rhythm of the arrows, enabling a player to learn a difficult song at a slower pace. Newer releases also offer the player the chance to play online against other fans from around the world.
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