Take on the South Korean dancing stage with Pump It Up: Exceed!
Bad: Does not save records; unlock system is kinda lame; clunky menu controls; a bad trip of you hate Banya's music (because the GROUP has its own channel).
The Korean dancing stage finally makes a US debut with Pump It Up Exceed, an older version of the PIU series. Pump It Up isn't a new kid on the block (which some lame DDR fangirls like to claim), it's been around since 1998 with a ton of installments under its belt. Besides a lawsuit from Konami, the series has had a great history as one of the rhythm genres most successful franchises. For one thing, in South Korea, Konami has attempted to bring down the Pump It Up machine with two Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix Korean versions. These two Korean revisions of the 3rd Mix game included popular Korean dance music. Fortunately for Andamiro, Pump It Up's developer, South Koreans played a role for the failure of the 3rd Mix Korean versions in favor of its home grown star. Pump It Up succeeds and Konami stops making Korean DDRs. Pump It Up has also gotten a big fanbase from surprisingly of all places, Mexico. Mexico has some of the best Pump It Up players in the world. In the States though, the series is and has been more of a cult hit with die hard fans of the rhythm genre.
Pump It Up is a five pannel dance step game. If you look at your computer keyboard's number pad, DDR's set up corresponds with the 2, 4, 6, and 8 buttons. In PIU, the numbers are odd ones 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. So it has four diagonal buttons and a fifth pannel on the center. This set up is clearly superior to DDRs set up. Why? Because the diagonal arrows create for a much more comfortable experience, it greatly emphasizes on freestyling, and it feels more natural to the player. The pad that comes with the bundle is pretty sturdy and can handle abuse from the frantic player. The game has a very big timing window in judging your steps which implies that the game is more focused on freestyling than DDR's attention to perfect attacks. It is for this reason why DDR fangirls claim that the game is easier. But, the fact is, Pump It Up still has the edge thanks to the game's wickedly hard step patterns when you reach the Crazy and Nightmare difficulty levels. Cannon D on Nightmare (double 10 pannel play) has a max combo of 954, DDR's MAXs and other "hard" songs don't even reach that number on Maniac or Challenge. PIU: Exceed even has no Beginner difficulty, the game automatically throws you intermediate level step patterns. When you get up to the second level which is Hard, most of the songs have difficulty that is comparible to the Maniac levels in DDR. It is this attention to difficulty that really impresses. The more lenient timing levels did not even became a flaw (which Guitar Hero has failed to do, make up extremely hard patterns to compensate for the easy timing). The game can be played with a Dual Shock but its very hard. Stick to the pad to play this game.
Graphically the game is superb. The videos are crystal clear and there is virtually no load time (if GH used videos of good quality, they would have avoided that flaw). PIU has the distinction of having the best graphics in rhythm games. Each of the 101 songs have their own unique videos that do make contextual sense (hint hint Gamespot editor, you are wrong). Even the song selection screen is very vibrant.
The music is great, if Andamiro decides to never make another PIU game, I'll be okay because the game has more than enough songs. The music is split into 3 channels. The default channel is the Banya channel with more than 30 songs from PIU's most prolific composer, Banya. One flaw I saw in the editor review is that BANYA IS NOT A ONE MAN SHOW, BANYA IS A GROUP. If you love Banya's music, you'll have a field day here with tons of his classic tracks. If you hate Banya, well, there's 60+ other songs to keep you entertained. The 2nd channel is the Pop channel which is home to all the US exclusive tracks like "The Name of the Game" or "Born to be alive". This channel is my favorite one because its also full of typical dance pop songs and of course, tons of Latin songs. I love all of the Latin songs here from "La Cubanita" to "Essa Maniera." The third but not least channel is the K-pop channel. A testament to Andamiro's proud Korean heritage. Unlike the main competition, PIU: Exceed is filled with some of the most popular Korean dance songs out there. There's Duke's "Starian" and Boa's "Valenti". I also happen to like the Korean songs better than Japanese ones because, well, Koreans can sing better and their language is more pleasing to the ears.
The biggest flaw with the game is the controls on the menu. Its confusing at first but since the accept button is X (which also happens to be right in the middle of the pad), you'll be stepping off the pad to make your selection.
Pump It Up: Exceed is quite possibly the best dance game on the PS2 available anywhere. It's a testament to Andamiro's superior design and care for its royal fans. Get it now because the game is pretty rare and is no longer on print.