Having never really played Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) for more than a couple of songs, DDR: Hottest Dance Party 2 was so frustrating when I first tried it that I had to let it sit for a while. This is because of its numerous gimmicks, which I wasn't used to from DDR or other rhythm games. But as I played some more and reached the upper limit on the number of gimmicks, it became a lot of fun.

What do I mean by "gimmicks"? Most everyone knows the standard DDR setup. There is a pad with arrows pointing in four directions. On the screen, there are four arrows at the top of the screen; arrows from the bottom come to the top and you step on the corresponding pad arrow at the right time. Hottest Dance Party 2 changes this basic formula in numerous ways. First, you must use the Wiimote and Nunchuks to play. This is because the left and right arrows will occasionally require you to shake your hands in time rather than stomp the mat. Furthermore, simple arrows are often replaced with more difficult counterparts. Some arrows attack the top of the screen at angles, from random directions, forcing you to predict which button you'll have to stomp. Some arrows are encased in ice, requiring you to step on them more than once. Some arrows retreat to the bottom of the screen when successfully hit, wandering around for a limited time before returning to the top again at high speed. Still others fade into sight halfway up the screen instead of from the bottom. Many of these gimmicks are replicated for Wiimote / nunchuk shakes. To proceed, you'll have to learn to identify and deal with all of these elements early on. It's a major headache if you can barely deal with the normal arrows to begin with.

But that's where practice kicks in. And DDR: Hottest Dance Party 2 is delightfully helpful with practice. On any stage of the championship, you can choose to play a song on a lower difficulty than what is required to proceed. You can play any unlocked song in free play or exercise mode on any difficulty. There are simple and easy original songs that tell you, in the lyrics, how to play. And every time you load a song, a screen appears that tells you what gimmick is likely to appear as you play. It can seem like an overload at first, but the game makes it easier to get the hang of it every step along the way.

There is one other neat gimmick that I enjoyed. If you shake the Wiimote down to the beat of the song, it builds up a hand meter that increases your score. While the game tries to encourage dancing with your whole body rather than just your feet in other ways, this is the device that really does it. It's quite a challenge to jump around on the mat to the beat of a song with a bunch of bizarre tricks thwarting you along the way. It's even more challenging—and more fun—to keep your hands drumming to the beat the entire time.

DDR: Hottest Dance Party 2 has several different modes. Free play is probably the best if you're playing with friends, but the championship mode is the way to unlock songs and other extras. In championship mode, each arena has three specific challenges. The first is to play a number of songs of your choosing while fulfilling some requirement (obtaining a certain number of points, sustaining a certain length combo, passing on a certain difficulty level, etc.). The second is to play a set of game-chosen songs while fulfilling the same requirement. The third is a boss battle, which pits you against a computer-controlled dancer. You have to score higher than the CPU, often along with satisfying another requirement. Doing this unlocks songs for free play. It also grants other privileges, like the ability to paste your customized Mii heads on dancers' bodies. There is an exercise mode, which lets you input your body weight. It then calculates how many calories you have burned during whatever song you choose. While I did manage to work up a minor sweat after playing championship mode for an hour, I wouldn't recommend DDR as an exercise tool. The number of calories it tells you you've burned is usually pathetic for the amount of time a full song takes.

The music, I should say, is not my thing, but that doesn't mean the songs are bad to dance to. The tracks are mostly house dance tracks, many of them upbeat remixes of popular oldies like "Can't Help Falling in Love" or combovered 80s music like "I Want Candy." There is lots of modern music to go around as well. Rihanna, Justice, Basement Jaxx, LCD Soundsystem, Maroon 5, and others appear, though many of the modern songs are only covers. As always, Konami has created many original songs to go along, many of which work better for the dance patterns but are quite awful on their own. But that's just my taste. Despite recoiling at most of the music, I still had quite a bit of fun jumping around like an idiot to it. One last thing about the sound: the speaker on the Wiimote barks a voice that distractingly encourages you during the songs, chides you for missing notes, and boos you when you're doing poorly. However, glory be to intelligent videogame designers, you can turn it off in the options menu.

Overall: 8/10

The gimmicks are unintuitive at first and the music isn't the best in the world, but Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Dance Party 2 works great as a party game. Once you learn the new arrow types, it's a distinctive take on the original formula. The difficulty settings are just right so almost anybody can play, but only better gamers will be able to unlock the songs and extras. If you like DDR and don't consider the original formula sacred, there's little to complain about here.