My first "AAA". Try 2 Luv U is about as sad a song as it gets (just look at the title!); slow tempo, five-footer, barely anything on the groove radar... but we all have to start somewhere. It still took more than six months before I got my first Heavy "AAA", and it was quite a relief to finally do it. Just remember that anyone can become proficient at this game with enough time and effort.

Naturally, I didn't have a camera with me at the time I first got this score. As a result, the picture for this "AAA" and the first couple others were taken later, and thus I only have the shot from the menu screen (not the results screen). This is from DDR Extreme (Japan).

My Generation: "AAA" #2 and probably the most random one I've ever gotten. Most of the time I usually have gotten 5 Greats or fewer on a song before achieving a "AAA", but this one literally came out of nowhere. I think I went from something like 20 Greats down to 0. Considering that this song has a lot of gallops, it's nothing short of amazing that I pulled this off. First "AAA" on DDRMax (USA).

A song fully as pathetic as Try 2 Luv U, but a "AAA" is still a "AAA". I had 1 Great on this song several times before I finally got it right (it was very frustrating, believe me!) I also like this picture of the menu screen because you can see 3 different "AAA"s on it all at once. Gotta love that.

I always liked the song Kind Lady, and I had been very close to a "AAA" several times before I finally pulled it off. This is generally considered one of the easiest songs to "AAA", and I've found nothing to disavow that notion. You still have to actually DO it though, and "AAA"s are never a cakewalk. First "AAA" in DDRMax2 (USA) and #4 overall.

The first "AAA" for which I have an actual picture. Burnin' the Floor Momo Mix is one of my favorite songs, and also a pretty impressive "AAA", seeing as how it has 364 steps. Not a whole lot of chaos, but it does have the one crazy speedup in it... This was the "AAA" that motivated me to go out and get a disposable camera, mostly to get a record of these very "AAA" scores. Another DDR Extreme score here, which shouldn't be surprising given the larger Perfect window in that game and all the time I've spent playing it.

Here's another "AAA", but the glare is so bad you can't even make out what it is! About all that's visible is the "AAA" in the corner and the 80,000,000 score at the bottom. After playing around with the brightness/contrast settings, I managed to get the picture a little more clearer at the expense of making it much darker (check the second picture). It's still almost impossible to make out the title of the song; you'll have to take my word for it that this is La Bamba. But it is possible to make out the 305 Perfects/10 OKs and the "AAA" in the corner still, which was my goal. La Bamba was "AAA" #6 overall and yet another one from DDR Extreme.

Love Shine is a song that was released in the arcade version of DDR Extreme (8th Mix), yet it was included in the Japanese home version of DDRMax2 (7th Mix) and that's where this picture is from. Thus I find it very amusing that a song which is always associated with DDR Extreme is "AAA"ed here in DDRMax2. Not the hardest song in the world, but Love Shine is pretty speedy and has a fair amount of notes. The second picture is from getting a "AAA" again in DDR SuperNOVA, the third from Extreme (Love Shine is a popular song!)

I was stuck with 1 Great on A Stupid Barber for the longest time before I finally broke through and got the "AAA"; I think I Black Flagged the stupid thing 3 different times before I did it. It was more a feeling of relief to get the thing over with than any kind of excitement when it finally happened. Picture quality is again not so good, but the 271 Perfects and 25 OKs should be readable. "AAA" #7 overall.

The title of this song is "Love Sugar", and yes that is actually different from "Love Shine". Both songs were pretty easy 7-footers to "AAA" though. At only 249 steps, this is indeed a pretty short song (Burnin the Floor Momo Mix has fully 50% more steps). But it's still a "AAA", and any Heavy "AAA" is worth recording in my book. Too bad the picture quality is really lousy again... Probably because I got this "AAA" and the one on A Stupid Barber in the same playing session - the picture quality was bad for both. ("AAA"s are funny like that; I can go weeks without getting any, then get several in one day sometimes. It's all about getting locked into the tempo.)

La Copa De La Vida is another easy, slow song that wasn't too tough to "AAA". By that, I mean it only took over a year of playing and a dozen attempts to do it. Another random aside about this song: when I saw DDR for the first time in Baton Rouge during the spring of 2004 (which is a long story in and of itself), this was one of the songs that one of my friends tried to play. It was watching someone fail horribly on the Standard steps to this song that helped inspire me to think "I can do better than that!" and start playing. In short - a song that had a little extra meaning to "AAA". As "AAA" #10, it also put me into double digits. Nice!

Now we're into the pictures taken after I got my digital camera... I have a little rule for myself that I must get a "AAA" on every version of DDR that I own. So while it was cool to get a copy of the Japanese version of DDRMax, inwardly I was also thinking "great, now I have to get a "AAA" on that version too!" After Black Flagging both Do You Remember Me and Sobakasu Freckles (argh!), I finally took the easy way out and just "AAA"ed the very simple Let the Beat Hit Em. This is also one of the easiest songs to "AAA" in DDR, but it still got me the required one on each version.

Here on this AAA Page, I've got an interesting mix of some extremely common songs (Kind Lady, A Stupid Barber) and some bizarrely obscure ones (My Generation, for example). Dark Black Forest definitely falls into the latter category; this song only appeared on the console version of DDRMax USA and has never been on any arcade machine ever! Despite that though, I actually like the song a lot, just because of the deep voice that says "Into the Dark... Black... Forest" (if you've heard the song, you'll know what I mean). Oh, and does this song ever love its freeze notes or what - 47 of them? The song's not very hard, but it's a fun little one to play.

One other thing I'll point out here - although the Japanese and US versions of DDRMax use the same interface, you can tell which version is which by looking at the difficulty level of the song. The Japanese version writes it out in kanji (understandably) while the US version simply puts "Hvy" in the same box to stand for Heavy. That's how you can tell which version I'm playing. Ditto for DDRMax2 Japan and USA, by the way.

The same person who ordered up all those freeze notes for Dark Black Forest must have been at work on The Shining Polaris as well... Seriously, 75 freezes?! That's got to be the most of all time on any DDR song. Fortunately, it doesn't make the song much harder, if at all. The Shining Polaris is also a fun one to play; I had gotten under 5 Greats quite a few times before I punched through and picked up the "AAA". I do think I'm getting better at Perfect Attacking; I get close to "AAA"s more and more often now. This one makes "AAA" #13, so I only have about 500 songs to go to reach perfection.

OK, this doesn't even deserve to be counted as a "AAA". There are some LIGHT songs that have harder steps than Cutie Chaser does on Heavy (oh my - just look at the name!) But... it's still a Heavy "AAA", I guess, and I figured I may as well add it to the collection. Any Heavy song with only 151 steps has something seriously wrong with it though... (The score doesn't even break 60 million on a "AAA"!)

Note: for whatever reason, the steps to this same song in the Japanese version of DDRMax2 are different, and noticeably more difficult. Someone screwed up somewhere!

The story has a happy ending after all. I did get this "AAA", although it took quite a few tries. Probably about 10 overall, spaced out across multiple sessions. Sobakasu Freckles is indeed a very easy song to "AAA", as far as "AAA"ing goes (by which I mean none of them are really easy to get). Of course I don't think it's ever been included on an American console version (or it wasn't at initial time of writing), so it's probably not a very well-known song... "AAA" #15 overall. (The second picture is from a repeat "AAA" on DDR SuperNOVA - and a rather nice Marvelous attack, if I do say so!)

Follow Me... an entertaining, if totally obscure song. I'd say it falls right along the hard 7-footer/easy 8-footer line. The first time I played this song I got about 5 Greats on it, but saw that it would definitely be "AAA" bait with some more playing. After that, my Great counts went like this: 2, 1, 1, 1, 0. (I also did his reset when I got a Great on the first note once, heh.) That's... pretty consistent! Usually I don't like to whore songs out trying to get the "AAA", but when you get 1 Great three times in a row, you KNOW that you've got the song and it's just a matter of running iterations until it comes out right.

Another song that took some work, but went down in fairly short order. This song is fast (170bpm), but with nothing other than eighths and quarters it's not particularly challenging to step so long as you can stay on the beat. And what's up with the name "www.blondegirl"? Why isn't the song just called "Blondegirl"? Those silly Japanese.

Ha, I now have the Kind Lady sweep! The Challenge steps for the remixed version of Kind Lady aren't much harder than the Heavy steps in the original, if at all (an 8-footer? if you say so...) I had actually gotten 1 Great on this song ages ago, then went back on my "AAA" kick and cleaned it up on the first time I played it! This was one "AAA" that was relatively painless.

Dream A Dream is a neat song because it features the music from Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King in it. Err, set to a techno beat and with "Captain Jack" singing in the background. Yeah. The steps are nothing but quarters and eighths, so this would be an excellent song to get a first "AAA" for people who are looking to do so. On my attempt, the Great count went: 4, 1, 0. This one is about as simple as "AAA"s get, so once you're ready to try to get some, this is a good place to start.

One of the things that Konami invariably does with US versions of DDR is to add in some licensed songs from American artists to give the game less of a Japanese feel. And, equally invariably, these songs always have extremely easy steps. Heaven is a classic example of this: high on freezes, nothing but quarters and eighths. Now it does have a fair amount of steps (the number is 260 Perfects, a little hard to read), but "AAA"ing is readily doable. This one took a couple of tries but was knocked out in fairly short order. "AAA" #20 overall!

Next to My Generation, this is my most random "AAA". It's also the hardest one I managed to get thus far (don't let the number of steps fool you). In the Navy is nothing but gallops, gallops, gallops throughout the entire song. These aren't impossible by any means, but it's very hard to avoid getting a couple of Greats while galloping through the song like a horse. Yet - somehow - I managed to get all the way through the song without screwing any of them up. I have no clue how I accomplished this. Must have been really feeling the tempo is all I can say. The Great count went from 19 to 0 when I got this. That basically never happens! I was very pumped after getting this one.

Tomorrow Perfume is a DJ Taka song that I'd been trying for quite some while to "AAA" in the past, but could never seem to get fewer than 5 Greats on. I knew exactly how the song went (eighth, eighth, eighth, sixteenth-hold, or dah dah dah da-daaaaaa) but would always screw up somewhere. Then I came back to it on this "AAA" binge I've been running and got it the first time. Heh. I think I'm just improving overall on accuracy.

Here's another one of those eminently forgettable songs stuck into DDRMax2 USA to make it more "American" - ugh. With a few notable exceptions, those songs just aren't much fun to play. Bad Routine has an off-beat pattern mixed in with freeze notes, but it's not much of a song. I took the "AAA" and moved on to greener pastures. All told, I've probably played this song fewer than 10 times ever - although I did play it again later on DDR Extreme just to get a "AAA" on it again there too!

Now this song, in contrast, is one of my favorite ones to play. This sped-up remixed version of Dynamite Rave is a lot more entertaining than the original, and the synchopated rhythm at the beginning is great stuff. Of course, if you can get that first run down without a mistake, the rest of the song is nothing but eighths and quarters, so I was able to do this one without too many problems. Even with the "AAA", I'll still go back and play this one from time to time just for fun.

This song is not one I know very well - mostly because the very first time I played it, I got 2 Greats on it, then I went back later on this run of "AAA"s and got the perfect score. So I've barely played this one at all! It's sort of the quintessential easy 7-footer with lots of quarters, eighths, and freezes. Nothing too crazy here, and thus it's kind of a forgettable song. "AAA" #25 overall though, so that's something worth noting!

Ahh, what a blurry picture! Well, it should still be possible to read all the info. This is the first of the "True Color" songs that I managed to "AAA", all of them being medium-paced songs done in a trance style. Look to the Sky True Color Mix is probably the easiest one to "AAA", and I had come close many times before I finally got this one on DDR 7th Mix. With only 218 Perfects and a laid-back tempo of 140bpm, it should be clear this song wasn't as hard as some of the others I've done. Still a worthy "AAA", of course.

This is the remixed version of My Summer Love, which has the bizzare title of Tommy's Smile Mix. I detested this song when I first started playing it, since it has a very slow tempo (100bpm) and the notes were so jumbled together that I couldn't read them. Later on, however, I realized that by turning on the speed mods (in this case, 3x) I could SEE the notes and have a good time playing the song. Once I could read the notes, I found this to be a very enjoyable quasi-calypso song with some entertaining steps. Fun sixteenth patterns here. By no means an easy 7-footer, but with some work I was able to get it. Another great song from DDRMax2 Japan.

Ha, while we're on the subject of songs I originally hated... Secret Rendezvous is even slower at only 90bpm, and it's got very complicated steps that don't follow the rhythm; instead, they beat a sort of counter-melody to it. On 1x, I detested (still detest) this song. But when I can actually read the notes? It turns into a lot of fun. I certainly never thought that I would have a "AAA" on this song, but practice does make perfect. Oh - and this is easily an 8-footer on the difficulty, no clue what they were thinking with the ratings system here.

Out of all the songs to be remixed, Silent Hill would not have been my first choice... Basically, this song is more of Silent Hill (1980s Christmas music! yay!) with about a million freeze notes kicked in for good measure. It's not bad, but there are better songs out there. I played it enough to get the "AAA" and moved on.

This song required a lot of work, and it's one of the "AAA"s that I'm most proud of getting. B4U has a lot of notes (well over 300) and several little gallops thrown into longer streams of eighths. I decided to take up the challenge of getting a "AAA" on this one as a test of my ability to get harder ones later on. Well - obviously I did it, but it took a LOT of tries. I got 1 Great on this song 5 different times before I got the perfect score. Don't ever get the impression these scores all come easy! "AAA" #30 overall.

This song is all about control. The tempo is not nearly as fast as you think it is, so the challenge is NOT to rush and keep stepping at the same constant pace. Wild Rush - the name hardly goes with the song, does it? Anyway, I'm proud that I can get "AAA"s both on the wild, fast songs and also the ones like this that are based on precision and control.

Song #2 of the Look to the Sky trio, now I just need to go back and clean up the original one! This song is noteworthy for having double-step freezes that immediately go into a short eighth note pattern. That means that you have to keep one foot steady while the other one steps two eighths in quick succession. A little unusual, but a nice little challenge. Other than that, this is your typical 7-footer with a bunch of quarters and eighths at a medium tempo.

OK, let me start out by saying that this is NOT the song called "Fantasy" from DDR 6th Mix. Yes, exact same name but totally different song - you'd think that the Konami folk would have seen the wisdom of avoiding a situation like that. This Fantasy (7th Mix) is a much, much easier 6-footer as opposed to the 9-footer with sixteenths everywhere in the other song. I can't really remember much about this song; a little chaos in the step pattern, but nothing too complicated. Six-footers are pretty rare in DDR (tons of 7-footers instead), so I guess this song is noteworthy for that.

A fun song featuring long eighth note runs, particularly ones where you have to hit the same note over and over again. Also some short gallops. Although this song required a number of tries to get, I enjoy playing it so it wasn't a chore to do. It's the songs that I dislike or are boring that become a chore to get the "AAA" on. Since I can't think of anything else to say here, I'll stop babbling now.

Another USA-exclusive song, this is the classic "easy song that for whatever reason I couldn't get and had me tearing out my hair." I swear, I was about to strangle Kylie Minogue (the Australian pop singer who does this song) at times here. Got 1 Great at least 4 or 5 times, 3 Greats or fewer more than a dozen times. I actually think the slow tempo hurt me here; more of an opportunity to mess things up. Oh well, it's in the rear-view mirror now! "AAA" #35 overall.

This is just a weird song. There's not much of a melody to this; I don't know exactly what the composer was thinking here. There's not a lot of steps (only 212) but the pattern is a bit chaotic - no way is this an 8-footer though. I don't really like this one, and I got the "AAA" without too much work on this song. Another one to take the score and move on - nothing more to see here.

Now we're getting into the DDR Extreme songs... This is another one of those typical 7-footer songs that are so numerous throughout DDR - except that for no apparent reason they've listed this as a 6-footer! I can't begin to understand the logic behind that. One thing about DDR Extreme is that the Perfect window is a little bit wider than in the other DDR games, which basically means that the game is more generous in handing out Perfects as opposed to Greats. As a result, I tend to have a lot of "AAA"s from this mix - get used to seeing the Extreme interface.

Yes, the politically incorrect song known as White Lovers... This is pretty much another typical 7-footer like many other ones featured in these pictures. White Lovers is a little bit slow on the tempo, meaning that control is again important to keep from rushing the notes in the eighth note streams and getting ahead of the beat. I got this one on the first or second attempt, so I don't recall the song all that well...

I recall getting once 2 Greats on the first 2 notes of this song, then getting Perfects on all the rest. D'oh! Almost every pattern in this song starts on the off-beat. If you can remember that, and not rush ahead of the tempo, you're set for this one, because it's not all that complicated.

This was a big one - first 9-footer "AAA"! My Summer Love has a slow tempo (100bpm) but the middle section of the song consists of a pair of long sixteenth note runs that are far from easy to do. This is definitely on the easier end of the 9-footers, but I still rate this as a major accomplishment. "AAA" #40 overall - I try to do a more difficult song on all of the tens, and I think this one qualifies.

Mobo Moga is another strange song, a little difficult to describe. Fairly fast tempo, but the overall feel of the song is laid back. Entertaining to play, with a couple neat syncopated rhythms. Given the wider Perfect window of DDR Extreme, this one was fairly unremarkable to "AAA".

Janejana has a moderate tempo, but it sure has a lot of notes! This is another one of those songs where staying on the beat and not rushing is the major difficulty. Still, Janejana is more entertaining than most of the other songs of this kind; maybe it's the nonsensical lyrics that accompany the song (what the heck does "JaneJana" mean, anyway?) Good song.

The song that I featured in my DDR tutorial gets "AAA"ed as well. Graduation has a couple syncopated parts to throw you off, but otherwise stays with the familiar quarters and eighths pattern. The song is supposed to convey the happy, yet bittersweet emotions of a graduation, and I'd say that it does that. As the very first song on the wheel that always loads up when you start DDR Extreme, I had an extra incentive to get this one (nothing like having the first song you see be a perfect one!) The second picture is from a repeat "AAA" in DDR SuperNOVA.

1998 - yes, that's the title of the song, since that's the year that DDR was created - is another example of a medium-speed 7-footer with a few bells and whistles to make it interesting. Mostly quarters and eighths, but enough different stuff thrown in to distinguish it. I enjoy the song, in part because it has a couple of step-jumps at times (nothing like Waka Laka though!) This is another one of the "green" songs that appears right at the top of the Extreme scroll wheel, and as such, one that I targeted early on.

This is a bad remix of the famous song "We Are the Champions", and not one that I find myself playing often. Since it's a recognizable song, it's often one that gets picked by friends to play at parties, but the steps - ugh! Probably should be a 6-footer; nothing interesting happening here. Nevertheless, I managed to get 1 Great on this song several times before getting the "AAA", forcing me to play it over again more times than I wanted to. Argh! "AAA" #45.

While we're on the subject of bad remixes... This song really does not sound very much like the classic rock song We Will Rock You; instead, it's a super-slow song that tries to be difficult by making the notes impossible to read, a la "bag". Lots and lots of jumps that are easy to do, but hard to read. On 3x the song is quite easy; say what you will about this, but I have no interest in wasting time trying to read notes that are squished too close together. That would be like trying to read a piece of music where the printer crushed everything onto a single line of the staff. Yeah, you might be able to do it, but what would be the point of that? How would going through that tedium make you a better player? I guess that's just my take on the speed mods issue.

Here we have a better song. Pink Rose probably doesn't quite merit an 8-footer (it's an easy one, if you're going to go with that), but it does have a lot of interesting rhythms to step. Good mixture of freezes and ordinary steps. This is a very popular DDR song, it consistently gets rated highly when people pick their favorite songs. It's not actually one that I play a whole lot, but it is a good song.

More song confusion! In their infinite wisdom, the people at Konami decided to have a song named "Stay" in DDR 7th Mix, and another song named "Stay" in DDR Extreme (8th Mix) that has NOTHING to do with the other one. This one, the Organic House Version, is basically a joke; the original Stay was a very difficult 9-footer, but this one is a pure cakewalk. Should be a 6-footer, if not a 5-footer (whoever does these foot ratings has no clue how to evaluate the difficulty). If you don't believe me, just look at the groove ratings on the left side and see how short the bars are! An eminently forgettable song here.

Now here's a song that I like. Twinbee is a song deliberately made to sound like video game music from the classic Konami games of the 1980s; it's mostly done in MIDI and produces a series of beeps and bloops that are definitely reminiscent of the past. Not only that, but the first steps of the song consist of the infamous "Konami Code"! Whoever made up this song did a very, very good job. On the easy side of the 8-footers, but probably deserves that grade due to the fast tempo. A thoroughly entertaining song.

I wanted to do something special for "AAA" #50, and so I worked very hard to get this one. Can't Stop Fallin' In Love Speed Mix is one of my all-time favorite songs (I mentioned it back in my featured songs for Extreme), and a tough 9-footer to boot. LONG runs of eighth notes, interspersed with some gallops of sixteenths. And yet - since it has so many eighths and stays on the beat, it's a song that I identified as one that would be possible to "AAA". Getting a perfect score on any song with over 400 steps, however, is a major chore, and it took a lot of practice and work to do this one. Look at the groove radar bars on the left side of the screen - NONE of my other pictures have Voltage even remotely close to the level in this song! It was a major accomplishment, and a good one to memorialize as #50.

The song with the French name is a decent one to play. un deux trois would be a pretty basic song, except that there is a full stop to the music in the middle, followed by a short section at a very slow tempo. Then the music speeds back up again and goes back to normal. That one part of the song doesn't take up much time, but it was enough to throw off my "AAA" efforts for a long time. Once I figured it out, however, this song wasn't too bad.

This song is about as happy and cheerful as it gets - and I don't mean that sarcastically, as it's a genuinely entertaining one to play. This is the demo song that plays for DDR Extreme if you leave it running without selecting anything, so it's one I've heard a lot. I Do I Do I Do is mostly long streams of eighths, but it does just enough to vary them to keep you on your toes. Also, the artist who created this song goes by the name "Creamy". How can you not like a song with that kind of pedigree?

"Feeling blue, I'm thinking of you..." This song has good lyrics. Unfortunately, this "AAA" is for the easier Heavy steps, and not the difficult 9-footer Challenge ones (but I've gotten close on those too!) Of course, I'm so used to the Challenge steps that I barely even know the Heavy ones - they're pretty pedestrian and indistinguishable from a bunch of other songs. Not too much more to say about this one, although I'll have plenty to say if I get the Challenge version of Colors.

The steps to this song are a very easy 5-footer. The song itself, however, has an interesting background to it. Konami refused to put this song in any American mixes because of the sexually suggestive lyrics ("After the game of love, baby/All I wanna do is get lazy...") That would be a bigger deal if this was a good song, but nope - it's not. I can't say the US audience is really missing anything here. About as easy as a "AAA" gets.

Be prepared for more name confusion ahead - this "AAA" is for the Heavy steps to the song Brilliant 2U. This is an old DDR favorite that was put into DDR Extreme as part of its quasi-"greatest hits" collection. Most of the song is pretty simple (although there are several places where two double steps occur in eighth note pairs!) but the middle part of the song syncs with the melody and has a difficult rhythm to follow. Careful stepping required there! Once I worked it out though, the song wasn't too tough to do. "AAA" #55 overall.

This title of this song is "Aoi Shoudou", and no I don't know what that means in Japanese. There are some English lyrics saying "To the Sky" interspersed with the Japanese, so maybe it has something to do with that (?) Anyway, this song reminds me of 1980s music for some reason, or at least it's done in a similar style. The steps have a fair amount of chaos, a definite 8-footer here, but they're good fun too. I don't think I would have gotten this one nearly so easily if it hadn't been on the more generous DDR Extreme... Note: when brought to the US for DDR SuperNOVA, Aoi Shoudou was translated as "Blue Impulse", but kept the same steps.

OK, this is "Brilliant 2U Orchestra Groove", which is a different song that "Brilliant 2U". It's another old song, from all the way back in DDR 2nd Mix, and I had played this many times back on DDRMax when I was learning the game. Got 1 Great on it ages ago (months and months earlier) in that game, but didn't finally knock it out for good until I started going through the songs methodically with DDR Extreme. I'll always remember playing this one on Light when I was just starting out - how times change!

Here's a song that I probably should have gotten much earlier, but I guess I never thought to play, just because it's too easy. I Need You is a very simple 5-footer; it would have been challenging to "AAA" about six months ago, but by this point... it wasn't. This would be a good one to start out with, since it's slow and doesn't really do anything complicated.

OK, this is the same song as "Brilliant 2U" above. But it's the Challenge steps instead of the Heavy ones, and it's a 7-footer instead of a 6-footer. And it's again a separate song from "Brilliant 2U Orchestra Groove", which ALSO has separate Challenge steps! Confused yet? As you'd expect, it's pretty similar to the Heavy steps for Brilliant 2U, but I actually think that this one is easier. Never mind the foot ratings, they are once again (as usual) somewhat off as far as indicating the real difficulty of a song.

And moving on from all the "Brilliant" series of songs, we have here for #60 another 9-footer! Irresistiblement is a pleasant song with French lyrics, which I can actually understand (unlike all the Japanese songs). Everyone, sing along!

Tout m'entraîne
Irrésistiblement vers toi, comme le vent
Tout m'enchaîne
Irrésistiblement à toi, je le sens

OK, maybe that's a bit too much. But it's a nice, fast song and makes for a good challenge. Nowhere near as tough as Can't Stop Fallin' In Love Speed Mix, but still definitely a 9-footer, and another one I was happy to get.

You know, aside from recalling that there are a number of freezes in this song, I honestly can't remember anything about it. That says to me that it's a little too easy to get the "AAA"s in DDR Extreme; I have to work so much harder to get the "AAA"s in the other mixes that I end up remembering the songs there much, much better. That's because I had to play them so many times to do it! Anything that comes easy is not going to be as valued as that which requires hard work to achieve. In short, I wish that the game wasn't quite so generous at handing out Perfects - but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop playing it, of course.

Here's another easy 5-footer that initially debued in DDRMax2 USA and was brought to the Japanese for the first time in DDR Extreme. Umm... they weren't missing anything. As if the groove radar bars on the left side of the screen don't give it away, there's just not much happening in this song. Moving on...

Here's a song where the numbers are not indicative of a good song. more deep looks like a totally forgettable 6-footer, but it's got some very interesting rhythms in it. In particular, there are two piano riffs that are duplicated in the steps and take some practice to learn. It's a song that I actually like quite a bit, and a good example of why you can't judge all the songs just by the foot ratings. The second picture is from a repeat performance in DDRMax2 USA.

Scorching Moon, the song done by none other than Shawn the Horny Master! I don't know who that is, but he did come up with a memorable name for himself. Scorching Moon is actually pretty difficult to do, since it has a lot of jumps syncopated to the music (not on the beat at all). It is a fun song though, typically one that gets played a lot at parties. This was the last one of the pink-colored songs in DDR Extreme that I was lacking a "AAA" on, giving me a complete set of all of them. Nice! Have to post a picture of that later.

This completes the "Keep on ____in" set along with Keep on Liftin', although technically they have nothing in common. This one is just as easy, although for no apparent reason it's classified as a 6-footer instead of a 5-footer. It's an older DDR song, maybe that's why it's not all that interesting... "AAA" #65.

The title of this song is "Mahou no Tobira", which I understand translates as "Door of Magic". Here's another song where the numbers make it look much harder than it actually is; this song is quite fast and has a lot of notes, but really doesn't do anything very complicated. It's a fun one to play, though I'd hardly say it's an 8-footer. Those bars on the left side are definitely giving the wrong impression about how hard this one is...

There's a good story behind this one. Apparently I had earlier gotten a "AAA" on Sexy Planet (it would have been #28), but I failed to write it down and must have lost the picture for it, since I instead wrote down that Secret Rendezvous was #28. Then when I went back to DDRMax2 Japan, I realized that I actually had one more "AAA" than I thought! So in order to get this picture, I just had to "AAA" it again, which I managed to do on the first try. If you look very closely, this picture does NOT say "it's a new record!" at the bottom - because I had already gotten a "AAA" earlier, and thus it was only tying the old record. That's a fine distinction, but it's the only way to not get a high score when "AAA"ing a song. You won't see this too often!

This song has quite a lot of steps for a 7-footer, as well as a couple of tricky step-jumps if I remember correctly. To be honest, it should probably be an 8-footer, since this is almost as many steps as in the 9-footer Irresistiblement. Actually, many of the DDRMax2 songs have low foot ratings, so that may be a trend... Anything with this many steps requires care to avoid screwing up at some point, and eventually I was able to pull that off.

I once heard someone say that you should try to get the song "Insertion" for "AAA" #69, but since that's a tough 9-footer I just wasn't able to pull it off. So In Love is a DDRMax USA song that got stuck onto DDRMax2 Japan for the Japanese fans. It's really not a very good song, super-slow and without much going on. Should probably be a 6-footer or even lower, but whatever you say, Konami...

OK, this sounds NOTHING like the James Brown song "Living in America", but I don't think the original would make a good DDR song. This is more like an up-tempo version of the song mixed together with "Yankee Doodle"; it makes no sense, but is oddly entertaining nonetheless. Here's another song where I got 1 Great at least 3 or 4 times. That's frustrating as anything, but it does make you value the "AAA"s after you get them!

Almost every "AAA" that I get comes from working the song over and over again across multiple plays until I get it right. Celebrate Nite Euro is an exception to that rule. Now I did know exactly how the song went, but I got the "AAA" on basically a random play without much practice. That's very rare, and so this one has to go down as pretty lucky. With all the sixteenths in this song, I consider it to be very fortunate indeed. It's definitely an 8-footer, and a pretty tough one at that, no matter what those bars on the left would indicate.

I'll always remember Drop the Bomb SF Mix for being the song that requires an obnoxious 500 song plays in order to unlock it in DDRMax. The fact that I did that once, and then a second time after my old memory card was erased, indicates just how much time I spent learning on that game. Anyway, this was done in DDRMax2 Japan, but it's still the same song. Aside from a couple of gallops, it's a pretty straightforward one. I do find the lyrics ("Just drop the bomb!") to be rather entertaining, however.

Nowhere near as interesting or as difficult as the Momo Mix version, Burnin' the Floor Blue Fire Mix is an earlier Challenge remix of the song. I'd go and "AAA" the original song too, but it's actually not present on any of the DDR versions that I own! There's one slightly tricky part in the middle of this song that I always used to screw up, but I checked out how it actually went in Training Mode and then was able to get the "AAA" very quickly. This one is pretty simple and would be another good one to try when just starting out pursuing the "AAA"s.

This Challenge remix of the song Higher doesn't look too tough, but throws in just enough little tricks to be interesting. It's mostly on the beat, but then occasionally throws in some syncopated parts when transitioning between sections of the songs. Good stuff, my compliments to whoever did the steps. This is another one where I had 1 Great multiple times before getting the perfect score. Argh!

Just to give you a further idea of what I often go through getting these scores, look at the following picture:

Those are 3 tries at the song "Destiny", each one resulting in a "AA" with exactly 1 Great! I swear, I couldn't do this if I tried! So while this particular case is rare, it's not all that unusual to keep missing by a very small margin over and over again. This picture is titled "frustration", and that's more or less how I often feel. But so long as you have faith and keep trying...

...good things can happen to you. Destiny is a song that I'd been trying to get for a really LONG time, like over a month. I probably had 1 Great on about 10 different occasions. But then I finally worked out where I was messing up (I was missing one rhythm very slightly) and after that it was just a matter of getting a flawless run. Destiny is a good song because it tests just about every skill to some extent: eighth note runs, off-beat syncopation, step-jumps, even has a few freezes that are a bit challenging. And a lot of notes too, well over 300; there's no way in the world this shouldn't be an 8-footer, no clue why this is ranked the same as So In Love! Anyway, I took this as a good sign that I was progressing in my all-around skills. As "AAA" #75 overall, it also meant that I was, in fact, closing in on my goal of 100, which scarcely would have seemed possible when I began doing this.

One of my favorite songs from DDRMax2 7th Mix, this song was one where I had 1 Great for months and months before finally being able to get the "AAA". The simple thing to remember with Trance de Janeiro is that nothing is on the beat in the beginning and end of the song. Everything's syncopated. Then in the middle of the song, the whole thing is a bunch of gallops. So while the song's not that hard to get the notes, avoiding Greats is extremely difficult. It's a pretty cool Brazilian trance number, and still one of my favorites to play.

I have no clue what's up with this song. The theme of the song seems to be "chaos", because there's no real rhythm or unity to the music or the steps. Certainly not one of DJ Taka's better numbers, and a rather obscure song too. It's also definitely not an 8-footer; more like an easy 7, if you ask me.

This is one of the innumerable incarnations of Dynamite Rave, and one of the easier ones at that. I kind of like the song, although it's a pretty straightforward 7-footer. Lots of short eighth note runs, you get the idea. However, at the very end of the song there's a cluster of sixteenth notes which had frustrated my "AAA" for a long time. One this run through, I guessed what I thought what the correct pattern - and I was right! That's the sort of thing that gets you pumped up after a song.

Here's one of the lesser-known AM-3P remixes, I'm not sure whether this has ever been on an American mix or not. Anyway, it features a lot of chaos as you might expect. Otherwise, a pretty typical 7-footer. More importantly, it inspired me to take a crack at the original AM-3P...

...which then became "AAA" #80! Blech on the horrible blurriness of that screenshot though. Anyway, I usually try to grab more important or famous songs for the milestone "AAA"s, so this seemed like a good one to do for #80. Anyone who's played DDR knows AM-3P. The most noteworthy part of the song is a long eighth note run at the beginning where you're supposed to turn off of the down and then up arrows. I, of course, double-stepped it, hehe. But - I did get the "AAA", so apparently it was good enough.

Uh, what to say about this one? I remember learning it on Light in DDRMax USA way back when, but by now it was a fairly simple 7-footer. I Was The One is pretty slow, although it does have some long eighth note streams. Probably the toughest part of the song is making sure NOT to rush ahead of the slow tempo. Moving on...

Will I? is another one of the many "real" (that is, non-Konami) songs thrown into an American mix to give it less of a Japanese feel. These songs are OK, but without exception they feature easy and uninspired steps, often with tons of freeze notes thrown in to make them LOOK more difficult. Will I? is no exception to this trend. Relaxed tempo? Check. Nothing more complex than quarters and eighths? Check. 45 Freeze notes? Check. You've got yourself another forgettable American DDR song!

I even went back to DDRMax for a brief while here to get a few more "AAA"s. I Like To Move It fits all of the criteria I just mentioned for an American DDR song - and yet I still like this song anyway. It definitely does NOT fit as a DDR song, but you have to give the Konami people kudos for trying anyway. I think I'm amused by the attempt, because I still have fun playing this song. (By the way, the "No Bonus" just means that I played the song two times in a row. DDRMax does silly stuff like this.)

Sandstorm! You know this song, even if you don't think you know it. It gets played at sporting events all the time, during timeouts and breaks in the action. It also doesn't really fit as a DDR song, but I'm even more amused at the attempt to turn what's commonly thought of as a "Jock Jam" into a dancing game song. The steps - well, they sort of fit the rhythm. This isn't quite an 8-footer, but it IS harder than your typical American licensed song. Some genuinely interesting stuff with sixteenths in here, for example. Anyway - I like Sandstorm.

Deep In You, a simple 7-footer that plays the same rhythm over and over again. If you can step it, you've got the song. I'm irritated by that "No Bonus" though; in DDRMax, you get that anytime you play the same song more than once in the same song set. Well, I got 1 Great on this song like 3 times in a row, and I didn't want to go through the hassel of quitting out to the menu screen after each attempt. So I have to live with that blotch on my screenshot for all time instead. Blah. At least the system was improved in the later DDR games.

The original version of Let The Beat Hit 'Em here, I'm more used to the R&B version (which I "AAA"ed much earlier; that was #11 and this is #86). Not that much to say here, it's a slow 5-footer with a lot of double steps. Turn on 3x and have at it. DDRMax is well-known for bizarre timing on a lot of the songs, however, so all of these "AAA"s were achieved with some difficulty. I have 1 Great on Sana Morette Ne Ente, one of my favorite songs, and I just could not get the "AAA" due to the weird timing. Argh!

And finally Holic, to wrap up the DDRMax songs. Holic is well-known to be a rather easy "AAA", since it's all quarters and eighths, but it does have a LOT of notes. Unlike virtually all DDR songs, it's also not in 4/4 time (I think the song runs in 7/8, but I'm not positive of that). In other words, there's enough here to make the song rather unique. Certainly no cakewalk.

Back to the cozy grading of DDR Extreme here, with a "AAA" on Kiss Me All Night Long. This is a trance song with a decent among of chaos thrown in, an interesting little number although nothing too spectacular. The chorus to the song has a couple of double steps on off-beats which I find entertaining ([one] and, and, and! for those with a music background). Fun stuff.

This was one of my least-favorite songs in DDRMax2 USA, and now I later find myself "AAA"ing it in DDR Extreme. Heh. Feeling of Love has lots of double steps mixed into eighth note runs, which are tough to do until you get used to stepping them. After running songs like Stoic and Maxx Unlimited a lot though, suddenly this one didn't seem so hard. I still don't like this one very much, you won't see me play it often.

For "AAA" #90, I was once again able to get one of the better-known DDR songs. This is the original Trip Machine, which was a very difficult song on DDR 1st Mix, but which is pretty easy by today's standards. The steps aren't all on the beat, but it's rather simple overall. Still, a cool song to get just for the history attached to it (too boring to play often though!)

Ecstasy is just about my all-time favorite DDR song. I was therefore very pleased to finally get a "AAA" on it (I had 2 Greats for ages). The steps just go so perfectly with the music on this one... Anyway, you should definitely play this one if you try your hand at DDR. It's been included on quite a few mixes, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

Uh... this would be a case of me cleaning up some junk songs because I'm running out of stuff to "AAA". Baby Baby Gimme Your Love is a very, very easy 6-footer. I've gotten under 5 Greats when playing this as the Extra Song! It's super-slow (90bpm) and has nothing to it. Really, let's just move on to the next song...

Yuck, another painfully easy song. Can you tell I was starting to run out of stuff to "AAA"? There's just not much to this one, a slow song of quarters and eighths. I cleaned up the garbage here and continued moving on.

And now Higher, another easy song. Note that this is the original version of Higher, not the remixed version from DDR 7th Mix (that was Higher Next Morning Mix, which is a lot more interesting). Again, I can't really think of anything to say here. This is just a blah song.

Silent Hill! Yes, for "AAA" #95 I FINALLY went back and got Silent Hill. Silent Hill is VERY well-known because Konami keeps insisting on putting it in every single DDR game, even though it's a terrible song. They do this because it serves as a tie-in to their Silent Hill line of games - although this is a Christmas song that has NOTHING to do with those games whatsoever! Anyway, I've only played Silent Hill about a million times. Glad to finally get this out of the way.

I think this is probably DJ Taka's best song. V is a remixed version of the piece "Winter" from Vivaldi's The Four Seasons. There are two sets of steps to this song, the regular Heavy steps and an even more difficult Challenge set of steps. This is from the easier Heavy ones, but it's still a pretty formidable challenge. 360+ steps! That's a lot of notes to be getting! I regard this as one of my better "AAA"s.

Somewhat of a random "AAA", air was simply a song that I had missed a bunch of times before and finally managed to get here at the end. It's noteworthy for having a bunch of freezes where you must turn to get the other steps, which is probably why I had trouble with it earlier. But it was eventually cleaned up and knocked out like most of the other 7-footers around it on the song wheel.

Another Trip Machine here, this one being the "Jungle" mix. I don't really like any of the Trip Machines very much, aside from the extremely difficult Trip Machine Climax. Jungle Mix runs at a medium tempo and has some chaos in it, but... it's just not all that much fun to play. That's how I'd sum up the whole Trip Machine series, as the songs just aren't much fun. There are lots of other songs with complex steps that are much more entertaining. As far as the jungle genre goes, Afronova is a lot more fun that Trip Machine Jungle Mix. Still, a "AAA" is a "AAA"...

So I don't get any Trip Machine "AAA"s until #90, and then I get 3 of them in the next ten songs. Go figure. Luv Mix is a little bit better than the others, but it's still kind of uninteresting. Lots of eighth notes where you're supposed to turn to avoid double-stepping, but of course I'm too stubborn to do that. The only genuinely tricky part is the long eighth note run at the end, otherwise this one's not too bad. Aren't Trip Machines supposed to be hard? Hehe.

Finally, here you have it. "AAA" #100. I would have liked to get a "AAA" on Max 300 for this, but you'll have to settle for one on Paranoia instead. As this is one of the most famous DDR songs, I think it still is rather fitting overall. Paranoia was also rather difficult to get, not so much because of the steps, but due to the faster tempo (180bpm) I had to run this song on 1.5x instead of 2x as I usually do. That crunched the notes closer together, making it harder to step accurately... But anyway, I got it done. With "AAA"s on Paranoia and Trip Machine, I can officially say that I have conquered DDR 1st Mix, heh.

So there you have it, 100 "AAA"s. Some concluding comments... I never thought that I would get to 100 when I started, the "AAA"s just kept piling up. These were accumulated almost entirely over a four month period from September to December of 2005. Critics can say what they will about speed mods being "cheating" or that I accumulated many of these on the "easy" mix of DDR Extreme, but I think that 100 "AAA"s across 5 different games and on literally all different kinds of songs speaks for itself. I don't think I have anything to prove to anyone when it comes to DDR, I've more than surpassed every goal I've ever set for myself. And then some.

One hundred "AAA"s is pretty cool, but why stop there? Since I continued to get more of them, I had to continue with another page. Click below to go on...