Game developers in Korea have just revolutionized the dancing game genre. Picture Dance Dance Revolution tilted 45 degrees with an extra button. This is Pump It Up: Exceed. Alright, maybe “revolutionized” is too strong of a word, but these simple tweaks still make for a welcome (and difficult) change to an otherwise familiar experience.

It’s possible to play Pump It Up: Exceed without a dance pad, but doing that would be ridiculous. Shelling out an extra $20 nets you the game with a dance pad for a grand total of $59.99. The pad is similar to the bundled plastic DDR pads. It’s certainly not of the highest quality, but at least it hardly slips on a carpeted surface.

The core gameplay is identical to DDR from the quarter-steps to the life gauge that makes sure you don’t mess up too much. Fortunately, the rotated buttons and extra step take the gameplay to a new level. The fifth step, located exactly in the middle of the pad, is a logical inclusion that adds more move possibilities. Going from the front steps to the back can be challenging, not to mention tiring. As if this wasn’t enough, two dance pads can be placed side-by-side for double the moves.

Navigating the dance pad feels more like dancing than DDR ever did, which makes the game much more difficult. I’m not a hardcore dance freak, but I’m able to hold my own in DDR. In Pump It Up: Exceed I sometimes had trouble on the lowest difficulty level. This game was obviously aimed at veterans considering the brief tutorial and thin instruction manual. Beginners need not apply.

The limited amount of modes is disappointing. There’s an arcade mode where you try to complete four different songs. In the sudden death mode, it’s game over if a single step is missed. The home mode is much more forgiving. You can play through the songs beaten in arcade mode without fear of failing. After a certain amount of songs are completed, survival mode is unlocked. Here, songs are played one after the other and the life gauge is carried over to each one. And that’s all there is. The internet rankings on www.piuranking.com are a welcome touch, but some more modes would have been appreciated.

Where Pump It Up: Exceed delivers is in the eclectic music selection consisting of 101 tunes. The back of the box advertises licensed tunes from Crystal Method, Steriogram and Sugarhill Gang, but known songs are few and far between. Most of the tunes are either techno, J-pop or foreign rap, which are all divided between a few channels. My personal favorites are Banya’s techno remixes of classical pieces. Everything from Beethoven to Jingle Bells is masterfully redone. An upbeat remix of Ave Maria almost seems sacrilegious, but it’s almost impossible not to move your feet to it. Only a game like this would dare to include a Japanese version of Bananarama’s “Venus.”

The crazy visuals go along nicely with the music. Random anime characters and other incoherent things pop up for no reason, while actual music videos play for a couple of the licensed songs. The vibrant colors and trippy backgrounds can be especially appreciated in the unlockable video mode.

Even though Pump It Up: Exceed features a topnotch song list and some worthwhile changes to a familiar formula, it’s still not at the top of the genre. The lack of unique modes is disappointing, as is the lack of focus on newbies.. Hardcore “dancers” will be in heaven, but everyone else will find themselves left in the dust.