Dance Dance Revolution Disney Dancing Museum | Retro Review | Nintendo 64

by Danny Bivens

Dance your heart out on the Nintendo 64. 

Older gamers may remember the Dance Dance Revolution craze from the early to mid 2000s. The game was a big hit in the arcades and home console ports also remained popular with critics and gamers alike. While a majority of the titles made appearances on Sony platforms, there were a few games in the series that graced Nintendo hardware - including the Nintendo 64. In this retro review, we are taking a look at Dance Dance Revolution Disney Dancing Museum on Nintendo's 64-bit platform.

Dance Dance Revolution Disney Dancing Museum was published by Konami and released on the Nintendo 64 on November 30, 2000. Unfortunately for gamers in the West, the game remained a Japanese exclusive. While a Playstation version of the game titled Dance Dance Revolution Disney Mix eventually made its way to the West in September 2001, the game differed from its N64 brother in terms of the songs that were available.

There really aren’t a whole lot of modes on offer here. You can choose Game Start, Training, Password & Puzzle Gallery, or Options. Under Game Start, where you’ll probably be spending most of your time, you can choose from Single Player, Two Player or Session. The Single Player and Two Player modes puts you through three different songs of your choosing. Session, on the other hand, provides a bit more challenge. Not only are you tasked with hitting the regular dance steps, you also have to hit a non-directional button (A, B, etc) to hit your marks. This mode is also where you will be able to unlock in-game collectible puzzle pieces. While playing on either the Normal or Hard difficulty settings, puzzle pieces and special objects will occasionally be mixed in with the dance arrows. As long as you get either a Perfect or Great, you’ll unlock that the piece or object. These can later be viewed in the Password & Puzzle Gallery. There are several puzzles to unlock that will lead to unlocking more songs in the game. There are 10 songs available from the start and 12 that you can unlock.

Obviously, the ideal way to play Dancing Museum is with the dance pad. However, if you don’t have one, you can still play the game with the standard Nintendo 64 controller by using the d-pad and the c-buttons. Either way works fine, and if you’re like me and don’t like to break a sweat in your house, the controller option might be the way to play. Purists (and those lucky enough to find the dance pad) may prefer the pad, though.

Visuals in Dancing Museum are a pretty simplistic affair. 2D versions of Disney characters are assigned to the different songs included in the package. Placed in some pretty basic 3D environments, these 2D characters animate slightly to the beat of the music. It’s definitely not making use of the Nintendo 64’s power in any way, but all these years later, the game still holds up and looks pretty nice. The audio is also pretty clear - even for being an N64 game. Obviously DDR games on the PlayStation and the arcade definitely sound better than this, I was honestly surprised by the quality here.

For collector’s trying to get their hands on this game complete in box with the dance pad, you’ll probably be shelling out a decent amount of cash as it seems to be a pretty rare find on eBay. Being in Japan, I got lucky and found a copy of the game, complete with all of the boxes, manuals and dance pad for ¥2,000 (roughly $20 USD). I almost had a heart attack when I received it, through, as the seller just wrapped the box in plastic, taping it to the box itself. After carefully removing said tape from the box and somehow not damaging it, I was the proud owner of Dancing Museum on the N64. My box for the dance pad is a bit beat up, but it’s still complete. The dance pad itself has some issues with the plastic kind of bubbling from the mat itself, too, so that’s something you might want to look out for when tracking down this game. The art on both the dance pad box and game box are bright and colorful, featuring the Disney characters front and center. It’s definitely a nice piece to add to your collection.

Dance Dance Revolution Disney Dancing Museum is an interesting curiosity. While the game is definitely aimed at a younger dancing crowd, it still can be fun to play. There is a decent amount of content available and it will likely take you some time to unlock everything (though you can use the game’s password system if you’re impatient and just unlock everything). Still, it’s a cool piece to add to your Nintendo 64 collection if you’re lucky enough to find it.