PS2 import solution?

Battousai1002

Battousai1002

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So my family decides to get me the Japanese version of DDR Extreme for my birthday, knowing that Sakura is my favorite song and that I love only 8324935 other songs in the Japanese version. Yet, they don't think to give me any sort of way to play it... Could people help me decide on which import solution to get, maybe listing the pros and cons of different ones?

*edit* Also, I have very little experience in soldering, so I wouldn't feel comfortable soldering a modchip in.
 
Get the fliptop

http://www.ps2fliptop.com

You use that with swap magic boot discs


There is also the slide card which lets you also use the swap magic discs but to use that you manually have to open your PS2 disc drive which will wear down your system.

If you feel confident doing the flip top installiation I would go with that (I think insturctions with pictures are on the site so you can see if it looks difficult to you or not). I'd explain it but I think the site I linked to will explain it better.

I ended up going with a Japanese PS2 because I was afraid I would mess up my PS2 doing the flip top installiation but of course, that was a lot more money. It was worth it to me though because I wanted the import of DDR Max really badly (since the import is a perfect arcade port with all the songs from the Max arcade machine and Max US hardly had any of those songs). I also ended up getting Max 2, Extreme and a bunch of other Bemani games.
 
I am hoping that the new flip top does not have as strong of a lock out and someone makes a boot disc.

I would like to pick up Samurai Showodown 5 since it looks like it will not be coming to the US
 
I'm becoming a big fan of DDR as of late, and want to know if it would be worth picking up imports of MAX, MAX2, and Extreme if I already own the US versions? How many more (or different) songs are to be expected between versions?
 
You can check and see if a local shop will do the job with a guarantee on their work. This adds labor cost but the confidence is worth it.
 
[quote name='Rig']I'm becoming a big fan of DDR as of late, and want to know if it would be worth picking up imports of MAX, MAX2, and Extreme if I already own the US versions? How many more (or different) songs are to be expected between versions?[/quote]

The Japanese versions basically have nothing in common other than the names with the US versions.

Like I said a few posts up, the Japanese version of Max is a perfect arcade port, the US version has less than 12 Max arcade songs (give or take a few songs). It's the only way to play Bye Bye Baby Balloon, Follow Me and Flash In The Night and it has tons of other songs also never released in a US mix like Cowgirl, My Sweet Darlin, Justify My Love, www.Blondegirl, Witch Doctor, I'm In The Mood For Dancing etc. It's my favorite home DDR mix.

The Japanese version of Max 2 also has a lot of songs left out of the US version like Baby Love Me, Sweet Sweet Love Magic, Candy Heart, Eversnow, Nothing Gonna Stop, Fantasy etc. It also has Oni mode which wasn't in the US version of Max 2.

The Japanese version of Extreme has all the Dancemania songs left out of the US version like Cartoon Heroes, Speed Over Bethoven, I Do I Do I Do, We Will Rock You We Are The Champions, plus it has a lot of the Bemani crossover songs left out of the US version. And it has 3 10 footers left out of the US version - Bag, Sakura and Paranoia Suvivor Max. And the Japanese version of Extreme uses the same game engine that Max and Max 2 unlike the US version of Extreme that uses that not so good new interface.

What it comes down to is if you like the arcade versions/songs of Max, Max 2 and Extreme then get the imports. Since I got my imports, I never play the US versions.


What also makes the DDR imports nice is that they are about 95% in English so even if you don't know any Japanese, you can still navigate through the menus since all the menus and options are in English
Go to DDRFreak.com if you want to see the full songlists for each game.
 
[quote name='CaseyRyback']I am hoping that the new flip top does not have as strong of a lock out and someone makes a boot disc.

I would like to pick up Samurai Showodown 5 since it looks like it will not be coming to the US[/quote]

I can't think of any reason it should be any different. At best, you'll have an easier time placing a stop on the door sensor, as seen with earlier fliptops but I wouldn't surprised if Sony hasn't put some effort in making it more difficult than it was on a PS1.
 
I do not want to get this topic too far off track, but are the DC versions decent, and would a dance pad have any lag if I used a PS1/PS2 to DC converter?
 
[quote name='YoshiFan1'][quote name='Rig']I'm becoming a big fan of DDR as of late, and want to know if it would be worth picking up imports of MAX, MAX2, and Extreme if I already own the US versions? How many more (or different) songs are to be expected between versions?[/quote]

The Japanese versions basically have nothing in common other than the names with the US versions.

Like I said a few posts up, the Japanese version of Max is a perfect arcade port, the US version has less than 12 Max arcade songs (give or take a few songs). It's the only way to play Bye Bye Baby Ballon, Follow Me and Flash In The Night and it has tons of songs never released in a US mix like Cowgirl, My Sweet Darlin, Justify My Love, www.Blondegirl, Witch Doctor, I'm In The Mood For Dancing etc. It's my favorite home DDR mix.

The Japanese version of Max 2 also has a lot of songs left out of the US version like Baby Love Me, Sweet Sweet Love Magic, Candy Heart, Eversnow, Nothing Gonna Stop, Fantasy etc. It also has Oni mode which wasn't in the US version of Max 2.

The Japanese version of Extreme has all the Dancemania songs left out of the US version like Cartoon Heroes, Speed Over Bethoven, I Do I Do I Do, We Will Rock You We Are The Champions, plus it has a lot of the Bemani crossover songs left out of the US version. And it has 3 10 footers left out of the US version - Bag, Sakura and Paranoia Suvivor Max. And the Japanese version of Extreme uses the same game engine that Max and Max 2 unlike the US version of Extreme that uses that not so good new interface.

What it comes down to is if you like the arcade versions/songs of Max, Max 2 and Extreme then get the imports. Since I got my imports, I never play the US versions.

Go to DDRFreak.com if you want to see the full songlists for each game.[/quote]

HOLY CRAP!!! What have I been missing? Our arcade has the Japanese Exteme machine, and I have always wanted most of those songs you mentioned on a home version....THANK YOU!!! I must go buy these now! Anybody have a cheapass price for them?
 
[quote name='CaseyRyback']I do not want to get this topic too far off track, but are the DC versions decent, and would a dance pad have any lag if I used a PS1/PS2 to DC converter?[/quote]
The DC versions are way different. There are only 2 DC DDR games 2nd Mix and Club Mix. Both use extremely old game engines that are around 30fps where as the PS2 DDR games are 60fps. To make things worse, arrows with different beats (1/8, 1/16 notes) are different colors in the newer DDR games so you can tell the difference between beats but in the DC games, all the arrows are the same color.

2nd Mix for DC has a nice songlist but it's just so old that I wouldn't reccomend getting it because of the reasons I mentioned above. Playing 30fps DDR games are really horrible IMO after playing the 60fps games just because it seems to choppy.

From what I have heard, there are a lot of problems with convertors to use a PS1/2 pad on DC because of the way the buttons are mapped. I don't know the exact details of why there are problems though

[quote name='Rig']HOLY CRAP!!! What have I been missing? Our arcade has the Japanese Exteme machine, and I have always wanted most of those songs you mentioned on a home version....THANK YOU!!! I must go buy these now! Anybody have a cheapass price for them?[/quote]

Unfortuately, there really aren't any deals on the import DDR games due to their demand. I ended up paying $60 for Max from ToyNJoys.com, $63 for Max 2, $65 for Extreme from NCSX.com. Also if you like a lot of the Dancemania songs, you might want to check out Party Collection. It has a lot of older songs that are popular like Dam Darriam, Butterfly, Captain Jack, Moonlight Shadow and is a little bit less at $50.
 
thanks for the heads up.

I plan on getting some pads soon and was just looking to get a couple of games on the cheap. I guess I will just save up for MAX 2 and Extreme.
 
Yeah, you would probably be better of with Max 2 and Extreme. The only real reason I could see getting 2nd Mix for DC is if you really like Captain Jack and Smile.dk songs since 2nd Mix had 3 Captain Jack songs and 2 Smile.dk songs, all of which except for 1 Captain Jack song from 2nd Mix on DC (in the Navy '99 XXL Disaster Remix), have not appeared in any US DDR games and I don't think any Smile.dk songs will ever be in a US DDR game due to licesning.
 
Thanks. I'm thinking about the fliptop.

Also, I think Japanese DDR Extreme is the only one that's a ton better than its US counterpart. The Japanese Max and Max2 don't have enough songs that stick out for me to get yet. As said before, check out the ddrfreak songlists.
 
Even if you only get Extreme, at least you won't get bored with it anytime soon. It took me 2 days of playing at about 1 1/2 hours each time to just go through the default songlist ONCE with out all the unlocks. It also seems to be taking a long time to unlock songs but I don't mind that since that's part of the fun of playing.
 
I don't recommend the slide card trick, you could screw up the dvd drive this way. And if you want to mod your ps2, I HIGHLY recommend sending it to someone that has modded it before. Its way harder than soldering the psx.

Fliptop with swap magic would be good for you but I've heard those cases can break easily.
 
I also have a question about the memory card. For gamecube, I know that it can be fatal to have import and US data on the same memory card. Is it the same for PS2 or not? And is there would there be any chance for my US Extreme data to interupt with my Jap one?
 
Japanese games save on American cards without a problem and DDR Extreme and DDR Extreme (J) will register differently on your memory card. I don't know why it works that way on the Gamecube, I had to learn that the hard way when I bought Animal Leader a few years ago. Luckily at the time, a lot of games came with a memory card 59 (like Animal Leader) so I didn't have to buy one seperately.
 
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