Topway dance platforms

At last, my hard dance platforms from DDR Depot have arrived!

The Topway platforms weigh about 30 pounds. The buttons take more pressure to depress than on vinyl mats. I experienced a lot more misses at first from tapping the buttons or stepping on them off center. Playing Dance Dance Revolution in my socks, feeling when my feet miss the buttons surely improves my game.

Photographs don’t show two small black buttons atop each pad, sized for fingers, not for feet. One is Start, the other toggles the lights. When on, stepping on an arrow button lights up a ring of LEDs within the circumference. More for the benefit of spectators than for yourself, but it does enhance the arcade feel.

Unfortunately, there’s no button corresponding to Select. Without a Select button, you can’t activate hidden play modes (Little, Hidden, Left, Right, Turn, and Shuffle) or reset the game by depressing Select and Start simultaneously. Vinyl mats for the PlayStation have a Select button in the upper left corner, narrow but wide enough to step on. To do anything requiring Select with a Topway platform, you must unplug it, plug in a standard controller, press Select, unplug the controller, and plug in the platform again. Very inconvenient.

They also work with my Dreamcast edition of Dance Dance Revolution using a Total Control Plus PSX‐to‐Dreamcast controller adapter. Dreamcast controllers have no Select button, so to activate special modes and alternate character designs in the Dreamcast edition, you use the analog control stick on a hand controller, or step on the Konami logo that replaces Select on a Dreamcast vinyl mat. Since Topway platforms simulate neither, you can’t access hidden modes without swapping controllers.

Though rated to endure up to 250 pounds of weight, one pad could not endure rough handling by UPS. Its corner was broken into black plastic fragments. The pad was functional, but its internals were knocked out of alignment so that the power button wouldn’t remain depressed. Will write DDR Depot to inquire about getting a replacement.