We here at SFist fondly remember the days of our relative youth (past the "kids under 12 eat free days" and before the "SENIOR CLASS OF 2004 SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES FOREVER" days) -- our days were spent stomping our collective feet to the beat of sugary sweet J-Pop tunes at the arcades.

Sure, the wonder and allure of Dance Dance Revolution has declined in the past couple of years -- gone are the golden days of having throngs of tourists stare in awe at the people whose feet "move so gracefully on that dancing game", media coverage about "that arcade game with no joysticks that fat kids lose weight to", forming and representing your own team at grand tournaments (great tournament video here and here) where hundreds of people would gather from all over to compete in either technical perfect attack (getting as many "perfect" steps as possible in a song) to freestyle (actually choreographing and performing dance routines while playing a song), or even the simple pleasure of knowing that going to the arcade at any random time would mean running into people you would know from posting on various DDR-themed forums.

SFist Paolo, contributing. Photo by Jeffrey Faden