Just Dance 2016

(Title card coming... whenever I have time to do it.)

You’ll tell me, “You’ve already reviewed three Just Dance games! There can’t be that much to say about a dancing franchise! Surely you’re gonna run out of material!”

Well, you’d be surprised what can be said still about Ubisoft’s Just Dance, one of its lesser franchises, one that doesn’t make the news as much. We can say so much about Assassin’s Creed, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, WatchDogs, or any of their other franchises (and everything that’s great and/or awful in them). We can say so much about Ubisoft and how they offer three dozen different editions of every game: a collector’s edition, a gold edition, a platinum edition with tie-in book and figurine, a silver platinum edition with the cap of the main character, a golden platinum edition with the autographs of every single creative consultant, a gold-plated platinum edition with a hair strand containing an as-close-to-guessed DNA of the virtual main character, a silver-gold-platinum-diamond-ruby-sapphire edition with all that and a urine sample of the nonexistent virtual character and if you buy all of them, Ubi also has a bridge to sell you.

"We love getting your money."
...Oh wait, that's actually EA's
motto. My mistake.

They also got the character coloration wrong. Probably
because the porcelain-white characters of the Just Dance
series would look a bit creepy without the usual human
features.

Oddly enough, there’s still a lot to say about Just Dance. We can say how, in spite of having a new edition out every single damn year, it still tries to innovate (emphasis on “tries”, its success is left up to you). We can say how it still glitches, freezes, or lags from time to time, once again making me think my Wii is faulty, yet it only happens with recent Just Dance games. I can even attest that the Just Dance games are the only ones to have ever caused my system to crash completely, requiring me to unplug it to solve the issue. We can say how Just Dance, having a phone app so that you can play anytime, on any TV, was blatantly advertised for many painful minutes in The Emoji Movie of all things – which, for the record, fuck no, I’m never reviewing that film even if it contains technology, Just Dance and Candy Crush. I’m drained with bad movies, I overdosed on Pixels. Besides, if the Internet was a physical place, you could throw a rock anywhere and it would land on a review of the Emoji Movie anyway.

From the choreography
for Martin Garris' Animals.

If we get down to the basics, Just Dance is always the same thing. Follow the movements, score 10,000 points to get 5 stars on a song, and try to get 5 stars on every single song. Play in multiplayer with friends, or matched against random people thanks to the World Dance Floor. Forget the industry bullcrap surrounding it, today once again we’re revisiting the simple game, its simple concept, in what is probably my last Just Dance review. (Because I work at night, cannot play on evenings, and my feet hurt because of standing for so long at work so dancing is a no-no lately).

Still so many options!

What else, really, is there to say about the franchise? Well, back in late 2015 I compared JD2014 and JD2015, and in particular I said how I disliked the new system implemented in JD2015. In trying to make the game friendlier to multiplayer, the franchise’s developers at Ubisoft removed a lot of elements that I liked. Among other things, in JD2014 all choreographies – the original ones and their alternate versions – were counted in the total of stars accumulated, and you were encouraged to try and get a 5-star score on each and every single one of them. In JD2015, this was changed in such a way that alternate choreographies didn’t matter anymore. Sure, you could unlock them, beat them even, but it did barely anything for your total progression of the game.

It’s, unfortunately, once again how things go in JD2016, with the main choreography taking most of the place in the selection screen, with any alternate ones in smaller squares next to it. I guess it’s pretty fun to see mashups being given themes, it shows that the franchise has gone on for so long that it can actually pick in its humongous database of previous dancers to build on themes. It’s cool. Wished it actually mattered towards completion, is all.

You have to admit, this does look pretty awesome.

When it comes to the style, this entry of the franchise tries to innovate once more and attempts to be even more dynamic than the previous ones. I mean, every time, you have to wonder how they can top the previous entries. Aren’t they just going to reach “peak dynamic” at some point? A time will come where they just cannot improve any further, right? Most improvements on that end have been made on background elements with time, but there have been greater ameliorations here.

Hey, what's the guy from JD3's I Don't Feel Like Dancing
doing back there? Go back to your game!

The shining example of this new dynamism is shown in the main choreography for Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk. The figure to follow on the screen constantly switches between four different dancers, although they do the same choreography and switch between each other in rhythm with the music. This is different from dance mashups that combine various dancers and the dance levels they originated in. Even better with Uptown Funk might be the backgrounds, which shift around various places of a colorful city. A ton of work went into that.

But that’s not the best part about this song’s choreography, as it also showcases something else that has become more common in JD2016 and a step-up from previous games: NPC background dancers. By which I mean, not secondary dancers that you can select and follow for a choreography. I really do mean characters from current or past dances, dancing in harmony with the song. There’s Uptown Funk, which uses various characters from previous Just Dance levels. Then we have songs like David Guetta’s Hey Mama, in which the main dancer is accompanied by two back-up dancers and an entire crowd of copies of those two. Just look at this! It’s actually quite impressive.

Seriously, my jaw dropped the first time
I saw that. Holy wow. 

There’s only so much I can say about the style and graphic improvements of the game. As for choreographies and the scoring system, they always work the same way. Get to 10,000 points, that’s 5 stars on a song, and you get as many Mojo coins as the number of stars you’ve just scored. On the World Dance Floor, you earn more Mojo Coins if you made it to the Top 3 in the group of 8 dancers you’ve been put in. Mojo Coins have been a staple of the series since JD3 in 2011. Back then, they were used solely to unlock new songs. Starting with Just Dance 2014, icons were added to the mix, many of which are unlocked by beating choreographies once (one sticker icon, or avatar, per choreography), with bonus avatars unlocked by paying Mojo Coins. Alas, you cannot pay with real money to get Mojo Coins and unlock avatars easily. Wait, why do I say “alas”? I hate microtransactions in most games! Speaking of which, you can still unlock new songs by paying real money here. The online store still works, even on the Wii, in spite of the Wii’s Wi-Fi Connection ending in 2014.

There are, as far as I know, 239 avatars in JD2016. Many are unlocked by beating their respective song, some are found by paying Mojo Coins (all the way to 500! Thankfully, most avatars cost 20 or less, with some costing 50), then some are found by reaching a certain Dancer Level on the World Dance Floor.

Reaching the World Top 3 also gives bonus Mojo Coins.
You do need them, but all things considered, you need
the World Dance Level to increase even more. 

Ah yes, that multiplayer element that lets you join a group and play against 7 other people in the world. It has its flaws, some fairly major ones too. Once the current edition of Just Dance is outdated, people inevitably move to the newer game in the series – and that one will have thousands of dancers on the busiest times. Meanwhile, the players in the older editions are less than a hundred. When I checked for this review, on a Sunday afternoon, JD2016 had 36 dancers. Only 36. Oh, it’s still possible to get a high dancer level… but you need to grind a lot, since the hardest avatars to get require a dancer level of 5000… and since you can earn, at most, 7 levels at once (and that’s if you reach first place every single time against the other players)… well, do the math: You’d need to reach first place 715 times. If every choreography was played an equal number of times (which isn’t the case as the game has its favorites), you’d play each choreography about 13 times. It’s kind of insane. Split it over the year? Then remember to play at least three songs a day on the World Dance Floor if you want that Level 5000 Avatar. And that’s assuming you always reach first place, since second place gives 6 levels, third place gives 5, and so on.

Too much work for an avatar, really. I can earn the previous ones, that’s true, but it’s still a staggering amount of work. And yes, it’s also true that by trying to reach Level 5000, we earn tons of Mojo Coins that let us unlock more avatars… For the record, my current dancer level is 407. It could have been higher, but then my job happened. (And if I have to pick between a job and an avatar... well, it's an easy choice.)

Once again, I was surprised by a One Direction song.
I mean, it doesn't sound bad at all!

On to the selection of songs: If there’s one thing I cannot blame Ubisoft for, it’s the choice of songs for their franchise. Once again, JD2016 delivers with a lot of titles. Many are pop songs that were popular in 2015 (because the game, like new cars, always comes out at the end of the year before the one that makes up the title, for some reason – JD2015 came out what, in October 2014?). There’s no less than 43 main songs in this one, with 13 “special” alternate choreographies, which are unlocked with – what else? – Mojo Coins. Once again, we’re regaled with solo songs, duets, trios and dance crews, as well as a ton of dance mashups (there’s about 10 of those). Grand total: 66 levels. Not half bad! Maybe that’s why the game keeps crashing, there’s too much stuff in it.

(For the record, my Wii crashed while I was playing JD2016, while I was browsing the songs to look for the choreographies I love and hate for an upcoming list.)

This one's pretty damn tough.
I kinda dislike it, in a weird love/hate sort of way.

The dance mashups have themes, as I explained earlier, but the alternate choreographies do too. Wanna dance to Born This Way as a nerd? Now you can! How about celebrating Uptown Funk as three men in tuxedos? Yep! Hey Mama with geishas? Sure. I Gotta Feeling with classroom kids? Why not. Hit The Road Jack as a line dance, with dancers in country attire? Have a blast. That one’s tough as Hell though. It also includes super-hard, “Extreme” choreographies, if you want a real challenge. If your body can take it, that is. Channel you inner Reggie Fils-Aime and make sure your body is ready.

Of all the Disney songs I thought I'd see in Just Dance,
Under The Sea wasn't on my list... but they made it work!

As for the selection, aside from newer pop songs, we also have at least one track from a Disney movie (This time, it’s Under The Sea, though we also have Junto A Ti). Then we have older dance classics such as Grease’s You’re The One That I Want, Hit The Road Jack, These Boots Are Made For Walking or Copacabana. As usual, we even get a few odd or unexpected tracks, such as the Balkan Blast Remix (AKA The Angry Birds theme), the Ievan Polkka, an Irish Meadow Dance or the William Tell Overture. And those are some of the best!

Eh, I suppose 30$ a year for 300 songs guaranteed is better
then 40$ a year for only 50 new levels...

I guess that says it all… As usual, I have mostly praise for a Just Dance game. Big shock, huh? Who didn’t see that coming? These games always look great, play mostly well, and are decent exercise if you play multiple songs every day. I disagree with a lot of Ubisoft’s practices lately, but they’ve left the Just Dance series as it is. Or so I thought, until I learned that they now had a paid on-demand service which, granted, gives access to over 300 different songs, at the cost of 30$ USD for a full year. Because we always gotta pay more nowadays, am I right? Well okay, 300 songs for 30$ is a damn good deal, but still… do we always have to have paid services in games nowadays?

I’m straying from the point now. Just Dance 2016 doesn’t have this service on the Wii, so I can avoid that topic. But what else can I say? Well, my game crashed quite a few times, as I made sure to point out in the review, so you can tell the major problem I now have with the franchise. I don’t know why it crashes. It just does, and then I have to unplug the Wii to make it work again. I swear, if this franchise damages my Wii, it’ll “crash” down from one of my favorite franchises to one of my least favorites!

That was from JD2014. How many people do you
think are playing that one now? My money's on "Not
enough to fill an 8-people room".

The problem with Just Dance nowadays is that it focuses a lot on multiplayer, mostly through the World Dance Floor, which becomes like a desert as the years pass. The WDF of older editions get barren, which makes it less fun to increase your online dancer level. The only option to see many people playing is to always buy the newest edition - but then you have to start back from 0 to increase your dancer level again.

When it comes to difficulty, I felt that the levels in JD2016 were great. Few levels with parts that were too difficult. Every level felt fair, basically. Sure, there are parts that are trickier than others, but there isn’t any form of “fake difficulty” that I can think of. As a matter of fact, on 280 stars to collect (with 5 per choreography), I’m only missing 2.

It’s a decent game. I can’t play it as much as I used to, because of work, but it’s pretty good. I can of course only talk for the Wii version. But yeah, it’s still a franchise I enjoy. I wished Ubisoft wouldn’t make games that crash so easily, but that’s Ubisoft nowadays.

Of course, because I rarely run out of ideas to talk about the franchise, I decided to make two new lists of Top and Worst levels in Just Dance, this time mostly containing levels from this game, but also a few that I forgot to mention from the previous games I reviewed in 2015 (JD2014 and 2015). See you then.