In 2015, I made a big mistake. I split my favorite and
least favorite Just Dance levels in two lists, one which had 24 items, one
which had 12. Because I’d much rather be positive. However, I had not played
enough Just Dance 2014 to discuss some of the levels in it, whether it’s the
ones I like or dislike. The lists would have been much more different, had I
gone to do this. Now, Just Dance 2016 was not a part of those lists, so most
entries on this list and the next one will be from that game – but expect to
see a few levels from Just Dance 2014 and 2015 in the lot, either as levels I
used to like but don’t anymore, or levels I grossly oversaw during my original
list and now deeply regret skipping.
And since I like to get the bad out of the way before
I discuss the good, I will start off with a new, updated list of 12
(technically more) levels I utterly despise in Just Dance 2014, 2015 and 2016. Also note that most levels came back on the Just Dance Unlimited service, usually with improved graphics, and that's where I got my better screenshots for this list.
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| Microsoft, G4? Product placement much, Pitbull? |
Yeah, I know, it’s another case of “I hate one of the
names behind the song so I put the song on the list”. I made my hatred of a
certain guy clear in my previous list. However, it’s not exactly a reason to
hate the level itself, so I’m placing it at the bottom of the list. The level
itself isn’t quite bad, just forgettable. The difficulty is fine, the dancer looks alright, the Gold Moves are spaced out and easy to make. I don’t quite hate
Pitbull, though it feels as though he’s trying to cooperate and team up with
every single musical artist out there. When is he teaming up with Metallica? I
want to hear that. I'll live happy not hearing the other guy on this song, though.
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Thanks to the lyrics for pointing out that we are
listening to nonsense. |
Just Dance loves to include choreographies by duets,
trios and dance crews. Some duets are paired off pretty well, others aren’t.
Every choreography that comprises more than one member should be paired off
pretty well, actually, but sometimes things just don’t seem to work all that
well. Personally, Gibberish always gave
me that effect. It’s enjoyable enough, but I’m not a big fan of the
choreography and feel it doesn’t really mesh, especially the interactions
between the two dancers. There’s also that part in the actual gibberish part of
the song, in which the camera moves a little forward, only to snap back in its
original place afterwards. Not even sure why. Might be just to show off the
effect… which, you know, that’s not necessary, other levels do it better.
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I know we joke about brain bleach, but is there such a
thing as auditory bleach? I need to erase this from my
musical memory. |
This song grates on my brain like a concert of nails
of chalkboards and forks scratching on porcelain plates. Honestly, that wouldn’t make it bad enough to deserve a spot on this list, but the song is so unbearable to
me that I can’t enjoy the level. Sure, it has cute dogs as imagery, and it also
includes a colorful dancer wearing a dress with a square poking out from the
middle of it… er… well, I can’t say I know the name for this, I’m not one for
fashion. The whole thing feels like an assault on my senses. Weak justification, I know. It makes the experience unpleasant to me, in spite of the attempts at making it fun, with plenty of puppy pictures to go with the title of the song...
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I love this song. I love the visuals.
I hate the choreography. |
My Wii hates Ellie Goulding. That, or it picked the
most awkward coincidence. When my copy of Just Dance 2015 crashed for the first
time, it was during Ellie Goulding’s song Burn. My copy of Just Dance 2016
crashed, badly, for the first time while I was playing the choreography for
Ellie Goulding’s Lights. My dear Wii, what has Ellie done to you? With this
trivia done, I need to say why I don’t like this level. It looks beautiful,
much like the level for Burn, but the score increases at a snail's pace, in no small
part due to the slow movements. See, the thing is that the score of 10,000 is
measured over the number of movements over the song’s duration, usually
reaching above 12,000 to give the player some leeway. That makes levels fair, because
it would be impossible to get to 10,000 if you needed to score a Perfect on
every single movement. In a few levels, such as Lights, I feel like the
choreography makes it almost impossible to reach 5 stars, as though the scoring
ended at 10,500…
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These boots are bad for dancing, so what am I gonna do?
I will kick off these boots and then put on a pair of shoes. |
It’s safe to say some levels on this list have gained
a spot on it simply by being difficult. There are some levels that are very
tough but fair. Not all hard levels are fair. In These Boots Are Made for
Walking, the choreography is mostly the same, but on each of the three repeats
of the chorus, a part of the choreography differs – and, of course, that’s
where the Gold Moves are. For the record, Gold Moves are that moment in a song
where an upcoming movement is highlighted in Gold as it comes by the screen,
and when it happens the screen is surrounded by golden flashes of light. These
moves are frequently important or paused for that reason. The
positioning of these moves can be detrimental to the whole choreography, and
can sometimes screw you over if you’re unprepared - or if the movement detection has been done poorly on them, which happens more often than you'd think. That’s the case for this
one, in my opinion.
Yet another song that is particularly tricky, and one
that is a trio to boot. Now, most alternate versions are fun, or use a fun
theme, or go for the silly aspect (A stereotypical nerd for Born This Way?
That’s funny). The song Hit The Road Jack is given a square dance makeover,
complete with three dancers dressed like cowboys.
Visually, it’s still beautiful. The background looks nice and the main dancers
are accompanied by a crowd of NPCs in the background. However, like many other
tracks on here, this one is TOUGH! I have gained a whole new level of respect
for square dancers now. This one’s a challenge. I don’t really like it, mostly
because it involves a lot of turning around – and if there’s one thing I
dislike in Just Dance in general, it’s choreographies that make you turn around
so you can’t look at the screen to see what the next moves are. It’s also
surprisingly difficult to get 5 stars on this one. And I’m playing on the Wii! I don’t
want to imagine what it’s like to play on any other platform…
6. High-speed choreographies of traditional foreign
songs
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Ah yes, a trio of dancers turning in a circle.
Real easy to do as a single player. |
Just Dance frequently includes unexpected tracks.
Among others, we often get traditional tracks from other locations of the
world. If the track itself is not traditional, the dance is often reminiscent of
common dances from another part of the world. Epic Sirtaki, as an example, is
a Greek dance that starts off as unbearably slow, only to pick up speed until
it gets insane. Too insane. Isidora, sung in Serbian, is a similar deal that
seems to start off pretty basic, until it goes crazy. Too crazy. Epic Sirtaki
is also a trio, one that practically requires more than one player to play
correctly, as there are many interactions between the on-screen dancers, along with a lot of spinning around, which
makes going through it as a single player pretty difficult. As for Isidora, if
you want to know how fast it is, just know that it’s officially one of the
fastest songs in Just Dance History, at 203 beats per minute. The difficulty on
these two is cranked up to 11. They are tough. Fun songs! They sound great! But
I dislike them. I mean, the Isidora one ends with the character fainting from
exhaustion, which I believe represents these two levels very well. Also not a recommended dance move on hard wood floors like mine.
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Wow, the speed on this one really IS insane.
Slapping myself seems like a very pleasant dancing move right now. |
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| Doesn't she know that too much pink energy is dangerous? |
Have you been overexposed to some songs? In my case, I
can’t stand most Christmas music. Others will say they’re fed up of still
hearing Somebody That I Used To Know, while others may be tired of I Took A
Pill In Ibiza. I think we all agree that, this year, Despacito was the
overplayed song that just wouldn’t stop airing, and we all wished it stopped. Or was it Shape of You? How does this relate to Just Dance? Overexposure can happen there too. The World
Dance Floor, in particular, has its favorite tracks. Throughout 2016, I played
a lot on JD2015’s World Dance Floor. And once every two or three songs, the
game would go back to Katy Perry’s song Birthday. I think, at the time, there
was a professional dancer who was also playing the game in Ubisoft’s studios,
and they were basically around only to play to Birthday. That or their
performance was recorded in-game and played each time Birthday was picked
randomly for the WDF. I swear, I played this song dozens of times on the
multiplayer mode of JD2015, because that fucking song played all the goddam
time instead of any other. I am honestly sick of this song. It’s not even all
that peculiar, just a bright and colorful character singing about birthdays and
sex. “It’s time to bring out the big balloons”, huh? Classy as ever.
4. Extreme versions - JD2016
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A real circus? Where are the clowns and the weirdos?
Oh right, they're in the original level for the song. |
Mind you, I’m not against difficulties in game such as
Just Dance. There are choreographies that are made to be harder than others,
and there’s been songs marked as “Extreme” (or “very difficult”) ever since
JD2014. These stand out because they’re the only two in Just Dance 2016. Also,
they’re very fast-paced and difficult, involving a lot of complex movements in
rapid succession. It’s difficult to keep track of everything you have to do.
Granted, the game is fair and the dances go back to the same series of moves
whenever the chorus comes back, but it’s still very tricky. The wide spinning
of the character’s arms in Animals is just one of the tricky elements. However,
while I despise these two for being very hard (which is kind of the point of
Extreme choreographies anyway), there is worse out there... and the worse doesn't even involve extreme movements!
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| There's a reason I haven't beaten that one yet. |
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| Read the part surrounced by a red rectangle. |
For some inexplicable reason, the scoring system on
this one differs from the others. It’s got to be more than just an impression.
Even the official Just Dance Wiki backs me up on this one. First, it’s a sweat
mash-up, meaning that it’s designed to be good workout, taking particularly
lively pieces from previous choreographies. You’ll be playing it a lot, as the
score increases at a much slower pace than any other song in the game. It has
the same average number of moves as any other level, yet it’s a slog to play
through for the first half. It’s like your Perfects score as much as mere
Okays! That makes this sweat mash-up one of the hardest and unfair levels in
all of Just Dance history. You want to know the worst part? I think the scoring
actually goes exponential. As in, every move is worth a little more than the
preceding one, which might explain why the very final moves seem to give the
most points – in other words, unless you can master these moves and at least
ace the last half of the level, you don’t stand a chance. On top of being
unfair, it features moves that are actually pretty tricky to get Perfects on.
As f it wasn’t already hard enough!
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I kept in the YouTube stuff for a reason. See, this is the
halfway point of the song. The player currently has only
2 Stars. By that point, any good Just Dance Player would
already be at 3 stars, maybe even close to 4. |
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You can't see it in a single picture. In fact, you can't notice
it by watching the choreography. You need to play it to
understand my point.
My annoyed face? I blame it on the boogie, yes. |
Of all the choreographies that I hate, including those
in the previous Worst Levels list, this one is in the Top 3. Blame it on the
Boogie features a family, two kids, two parents, dancing to the song. The
movements themselves call to mind the saying “The Devil is in the details”. The
choreography doesn’t seem so difficult at first, the characters do the same
movements and have good chemistry. However! The longer you play, the more you
notice some little things. Characters will do movements that are slightly
different from expectations, as if the dancers during motion capture recording
had made a few mistakes. Things aren't exactly in sync. Some moves differ ever so slightly even when everyone seems to be doing tehe same thing. Those differences are counted into the score, by the way. Either
that, or the movement detection was poorly done on this one. Just a terrible,
awful level. It’s utter crap.
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| I am very suddenly tempted to give her a 10$ bill. |
Yay, required accessories! Who doesn’t like that when
playing games? Good ol’ wheel for Mario Kart Wii, the gun-shaped remote holder
for hunting games… plain old chairs! Can’t believe I didn’t think of adding
those to my previous list either. Starting with Just Dance 4, the developers
experimented with levels where characters used items like katanas or umbrellas.
Usually the Wii remote replaced the item. No such luck with a chair! The first
chair choreography, for Gwen Stefani’s Rich Girl in JD2014, sees the character
turning around the chair, turning the chair, sitting and doing dance moves on
the chair as well. A few problems arise with this: If you don’t have a decent
chair on hand, or one close to the one used in the level, you’re screwed. On the Wii, one of your hands is occupied with
the remote, so turning the chair isn’t easy. Oh, and if the chair isn’t large enough
or comfy enough, or too heavy, or tall… or if it has arms… well, these are all
elements that can ruin the level.
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Um... all of the Nope. I am not doing that upside-down final move.
Fuck that shit. |
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A step in the fight direction...
were it not a Duo requiring TWO backless chairs. |
It came back in JD2015 for Rihanna’s Diamonds as a
simple seated dance, so you stay on the chair at all times. However, they also
had the brilliant idea to make it a duet, so now you need TWO chairs, right
next to each other, with your bodies and, perhaps, the backs of the chairs
getting in the way. It doesn’t really work either.
The irony is that, in JD2016, a seated dance was done
correctly (it’s called “Car version”, but whatever). The other two levels I
discussed here? They suck. Completely and utterly. But hey, if it led to one
good level, there’s that.
Come back for the next list, a much more positive one!
This is the worst and most inaccurate list out there
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