Just Dance 2019 is the latest iteration of the dance craze game I usually see at arcades but never try it because it’s embarrassing to be seen in public dancing to weird looking people in colorful dresses and suits. But when my niece wanted the game so badly I find it hard to refuse and started searching for one right away. It wasn’t fun as tons of user reviews and complaints started popping up that doesn’t spell GOOD at all. From terrible connections with the phone app and to camera detection problems. More on that as I share my experience with both the app and camera on the link below.
For someone who hasn’t played any Just Dance game before, like seriously… not even once! A virgin as you may say when it comes to the franchise. I am blown away with how fun it is despite the few hiccups when it comes to setting it all up for the first time. There are 40 unique tracks excluding the fact that some songs has their own alternative choreography or the fact that it has a new set of dance moves but much harder than the first time. They offer a nice mix of popular tunes and brightly colored men, women, dinosaur, or panda dancers that just get you mesmerized even when you’re not a kid. Mi Mi Mi is my favorite track of JD 2019 for it being a quirky and lovable dance routine yet Adeyyo has this weird vibe with me that I just couldn’t understand why it’s my close second. And unlike rhythm games where you just press buttons on a controller or tap the screen to score points, not every song has an easy, medium, hard or even an extreme mode to master and that’s cool with me but some of them do have their own set of alternate dance choreography and extreme versions. The tracks offer enough enjoyment or challenge to go through considering you won’t simply be tapping buttons as they pass through the bar. Although it could’ve been fun to have a Hatsune Miku Project Diva EDIT Mode experience to which players can choreograph their own moves and upload them for other people to play with.
So while that is a huge miss not to have, the game, however, provides unlimited replayability through the dance-on-demand subscription-based streaming service Just Dance Unlimited. To which players from all over the world can experience every track from previous versions of the game including some exclusive content to mess around with. But in case 400+ Just Dance Unlimited tracks doesn’t sound unlimited enough for you, well I really can’t blame you… but that’s an awful amount of tracks that I find myself scrolling a hell lot to get through. There’s the good ol’ Asereje to which I had fond memories of when we danced it in grade school and songs like Happy by Pharell Williams or Handclap by Fitz and the Tantrums that just screams “FUN in more ways than ONE!” Actually, it didn’t scream that way but it did in my mind. And in case you’re still not fully convinced, a 30-day trial is there just to get you started with all that content. Just Dance Unlimited isn’t for everyone though, for people with terrible internet speeds, it can cause the streamed video to be reduced in quality, stop to buffer or worse… kick you out of the game to reconnect but having the trial helps a lot to decide whether you’d like it or not.
Tournaments… love them or hate them, it’s there! The World Dance Floor is the online mode and one way to get competitive when some to a ton of online dancers compete in completing the specific tracks to get the highest rank possible. And in case that’s not your forte, there’s also dancers of the week awarded to players who get the highest scores for each track just to show off your skills and your bling with the tons of customization options from avatars to the newly added titles you get by playing the game.
Be it the Just Dance Controller App you can download through “some and newer” smartphones, the Playstation Camera or Xbox Kinect and the Joy-Cons of the Nintendo Switch, each of them provides the enjoyment you’ll never get from other music-rhythm games and that’s the sweat. Sweating is an enjoyment after all to which you can change to a sweat mode to calculate your estimated calories burned per track. You get to lose that extra pound and the calories you gained from that extra pudding or slice of cake while still trying to consider it as play than an actual exercise. I wouldn’t be surprised if every parent would just get the game for their kids to get off the couch and just dance! See what I did there? NO? Okay… well, I guess all I’m really saying is it’s a game but also an exercise machine. And I didn’t have to be part of a gang of teenage kids with a talking dog driving around town in a van to solve this mystery!
Speaking of trying to get your kids to dance… there’s also the acclaimed kid’s mode aside from the regular mode. This mode however does not include all the fancy songs you get but is more catered with just one dancer to which smaller kids can follow along without having to be confused by others dancing with different moves. However the menu is a bit simpler unlike what you get with the regular one that even has the Pictos in case you get lost on what to do next. It’s more child-friendly which is good enough to get one going. And that’s what really matters.
When it comes to the regular mode’s menu it does offer the slick and clean interface that shows each track in a line of fives and hovering over one would preview the song a bit of dance moves you’d be expected to do. Sorting has a few options from the JD 2019’s tracks, alphabetical orders, number of dancers and difficulty. Going through on the left-hand side is where the home tab lies as well as the playlists, song list, search bar and profile card. The Profile option opens up dancer card customizations, gift machine which you can spin with the currency… Mojos you get based on the score you get, leveling up or finishing challenges. This awards you with new unlockables like avatars, artworks and alternative versions of specific tracks. Along those lines you’ll see the remaining days of your Just Dance Unlimited subscription as well as a video gallery to which all your Auto-dances that gets recorded by your camera are saved or uploaded along with other uploads be it most recent or most popular by people from around the world to which you can view at your convenience.
To whom is Just Dance 2019 you ask? Well it definitely doesn’t scream “buy me!” to previous players if you don’t mind not having the newer tracks but really gives the best reason to get it for new players trying to get into as the price tag of $39.99 for the US version is a bit too pleasing compared to the previous game which is priced at a higher value. All in all, it’s a worthy purchase to trick one’s mind into exercising which is never a bad thing until you’re sweating so hard your smartphone flew to the ends of the room after dancing to Mad Love. It’s time to Work Work that ass you crazy dancer you!
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