Video Game Blog 038: SoraRabbit Dances Part VI
It feels like I was just here reviewing Just Dance 2023! As I mentioned last time, I got a little behind in my annual play-throughs due to several factors. So this year I’m playing catch-up.
For those of you new here, I have gone through every game in the Just Dance series, reviewed them, and talked about my experiences and thoughts. The previous posts in this series are:
008: That Time SoraRabbit Figured Out He Knew How to Dance
SoraRabbit Short Hop 009: More Dancing
SoraRabbit Short Hop 013: Even More Dancing
Title card. (Credit: Ubisoft)
Just Dance 2024 was released in 2023 by Ubisoft for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. This is the fifteenth installment in the series and there are 41 new tracks with some alternate versions that have different choreography. This is the second “annual song pack” following the new release format introduced by the previous game.
The current season. (Credit: Ubisoft)
For those who need a refresher or skipped the previous post, Just Dance 2023 changed the format of the series forever by releasing a free “base game” and annual song packs that work the same way as their previous annual releases. The base game works as a hub that you download the new songs into. So there are no new disks or cartridges. The game has gone fully digital.
More new songs are released every few months in the “Season” mechanic. The seasons give you 4 temporarily free songs and a progression track where you can earn exclusive rewards. The duration of the season is around two months. Every song you dance to earns you points towards these rewards, and the subscription service Just Dance+ earns double points.
I already went over all the changes last time. Since that post did all the heavy lifting, this post will be much more brief.
So bright and cheerful. (Credit: Ubisoft)
There really isn’t much going on in this one, sadly. They did add a handful of new playlists and some new tasks to complete. I spent a lot of time on the Progression screen looking through tasks, sometimes planning my day’s play around the tasks I figured I could knock out to make some easy experience points. I completed tasks for playlists and songs I knew I could get 5-stars or Superstar on. One annoying thing… if the tier 1 task was to get 5-Stars and tier 2 was to get Superstar, you cannot achieve both in one attempt.
Running through the tasks, I noticed many of them involved playing in a group. Since I always play this solo, I decided to activate a second Joycon and set it aside so the game assumed I was playing two player. This helped me get through a lot of tasks. (You’ll notice in all these screenshots there is a Player 2. That’s why.)
My profile screen. (Credit: Ubisoft)
Because the progression carries over, I started JD2024 on Bronze Prestige, Level 27 with all the prizes I’d unlocked last time. (Including the ones from the previous Season.) Starting on Level 27 was a mixed bag. For one thing it did eliminate some of the “new” feeling that always comes with a new edition.
On the other hand it was somewhat of a comfort to be able to continue my progress from where I left off. All in all, I think it helped replayability. If you see dozens of level tiers ahead of you but you’ve already danced to all the songs four times, there isn’t much making you keep going. Being able to install the new year song pack and have 41 more songs to explore gave me more of a reason to keep grinding levels.
At the time of this writing I am now on Silver Prestige, Level 15. (Essentially Level 65 out of a possible 150.)
Oh no! Evil Discoball! (Credit: Ubisoft)
Downsides: Aside from some periodic (and frustrating) Ubisoft connection issues, the biggest problem I had with this one is that it feels like the same game. Part of the joy of each new year’s release was seeing what songs would be included and what changes and enhancements (if any) we would see. Firing up Just Dance 2024 is no different from 2023 because it’s the same game. There are new songs, sure, but very few new playlists and no new game modes or mechanics. At least there’s a new story mode.
Love it. (Credit: Ubisoft)
STORY MODE! That’s right, story mode makes its return. “Dance With the Swan” is a story told across 7 songs in the game. There is also a playlist that you can use to play all the songs in story order and earn an overall score for the whole thing. My final score for the playlist was 69,569.
Party crasher. (Credit: Ubisoft)
As the story starts, Wanderlust is dancing with Discoball in the Lobby of the Danceverses. This is a brightly-colored area with windows floating by showing the diffect dimensions where coaches are dancing. The main characters from last time appear in some of these floating windows with credits like the start of a sitcom. One of these is Sara in human form. At the end of the song, Sara’s window appears again and Wanderlust tosses Discoball into it. (This is how he summoned her last time.) We then see that this Sara was an illusion by Night Swan, who steals Discoball and corrupts it into an evil version of itself with her magic.
This is some pretty cool choreography. (Credit: Ubisoft)
Next we see Human Sara at a party with friends. We see that due to the events of the previous story, she now has the confidence to dance with her friends instead of just watching. (We also see her avatar is Wanderlust.) She sees what she thinks is the actual Wanderlust appear on screen and everyone around her freezes. He offers her Discoball and she enters the Danceverses before realizing Discoball is corrupted and Wanderlust is actually Night Swan.
In a ballet-like dance, Night Swan successfully corrupts Sara, turning her into a puppet— Dark Sara. Through one of his many windows, Wanderlust sees this happen and sets off to gather the Just Dancers.
Yup, Sara’s evil now. (Credit: Ubisoft)
Next are solo songs showing Brezziana on vacation and Mihaly in an apartment in a dark city. At the end of each, Wanderlust opens a window and beckons to them, showing what happened to Sara. A few notes here: Even on vacation Brezziana finds followers and leads them in an energetic dance. Mihaly is still practicing the Flow and is able to transform into Master Panda form. Also, apparently they were fans of or looked up to Night Swan… there was a poster of her on Mihaly’s wall that they tear in half at the beginning of the song. (There’s some lore stuff here about this being Night Swan’s city and those that don’t follow her are imprisoned? I don’t know, I’ll look into that for the lore post. In an unconnected song we see someone escape from the prison as Night Swan watches from her crystal ball.) In both songs, Night Swan attempts to corrupt things— in Brezziana’s it’s the backup dancers, which she fights off using her powers of heart and dance. In Mihaly’s song Night Swan attempts to corrupt the magical realm that Mihaly can travel to using the Flow. Clearly she is trying to get to the other Just Dancers as revenge for last time.
Anyway, Jack Rose is temporarily distracted by an illusion his mother gives him of what it would be like if he returned to her side. Basically she would make him a star and everyone would want to be just like him. He seems disgusted by this idea, shaking his head at the magical pool he was looking into. But the downside of her illusion is that he can’t hear Wanderlust calling out to him asking for help.
Mihaly in panda form. (Credit: Ubisoft)
So Wanderlust was only able to gather two of his crew, but they go off to try and save Sara anyway. They don’t know they’re walking into a trap. Although Wanderlust, Brezziana, and Mihaly attempt to bring Dark Sara back to herself by dancing at her, she continues to be Night Swan’s puppet. Each dancer is corrupted by darkness, just as we saw last time. Mihaly fares the best, transforming into Master Panda and surprising Dark Sara momentarily. Before the corruption takes them, Mihaly manages to send out a panda paw signal with the Flow, which reaches Jack Rose, alerting him that his friends are in danger.
The gang’s all corrupted. (Credit: Ubisoft)
The last song on the playlist is Tainted Love (and it’s a cover I’d never heard before). On Night Swan’s swan-shaped ship, the four former Just Dancers are corrupted and dancing a dark dance as Night Swan looks on in approval. They’re all dark versions of themselves. (Mihaly has panda ears and makeup.) The four of them are clearly too far gone to even struggle against Night Swan’s influence anymore, and seemingly having a great time with it.
As the ship floats off into the dark ocean, Jack Rose finally arrives, too late. All he can do is watch the ship sail away hopelessly. We leave the story here, obviously to be continued in Just Dance 2025.
I like this cover. (Credit: Ubisoft)
So, yeah… it ends with a major downer, as all second chapters in a trilogy should. I didn’t like the abrupt ending, but at least it gives us the certainty that story mode will return for Just Dance 2025. I suspect it will involve Jack Rose recruiting new Just Dancers to save his friends and defeat his mother once and for all. I hope we’ll get some of her backstory. According to the promotional material, Night Swan failed as a ballerina and that’s possibly what turned her to the dark side of dance. I’m picturing Jack thumbing through old photo albums and a flash back dance of a young Night Swan giving up on ballet, maybe with her teacher taking an antagonistic role.
Who could be the new Just Dancers? Possibly Master Panda for Mihaly’s slot… one of Brezziana’s proteges… maybe Wanderlust’s parents, since they have both appeared in previous editions. (Again, wait for the lore post. I’ll get into it.) Or just a crew of brand new characters.
Of course it could go completely differently and just be Jack saving each of his friends one by one. Either option would be kind of predictable. Maybe it will be a bit different next time and they’ll flip the script… instead of Jack coaxing his friends back from the edge, maybe Night Swan will be redeemed and help undo what she’s started. We’ll see what path they take with it.
Cool character design on this one. (Credit: Ubisoft)
Story aside, there is really little to make this game stand out over the previous installment. That one was interesting because it broke all the rules and changed the status quo for the series. But due to the nature of the new release format, this game is identical to that one aside from the new story playlist and the new tracks. This isn’t a unique complaint: the game pretty much stagnated for a few years prior to JD2023, where we had the bare white stripped-down aesthetic for years in a row. So we don’t really expect them to reinvent the wheel every time.
Ah, this brings me back… (Credit: Ubisoft)
Actually, one thing that does stand out to me about this one is its difficulty. For the past several installments, the difficulty has been much lower, the move scoring very forgiving. These tracks have a marked increase in the difficulty and variety of moves. In previous games I had a ton of high scores. In this one I ended up with a lot of 4 stars and even a 3 star. Out of the 41 tracks I got 14 Superstars and only 4 Megastars.
One of my big complaints for the previous version was in the chaotic, constantly changing dances. (Those kinds of crazy, patternless dances were usually relegated to Extreme versions.) This one was a lot better. Songs like Shine a Little Love, Survivor, and What Doesn’t Kill You were like old-style Just Dance. Easy to learn and remember the combos and movements. Also, Shine a Little Love featured the return of the claymation badger, reindeer, and panda from previous games along with the other claymation characters and settings. (The explorer, the crazy street locale, etc.) I liked the graphics and retro-feel of I Wanna Dance With Somebody, but I’m not good at the dance itself. I really like the Aerobic Version of Flowers, although I’m not much of a fan of Miley Cyrus. (I love See You Again, but that hasn’t shown up in the series yet.)
I always enjoy the aerobic routine dances. (Credit: Ubisoft)
Some of the dances were certainly fun, and some were prohibitively difficult. Some songs were great, and others were meh. It’s the nature of the franchise. As I discussed the series with my wife, I realized that one of the cool things about Just Dance is that it gives me an excuse to listen to music I ordinarily would never listen to— such as country, or K-Pop— and since it’s in the format of a game I can experience the music in a way that’s palatable for me. It’s just one of the many things this series has given to me.
As a side note— before Sara in JD2023, I never really gave much thought to the actual dancers who do the motion capture and choreography for the in-game coaches. Aside from the occasional “Huh, this one’s pretty talented.” Because of the interconnected story and the fact that Sara appeared in live action at a couple of points, I got curious. Human Sara is indeed the woman who serves as her model, and also played Night Swan. (So, technically, during the big boss battle, she was dancing at herself.) I also learned that she’s done some of my favorite dances in the series “Call Me Maybe” and “Last Friday Night” among others. Pretty cool.
Really weird dance and aesthetics. (Credit: Ubisoft)
Songs in this game include Butter by BTS, Chaise Longue by Wet Leg, Don’t Cha by the Pussycat Dolls, How You Like That by Blackpink, I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston, Stronger by Kelly Clarkson, Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky, Treasure by Bruno Mars, and more.
Best Song: Rapper’s Delight, performed by Groove Century. Score: 12,719. Aside from being a great song, this one had cool claymation graphics and easy moves to memorize.
Worst Song: Don’t Cha, by the Pussycat Dolls (featuring Busta Rhymes) Score: 7,748. This was one of those tough, ever-changing dances that I just couldn’t get the hang of. It was also my only 3-star.
Most Fun Songs: The first and last songs in this year’s story playlist were fantastic. Canned Heat by Jamiroquai and Tainted Love (covered by the Just Dancers) were both fun. Flowers (Aerobic Version) Rapper’s Delight, and Blue were cool dances. (More on Blue below.)
Oddest Choices: Whitney by Rêve was a strange one just because of the censorship. In the chorus they had to censor the words “fuck” and “smoke”. I’m Good (Blue) by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha has a weird dance involving chicken flapping, saluting, and hopping from side to side. The song itself was fine, but the dance was strange. (Weirdly fun, though.) It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (Andy Williams) was an odd inclusion, but you can dance as a human-sized Christmas stocking, so that earns it some points. My Name Is by D Billions was weird… but I believe it’s a kid’s song, so it can be weird. I don’t like when it gets stuck in my head, though. (“My name is Chicky! Chicky Chicky Chicky! Boom boom boom!”)
Wheeee! (Credit: Ubisoft)
All in all, as many times before, this is just another annual entry in the series. The only thing to make it stand apart is the story mode. I didn’t like Dance With the Swan as much as Enter the Danceverses, but it was fun and I’d rather there be a story mode than not. It just adds a whole new dimension to the games. This year’s story wasn’t as artful and the songs weren’t as good. As mentioned, the first and last songs were excellent, but most of them were bland, forgettable. Unlike last year’s playlist where every song on it counted among my favorites.
For the game outside that playlist, there were a lot of very challenging songs, the same variety of genres and release decades, good representation, some creative choreography and effects. I appreciate the continuing progression from the previous game and the inclusion of Seasons does help keep me coming back to see what the new prizes and free songs will be. The new release model is growing on me, and it’s coming to be a bit of a comfort and convenience to have two (soon to be three) versions in one place without having to swap out cartridges or disks. As the years go on, this will become even better as the selection of songs will continue to grow. Enough song packs and I’ll end up spending most of my dancing time in the hub. Hell, I may even finally cash in my free trial of Just Dance+.
And, finally, I am pleased to report that my wife Cocoashade watched me play several of the songs on this game and listened to me talking about the lore. She finally got curious enough to pick up Just Dance 2017 (the first one I have on the Switch) and work it into her exercise routine. She’s still getting into the groove of dancing every day or every other day, and learning the motion controls and movements, but it’s been fun watching her at the start of her Just Dance journey. It reminds me of years ago when I stuck the very first Just Dance into my Wii U and clumsily and self-consciously started learning to dance. Good times. She’s been with me throughout this long, ongoing journey, and so have all of you.
Don’t try this at home kids. (Credit: Ubisoft)
Thank you for reading my review of Just Dance 2024. I still enjoy this series despite my criticism, and enjoy putting these posts together for you all. If I get to it soon enough, there will be a third installment before the end of the year. And while I wait for JD2025 to come out, I plan to start my voyage back through all 15 of the games taking notes and screenshots for a big lore post in the distant future. Thank you for your continued support and for reading my posts. I appreciate you all and I’ll see you soon with more!
To be continued… (Credit: Ubisoft)
