Dance Central 3 Review

I got my first taste of these popular dancing games with Just Dance 4 and I had been interested in seeing how it fares to Harmonix’s Dance Central series. After I’ve had enough time to properly digest both games I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m still out of shape and that these games should be used as interrogation methods.

Dance Central 3
Developer: Harmonix
Price: $50
Platform: Xbox 360 (reviewed)
An Xbox 360 copy of Dance Central 3 was supplied to us

I’ve been told that Dance Central is the at the top of the dancing game genre and I can definitely see why I’ve been hearing that all these years. Harmonix continues to flex their expertise with the musical genre in this game with the same confidence as their Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles. The game humorously has an actual story mode that seems like something I’d see in a terrible B-movie. You play as a dancer recruited by the Dance Central Intelligence to go back in time to each decade in dance (70’s-00’s) to learn their super dance moves. You then use these dance moves to battle the sinister Dr. Tan to save the city, Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo style.

You’ll find a little over 40 tracks to shake your butt to with a good mix of stuff from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and more modern dance songs. Unlike Just Dance 4 you’ll see the character you select dance in one of the various clubs that each have a specific theme dedicated to the decade they take place in.

Just like in the previous games you’ll start a song and have to follow a set of dance moves specific to your selected difficulty level; the harder the difficulty the more complicated the moves you’ll receive. They come up in very detailed cards that show up right next to the dancer so I don’t have to be looking too far away from either one. The Kinect felt pretty responsive about my moves and never had any issues with UI navigation or playing the game itself. I do feel a bit indecisive with what I think about the actual dancing though. While Just Dance 4 felt more like you could jump in and have fun without any complicated dance routines, they didn’t quite feel like proper choreographed dances, more like put together moves. Dance Central 3 on the other hand feels like a properly choreographed song but the songs are definitely a lot more complicated and I don’t see anyone who can’t perform these moves having much fun when they’re faced with constant low scores.

There’s an eight player Crew Throwdown mode where two teams go at for the reward of being the best dancer in a room full of terrible dancers. There are a few other mini-games to play but they’re not really super engaging like I was expecting; more like simple distractions when people get tired of dancing to complete songs. Make Your Move tasks players with creating their own dance routine and the other person has to match it which ends up being horrible to play because the game would either have issue with you repeating the dance move for it to record or with players trying to perform the move. There’s also a mini-game where one player needs to keep matching the beat to build their multiplayer and the other has to steal their multiplier by performing better. There are a few others but they really don’t get any more interesting than this.

Something I particularly enjoyed was how the game would tell you if your body was in the right position for a move by highlighting the specific body part red. With this I could always tell with what move I wasn’t doing right and could correct myself instantly; it really felt like I was actually getting the routine right instead of flailing my arms around like a wavy tube-man and somehow scoring perfects. It’s smart to stand far enough from the Kinect so that it can capture your entire body because it might not catch your feet/legs and you could be losing points because you’re not fully in view. I definitely found it a lot easier to keep up with the dance moves on the songs in this game than I did in Just Dance 4 too since the routine cards that pop up are way more detailed in what the upcoming move is and the dancers in the game are full 3D models that a lot easier on the eyes than the visual filters in JD4.

There’s a rehearsal mode that will helpfully take you move-by-move through each song and until you do well enough on a move you won’t be able to continue to the next one. It’s a helpful tool to slowly teach you the moves in each song but it did get frustrating when I would know I nailed a move as best I could only to be told I failed; you need to perform it perfectly for it to accept.

Dance Central 3 continues to improve upon the visual style set by Rock Band with a bigger focus on colors as opposed to the slight griminess the Rock Band games had. I definitely prefer the look of the characters on screen and the venues they dance in than Just Dance 4’s simple filters over a person dancing. There’s a nice variety in the songs, possibly more so than JD4, with a lot more masculine tracks for the men out there. The UI is pretty slick as well which controls smoothly unlike JD4; you simply hover your hand over what you want and swipe to the left.

The Final Word
Dance Central 3 and Just Dance 4 showed me this dance game craze is here to stay and I can see why. There’s definitely some pluses to both games so you’ll have to decide by song choice, or just get both like me.

– MonsterVine Rating: 3.5 out of 5 – Fair