I was particularly looking forward to DanceMasters, considering I enjoyed DanceDanceRevolution despite the fact of possessing two left feet. It was obvious at E3 2010 that everyone was having a blast with it, be it some executive in a suit or the next rhythm-game enthusiast in line sporting “insert game title here” t-shirt. However, Konami’s first dance title for Kinect proved to be a big challenge for me.
Unlike in Dance Central, here there is no practice mode to explain the moves in a given song and there are no previews of what to do next during the performance itself, so improving comes at the cost of memorizing a song. You can (and I definitely recommend it) go through the tutorial lessons to see how the game works before actually jumping into it, since the mechanics may seem easy and appealing but the process is actually not as simple.
Basically, you try to mimic the dancer on the screen as their mirror image while hopping to the crazy BPMs of the 30-song soundtrack composed of pop, hip-hop and club tunes that I’ve never heard before. Target circles will appear indicating where your hands and feet should be, and you do your best to keep up and do the right poses and movements at the right time. This doesn’t feel like a natural process though. It also seems like DanceMasters doesn’t track the body as well as Dance Central, instead focusing on whether or not your hands are inside the circles, your feet are in the green zones and your arms are following the arcs that appear on screen. Attempting to have your body parts in the right spots to match the in-game dancer results in a series of awkward jerky motions until eventually you begin to know the moves by repeatedly playing the same song. The poses are not to bad to achieve, but the so-called “Streams” (trails indicating how you should move your arms) somehow always seem off and never good enough.
As you do the right moves at the right time you earn a grade: Perfect, Great, Good and Boo. All will fill your Dance Gauge, except Boo which will deplete it. Filling up the Dance Gauge means you can access the Parallel Universe by timing a hand movement over the Gauge and holding your pose. Once it lights up, you swing your hand up and away you go. This is an absolute pain in the ass to achieve because as you attempt to hold your hand there, you are STILL being graded on the moves you must make, and missing them depletes the gauge. So, what am I supposed to do here, grow a third arm?
To top it off, I get to see my awkwardness blending in with the cool on-screen dancers who never miss a beat using the Live Action feature. The game can also take snapshots while you dance, and I figured this would make for some pretty funny pics to share, since the game keeps pictures and video for later “review”.
After a little searching, I found my snapshots but what came of it was a huge disappointment instead of a few laughs. It turns out that these supposedly funny scenes of me with the virtual dancers were just a blurry vision of a pixelized lonely me in a completely gray background. What the hell is that all about? I figured it out though, it’s because these recordings can be used to have multiple “mes” dancing in the background.
Super! I can now look multiple times weirder than I regularly am! But still, I figured the snapshots would have me inside the game screenshot, and then I could share it with friends. I guess not on both statements, since there’s no sharing feature either.
Aside from going it alone, you can hop into Dual mode with a friend (and due to space limitations probably smack each other a few times while attempting to do streams), or go online via Xbox Live and find three others to dance with.
Personally, I must be in a very good mood to play DanceMasters, because I know I’ll just end up frustrated. No matter how happy I feel before I start, a few songs later (even on Light mode) and I will have a mood swing that will make me turn it off – especially if I attempt to activate Parallel Universe, which I now feel must be the DanceMasters Elite Club! It’s definitely not for the clumsy novice like me. And at least with DDR I felt somewhat accomplished when I finished a song and moved on to something more complex and with a higher BPM, and not fail miserably.