SoraRabbit Short Hop 038: The Just Dance Replay

If you’ve been reading my posts for the past few years, you would know that I’ve already covered the Just Dance franchise in ridiculous detail. Well, it’s about to get even more ridiculous! As you may be aware, I’m working on a big post detailing the unexpected mythology of the Just Dance series. In my research for that, I started back on the first game and played my way all the way through each one, song by song. (For some of these games it was my third or fourth time through.) In the process of doing this, I decided I could revisit each installment in a post, talking about the things I may have missed or glossed over before, and giving my newer impressions, adjusted high scores, and game progress. I decided to make it a Short Hop instead of a Video Game post due to the length of the post. (I’m really pushing the boundaries of a Short Hop here, but it still works.)

For reference, here are the previous posts in my post series and which installments they covered:

008: That Time SoraRabbit Figured Out He Knew How to Dance (Just Dance, JD2, JD3, JD4, JD2014, JD2015)

SoraRabbit Short Hop 009: More Dancing (Just Dance 2016, JD2017, JD2018)

SoraRabbit Short Hop 013: Even More Dancing (Just Dance 2019, JD2020, JD2021)

Video Game Blog 014: SoraRabbit Dances Part IV (Just Dance 2022)

Video Game Blog 034: SoraRabbit Dances Part V (Just Dance 2023)

Video Game Blog 038: SoraRabbit Dances Part VI (Just Dance 2024)

Video Game Blog 044: SoraRabbit Dances Part VII (Just Dance 2025)

Just Dance, the first game in the series, had 32 songs. This game was simple and straight-forward, no frills. In this one, you have a gauge on the left of the screen that fills up as you perform correct moves. There are a couple of simple challenge modes and a stretching mode for warming up.

The progression on this one is a menu that shows all the songs with a border that changes depending on the score you get. The highest is a gold border when you reach 10,000 points. At 15,000 the icon gets a little crown on it signifying you have mastered the routine. As you can see in the above screenshot, I have them all at gold and 15 out of 32 crowns. I actually got several more of them on this latest playthrough. I guess I’ve gotten better!

High Score: Le Freak: 20,588 points. (Far above my previous high.)

Thoughts: This game is pretty iconic. It’s the first one I tried, and while rough, it’s a solid game. All the ideas are there, they just needed better execution.

Just Dance 2 had 47 songs. There were 25 tracks available as DLC, but are no longer accessible for those who didn’t previously purchase them, as the Nintendo Wii Shop Channel is closed. There wasn’t much more added to this game, but they did add Just Sweat (which tracks your calories burned) and Dance Battle, where you can play with up to 8 players. The game looks a bit more polished and the gauge is changed to a circular icon instead of the bar from the first game.

There is no Progress menu in this one, but they did add the star rankings, which continue to the latest release. You can earn from 1 to 5 stars. The difficulty on this game was much higher and I still have several songs below 10k points.

High Score: Girlfriend: 11,535 points. (Up about a thousand points from previous playthroughs.)

Thoughts: This one has a lot of memories for me, as it was way in the beginning of my Just Dance voyage. I like the extra gloss they added and the motion control is certainly better. It’s a fairly innocent time for the series, but the shopping cart icon in the top right forebodes future greed…

Just Dance Summer Party was released in 2011 and had 23 songs. This is a new addition to the list, as I only recently tracked down a copy and played through it. While not a mainline entry into the series, it is the DLC that was previously available for Just Dance 2. As mentioned, the DLC is unplayable otherwise now due to the closure of the Nintendo Wii Shop. (Unless you’d bought the tracks years ago.) It was missing five of the DLC tracks, but the rest of them are in this game along with two Best Buy exclusives.

Based fully on the mechanics and structure of Just Dance 2, this game looks and feels just like that one. This game is really low in content, but it’s a bit of a novelty now that the DLC is otherwise inaccessible. If I had paid full price for this game, I would feel like it was a bit of a ripoff. But doing the math, (which, mind you, I’m bad at) paying 200 Wii Shop points for each song as DLC (around $2 USD) this would equal to around $44. (One of the DLC was free.) The original retail price of this game was $30, so you saved some money waiting for this. I do like the idea of making the DLC available in this format, but it must not have sold well, because they didn’t continue doing it.

I only played each of these songs once, so my scores are all pretty low. The progression is the same as the previous game, just relying on the star levels for each song.

High Score: Funkytown: 10,789 points.

Thoughts: I had a bit of fun with this one and I picked it up on the cheap since it was a preowned copy. It was a nice little diversion and gave me routines I hadn’t been able to try before, so it was worth to to me.

Just Dance 3 had 42 songs. There were an additional 23 unlockable as alternates or mash-ups, and 3 medleys. (There were 11 more songs that were region, console, or retailer specific.) 37 songs were released as paid DLC on the Wii, and the price jumped up 50 cents each track. (Many of the DLC were from the previous two editions.) In this edition, you are given a “song style” after completing a song showing how the game interpreted your performance.

This installment finally moved the point gauge to the top, showing your number of earned stars there. This is also the first game to grant Mojo for completing songs, which is used to determine when you unlock the alts and mash-ups.

The progression on this edition is in the form of medals. There are three stages of each medal— bronze, silver, and gold. I have two gold (for playing over 150 songs and earning 30,000 Sweat points) 3 silver, 2 bronze, and 9 more I haven’t earned. The other medals are for playing different game modes, doing things in groups, and doing specific things on certain songs.

The other way of tracking your progression is on the song list. There is a star icon on the songs you have collected five stars on. I only have six. Many of my scores on the songs are below 10k.

High Score: Venus: 11,329 points.

Thoughts: This is where the game started to feel a lot more modern. It looks better but still has a ways to go. I like the idea of the medals for progression, although I really didn’t try very hard to complete them. I do like this kind of trophy mechanic in games. Overall this was a very solid installment.

Just Dance 4 had 50 songs. There were 10 alternates, and 33 mash-ups. (Not all of the alternates and mash-ups are available on each console version.) 17 songs are available in Puppet Master Mode and there are five battle songs. There are five Just Sweat Playlists. 21 songs were released as DLC across all the regions and the price again increased by 50 cents each.

The gauge returned to the side for this one, climbing with the star levels. This is where it stays from this version onward, although the look of the gauge does evolve as they go. The Mojo in this version has become a sort of level indicator. Levelling up activates a prize roulette, which gives you your alternate songs. Puppet Master mode allows one player to dictate the moves made by another player, utilizing the Wii U Gamepad.

The UI for song selection changed drastically in this one. Here you had to select the song from left to right. Pressing up gave you the alternates that had been unlocked. Pressing down shows scores and Dance Quests. Dance Quests are the method of progression in JD4. You can earn up to six check marks on the card. These are earned by getting a certain number of stars, playing the alt version, getting the gold moves, earning certain dance styles, and getting specific ratings at certain times of the song. My Dance Quest cards average 0 to 4 checks. I have two songs at 5 checks, none at 6.

High Score: Want U Back: 11,580 points.

Dance Style: Smooth

Mojo: Max.

Thoughts: As the first Just Dance game released for the Wii U, this one looks much better and had lots of graphical enhancements. The load times are also much, much slower. You would think they’d be faster, but it’s possible the Wii installments just loaded faster since i played them on my Wii U. This one had potential, but I didn’t like having to scroll around to see the progression for each song. I remember really loving the Just Sweat mode on this one. It was never again as good. In this game it worked as a sort of fixed workout routine instead of just counting your burned kcal.

Just Dance 2014 had 50 songs, 4 of which were regional exclusives and two were unlocked via codes. There were 28 alternate routines, but some were DLC or unlocked through Ubisoft Connect. There were 32 mash-ups. 10 songs available as Party Master versions. 4 Battle songs. There were 31 DLC tracks. This is where Ubisoft moved away from numbered entries and started titling their games for the upcoming year after release. There was also a big focus on online play.

This game is the first one where the Mojo is a spendable currency. Some songs would earn bonus Mojo, selected at random daily. Puppet Master mode has become Party Master. This is also the first edition with the World Dance Floor, which is a mode where you play online against other players. This continues for several more versions, but of course it’s inaccessible now as the Wii U servers are defunct. There was also microphone support added to this edition, but that seemed weird… I don’t have a microphone but I would often get points as though the game thought I was singing. A nice feature, which continues in the next one, was that connecting your Ubisoft account and logging into the game on each month of the year would unlock an exclusive mash-up. I’m missing four of these, sadly. The support for online was discontinued before I remembered that I should have been checking the game every month.

The progression on this edition was strange. The songs were on the left to right list as usual and each one showed the number of stars you’d earned over each version of the song out of the total available. (From 0 to 25.) Each alternate version was shown once you selected the song and you also had to then click on the “Hi Scores” button to see your scores. The score and your star level for the base song are not visible on the main menu, you have to click into it to see them. This is where you go to purchase alternate versions with Mojo. In the screenshot above this section you can see the alternates, one of which was a monthly I didn’t unlock, the other three I unlocked with Mojo.

High Score: In the Summertime, 11,867 points.

Stars: 364/445

Unlocked Songs: 40/40

Online Level: 0

Mojo: 278.

Thoughts: The UI on this one is terrible, but I get the thought behind the design— they wanted to clean things up, putting everything related to each song under that song on the list. It’s not user-friendly, though. I like to see my score and stars right on the song selection as I scroll. I like the monthly gift, but it’s too bad that we didn’t just get the missing ones before the service was discontinued.

Just Dance 2015 had 43 songs, including three regional exclusives. There are 10 alternate routines, 26 mash-ups, and 5 songs in Party Master mode. There were 20 Community Remix songs (where online players were the coaches) but only 1 of those is still accessible due to the shut-down of the servers. Similarly, there were 13 VIP songs— also inaccessible now— where celebrities were the coaches. There were 27 DLC songs and 6 DLC song packs available.

The focus on online content increased with this installment, leaving a lot of content unavailable in present day. You could even maintain friends lists, upload videos, and earn likes on them. Not interesting to me, but maybe some players enjoyed these features? I feel like they were struggling to get a bustling online community going. JD Wall is a feature where they would post your accomplishments in a list and show when you unlocked new versions of songs. It seems like the precursor to News-type lists that many games have nowadays.

The UI has changed in this one to eliminate the total number of stars, but you do still have to click on the song to see your score and mash-ups. The alt versions are now at the end of the song selection list in their own spots, which is an improvement. One thing that caused me all sorts of annoyance is that if you happened to hit the B button on the Wiimote, you would get thrown back to the start of the list, losing your place.

The part I really don’t like is that there are not scores given for the mash-ups. They don’t even track your stars for those! The only score you get is for the base song and only one per Dancer Card is listed in the Hi Score list.

There were several unlockables for the game. I honestly don’t recall how I unlocked stickers… probably playing the songs. The avatars are purchasable for 5 Mojo each, but I didn’t care enough to go through and buy them all. Other avatars are available for reaching different Online Levels (I guess by playing on World Dancefloor, or interacting with others online) all the way up to level 5000. Wow. I wonder if anyone ever reached that. Again, I am frozen at Level 1 forever because the online part is gone. Other avatars were before available by playing in online tournaments and redeeming your Ubisoft points. Both features are gone. (See a pattern here?)

High Score: Tetris, 11,351 points. (This one didn’t change from my previous playthrough.)

Songs: 66/72 (This is probably all the monthly mash-ups, but since they don’t track the scores and stars for mash-ups I easily could have just missed playing some of them.)

Stars: 279/360 (This number makes me think the game itself does track your stars for mash-ups and just doesn’t show them to you.)

Unlocks: 25/25 (I have no idea what this is. It’s too many to be the alternate versions.)

Avatars: 66/227

Stickers: 45/64

Total Mojo Earned: 807

Current Mojo: 461

Online Level: 1

Thoughts: I talked a bit about this in my original post, but this is the game where they started doing a lot of zooming and graphical distractions during the routines. It was very annoying. I really didn’t like the UI changes and the focus on online play makes much of this game unplayable in present day. I don’t want to be all negative, so I will say that the game looks pretty good. It plays well and the motion capture is improved. I did like some of the routines— Holding Out For a Hero and Mahna Mahna especially. Still, hanging so much on online play leaves out those who don’t want to, or can’t, play online. Also the UI is crap and the scoring feels neglected. All in all, JD2015 was a marked low point of the series for me.

Wow I barely did anything. (Credit: Ubisoft)

Just Dance 2016 had 43 songs. (It was 44, but one song is no longer available due to the shut-down of online services.) There are 13 alternate versions. 30 Mash-ups, although some were removed, same reason as before. Ditto for the ten Community Remixes. 7 songs were unlockable through Ubisoft connection. I got none of these. 5 Party Master songs and 10 Showtime songs. This was where the DLC was discontinued and Just Dance Unlimited premiered.

Aside from the shiny new subscription service, they also added support to optionally play with your mobile phone instead of the Wiimote. The classic Just Dance mode is now split into two versions- Dance Party and Co-op. Rival is the classic mode where you dance to earn stars. Co-op grants you gems as you dance and keeps track of how many you earned. There is also a game mode called Dance Quest, where you dance to three specific songs to earn trophies. There are three difficulty levels: silver, gold, and Dance Master. I didn’t try too hard on this mode, earning 16 gold and 1 silver. I didn’t try any Dance Master. Probably got distracted. I also got distracted from Co-op mode, having only played through about half the songs, earning 1-2 gems on each.

Other new features are the World Video Challenge, which lets you compete against other players online (or at least, it used to let you) and Showtime, which uses the camera in your Gamepad to record videos with different frames around them. I never tried this… the Autodance feature was turned on by default when I started the game and it creeped me out to have my console recording me without my knowledge. Just Dance TV lets you upload videos and watch those uploaded by other players. Ubisoft’s UPlay service was available before discontinuing, and allowed you to unlock more content like in previous games.

The UI is completely changed, giving you categories you can scroll between where it shows you the full list or separates songs by number of dancers, mash-ups, things like that. Progression is tracked in your profile, and it gives you a percentage for the various tasks you complete in the game. (As shown in the screenshot above.)

High Score: William Tell Overture, 11,518 points. (Again, this score didn’t change.)

Avatars: 66/146. (There are a ton of avatars. 44 of these are purchased with Mojo at a whopping 5000 each. 17 more are for the Dance Quests. The last 8 are granted by filling your progress bars to 100%. 11 more were unlocked with 10 UPlay points each.)

Mojo: 73,550 (This may seem like a lot but I did the math. It would take 220,000 to buy all the avatars.)

Thoughts: The amount of content and game modes are impressive in this one. However, the unlockables are weak, mostly consisting of avatars. Still, this edition was a huge improvement over the previous one in both UI and content. A huge chunk of this game is inaccessible these days.

Just Dance 2017 had 42 songs and 15 alternates. There were four songs unlocked through Ubisoft, ten mash-ups and seven Community Remixes, none of which are accessible now that online functions are discontinued. This is where the series started migrating from the Wii U to the Switch. (I selected this game to be bundled with my Switch when I bought it. I didn’t know at the time that I would someday write thousands of words on the series.) This game introduced the Superstar rank above five stars.

This one carried over the categorizing of modes as Rival (formerly Dance Party) and Co-op. It also continued Just Dance TV, World Dance Floor, and Dance Quest. A new mode was present called Dance Machine, where you help aliens recharge their ship’s battery by doing changing dance routines. I had a lot of fun with that mode. I didn’t do too much of Co-op on my first playthrough of this game. I did each of the songs, aside from a couple of the later-unlocked alternates, but only managed to get 2-3 jewels on each. I didn’t try too hard. I got 100% completion in Rival Mode, though, since that just means you’ve unlocked every routine and played them each once. I did get Superstar rank on all the chapters of Dance Quest. I also found an alternate routine for Scream and Shout that I’d never played before… it was not in the listing with the other ones, it was under Mash Ups for some reason.

High Score: Now it’s Oishii Oishii at 11,699, barely nudging out my previous high score.

Level: 71

Mojo: 22,000 (I kind of stopped spending it after I’d bought all the alternate routines.)

Avatars: 71 (I could have bought more with all that Mojo, but I didn’t see the point.)

Skins: 31 (Again, plenty more for sale.)

Thoughts: I know I rated this one fairly low in the initial post, but my impressions of it have improved with time. (The next couple of installments were pretty lazy.) This one does not have as many unlockable items as later editions, but there is tons of extra content and game modes. You’d never see them trying something like Dance Quest or Dance Machine nowadays, but those were the kinds of modes that made individual releases stand out. Anyway, there is a lot of replay value on this, especially if you’re trying to 100% everything and buy all the avatars and skins. Those things didn’t hold my attention, clearly, but it may work for some players.

Just Dance 2018 had 41 songs and 12 alternate versions. There is now a Kids Mode with 8 songs included. There were 2 songs unlocked through Ubisoft, and 5 Double Rumble tracks, which is exclusive to the Switch. This is the last edition I have for the Wii U, having been unable to track down a Switch copy of it. This is the first edition with Megastar ranking above Superstar. (I have only earned three Megastar on songs, but I got three on Dance Labs also.)

This game includes a stripped down, simplified menu. The only three options are Kids Mode, Just Dance, and World Dance Floor. The Sweat mode, Playlists, favorites, and Dance Lab are all on the same menu with Just Dance, which makes it feel a bit cluttered.

There are Daily Challenges that come up as you start the game, giving you additional tasks to complete for extra Mojo. (Although one of them is always related to UPlay, so really there are only two challenges.) The mojo can be fed into a gift machine, which costs 100 mojo a turn and unlocks alternate songs and other collectibles. Dance Machine was replaced with Dance Lab, where you dance to specific moves through a set amount of time. You unlock episodes of this through the gift machine. There are eight episodes of this available and the ninth, Crazy Lab, randomizes the moves.

High Score: Fight Club, 12,388 points.

Level: 63

Stars: 714

Challenges: 30

Gold Moves: 314

Mojo: 80 (All of it was spent on the gift machine!)

Gift Machine: 160/232

Avatars: 56/80 (The rest are in the gift machine.)

Skins: 37/50 (Again, gift machine.)

Stickers: A lot. The progression screen doesn’t track the stickers and I didn’t want to count them all up.

Thoughts: I remember this one being very confusing at first since much of the game was locked until you played a few songs. They really did try to make this one more simple after the wealth of features and modes in the last couple of editions. I really liked the addition of the gift machine. It was also much easier to see your progression and there were a ton of unlockables, which is what adds to the replay value. This is before Just Dance Unlimited became obnoxious begging you to sign up. Much better unlockables and a wealth of things to earn in this game. The challenges add play value in giving you new things to work towards.

I did a bit more on this one. (Credit: Ubisoft)

Just Dance 2019 had 40 songs, 14 alternates, and 12 kids mode songs. This one is drastically different from the previous edition with a stripped down, all-white aesthetic.

The wealth of game modes from the previous games are gone, leaving you with just classic Just Dance, Kids Mode, and World Dance Floor. Playing through this one again, I found that there were actually several alternates I’d never unlocked, mostly the ones for earning Superstar on the original. I did give up on OMG Extreme Version however. I can’t even tell you how many times I tried to get Superstar on that one and just barely missed out on it. I finally gave up, and that’s the only alt I couldn’t get.

High Score: Finesse (Remix) at 12.119 points.

Level: 65 (You think I’d be a higher level, but the points must work differently on this one.)

Mojo: 10 (On the Gift Machine installments, you don’t stockpile Mojo. Every 100 Mojo automatically earns you a spin.)

Gift Machine: 158/215

Stars: 811

Challenges: 40

Avatars: 87/145

Titles: 42/80

Artwork: 74/100

Thoughts: While continuing to be bereft of new features or interesting enhancements, this one did have a ton of unlockable content. I actually got pretty far along in the Gift Machine and gathering the artwork and other little prizes. The difficulty for the routine unlocks spiked with this one, culminating in me giving up on unlocking OMG. Maybe someday, but honestly I’m tired of hearing the song because of all my previous attempts.

Just Dance 2020 had 44 songs, 12 alternates, and 10 on Kids Mode. This was the tenth anniversary game and I initially found it underwhelming after the hype leading up to it. But on replaying, I found that it was a solid release. All-Stars mode is a playlist that goes back through the history of the series with an animation of the Panda. The unlock method in this one for alternate choreo was to play the original songs multiple times or earn Superstar rank on them. At the time of my previous writing I had left some unlocked, but I took the time to go through and unlock them all this time.

One thing I didn’t notice the first time playing is that all songs have three icons on the menu. One shows that you have played the song. The second is filled in once you have played it three times to unlock the sticker, and the last one is for earning Megastar rank. (I don’t have a lot of those icons filled in.) The prize for filling in all three icons appears to be a golden avatar relating to the song, which is neat. This is a nice little touch that previous editions didn’t have.

All Star Mode is now discontinued, which is sad. I wanted to play it again. Weird enough, World Dance Floor is still up and running. Again there were a few alternate routines that I never unlocked, but I got through them this time. I especially had trouble getting the alt for 7 Rings. That routine is really touchy, giving you “Good” or “Okay” ratings for moves you know you did perfectly. On those I found you have to do wildly exaggerated movements to earn “Perfect” and “Super”. It took me so many tries, but I was determined to not give up on that one.

High Score: It remains Taki Taki at 12,305 points.

Level: 71

Mojo: 0 (Again, it doesn’t stockpile.)

Gift Machine: 148/333

Stars: 882

Challenges: 54

Stickers: 54/121

Avatars: 117/258

Skins: 26/54

Aliases: 72/146

Thoughts: Another solid release. This one has some great routines… Soy Yo and Sushi are among my favorites in the entire franchise. There were a lot of silly songs too— Infernal Galop, Always Look On the Bright Side of Life, and Baby Shark. There was a good variety of different music included. The insane amount of prizes in the Gift Machine and the steep unlock requirements for the alternates raise the replay value of this one way up. I finally unlocked all the routines, but I seriously doubt I’ll empty out that Gift Machine.

Hey, this looks familiar. (Credit: Ubisoft)

Just Dance 2021 had 41 songs and 10 on kids mode. Although at first glance, this edition looks identical to the previous one, there were a lot of little things that grated on me. The pop-ups while starting the game for Just Dance Unlimited and Ubisoft Connect. The weird sorting that throws JD Unlimited songs into the list when you switch to alphabetical. (Horrible money-grab attempt there.) I still don’t know what Pertinent means, but it was the closest to normal sorting and separated subscription routines from the new ones. This sort wasn’t perfect either, though. Sometimes the songs would reorder so I would lose my place and miss some. Another annoyance was that after each song it would bring up another screen suggesting a new song and you have to cancel out to select the one you really want to play next. The previous games would just bring you back to the list, which is the most user-friendly way to do it..

So yeah, a lot of little nit-picky things, but when you add them all up, it makes for an obnoxious player experience. And I know I haven’t been talking about lore much here since that is a whole separate post I’m working on, but this title had no lore. Zero connections to anything else that I could find. I took no notes for that bigger post while replaying Just Dance 2021. That made it more of a slog for me to get through during the replay.

On replaying I found I’d barely played this one to begin with! There were several Extreme versions I hadn’t tried at all and some I hadn’t even bothered to unlock! So on my replay I made a point to get them all and play every song at least twice so I could get the stickers for them to add to my collection. (This one still had the requirement of playing multiple times but it was dropped from three to twice.) On the plus side I didn’t have any issues unlocking the extreme versions like I did with 2020.

High Score: Senorita, 12,450 points.

Level: 63

Mojo: 0

Gift Machine: 127/306

Stars: 700

Challenges: 47

Stickers: 75/101 (Still missing a bunch but I got every sticker for playing each song twice.)

Avatars: 85/166 (There are more in the Gift Machine and for getting Megastar on each song.)

Skins: 39/101 (All the rest are in the Gift Machine.)

Aliases: 67/159 (More in Gift Machine and completing certain types of songs.)

Thoughts: This one is a meh release for me. Forgettable songs, less collectables, and the ones they do have are a grind to get. Too many extreme versions and it’s harder to get Megastar on this one. (I only got 4 songs to Megastar.) Aside from all the faults I already mentioned, I can’t really put my finger on it, but for me this is one of the worst of the series. It slowed my replay down significantly playing back through it.

Just Dance 2022 had 54 songs and 8 on kids mode. This one looked the same as the previous few with the all-white aesthetic. The Pertinence sorting carried over, so it was again hard to find the songs I needed to replay. All the complaints from the previous edition continue with this one.

This one featured a lot more artsy stuff than the previous editions. There was a lot of zooming and wipe effects, cinematic openings to some songs. Interpretative dances, Claymation coaches, and more live-action coaches. Still, this one had some important lore and some really fun songs. This was a very high-scoring game… most of my songs were at Superstar level. (Although I only had two Megastars.)

As for content, this one was once again stuffed with avatars, skins, and aliases. The sticker books were removed, however.

High Score: Last Friday Night, 12,553 points.

Level: 68

Mojo: 0

Gift Machine: 136/200

Stars: 814

Challenges: 47

Avatars: 86/144 (The rest are in the Gift Machine or by earning Megastar on routines.)

Skins: 46/63 (The rest are in the Gift Machine)

Aliases: 83/143 (The rest require Just Dance Unlimited, World Dance Floor participation, and various other tasks.)

Thoughts: An improvement over 2021 but still a bit annoying. The artsy camera work and long openings got grating. The all-white aesthetic and lack of innovation or new features has seriously gotten old. They’re just reusing the platform so they don’t have to rebuild it from scratch every year. Sure, this makes for less work on the developer’s end, but from a player perspective it makes the series stale. These four consecutive editions blur together, with very little to set them apart from one another. It makes for no surprise that the next edition finally rocks the boat.

Just Dance 2023 had 41 tracks and 12 alternate choreo. This is a huge turning point for the series. Departing from the previous installment’s all white minimalist aesthetic, this one introduced a very busy and crowded UI. They also moved to a live release model, with this installment and every following one being released in a base game as “song packs”. Since this is a live service model, you do have to be connected to the internet to play, unless you have downloaded your songs to your system. There are no longer cartridges… with this release and every one following, it’s digital download-only. My biggest annoyance with the new UI is that after every song I have to exit to the main menu and navigate back to Songs to continue down the list. Also I have to do a lot of scrolling to replay, as the newest installment is on the top, descending through the releases. They did fix the sorting, however! I now usually have it sorted by “Owned” which groups the songs with the game they were released for and puts the Just Dance+ songs beneath all those. For the gameplay, the mechanics and scoring appear to have been revamped a bit, but I couldn’t really say how. The controls seems a little less forgiving here, but not in a frustrating way.

They did away with the World Dance Floor and Kids Mode, and introduced a (now discontinued) gameplay mechanic called Seasons. This was a way to promote Just Dance+ by making a selection of songs free for a few months and giving you a separate prize track to earn more things for the main game. This is also the first game in the series to include a story mode of sorts. The story is called "Enter the Danceverses". This is a playlist with songs that tell an ongoing story with recurring characters from other routines. I won’t get into that here, as that will all be covered in my Mythos post, but I did love the story mode aspect of this (and the next) release.

Since the leveling and progression are shared between this and the next two installments, I’ll wait and put all that at the end. I’ll just say here that the unlockables and achievements far surpass any previous version. Oh, also there is no longer Mojo in the game. Now completing songs and achievements grants XP, which levels you up through three tiers of 50 levels each. I got 9 Megastar songs.

High Score: Danger! High Voltage (16-Bit Version), 13,048 points.

Story Mode Playlist Score: 76,933 points.

Thoughts: While I had my misgivings about the new format for the releases, ultimately this was a solid edition. The last four editions were all white and bare-looking. This one course-corrected to pure bloated chaos, and once I got used to it, I much preferred it. The songs and routines were solid. The story mode was fantastic. Seasons was cool. The progression and leveling system was the best in the franchise. There is so much to unlock and earn that I’m still working on it. It was huge in scope compared to any other edition since it was charting out the entire future of the series. All in all, this was a great entry and made me hopeful for the future releases.

Just Dance 2024 had 41 songs and 13 alternate choreo. This game was released into the base game like the previous installment and continued the Seasons and story mode introduced in the last game. There is very little to talk about here, because it’s just the next song pack for the annual release schedule. There are no real updates, aside from a few new playlists and achievements. The level cap was not increased. Story mode did return with a playlist called “Dance With the Swan”. I only managed 5 Megastar songs.

High Score: Rapper’s Delight, 12,719 points.

Story Mode Playlist Score: 76,389 points.

Thoughts: Not much to say here. This game is identical to the previous one, since it’s all in the hub now. The selection of songs this time was pretty much the variety pack we’ve been getting lately. I really enjoyed the new entry into the story mode and was eagerly awaiting the continuation. (Still am… Sigh.) Still, I did really like this one, between the story developments and the new routines, it was a solid release.

Just Dance 2025 had 42 songs and 11 alternate choreo routines. When I bought it, it also came with 6 bonus Ariana Grande tracks. This is the last game in our journey… so far! The only real changes are different coach difficulties in the same routine and customizable playlists. The level cap remained the same. New achievements and a few new playlists were added as usual. I managed 11 Megastar songs.

Shaking things up yet again, this installment ignored the story mode (even though they left us on a dark cliffhanger last time!), discontinued Seasons, and reintroduced DLC to the series. Which is annoying, considering Just Dance+ is still active. Everything on the DLC song packs is available in JD+, so it’s very much a waste for those who subscribe. But, I guess, useful for those who don’t subscribe and want some extra songs. I can’t help but think Seasons going away was to incite people to buy the DLC packs. Anyway, the DLC packs come with 6 tracks for $10 and there are currently five of these at the time of writing. I’m not going to do the math, but just eyeballing it and comparing it to the full release pricing, that’s pretty steep.

Level: 34 Gold Prestige (Overall level 134)

Explore Achievements: 54/85

Shine Achievements: 31/54

Party Achievements: 56/88

Workout Achievements: 38/49

Rise Achievements: 34/51

Avatars: 56/78

Backgrounds: 57/75

Borders: 47/59

Aliases: 94/142

Badges: 64/81

Emotes: 43/53

Scoring Effects: 11/12

Victory Celebrations: 15/17

High Score: Move Your Body, 12.885 points.

Thoughts: This edition really disappointed me due to the lack of story mode and the strange choices mentioned above. DLC is not a good tradeoff for Seasons, which gave players an excuse to check in on the game repeatedly between new releases. It made the game feel alive at all times. At the time I wrote the post covering this one, I didn’t know that Seasons was done. It was announced a little after that. With the elimination of Seasons, there feels like little reason to check back in continually and the whole thing feels a little dead… less active than it was in the beginning. There were some decent routines, but yeah, I was very disappointed with this one. It felt lazy and thrown together compared to the last two installments. There wasn’t even much lore to speak of. And with the inclusion of the free DLC pack, it felt a bit Ariana Grande-heavy. I fear we’re seeing the second decline of Just Dance as they fall into complacence.

As a side-note, getting rid of Seasons means that there are fewer extras to earn and it’s likely some of the unlockables I listed above will never be able to be accessed again. There was a Night Swan-focused season with two brand new tracks and three exclusive achievement lines available for only one Season. Thankfully you can still earn those through Just Dance+, but some of them are probably gone forever, but still in the list, unable to be earned. Oh well. It’s not like I can 100% this game anyway… it would take a lot of Megastars on difficult songs to earn some of these achievements as it is. I do want to max out my level and earn as much as I can, though.

Just before I clicked the button. (Credit: Ubisoft)

And that’s my Just Dance Replay! I decided we would end with my coverage with a quick look at Just Dance+ since I’m now to the point where I had to subscribe in order to continue my research for my lore post. (Two of the songs relating to the story mode were introduced in Seasons and now live solely on JD+. These are the Night Swan Prelude tracks I mentioned previously.) So I finally broke down and subscribed, after resisting the developer’s urgent (and at times irritating) pleas for several years. Some of the games were VERY obnoxious with it, begging you to subscribe every time you booted up the game, making subscribing and playing songs on it as part of the rotating tasks for rewards, stuff like that. Putting critical story content on there was what finally broke me down. I hate them for it, but honestly, I did intend on getting it anyway so that Cocoa would have more variety without having to sift through all the games I have to find songs she likes.

I did accidentally click the wrong button on one of the games in my replay (2019, I think?) and so I had a 30 day free membership that didn’t count against the free months I accumulated from buying the last four releases. (Each new yearly song pack gives another free month.)

But that’s enough babbling. Let’s talk about Just Dance+. There really isn’t much to say here… most of these songs are ones I had played in previous editions. I think there are some exclusives and maybe some of the console-exclusive or region-locked routines from previous games. And for the games I had played on the Switch in their respective editions, the scores carried over. Since they’re playable in the hub from the last three releases, they control and score the same way. There is a huge amount of variety with over 500 tracks, give or take. Of course the first two songs I did were the Night Swan Prequel ones I needed for my lore post. As I said, most of these I’ve already played in the previous mainline games, but now I can play them in the hub without dusting off my nearly-retired Wii U. Knowing me, I’ll probably work my way down the entire list. Let’s see how many of the 500-some tracks I can get through in my four free months.

Thank you for joining me as I continue my never-ending journey through the worlds of Just Dance. This post helped me in the exhausting and sometimes tedious task of replaying and researching for my big post. And now I have yet another Just Dance post in my series.

On my way through I unlocked more content, tried some new routines, earned more prizes and tons of new high scores, and had more fun replaying each game. It helped me to see the individual games in new ways and see the franchise as a chronological whole. I experienced the evolutions, de-evolutions, and gradual morphing to being basically more of a streaming service than a game. The rise, fall, rerise, and refall of the Just Dance franchise. I’m glad I did this. While Fitness Boxing 3 has mostly replaced this game as my daily video game workout, I still make the time to dance a few days a week, for at least a few tracks. I don’t see that changing any time soon. (Especially now that I have Just Dance+ to get through.) As long as it remains fun and I get health benefits from it, I will continue dancing at the colorful coaches. Besides, I have to make my subscriptions to Just Dance+ worth it.

I hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane and will join me when I finally get the Lore post done. Although I’m waiting on that until I see if JD2027 has the conclusion of the story. There is again no story mode in JD2026, so I was in no hurry to get it, but that will be a review this year too. Anyway, thank you for reading, I appreciate you, and I’ll be back soon. Until then, keep dancing!

Hi.

Apr 11 SoraRabbit Short Hop 038: The Just Dance Replay

Hi.

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