Customer Reviews

DanceMasters

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Kinect had two Dance games at launch. Dance Central, and Dance Masters. You can't help buy compare the two. I happen to like both. They are different though.

Dance Central is more follow the moves the dancer is doing, and Dance Masters is a lot more like Dane Dance Revolution. Where you hit the marks at certain times.

Dance Masters has better multiplayer, with 2-player co-op on a single console and versus over Xbox live. But Dance Central has a better Single Player and a more mainstream music selection. While Dance Masters is more DDR (J-pop) type songs.

There are a few different types of "arrows" you have to hit at the certain times. (Note I only call them arrows to compare them to Dance Dance Revolution).

-There is a basic hit the mark type of circle, where there is a circle with a larger circle around it that shrinks. You have to move your hand in that space at the time both circles match up (usually goes with the beat).

-There is a hold circle (similar to the hold arrows), where you hold your hand in the circle for a set number of beats.

-There is a multi-beat circle (indicated by a number of dots in the smaller circle) which you have to hit the circle multiple times in a row to the beat.

-There is a foot marking that you hit with either left or right foot on the ground, also usually to the beat.

-There are silhouettes that you have to match the pose of. Which usually aren't too hard, but there is quite a variety in these. Usually if you are following the on screen dancer you can get these pretty easy.

-There is a steam line type of wave, that can vary in speed and location. You hit these by waving your hand across the line, at the same speed as the on screen dancer.

All of these are pretty well varied, and on the harder difficulties can be mixed together or doubled.

The songs consist of the typical DDR songs, with more unlocking as you progress though the game (or by meeting certain criteria).

Overall if you liked DDR, this game is a must buy if you own Kinect.

EDIT on 12/10/2010:

Song list:
"A Geisha's Dream" NAOKI feat. SMILE.dk
"Brilliant 2U" Naoki
"BURNIN' THE FLOOR" NAOKI
"CAN'T STOP FALLIN' IN LOVE -super euro version" NAOKI with Y&Co.
"Crazy Control" D-crew with VAL TIATIA
"Every Day, Every Night (NM STYLE)" LEO DROP feat. Ant Johnston
"exotic ethnic" RevenG
"HIGHER" NM feat. SUNNY
"Hysteria 2001" NM
"INTO YOUR HEART (Ruffage remix)" NAOKI feat. YASMINE
"Keep on movin'" NM
"Kimono'Princess" Jun
"L'amour et la liberté (Darwin & DJ Silver remix)" NAOKI in the MERCURE
"La receta" Carlos Coco Garcia
"Let the beat him em! (CLASSIC R&B STYLE)" Stone Bros.
"Lover's High" APHs
"Mess With My Emotions" Latenighter
"My Summer Love" Mitsu-o! with Geila
"NIGHT OF FIRE" NIKO
"Open Your Eyes" NM feat. JaY_bEe (JB Ah-Fua)
"SAKURA" Reven-G
"STILL IN MY HEART" NAOKI
"SUPER SAMURAI" jun
"Unity" The Remembers
"We Can Win the Fight" D-crew feat. Matt Tucker
"YESTERDAY" CHERRY
"???" ???
"???" ???
"???" ???
"???" ???

It was with great curiosity and some hesitancy that I picked up this game. All the reviews I had previously read were accurate. So as a recap:

*Hyper and not-quite dancing*
-Music is very J-Pop/Asian Dance Club/most people won't know it/you should be drinking Red Bull and Lattes.

-Dance moves are more akin to someone doing interpretive dance, or doing a routine for a show. You feel like you're a performer, if not *the* performer of the song. That's in contrast to Dance Central, where you feel more like you're dancing, learning moves that come more club-ish. I guess I see Dance Masters for someone wishing to be on stage. Dance Central, you're more on the dance floor.

-Much more ego-centric than Dance Central: You see your whole body/face (video, not just a silhouette), you're on stage equal with the avatar, your moves are very performer-oriented, you feel like you're a pop star singing the song more than someone dancing to a song.

-Costuming is kinda risque. Just a little more fantasy, risque, flamboyant. Think Lady Gaga more than club-goer.

-Don't expect to learn how to dance. Don't even expect to learn how to do the moves they're doing. Your only instruction will be your trying to figure out what this fantasy avatar's next move will be, and how it'll be interpreted in an arrowy swoop or flashing circle, which will make you just try and hit a particular spot. Initially, we found ourselves just lunging to the next mark we were supposed to "hit," which made for more jerking moves than "dancing"

-It really is a step closer to real dancing than DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) , yet, still very akin to just putting your hands and feet and striking certain poses, not really feeling a fluidity.

*Fun?*
Is it fun?
Yes....Kinda....Well, fun and funny.

There are annoying parts of the program (some small high pitched voice that's yelling bizarre encouragements and mild trash talk while you dance). The instructions could be worded better. You really feel like you're using a program from someone from another country, and I don't mean Canada :)

The feedback is odd, with the floating word "boo!" being your main feedback if you don't do a move correctly.

The patterns, poses, marks and swipes you're supposed to match are rather arbitrary and nonsensical at times, but if you follow the dancing avatar exactly, you'll hit them all. But you're not sure when and why you're doing so.

The menuing is mediocre. A little odd, a little hypersensitive, about 50% intuitive. If you leave your hand slightly pointing in one direction or another, the menu will start whipping by. It made us very sheepish in our menu selections.


*Bottom Line*
If you like the jpop thing, the ddr thing, go ahead

If you're kinda showy in a club-performer way, go ahead

If you want to dance, or learn how to dance, go to Dance Central

It can be a fun game, but I think the novelty wears off faster than Dance Central. I'd buy it if I found it on sale.

Such a nice game! I have been excited for a long time waiting for the kinect. I ordered both dance central and dance master since I like dancing game so much! It turns out that these two games didn't dispoint me at all.
The dance central is definitly something as a hipop dance style and combing different styles hit songs. The break down system is help us to learn the dance, but I do thing it should slow down a little more since I am a slow learner for dancing steps.
The dance master is actually more close to the way I like to dance back to dance carpet time. I really like the musics in the dance master and the dance steps are actually abit easier than Dance Central. But without breakdown, it requires more practice. But I still like to play the game until I am completely tired. I also like the idea of "gesture", "ripple" and "parellel world". Which give you more motive to continue good hits.
So both of the first round dancing games of kinect is really heating things up. Remember to prepare enough water if you want to play a long game.

If you are familiar with J-Pop (Japanese pop) this title may appeal to you. Most songs will be unfamiliar to Western audiences. Culturally, this game is very Japanese. The narrator's voice is a high-pitched girl like you would find in a lot of Japanese animation. Unlike Dance Central, you are not required to exactly match the onscreen dancer's moves through the entire song. Instead, your movements must match at specific times only. There are onscreen icons that you must touch at specific times, giving this more of a "game" feeling than Dance Central. Interestingly, some moments require you to make noise as well. This game is an interesting concept, but its lack of music recognizable to Western audiences is a major shortcoming. There should be an option to change the narrator's voice as well.

I give this game 3 for family friendly-ness, because some of the dancers dress a little too sexy for my 5 & 6 year old daughters. Also, if you make the wrong dance move "boo" appears on the screen. But overall, I rate this game a 4, because it is fun and kind of exciting to play.

Before buying this title I found a review online that compared this game to Dance Central. The review was right and here is what it said.

1. Dance Masters is focused on routines while Dance Central is focused on dance club like moves.
2. Dance Masters routines are harder to learn so that it will have more staying power than Dance Central despite being harder to jump into.

I totally agree. Dance Masters is a well thought out game. It has, I am guessing, 6 different ways of tracking how you move giving it the sophistication of incorporating a wide range of movement types. This game should appeal to all types of dancers and should definitely be bought.

This is the best dancing game for the Kinect as far as I am concerned.

DanceMasters, the true sequel to Dance Dance Revolution. The game is very easy to jump in and play, starting with the easy difficulty you basically just match some of the poses, as you do this keep an eye on the main dancer because eventually you will have to mimic most of their moves. I found the extreme mode to be the most fun mode in the game, it is so fun trying to follow all the moves the onscreen character does. There is also a tutorial that will teach you the basics of the game.

The Music in the game is what you would expect from a Dance Dance Revolution game, so if you like the music there, you will like the music here as well.

I feel the graphics and animation is top notch, some of the best animated dancing in a video game I have ever seen.

I give this game 5 stars for being the best dancing game I have ever played.

Let me start with a bit of background, dancing games such as DDR, ParaPara Paradise, Stepmania and other similar arcade rhythm games have always been a favorite of mine. I have collected Dance Dance Revolution from Playstation to Xbox 360, so i'm very familiar with the style of techno to jpop songs.

Dance Masters was actually the reason I decided to purchase the Kinect, while I played Dance Central and enjoyed it, I like the Japanese styled songs over the radio-hits that make up Dance Central.

When it comes to gameplay, Dance Masters is much less structured compared to Dance Central. There IS a lesson mode which teaches you the basics of playing the game, but there IS NO song break down. Much like all the previous Dance Dance Revolutions, you are sort of expected to repeatedly play the song over again, to master the technique and choreography. Because of this, there is a much higher game play curve, and new players sort of flail around trying to match the poses and hit the gestures without knowing whats really going on the first few times.

That being said, that didn't defer me from this game at all, but made me fall in love! There are quite a few unlockable songs, but as of currently, there are NO XboxLive purchase-able packages or extra songs. However, you CAN download MASTER mode for free, which unlocks the highest and hardest difficulty of all the songs which is lots of fun. The song selection is pretty good, with a good mix of techno, pop, RNB, ParaPara, and old skool music!


The game has lots of replay value, and the choreography is beautiful and really fun to dance to. I REALLY LOVE all of the PARAPARA dance songs, because it brings back lots of memories of ParaParadise and other great arcade games! The songs range from slow cool down songs, to extremely fast upbeat songs! Has me dripping in sweat after 2 or 3 rounds. Definitely not for the lazy!

My only real problems with the game is that there isn't a "Fitness or Calorie Counting Mode" which almost all of the DDR's had, and that there is only 3 different dancers in the game, and they are NOT able to be chosen per song.

I will say this first and foremost: I am a DDR freak. I own every home DDR game for the PS2, Xbox, and Xbox 360. So, that being said, I was highly anticipating this game. I really like this game. I also own Dance Central, and I really like that one also. From this perspective, I will tell you that you cannot and should not compare the two games- their mechanics, demographic, and overall feels are at completely different ends of the spectrum!

Here are some points I'd like to make about Dance Masters:

- My first thought upon loading up a song: Wow, this is really freaking FAST! The lack of a practice mode and and abundance 150+ BPM songs really can overwhelm you at first. However, the choreography repeats itself a decent amount throughout a song, so by the time I had played some of the 1-3 "flame" (read: difficulty indicator) songs a few times in "Light" mode, I was able to get A or AA scores pretty easily. I haven't really tackled the ones that are 4+ flames yet, but it's probably a similar situation. Just keep at it; it's actually pretty fun and rewarding to get the choreography right without it being spoon-fed to you (ala Dance Central). You can jump into a song on light, watch closely, and be nailing the choreography by the end of it!

-The biggest con I've found so far is that the songs get kinda old, kinda fast. You need to unlock a lot of the content, which may be a turn off for some people, myself included. Don't get me wrong, I like earning new songs; the problem lies in the fact that there are only 30 total songs in the game, so you're given a pittance to go through when you first start out. If there were more songs overall, I wouldn't mind the tough unlocks.

-I wish you could select your dancer, costume, etc. There are only two dancers (one male, one female), and they are automatically selected and clothed depending on the song you select. Kind of a disappointment coming from DDR games where you can pick from a vast number of characters and alternate outfits.

I am truly hoping that Konami releases some good, reasonably priced DLC tracks in the future. One thing that is certain about this game is that if you give it a chance, you will have fun and get a good workout!

My son bought this game for the Xbox Kinect. It takes a little bit of time getting used to, but is very easy to use once you get the hang of it. It has a wide variety of music and styles. Graphics are really very good and sensor response is pretty good as well. Is a lot of fun and can get quite exhausting if you really keep at it. Love the game and have ordered Zumba also. Can't wait to see how they compare.