In love with the irresistible urge to dance alone in front of the TV? Want to spice up your depressing office parties with a wild Mambo #5? Shake your pelvis in unison with strangers from all over the world? That’s good news, as the latest entry in the Just Dance series hits stores this fall, much to the delight of those with the devil in their bodies.
Halfway between a rhythm game and an exercise game, Just Dance 2024 Edition offers almost exactly what previous titles offered: playing current pop songs or timeless classics and imitating the choreography of a virtual dancer wiggling on the screen. The game tracks the accuracy of your choreography using an app on your smartphone or, for Switch players, the Joycon. Your performance will be assessed, scored and you can then compete against yourself or other people around the world.
Aside from a graphical overhaul and a slightly expanded song list (we’re talking forty additional tracks here), it’s almost exactly the same game as the 2023 edition, to the point where the 2024 edition is backwards compatible: you can play with your multiplayer Friends who own the 2023 edition.
To expand the somewhat limited catalog of songs, you’ll need to subscribe to a Just Dance+ subscription, which costs between $5 per month and $30 per year. Songs have to be loaded individually, although the game does offer a certain number of downloads for offline mode, which is practically necessary on a wild night out as loading times are extremely slow and it’s very possible that your guests will be delighted Anyone who listens to “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus or “Makeba” by Jain will eventually get tired of waiting and decide to retreat to the kitchen to play parchesi with their grandmother.
What’s even more irritating is that the game’s interface, particularly the home screen, is excessively poorly supported on the Nintendo Switch.
The navigation is not smooth, the animations are jerky and the overall experience is rather average. We recommend playing this title on a more robust console. During our testing, multiple crashes and difficulties connecting to Ubisoft’s servers made the experience frankly unpleasant. However, once you’re on the dance floor, the lags disappear and the gaming experience is smooth and enjoyable.
In short, a slightly improved title since the 2023 edition. We’re not reinventing the sauce, but do we really need something other than that?
Just Dance Edition 2024
Developer and Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series (tested on Nintendo Switch)