Bust a Groove 1 review
Time to get your groove on and Bust-A-Move!
Bust a Groove is a typical rhythm game with some added elements taken from fighting games. The gameplay mainly involves around the beat of the song, requiring the player to match the inputs on the screen every fourth beat; you can also perform a “Jammer” attack on your opponent to interrupt them, and similarly you can also avoid their attacks as well. The gameplay is overall fairly simple to learn: aside from what was mentioned above, arrows corresponding to the directions on the D-Pad may also need to be matched before every fourth beat, alongside having to decide what dancing “paths” for further inputs you want to take. but mastering may require more practice; while matching inputs every fourth beat sounds easy on paper, each input becomes increasingly more complex the more you get correct, you need to decide on a dance path on the fly, and you also need to get a feel of the speed of the rhythm of each song. Thankfully there’s a practice mode, so that helps. You also need to avoid attacks from opponents, lest you want your ongoing combo ruined. The game provides more motivation to replay the game in the form of unlocking the secret characters and the dance routines for the character you play as.
There’s a total of 10 characters to choose from alongside four more secret characters, each adopting a specific kind of dancing style. This, and their designs, I feel manage to make the characters a fairly memorable bunch, whose attacks and stage music give a better sense of their personality as well. But even wackier are their backstories: I assume more detail is given in some manual or such for the game, but what’s present in-game definitely can come across as quite odd. Its namely conveyed in the form of CG ending cutscenes each character has, revealing some aspect or backstory of their character.
The main appeal of the game is very clearly the music. The entire OST is honestly just such a banger and makes playing to the rhythm of the beat super exciting. It's easy to find yourself picking a favourite among them, and the distinct style of each song and how well they complement their respective character’s dance routine also helps them to stand out from each other. I definitely find myself coming back to the music every now and then, so even if you decide the game is not for you I would still suggest checking out the soundtrack at least.
The game has its rough spots. The most major issue is certainly not being able to tell if you’ve inputted the arrows correctly: they flash with each beat, but aside from that it's a bit of guesswork to know if you managed to do them correctly before the fourth beat comes around. For me personally, it also made it a bit hard to keep track of what arrows I’ve done the input for so far as the dance paths become more complex. You go through all 10 characters as well as 2 of the secret characters each game session, which can be a bit exhausting for some. The game provides a visual indicator of which beat you’re at in the top left and right of the screen in case you lose track before the next input, but personally I didn’t find it that helpful as my attention was mostly directed towards the inputs shown on screen, and these indicators also act as the number of attacks you have left and disappear once used anyways.
Overall, Bust a Groove’s a simple, fun game with banger songs. I definitely suggest giving it a try if you’re itching for a rhythm game.
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Some extra notes: the english localization changes a few things, the most major being that about four songs were re-recorded in English. They still sound great like the originals personally, so I’d say pick the version of the game that lines up most with your preferences.
Time to get your groove on and Bust-A-Move!
Bust a Groove is a typical rhythm game with some added elements taken from fighting games. The gameplay mainly involves around the beat of the song, requiring the player to match the inputs on the screen every fourth beat; you can also perform a “Jammer” attack on your opponent to interrupt them, and similarly you can also avoid their attacks as well. The gameplay is overall fairly simple to learn: aside from what was mentioned above, arrows corresponding to the directions on the D-Pad may also need to be matched before every fourth beat, alongside having to decide what dancing “paths” for further inputs you want to take. but mastering may require more practice; while matching inputs every fourth beat sounds easy on paper, each input becomes increasingly more complex the more you get correct, you need to decide on a dance path on the fly, and you also need to get a feel of the speed of the rhythm of each song. Thankfully there’s a practice mode, so that helps. You also need to avoid attacks from opponents, lest you want your ongoing combo ruined. The game provides more motivation to replay the game in the form of unlocking the secret characters and the dance routines for the character you play as.
There’s a total of 10 characters to choose from alongside four more secret characters, each adopting a specific kind of dancing style. This, and their designs, I feel manage to make the characters a fairly memorable bunch, whose attacks and stage music give a better sense of their personality as well. But even wackier are their backstories: I assume more detail is given in some manual or such for the game, but what’s present in-game definitely can come across as quite odd. Its namely conveyed in the form of CG ending cutscenes each character has, revealing some aspect or backstory of their character.
The main appeal of the game is very clearly the music. The entire OST is honestly just such a banger and makes playing to the rhythm of the beat super exciting. It's easy to find yourself picking a favourite among them, and the distinct style of each song and how well they complement their respective character’s dance routine also helps them to stand out from each other. I definitely find myself coming back to the music every now and then, so even if you decide the game is not for you I would still suggest checking out the soundtrack at least.
The game has its rough spots. The most major issue is certainly not being able to tell if you’ve inputted the arrows correctly: they flash with each beat, but aside from that it's a bit of guesswork to know if you managed to do them correctly before the fourth beat comes around. For me personally, it also made it a bit hard to keep track of what arrows I’ve done the input for so far as the dance paths become more complex. You go through all 10 characters as well as 2 of the secret characters each game session, which can be a bit exhausting for some. The game provides a visual indicator of which beat you’re at in the top left and right of the screen in case you lose track before the next input, but personally I didn’t find it that helpful as my attention was mostly directed towards the inputs shown on screen, and these indicators also act as the number of attacks you have left and disappear once used anyways.
Overall, Bust a Groove’s a simple, fun game with banger songs. I definitely suggest giving it a try if you’re itching for a rhythm game.
.
.
.
Some extra notes: the english localization changes a few things, the most major being that about four songs were re-recorded in English. They still sound great like the originals personally, so I’d say pick the version of the game that lines up most with your preferences.
Reviewed on Feb 24, 2022