Just like Christmas or a hefty council tax bill, you can always rely on the FIFA of dance to pop up with a new entry each year. Just Dance 2020 celebrates the tenth anniversary of Ubisoft’s popular franchise – the original Wii exclusive launched in November 2009 – and if you’ve played any of the numerous titles that have appeared on store shelves since then, you’ll know exactly what to expect here.
The standard Just Dance blueprint remains the same as it always has been – you’ll grab a Joy-Con in one hand (or a smartphone, as control support for your mobile has made a welcome return this year) and dance along to a number of pop hits. You copy the moves of a professional dancer on-screen, ensuring that nobody can see you from the street outside as you struggle to touch your toes and accidentally fall onto the cat. It’s a tried-and-trusted formula that can be immensely fun both alone and with friends.
The similarities don’t end with the basics, however; Just Dance 2020 is almost identical to last year’s version in almost every possible way. The main section of the game, fittingly called ‘Just Dance’, has been directly lifted from 2019’s entry, with a home screen full of tips and notices, a Playlists section that lists recommended songs and lets you build your own routines, and a portion that gives you access to your user profile to view stats and collectables. We went back to last year’s Just Dance 2019 for comparison’s sake, and for a second we thought we’d accidentally loaded up 2020 again.
It also has the same ‘Kids’ section, where a selection of child-friendly routines can be found for songs like Baby Shark (do do, dodo do do), and the same online mode, ‘World Dance Floor’. Just like before, World Dance Floor is an addictive little mode which has you challenging players from all around the world in real-time, with all active players voting on which song gets played next.
There are a couple of differences, though. First up, is the addition of an ‘All Stars’ mode, which is essentially a cute little celebration of the series’ 10th anniversary. It kicks off with a cutscene featuring the Just Dance panda mascot, before sending you on a bus journey that sees you playing one song from each of the past main series games. Reaching the end of the journey unlocks an exclusive song, and while the mode’s not enough to justify a purchase on its own, we enjoyed feeling a sense of progression and purpose as we played through it.
Secondly, is the song list, which is arguably the main (and only) reason to upgrade year on year. Some of our personal highlights this year include Billie Eilish’s 'bad guy' and 'I Don’t Care' by Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber, but feel free to check out the full set of 40 new tracks. As always, it’s mostly full of current hits that us old fogies have never heard before, but are sure to go down a treat with those that are a little more hip and happening – see what we mean?
So, now that all of that’s out of the way, there’s one more thing we need to discuss before you rush off to your local game store, and that’s Just Dance Unlimited. If you’re unaware, Just Dance Unlimited is a subscription-based service which now grants you access to an additional 500 songs. As you can no doubt guess, it dramatically improves the game by giving you a wonderfully generous supply of tracks to dance along to, but essentially comes as an additional cost on top of the one you just paid for the base game. You actually get one month free with any purchase on Switch, but once that month’s over you’ll either have to pay to keep it going or lose all of that extra content.
At the time of writing, you can get a year’s subscription for £19.99 / $24.99 (with one-day, 30-day, and 90-day bundles also available for less). If you’re going to be playing the game every day, the subscription’s no issue and will be worth the money, but for anyone who’s not entirely devoted to the franchise, the whole thing becomes a harder sell. It also means that, if you already own one of the recent Just Dance games like 2019 or 2018, you could just get a subscription for the game you already own – all you’d lose out on is this year’s new set of 40 songs.
This subscription model puts us in the same predicament every time we review a Just Dance game. To put things simply, Just Dance 2020 is a really nicely polished title that has been slowly but surely perfected over the years. It’s great fun and we’re happy to report that the game has kept last year’s modern feel and sleek menus, but the bulk of its actual content will forever be locked behind the Unlimited subscription. If you don’t mind paying the extra charge or haven’t owned a game from the series in a while, you should absolutely pick this up, but if you already own a recent title, it becomes much harder to justify an upgrade.
Conclusion
Just Dance 2020 is a celebration of the series’ tenth anniversary in more ways than one, with years’ worth of releases all leading up to a formula that has truly been perfected and a decent new song list to boot. You’ll want to be subscribed to Just Dance Unlimited to get the most out of your purchase, however, and a combination of your needs, budget and access to previous titles makes the decision much more difficult than it should be. Newcomers to the series won’t find a better experience out there, but seasoned players might want to think about saving some cash and sticking with their current setup.
Comments 34
I love the Just Dance games and while I agree that it's not that much different, the song list and new dancers are enough for me.
Will be picking this up on Black Friday as usual, looking forward to crushing my in laws lol:D
@Sandro89 Lots of imagination and unicorns? I'll take that as a compliment!
So you pay for the game and then subscribe to unlock half of it? No thanks...
I skipped the article and came straight to the comments because, "You should be dancing, yeah!". Hehe
@Sandro89 haha your comment is funny but then I saw that your avatar is like a 10 yr old girl.
It would be nice if Ubisoft forked up the goods to put the game on a 16GB cartridge like Just Dance 2017.
2018, 2019, and 2020 all shipped on 8GB carts and the video quality looks like poo.
I mean, I wasn't really interested in this game in the first place, but hearing that most content is locked behind a subscription when you're already buying the game, is really nasty.
I hate free to play, but if you're going to go the route of micro transactions and subscriptions, then your game should be free to play.
I wonder how many people buy this for the Wii .... And how sad that the Wii U did not get a very....
@rockodoodle I might get it as I imagine it will be the final release on the system and there's something sentimental and vaguely collectable about that.
@pblive I’m glad you enjoy it, and we should always support and continue to do what we enjoy
On the subject of content being locked behind a Unlimited subscription, it's usually access to songs from previous titles. Unless something has dramatically changed, the content for the current title is not
@Heavyarms55 @datamonkey : Unlimited has been a standard feature for quite a number of games now, and is a subscription that gives you access to most of the franchise's back catalogue dating back to the very first game on Wii (as well as some of the spin-offs, I believe).
What I don't like about it, however, is the fact that each instalment usually has a number of songs every year (usually a modest amount) that are exclusive to the Unlimited subscription. For example, Just Dance 2017 used "How Deep Is Your Love" exclusivity on Switch as a selling point (on the packaging of the physical edition no less), even though that particular song was locked behind the subscription (though Ubisoft has always issued at least 1 month free, though until 2017, the bonus subscription period was 3 months).
Same old, same old then.
It's the COD of party games.
Yes, it’s just the unlimited you pay for and it’s a subscription you can use just when you need it as you can pay for anything from a day to a year. There are plenty of songs and all game modes available from the start without the subscription.
It should free to play. No $60 plus a subscription. How greedy.
Ubisoft is turning all of their major IPs into live service games. It is pretty annoying. Used to be a Ubisoft fan.
@gaby_gabito the game actually retails for 39.99 US, but most places I've seen already have it for between 30 - 35. It's also showing up as a Black Friday deal, so if you can get it for the $30ish price, adding the sub is reasonable. Even at 40 it's not awful.
@Sandro89 well now, that was judgy and ignorant.
@pblive I'm with you on that one
Guys it’s not that crazy.. it’s $39.99, so the extra $20 subscription makes it $60 like a standard game. Also if you do what I do, I always sell my JD copy in October every year and save the money to put towards the new game that comes out a month later. That gives me an extra $15 off usually. You gotta play your cards right and it comes out pretty cheap😛 Also my Unlimited subscription (which hasn’t expired yet) transferred over instantly to the new game, I was very pleased about that.
Has anyone bought Just Dance 2018 recently? Does the three-month JDU still work? I'm not too fussed about missing the songs from 2019 and 2020 and would rather have three months with some of the older songs and a decent main tracklist with 2018.
@CatSoul I've got them all digitally and, yes, I think the sub still works on 2018 at the moment. I'll check for sure later tonight.
"There's no better dance simulation out there." You should probably clarify this with "on Switch", because otherwise, Harmonix's Dance Central games blow Just Dance out of the water.
Well at least this game will be the last ever Wii title marking the end of the non-HD era for good.
@Silly_G I mean, if you're okay with it, you're okay with it. But I don't like it. But that kind of system is not something I would like for games I play.
@Heavyarms55 : I don't like it at all either (I would prefer for gradual rereleases of the older games in their entirety on disc/cartridge). My main problem with it is that there are exclusive songs that can only be accessed via the subscription when they should have been on the disc/cartridge as well.
My point is that to suggest that the remainder of the catalogue (of about 500 or so songs from past games) being content locked behind a paywall is disingenuous as no game of this type would contain more than a few dozen songs in the base package due to the costs of licensing (and storage too, obviously).
@Sabrewing
I was wondering about Just Dance vs Dance Central, as from what I've seen DC is better in almost every way. The only advantage (for me) with JD on the Switch seems to be that the kids could play local multiplayer, whereas only one could play DC at a time (in VR).
@CaPPa The Kinect-based DCs all supported multiplayer, which includes 1-3 on 360 and DC Spotlight on Xbox One. DC VR would obviously be very expensive to get all the required gear for, but it too supports multiplayer.
@rockodoodle
It was very much an expectation that I would be. Alas, my kid up and stopped liking it, finally. But, essentially, Nintendo Wii in 2019 is Just Dance’s core audience. I guarantee you that 99% of Wii owners do not know it was discontinued nor of the existance of game consoles (or gaming on PC) being made and available after it.
@Tsusasi
It’s usually 8 bucks come January
@Sandro89
No, definitely either much younger than 10 or much older than 65.
There is no inbetween.....unless you count the guys that follow around Japanese and Korean all pre-teen girl bands.
I could see them loudly discussing how much they love Just Dance so much that they got distracted and lost their puppy in stockpile of the current year’s most popular candy in the back of their windowless van while standing a legally mandated distance from the schoolyard.
I have Just Dance 2019 and the core songs suck. The game is pretty worthless without the Unlimited subscription which really opens up the game to its full potential.
@Sabrewing
I do have a 360 with Kinect so I guess that would be an option.
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