Just Dance 2020 (Wii)
The Nintendo Wii was released in 2006, and by 2015, most game releases had dried up for it thanks to it being replaced by its successor the Wii U. The Wii U itself ended up being replaced by the Nintendo Switch in 2017, meaning releasing a game for the Wii U after would be a bit strange. However, even stranger was a phenomenon still happening on the Nintendo Wii, because while other game series had continued on elsewhere, the Just Dance series not only kept getting releases on the system after 2015, but it managed to last all the way up until the release of Just Dance 2020, and it seems likely the series would have kept going if Nintendo hadn’t been phasing out the equipment to make Wii discs by then. Ubisoft found people were still willing to buy the dancing game on that old system though, so they continued to release entries until they were made to stop, and admittedly, it’s easy to see why the Just Dance fans were still attached to the system.
Dancing in Just Dance 2020 is easy to understand. The motion sensing Wii Remote controller is held in one hand, and after a player picks the song they wish to dance to, they need to follow the actions of the dancer on the screen with the help of pictograms near the bottom that help clue you into the upcoming moves. The glowing white coach will often be wearing some colorful attire that matches the mood of the song, but they will also have one brightly colored hand that is meant to be the main part you watch as this is technically the only part of the dance you need to imitate. While doing the dance with your entire body is more entertaining and can help you find the rhythm of the music, Just Dance 2020 doesn’t pretend it can track any motions outside of the hand holding the controller, your scoring tied solely to what that all important hand is up to. You won’t actually see the points you’re earning until the song is over, instead seeing notifications like OK, Perfect, or an X for a complete miss, although you do gradually earn stars to indicate how well you’re performing. While there are 5 stars to earn, there’s also a Superstar ranking that serves as the highest possible rank you can achieve for a dance well done.
Hiding the score earned and not emphasizing them too much is actually a pretty smart accommodation for the Wii remote’s limitations in tracking motions accurately. Even with a Wii Motion Plus accessory, the game does seem to only be able to read your motions to a certain point, but rarely does it demand perfection. You can earn a Superstar rank on a song even with a few misses and getting frequent OK ratings isn’t a death sentence for your final score, so even when you are pretty sure the game missed your motion, you won’t get too frustrated because your cumulative performance is more important than individual dance moves. Importantly, while the pictograms and coach will ask you to do moves that don’t involve the Wii remote hand at all, you aren’t judged for them at all. Gold Moves exist as well that indicate the game is watching your next actions more closely and will give you a surge of points if you pull them off, adding a few bursts of excitement beyond just trying to get all the moves right in general. Just Dance 2020 tries to be honest in how it rates you, and it does pass a few simple tests on accuracy. Sitting there waving the controller without thought may earn you a single surprise star, but the game is trying to judge if you’re moving properly while also not actually docking points for flubbed actions. You can even have a whole song play through without making a movement and there will be no premature end as a punishment, Just Dance 2020 more about doing the best you can with one of the few flaws in its accommodations being a lack of a count back in after you press pause.
The range of songs offered in Just Dance 2020 is quite good as well. There are 60 tracks in total, although some are variations you need to unlock, and the songs featured are mostly a strong selection from contemporary sources but with a more global approach than simply selecting the U.S’s top singles. You have tracks like Ariana Grande’s “God is a Woman” and Panic! At The Disco’s “High Hopes”, but a good deal of music featured here will be in languages besides English while even some of the English ones are technically Multilingual. “Rain Over Me” by Pitbull features substantial Spanish sections, and while “Kill This Love” by K-Pop group Blackpink features some English, it is more of a Korean track. Of course, the music here is for dancing rather than parsing the meaning behind the lyrics, so strong danceable rhythms are prioritized and Just Dance 2020 actually pulls from a wide range of genres to ensure there’s quite a mix of dance types on show.
With hip hop, rock, pop, and other music genres represented, Just Dance 2020 makes sure to include quite varied types of choreography to match. In fact, it’s hard to say any two songs are danced in a similar manner. A wide array of hand and arm motions mean the game is playing into what it can track best, but there are full body motions like spins and walks that can be tracked and many songs can have their subject matter or presentation linked to dance moves. Kill This Love for example has a military march theme, and when its catchy refrain kicks in, a dance move that looks like cocking and firing a rifle provides a memorable motion. The song isn’t just all gimmicky moves though, Just Dance 2020 having a good sense for mixing in distinct actions with more expected dance motions. “Sushi”‘s video has a sushi delivery style to it, and so sections where you’re running in place like you’re off to deliver the food make a good deal of sense. “My New Swag” isn’t just a Chinese language song but one that embraces a Chinese aesthetic from the colorful visuals to the motions of the dancer and the remix of “Old Town Road” featured here plays into its country music side, even offering an alternate line dance version.
Not only is the spread of dancing styles on offer broad and creative, but Just Dance 2020 cooks up a few different ways to play beyond the regular dances. The simplest way you can change up how a song is played is by selecting a different coach. Just Dance 2020 can be played with up to four players, and depending on the song you can have anywhere from 1 to 4 dancers to follow. Some songs like “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” tend to just have the four dancers do similar moves at different times, but there are unlockable tracks where the actions expected of you are entirely different. Among the 12 unlockable tracks you earn simply for playing the game are variants with themes like a caveman version of “Taki Taki” or a snake charmer themed dance for “Soy Yo” that heavily change the expected dance moves. The snake charmer variation is an excellent example of varied dances across coaches too, the player either trying to imitate a person moving like a snake or the charmer’s dances. Even the children’s song “Baby Shark” has a smart approach to changing up its coaches, one clearly meant for young players with its simpler movements while a slightly more demanding dance can be picked for adults. “Baby Shark” is even good for representing the game’s judging metrics, as it expects better performance from players for simple moves so you may get higher points in a more complex song simply because the game adjusts how precise it expects you to be based on the difficulty of the dancing on offer.
“Baby Shark” may sound like an odd pick for a dance song in this game, many songs here have swear words or raunchy themes in their original versions after all. Just Dance 2020 does just outright remove lyrics that feature adult subjects, which can sound a bit odd at times since a line will just have background music in between parts of the sentence, but Just Dance 2020 makes no secret of wanting to appeal to players of all ages. An entire Kids Mode selection of songs exist, and while “Happy Birthday” being present feels like a weak inclusion, the other dance tracks actually go for a different direction than the licensed music. Kids Mode music leans more into dancing as a fun activity than a range of nice looking dance moves. “Kitchen Kittens” is like playing pretend as a chef, your motions more about imitating food prep than dance moves, but you still have things like Jungle Dances which is a jungle safari where you imitate the animals you find in ways that still look a lot like a dance at times.
Kids Mode is a wonderful idea for young players and it’s not too demanding, but Just Dance 2020 does also include a few unlockable Extreme variants of dances that more closely match choreography you’d see on stage or in a music video. Most of the time the game tries to strike a balance between what it can accurately read and giving the player an energetic and entertaining dance, the game even trying to cook up moves for less danceable hits like Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy”. There will be moments in dances where you repeat the same motion a few times to keep the rhythm, the player able to start predicting what is coming next and overcoming a limit in the pictogram system since they can’t indicate movement speed, but you’ll learn to recognize how fast you need to act over time. The extreme songs though really demand quick and varied movement, tracks like Skrillex’s “Bangarang” involving repeated jumps and drops to the floor on top of the more complex hand movements that the game can more accurately track.
The Extreme songs are definitely a great final test of sorts, especially since Just Dance 2020 on Wii is otherwise quite lacking in modes. You can make dance playlists so you can play a few songs in order, but otherwise it is just playing songs from a menu. There are avatars to unlock, but avatars don’t have much of a purpose. Just Dance 2020 on other systems did have unique features like a mode celebrating the series’s 10 year anniversary that brought back tracks from previous titles, that mode and its music sadly absent here. People still playing Just Dance 2020 on the Wii though have to expect some features like downloadable music not to be available simply because of the system’s discontinued nature, but a bit more structure or options could have still made this final outing on the system feel special rather than just a new selection of songs to dance to for loyal fans.
THE VERDICT: Just Dance 2020 being on the Wii is a novelty, one that unfortunately lead to it having fewer modes and options than it has on other systems and a weaker ability to detect your dancing accuracy to boot. However, Just Dance 2020 at least understands the system it’s on well enough after years of releases, the game scoring things appropriately so you need to dance well to earn stars but the limits of the motion detection are accommodated well when it comes to how strict the judgement for a move ends up being. The choreography for the wide range of music on offer is varied and entertaining, Kids Mode and some unlockables getting especially creative with what a dance can be while even more traditional offerings still feel inventive in what moves they cook up.
And so, I give Just Dance 2020 for Nintendo Wii…
A GOOD rating. I’ve only played the original Just Dance and now Just Dance 2020 so there may be details I’m missing on how it’s changed over the years, but Ubisoft at least came to understand the limits of the system it developed for and now has a strong sense for how to design around them properly. The Wii Remote just isn’t up for the task of tracking a wide range of quick and unusual actions, but it does well enough that the game can still feel like you need to do as instructed if you do want to earn the best ratings for your moves. Extreme mode probably pushes things a bit beyond its scope, but the regular dances get around the system’s limitations well and are generally inventive, ensuring that few songs play alike and yet many feel like they could be legitimate dances. The different coaches to follow add some replayability beyond chasing higher scores, and while the reach for where the game selects music from is quite global, there are many songs that are enjoyable for their sound and even weaker ones can still be fun to dance to. Beyond the baffling inclusion of “Happy Birthday”, Kids Mode is likely to entertain most players too since it is focused on that kinetic fun of moving around, Just Dance 2020 mostly just feeling like it’s limited by the console’s capabilities and its reticence to put in more advanced modes.
Just Dance 2020 is the last official game released for the Wii in North America after many years of the series being the only game released on the Wii for that year. A fascinating case of the fans of a game series still keeping it alive well after anyone would have expected it to, ultimately the truth is Just Dance did need to move on. The Wii’s motion controls and appeal to casual players does mean the audience was large enough to justify it sticking around, but greater accuracy in detection feels important for the series’s continued growth. Just Dance 2020 could have been a more impressive send-off, but Ubisoft probably wasn’t even sure it would be the last game on the Wii though. At least the series managed to truly figure out how to realize itself on the console before it was finally made to move on completely after its rough start all the way back in 2009.