For a while, you could hardly walk around your local video game store without tripping over Dance Dance Revolution knockoffs. You might have even picked up one or two, thinking, ‘This can’t be totally terrible.’ And if that game was Bust A Groove, you’d be right.
I only played the game a couple of times, so I don’t really know the whys behind this game, but there are several people, all with dance-related superpowers, who compete in dance-offs. Presumably to save the world from some kind of rhythm-less fate.
It’s kind of hard to see what’s going on if you’re not familiar with the game, but each measure that goes by has 4 beats (4/4 time, I believe). You have the first 3 beats to input the arrow commands, and the fourth beat to input the selected button. Eventually you get the choice between two different sets of arrows, and the more complicated one will get you more points. You also charge up your special move meter and do the occasional super move in an attempt to trip up your opponent.
Since I didn’t play the game more than a couple of times, I didn’t really get familiar with its intricacies, but I did get familiar with the soundtrack, which it turns out that I liked a whole lot. Other than that, the game was pretty mediocre. Though it was good enough to spawn a sequel, which we’ll get into another day.