Of course, another kid’s dance game, except it’s a mash-up of the Just Dance series and Disney. I was honestly surprised. Here’s the summary if you haven’t been following this one:

The Magic Kingdom takes over a new realm as Disney hits the dance floor! Throw a Disney dance party with 25 favorite songs from Disney movies and TV shows. Swim around the ocean with Ariel, be a rock star like Hannah Montana, slip into Cinderella’s glass slippers and dance at the ball, and more. Dance to tunes from the Jungle Book, The Muppets, Mary Poppins, Tangled, and other beloved films. Move and groove with dance routines from shows like High School Musical, Phineas and Ferb, Camp Rock, and Shake It Up. Parents can set the playlist, on-screen lyrics let you sing along, and the Kinect sensor does the rest. All you have to do is dance!

Overview

Another one I wasn’t sure of, but somehow it has just the right amount of “Disney Magic” and for whatever reason, it makes you want more. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m an adult and if kids will have the same feeling, but I know my boys can watch the same Disney stuff over and over, so it might be a win overall.

The Menu

The menu is very simple with this and uses the hover and lock method. There isn’t any voice navigation but you can use a controller if you would like. The menu is broken down into 3 main categories, Just Create, Dance and Parents. As usual, I’ll break each one down.

Just Create

This is kind of the like Just Create mode in Just Dance 3, except it’s completely geared for kids. They will probably play this more than the regular dancing modes. It takes about a minute of any of the songs included and transforms your playspace and room to be part of the video. You can do whatever you want, and on your right hand is the magic Disney star, I’ll call it. You can move it all over and it drops a little dust trail after it. It’s actually kind of neat and I have a feeling kids will love it. Depending on the song they choose, it creates a frame around your playspace and off you go. I’m not sure if characters and what not pop up while you are dancing as I only tested out The Muppet show, but it didn’t do it for me. There is a photo option as well in here, but it’s just a library of all of the photos that have been taken.

Dance

This is the main area of the game. It’s split up into 3 sections which are Playlists, Songs and Non-stop Shuffle. The playlists consist of 17 preset playlists and 10 create your own. I did go ahead and take notes of all of them. Here they are in order:
  • Disney Channel Songs
  • Classic Disney Songs
  • Modern Disney Songs
  • Dance Workout
  • Easier Songs
  • Harder Songs
  • Duets
  • French Songs
  • Italian Songs
  • German Songs
  • Spanish Songs
  • Dutch Songs
  • Danish Songs
  • Finnish Songs
  • Norwegian Songs
  • Swedish Songs
  • Portuguese Songs
  • User Playlists 1 through 10

Now you’ll notice there are languages in here. This was similar to Just Dance Kids 2, but there are a lot of songs that span many different languages. The on-screen lyrics display the different languages as well.

For the Song section, there are 25 songs to choose from. There’s a star section and water drop section per song. I’m assuming the water drop is how active it is or something with sweat, and I’m guessing the star section is for the difficulty but I’m not certain. All the songs can handle 4 players just like the Just Dance series, but only solos and duets are in here, no quartets as I’m assuming most kids can’t handle it yet, but I do know the 4 player individual part songs are a blast to play with people. You can get 4 stars on each song, depending on how well you do. Since it is for kids, it is sloppy but it works for what it is, kids usually don’t care about accuracy anyway. I found it to be somewhat fun believe or not. Usually these kids games are boring, but like I mentioned, it’s just something with the Disney Magic in here. I did go ahead and make a list of the songs as well as I haven’t seen them anywhere, I put the show/movie name first and then the song title from it:

  • The Jungle Book – The Bare Necessities
  • Beauty And The Beast – Be Our Guest
  • Cinderella – Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo
  • A.N.T. Farm – Calling All The Monsters
  • Wizards of Waverly Place – Everything Is Not As It Seems
  • The Aristocats – Ev’rybody Wants To Be A Cat
  • TinkerBell – Fly to Your Heart
  • Peter Pan – Following The Leader
  • Good Luck Charlie – Hang In There Baby
  • Lilo & Stitch – Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride
  • Jessie – Hey Jessie
  • Hannah Montana – Hoedown Throwdown
  • Bolt – I Thought I Lost You
  • It’s A Small World – It’s A Small World
  • Tangled – I’ve Got A Dream
  • The Muppets – The Muppet Show Theme
  • Shake It Up – Shake It Up
  • Phineas and Ferb – S.I.M.P. (Squirrels In My Pants)
  • Tangled – Something That I Want
  • Mary Poppins – Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
  • Enchanted – That’s How You Know
  • Camp Rock – This Is Me
  • Shake It Up – Twist My Hips
  • The Little Mermaid – Under The Sea
  • High School Musical – We’re All In This Together

Now when I mentioned the Disney Magic, I think it’s probably easier to show it to you. The way they made the video background are very authentic. I remember certain scenes from movies during these particular songs and its all in there. For example, the first one I did of Beauty And The Beast, you’ll notice it. The graphics are beautiful as well, so be sure to check it out in 1080P below:

Just because it’s a Disney Classic, even though they seem to be the best, in my opinion, they still added the Disney flair to other things as well. I went ahead and tried to do a sample of each. The next 3 videos below are Shake It Up (although due to that particular song not being allowed on YouTube, I had to change the audio track), for the modern TV show, S.I.M.P. from Phineas and Ferb for the modern cartoons, and of course, High School Musical since it was a major TV movie.

There are a couple of other modes in case you don’t want to “Just Dance”. Those 2 modes are Team High Score and Freeze & Shake. Team High Score can be played with one player, but it’s probably more fun with more than one. One person wins the spotlight and by dancing, music notes fly off them. The other players have to move to collect them to gain extra points. The Freeze & Shake mode is like a Red Light/Green Light mode. When a stop sign appears, you have to stop moving no matter what the dancers are doing. When there’s a shake icon, move as fast as possible for bonus points. If you do the opposite, you either lose points or don’t get any points. Lastly, there is a non-stop shuffle option in here that you can play using many different languages. Start it up and away you go.

Parents

The parents section is more or less an extras area. There is a Play Tracker which records the total play time, the total count of each song played, and how many calories were burned in each session. Progress keeps score of all 3 modes in the game, Just Dance, Team High Score and Freeze & Shake. You can also find the Instruction Manual here as well.

There is also a hefty section about Health Tips kids can probably read when they are bored, and the credits are viewable as well. Last are the options which including turning the lyrics, next move icons, progress meter and dance photos on or off. You can also change the menu language from in here.

Conclusion

It has that fun atmosphere that the Just Dance series brings to the table, and to me, combined with the Disney flair and having a sense of realism, whether real motion or cartoon animation, makes it a decent game. I have a feeling kids will be wanting this one, I know mine do and they don’t care for dancing games. So for what it is, it’s not bad and kids will probably know everything in here unless they don’t care for Disney classics. Like I mentioned earlier though, I felt it really needed a lot more songs. There are a lot of Disney movies that have songs that could have been added in here. I also felt it needed something extra to keep kids coming back for more, but it could just be me since I’m so used to unlocking things as everything is ready from the get go.

The big difference with this one is the Just Create mode, kids being able to be creative and do their own thing will sell itself. The thing is, there isn’t marketing for this one that I’ve noticed (I believe I seen a commercial for the Wii version) and the Just Create is exclusive to Kinect if I’m not mistaken, so if it doesn’t do well, it’ll be due to marketing failures, but again, that’s why we’re here so you can get the details about games that no one else shares.


This review is based on a retail copy of the Xbox 360 version of Just Dance: Disney Party
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