Just Dance: Decades of Hits Review – New Kids on the Block

Just Dance: Decades of Hits Review

Just Dance isn’t exactly designed with someone like me in mind, and that’s perfectly fine. Ubisoft makes these games primarily for children, so I approached Just Dance: Decades of Hits with one important question: will kids actually want to keep playing, er, dancing? After spending some time with it, I’d say the answer is a resounding yes, though there are a few caveats.

The concept is straightforward. Decades of Hits features 35 tracks spanning the 1970s through the 2020s, packaged alongside a brand-new Adventure Mode. Players take control of Lyra, the daughter of eccentric scientist Dr. Gigavolt, as she travels through six themed worlds to save her father. Each world represents a different decade, naturally with dancing serving as the key to progressing. Ubisoft’s first win with Decades of Hits is giving children a destination, a story, and something to work toward. This makes the experience far more engaging than simply browsing through a song list. Mini-games add variety between dance routines, while exclusive rewards give another incentive to keep moving forward. The narrative is appropriately ridiculous, which is exactly what it needs to be. Kids don’t need a complicated story; they just need a reason to dance.

Something for Everyone

Decades of Hits does a great job of providing difficulty settings to make the experience accessible to players of different ages and abilities. Easy is ideal for younger newcomers, Normal offers a comfortable middle ground, and Hard leaves very little room for error. Make no mistake, I’d absolutely reserve that final setting for older siblings or determined parents rather than youngsters.

Decades of Hits also does a nice job of keeping players encouraged. On-screen messages celebrate particularly difficult moves when you pull them off, providing beginners with a small but necessary confidence boost. Adventure Mode is similarly accommodating, with fairly reasonable score requirements to advance. Newcomers shouldn’t have much trouble getting through the opening world, and, thankfully, a few missed moves won’t immediately derail their progress.

Wonderfully Vibrant

Though it’s the presentation where Decades of Hits makes its strongest impression. Vibrant colors dominate the screen, while animated characters and playful visuals give older songs a fresh, youthful coat of paint. Rather than making music from before their birth feel outdated, the game gives children something new and relatable to enjoy alongside it. The music videos demonstrate this particularly well. During ABC by the Jackson 5, for example, a walking, jiving paintbrush adds some extra personality to the routine. And it’s not hard to imagine kids laughing along with the performance. Suddenly, a song from 1970 feels like something pulled straight out of a Saturday-morning cartoon, and I think that’s where Decades of Hits is at its best.

There’s also a little something here for multiple generations to appreciate. Grandparents might recognize the disco-inspired visuals, parents can get excited when an ’80s favorite is queued up, and younger players will always have a new, colorful, entertaining world to explore. It really is a clever way of bringing different age groups together through music.

Stumbling Blocks

Despite the positives, however, a few things could use some refinement. Scoring is one of my biggest complaints. There’s no doubt that the system can be incredibly particular about how accurately players follow the on-screen movements, which isn’t going to be easy for younger children. A kid might be having the time of their life, only to finish a routine with a disappointing score. I’d prefer a more forgiving approach for beginners, since I imagine a lot of folks would agree that getting a poor rating is the quickest way to suck the fun out of the experience.

Navigation is another minor frustration. Using my phone to move around the menus felt clumsy, and I imagine younger children might have an even harder time managing it. Parents will probably end up having to take over the navigational duties. Truth be told, even I struggled with it at times.

Questions and Answers

Quiz Mode is the last thing I take issue with. Children who are primarily interested in dancing rather than paying attention to everything happening around them may struggle with the questions. Fortunately, the requirements are fairly generous, with just two correct answers out of seven needed to advance. Nobody should find themselves completely stuck, though, and the mode feels somewhat disconnected from a game that otherwise emphasizes movement and music.

Those shortcomings don’t do much to spoil the overall experience. Decades of Hits understands what a children’s dance game needs to accomplish: get kids moving, encourage them along the way, and introduce older music in a package they’ll happily revisit. I’m certainly not its target audience, but it’s easy to recognize the appeal.

***A PS5 code was provided for this review***