I am extremely frightened by the panda man.

Author's Rating:

Pros: Dancing/graphics/gameplay greatly improved. More hidden characters.

Cons: Fewer starting characters, music not AS good, no ending movies.

The Bottom Line: 
Better than the original, but there are some flaws. Still definitely worth playing.

Author's Review
As a great fan of the first game, I was simply elated to find out that my new boyfriend owned “Bust a Groove 2”. I was looking forward to seeing all the crazy new characters, hearing the songs, and seeing the improvements in graphics and overall quality. After playing it for hours on end, I’m still not sure where I really stand on this game, as it not only has a lot of improvements, but unfortunately has a lot of drawbacks that I would never have suspected.

The Characters

Returning from the first game are Hiro, Heat, Strike, Kitty-N, Kelly, Shorty, Capoiera, and boss character Robo-Z. Not returning for this round are Jamaican painter Frida, fast-food lovin’ Hamm, dancing tarot reader Pinky, and insane boy-genius Gas-O. Something I just happened to notice, and maybe it’s just a coincidence, is that three of the characters not returning for the second game are minorities. Frida, Hamm, and Pinky were the only definitively non-Caucasian characters in the game, and all three have been removed, leaving “Bust a Groove 2” with an all-white and Japanese cast. Whether this was intentional, I will not go on to speculate, but I was disappointed not to see more of the original characters return for this game. I was also disappointed that not only were some of the returning characters changed in not-positive ways, but there is an obvious lack of good characters overall.

Hiro, Heat, Capoiera, and Robo-Z really haven’t changed too much besides appearance from their original selves. Hiro is still an arrogant Travolta wannabe, Heat is still an ex-racer with Firestarter-ish powers, Capoiera (while their dancing style now greater resembles their name) is still the same cute little pair of aliens, and Robo-Z is still, well…. A giant robot. Former latex bunny suit-wearing secretary Kelly has now decided to become a traffic cop, and she has seemed to have gotten over her inhibitions when it comes to expressing herself through dance. Kitty-N has gone beyond mere TV star to becoming a pop icon. Strike, unfortunately, has turned on his own promise of rehabilitation and returned to a life of crime. The character “improvement” that bothers me the most, however, is in my previous favorite character, Shorty. In the original game, she is just a bubbly, bouncy little 12-year-old girl whose theme song declares her intentions to always stay the way she is and never grow up. In this game, however, she seems to have broken this promise. She now sports a much more mature dancing style, clothing, and even hairstyle: a dramatic change from the cute little kid she used to be. It’s kind of sad that in this game, it’s obvious that she’s growing up, and really, now that she has this new overall style, it really takes away heavily from the charm that made her so popular in the original game.

The new characters added to this game are interesting, to say the least. Joining the cast are Comet, Tsutomu, Bi-O, and boss Pander. There are also new hidden characters, though it seems they are all typically sidekick-types, and not even important ones at that! Shorty’s mousy friend Columbo returns as a hidden character, and though he does show up in the background of two of the stages in some form, Burger Dog does not appear as a hidden character in this game (understandable, since his human counterpart, Hamm, isn‘t in it either). New hidden characters include Hustler Kong (the dancing gorilla that pops out of Hiro’s stage if you rack up the points), Sushi Boy (some goofy little robot from Comet’s stage that you only see in the background on a sign), McLoad (a dinosaur counterpart to Kelly that you never even see elsewhere in the game, as far as from what I‘ve played), ChiChi and Sally (two little strange alien creatures with monkey tails and lights on their head that are seen bouncing around in the background of Capoiera‘s stage), and the one that may frighten me even more than Pander, Michael Doi. The deal with this freaky dance instructor is that he was the one who taught Kitty-N all she knows. Unfortunately for her, Kitty-N ended up developing a huge crush on this guy. Why is it unfortunate, you may ask? Because he‘s fruitier than every single product combined from your average Bath and Body Works store. If his costume doesn’t scare you enough, his dancing manner certainly will: Nothing is more unnerving to see than some guy in tight spandex with a pink scarf around his waist, and with a massive amount of chest hair showing, that dances just like Kitty-N. I don’t know WHY my boyfriend just loves to pick Michael Doi when we’re playing against each other, but I think he does it just to annoy me and throw me off guard (mind you, I have nothing against homosexuals. My godfather was one, I live next to a gay couple, my grandfather was bi, most of my friends are bi, and my boyfriend is bi. However, the character is just… beyond scary). Of course, you can also unlock Pander and Robo-Z, just as you had to unlock Capoiera and Robo-Z in the first game.

Of the new starting characters, the one I seem to have a major problem with is Tsutomu. It seems to me that since they decided to make Shorty start growing up, they needed another kid character to replace her. Unfortunately, Tsutomu has no charm whatsoever. He has no discernable dancing style (half the time, it just looks like he‘s messing around rather than actually dancing), and he looks too much like Pinocchio without the long nose. In other words, he has to be the lamest, most uncreative character out of both Bust a Groove games. The only decent thing about Tsutomu is his theme music, though for some reason, the beat of that song throws me off (and I’m a veteran Bust-A-Groove master!). Both of the other starting characters I have taken a real shine to. To replace Hamm as the fast-food representative in this game is Heat’s sister, Comet. Out of all the characters, she is definitely the most risqué. She is a roller-dancing waitress that prefers to wear transparent clothing and fetish gear, and her song (which reminds me all too much of “Beautiful Stranger” by Madonna) is basically about the joys of S&M. For some reason, however, I find her enjoyable to play, if simply because her dance style is so unique: unlike all the other characters, she doesn’t have that repetitive little “side-to-side” step dance while starting out and waiting for other characters, but she just kind of rolls her skates in place (the graphics for this are really fluid). I also might happen to like her simply because I love watching ice skaters, and because I admit that I own more than my share of vinyl clothing (but we won’t get into that). However, I believe my favorite character in the entire game (and perhaps the entire series) is the one that most people don’t like, and that’s Bi-O. Bi-O is Gas-O’s father, whom Gas-O killed by burying an axe in his head, and revived to his present zombie state with his superior mad-scientist powers. Now, I happen to be a big fan of everything concerning zombies, and I also find great comedic amusement in the concept of pirates, so obviously, I’m incredibly amused by a dancing pirate zombie. His dance style is sort of indefinable: Some moves are very much like the kind of dancing you might see a pirate do, while other moves are decidedly hip-hop influenced, others are just comically zombie-ish, and still others seem directly taken from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” (not that that’s a bad thing). Overall, I guess I’m just a strange person, but I love that dancing pirate zombie. Another character I really enjoy playing is Kelly’s counterpart, McLoad. While my boyfriend likes to refer to him as “an ugly Barney-wannabe”, I think McLoad is a very cute and funny character, especially because it’s a big dinosaur dancing in a very feminine dance style (like Kelly). And personally, I just think he’s a cute dinosaur (which incidentally, does NOT look like Barney).

Before I finish up the character section, I must of course mention the two main boss characters: Pander and Robo-Z. Now, in the first game, judging by the look and dancing style, I was certain that Robo-Z was a female. In this game, the character seems to be more masculine than feminine. Some of Robo-Z’s old dancing style shows through, but he/she has also adopted a lot of really great new moves as well, and now the character is much larger in the final stage than he/she used to be, and also seems more streamlined. If you score high enough and beat Robo-Z, you get an extra boss character, which is the creepiest thing I have ever seen. What starts out as a cute little dancing panda soon morphs into a repulsive man/panda hybrid that uses a Japanese dancing style that, to me, just looks like a bizarre combination of ballet and sumo wrestling. Also, as I described to a friend, Pander looks to me like someone tossed some black and white paint onto David Cross and glued panda ears to the sides of his head. Pander looks like a really scrawny, extremely effeminate bald guy with a hairy chest wearing spandex that doesn’t fit. If it were a ballerina doing his dancing, it wouldn’t look so repulsive, but this creature, no matter HOW it danced, would scare the bejeezus out of me. However, despite my fear, I must applaud the guy who, for whatever reason, decided that the character should be wearing one large shoe. Just ONE SHOE. I don’t know why, but the fact that this mutant panda is wearing one sock and one large shoe on one foot just cracks me up.

Overall, the quality of characters and hidden characters has both improved in many ways, and declined, but my biggest gripe is still the lack of starting characters. If you, for example, are playing without a memory card, then your options are extremely limited. You get bored of 2-player mode very easily when you don’t have many characters to pick from.

The Graphics

The graphics in this game are also hard to call. The characters dance with a wonderfully-improved fluidity (especially when coming up from the floor: they no longer just magically flip upright as though someone were grabbing them and turning them over like an hourglass). But, the backgrounds, at least to me, seem a lot weaker than in the original game. Sure, they’re more varied and more interesting than the original, and with a lot more effects and effort put into them, but for some reason, some of them bother me. They don’t seem as three-dimensional, and in many places, they aren’t. This game, unlike the first, has attempted to put other people in the backgrounds, but made them static and unmoving like little pogo-block people. In Kitty-N’s stage especially, the cameramen just look ridiculously static. Other background people end up looking like they came right out of “Um Jammer Lammy”, which just doesn’t go well with this game style. The stages were obviously not as well-thought-out as in the original, especially when it comes to Kitty-N’s stage, which is lame beyond words. Her first stage was so glamorous, and now this stage is what appears to be a disturbingly empty movie set with all the charm and appeal of a congealing jar of 4-year-old mayonnaise. Hiro’s stage isn’t all that different from his stage in the first game, except now there are a lot more little details in decoration, and of course what happens when you really get down and score the high points. Which reminds me to mention that, like in the first game, if you score higher points, something interesting happens to the stage itself, though they were never all that interesting (maybe windows would break, different lighting, or something in the background would be bobbling like crazy). In this game, there are actual interesting things that happen, like the appearance of a giant gorilla (Hustler Kong), a bank vault blowing open with cash flowing all around, and all sorts of interesting surprises that I haven’t even gotten to see all of yet. One that I have gotten lucky enough to see is the special on Kitty-N’s stage that happens if you score a lot of points in a short amount of time: You get to see a phony TV “technical difficulties” thing on your screen for a few seconds, which I find very creative and amusing. However, other than that, Kitty-N’s stage isn’t very charming in the least.

Some stages are fun just in themselves: Shorty’s stage, while lacking the charm of the first, has some great effects that just happen normally, like a giant T-Rex head coming down to try and grab you (don’t worry, it never does). Her stage is also a giant moat-like thing, and the dancers compete on a raft as it floats around the small amusement park, which is somewhat impressive. Other stages with interesting effects include Kelly’s, which is set in the middle of a city intersection. Late in the song, a corpse-marker (one of those chalk drawings police use to mark where a body was) hops out of a sewer and starts dancing in the background. Also noticeable concerning Kelly is the light effect of her police baton, which is not unlike a small Light Saber, and which obviously took a little more work and thought put into it. Bi-O’s stage is set on a pirate ship, with background sounds like a billowing sail and seagulls (and the sail actually moves throughout the whole stage just as if it was being blown by the wind), and unlike all the other characters, his set has two stages: Above deck, and below. In the middle of the song, the characters drop through a giant trap door and inside the ship, where they continue dancing. Another interesting stage is Capoiera’s, which again takes place on their spaceship, but it is now a lot more detailed and interesting, and also has little pink, blue, and purple alien monkey creatures hopping around in the background (which can be a little distracting at first). Also, instead of seeing the moon in the background when the ship’s windows open up, you get to see a nicely-detailed shot of the earth. Like in the first game, Robo-Z’s stage is set in a big open area, and with two characters, Robo-Z appears gigantic while the other player appears tiny in the background. However, instead of them just standing on a building in the background, they appear flying around Robo-Z in a helicopter, which I thought was pretty interesting. Also, during the battle with Robo-Z on his/her stage, the robot slowly malfunctions and is destroyed (during your fever time after you beat against Robo-Z in the normal game mode, you’ll notice him/her sinking into the ocean behind you). The robot will also malfunction during any other stage if you unlock and use him in normal game or 2-player mode. My only gripe about Robo-Z’s stage is that you cannot use the stage in 2-player mode unless one person picks Robo-Z as their character, and of course, the robot appears large while the other character appears tiny. The last stage I feel needs mentioning is Pander’s, which has got to be the single most bizarre stage in the entire Bust A Groove series: it is first composed entirely out of big screens showing random bizarre pictures such as a roast chicken, a man in a duck mask, a bulldog, and other bizarre things, until the stage briefly goes blacklight for a moment before turning into the trippiest, most seizure-inducing display of colors that you could ever imagine. When one of the players wins the “lottery” for the stage (which is what you get to unlock all the special fun things in each stage) all these strange, coin-like discs flip around in the background (which can be effectively distracting to your opponent). All in all, it is a very strange stage, but I suppose, though, that it really fits how disturbing Pander is by himself.

The Gameplay

Being a veteran master of the first game, I thought I would just as easily breeze through the second game, though I was sadly mistaken. This game puts a much greater importance on timing than the first game, not even allowing you to advance to the next level of dancing unless you’re able to hit the last button exactly on the fourth beat at least once. You level up if you hit it exactly on the fourth beat on the second and fourth moves in a combo. Failing to do this can keep you performing the same combo over and over again, and allowing your opponent to get quite the upper hand as they move up in levels, thus scoring higher points (because the higher your levels, the greater the points per move and combo). An improvement over the original game is that instead of all characters sharing the same regular directional and button combinations to level up, they now vary from character to character, though for some reason, some characters are harder to play than others (which may or may not be a good thing). For example, Shorty is blitheringly simple to play, whereas Bi-O has much more complicated combinations. Another improvement in gameplay was that there are now not just the “Easy, Normal, Hard” levels that are really determined more by how well the other dancer dances than how difficult your character is to play, there is now the option of having easy and standard modes, but also a complicated “Mix” mode, which instead of just being directional pad combinations with either the X or O button on the end, now incorporates all the buttons into play in different ways (which also varies between characters). Where usually would just be directional combos, now there are buttons thrown in there, which can seem extremely confusing at times. I have managed to handle Mix Mode for many of the characters, but for others, it is nearly impossible, especially the boss characters. Even characters that you’d think would be easy on Mix Mode become insanely difficult, such as Columbo. However, some characters are also quite easy on Mix Mode, such as Bi-O, who only has directional combinations, followed by varying buttons on the fourth beat. Really, it doesn’t matter HOW easily you can beat the first “Bust-A-Groove”, because you’re on a whole new playing field with this game. However, this game does provide for non-veterans to learn how to get into the groove with the new “Easy” mode. In this mode, you use ALL directional arrows, with no buttons. At first, this can be very confusing to those that are used to the normal Bust-A-Groove controls, but you can get used to it easily.

Like in the first game, you have the ability to attack your opponent and disrupt their dancing. In the first game, this was done by hitting the triangle button on the fourth beat, and you couldn’t pull off an attack right before someone’s solo. Dodging was easy in the first one, because as soon as you heard the character’s “attack noise” that they make prior to attack, you simply hit the square button on the fourth beat. In this game, however, you utilize the R1 and R2 buttons for attacking and blocking, which can be a little hard on the hands. Also, this game allows the person under attack to not just dodge an attack, but to reflect it back onto the other player. However, this is really difficult, as it requires that you hit the button EXACTLY on the fourth beat (not a millisecond too soon or late). Also, this game allows a player to attack someone right before their solo, and actually steal that person’s solo for a lot of extra points. There is still the 2-attack limit for each player, but even if you’ve used up your attacks, you can still reflect your opponent’s attacks back onto them as well. However, you cannot reflect someone’s attack back onto them right before a solo begins, no matter who’s solo it is. My only problem with the attack system in this game is that entirely different buttons are used to attack and defend while in easy mode. Unlike the triangle and square, you use the circle to attack, and the X to defend. The last, and what I consider the cheapest, aspect of the attack system in this game, is that if you attack someone once successfully, if you attack them within the next two fourth beats again right afterwards, they cannot defend themselves. Frankly, I think this is a cowardly move that should only be used in desperation, in normal game mode (like say if you needed a little boost to beat a boss character towards the end). Otherwise, I find it smarter to use the attacks for the purpose of stealing solos, and also for preventing one’s opponent from completing a combo (which thus will inhibit them in leveling up, and will then keep them from being able to score higher points).

A fun aspect of the attacks that played a less-dominant role in the first game is that you can inflict damage in this game that stays on the opponent through the whole stage if you successfully hit them with both attacks. While it is Shorty instead of Hamm who can flatten an opponent either temporarily with one hit, or for the rest of the stage with both hits, it is I think Capoiera who shrinks an opponent but leaves their head the same size, so that they have a tiny little body with a great big head. Unfortunately, the other attack that transforms the opponent in some way, which is Comet’s attack, does not remain permanent if successfully done twice. The attacks are also more creative in this game, though some are just the same as in the first game (Strike still shoots at you, Heat still throws fire at you, though in a different way than before, and Hiro still throws pictures of himself at you, although he throws two different ones for each attack instead of the same picture over and over again). Kitty N’s attack is probably the lamest, as she just has some machine above pick up the opponent and drop them back onto the ground. Tsutomu wins the prize for weirdest attack, as a doorway appears out of nowhere, and the door opens and an anvil falls on you (if this makes sense to anyone, please let me know). Sidekick characters pretty much attack the same way as their human counterparts, though I think a cute aspect is that some characters have their own personal touch, such as Hustler Kong throwing pictures of himself rather than pictures of Hiro, and McLoad roars instead of screaming like Kelly (also, these two characters, being very large, make big stomping sounds sometimes while they dance). My favorite attack, of course, is Bi-O’s, where he grabs the axe embedded in his head, with his head still attached to it, and throws it at the opponent. The head laughs while the body continues dancing in the background (nothing amuses me more than a dancing pirate zombie than a headless dancing pirate zombie!

The scoring in this game is a pleasant surprise. Unlike in the original game, where it was difficult to tell who was winning at times because the only way you could really tell score was by the lame little “audience appreciation” color bar and how much the camera focuses on you, this game actually shows you how many points you are accumulating, and also has little bars in the middle that, if you can get them all at the same level, whether as one bar, two bars, or three, will bring about a stage’s hidden surprises, and will make your score panel flash in rainbow colors. When this happens, whoever got the “lottery”, as it’s called, then gets a substantially increased amount of points for each move either until the end of the stage, or until the lottery stops, for whatever reason (I’m guessing it stops if the person who one it misses a move). A funny thing that seems to happen a lot, at least when me and my boyfriend play, is that BOTH characters can win the lottery at the same time (obviously, both characters cannot get the lottery during one stage unless it’s at the same time, because once one character gets it alone, it then disappears). When both characters win the lottery, both get an increase in points per move. I’m not sure exactly if the lottery will continue just for one character if the other misses a move, as it’s hard to really notice these things while you’re playing. However, this lottery aspect is a great way for a person to pull ahead and win even if they were direly behind in points. Also, what I consider a very fun aspect of this game is that the score can bring about a different outcome than just winning or losing (it’s pretty much impossible to tie in this game). If the players are within 1,000 points of each other, both characters will dance together during the “Freeze Time” (if there is one), after which the winning character takes their bows, and the loser sinks to one knee and seems to make a strangling motion at the winner.

The leveling up in this game, as I’ve mentioned before, is a lot more difficult, and unfortunately less diverse than in the first game. You don’t get to pick between which combos you want to execute, but instead your combos are determined by the timing with which you hit the buttons. People who hit the end button exactly on the fourth beat will do a lot better than those who are off by a millisecond (as in, you actually get more points for a move if you hit the final button exactly on the fourth beat). This also determines how you progress in leveling up, and how many parts you are allowed for a combo (though this varies greatly between characters, and also depends on what mode you are in). In the beginning of a stage, you’re not even able to complete a full six-part combo (which veterans of the original game will remember) because your levels aren’t high enough, and this sort of bothers me. Something very amusing about the leveling system in this game, however, is that if you mess up 7 times in the row, you get what my friend calls a “screw-up combo”, where the character attempts to save face by making it look like they messed up that many times in a row on purpose. And, comically enough, you not only don’t LOSE points for this, but you actually gain 1 single point for a string of misses that result in the “screw-up combo” (I suppose it’s kind of like pity on the part of the “judges”, or perhaps praise for still trying to make it look like it was done deliberately).

The last thing I feel the need to mention before getting into the music aspect is the whole “alternate costume” concept. In the original game, it was lame for the most part. Most of the characters basically just had the same costume, but in different colors. The only exceptions were Hiro and Strike, who changed into jeans and a t-shirt for their alternate costumes. This game is a lot more varied, even changing the character’s hairstyles in some instances. Tsutomu, Capoiera, Bi-O, and Robo-Z (as well as hidden counterparts Sushi-Boy, Michael Doi, Chi Chi and Sally, Hustler Kong, Columbo, and McLoad) will just sport the same outfits (or lack of, in Capoiera’s case) in different colors. This isn’t really a horrible thing for the hidden characters (because frankly, I think Columbo and McLoad look cuter when they‘re bright pink), but I had been hoping that the “same clothes, different colors” thing would have been abandoned for the starting characters. The other characters, thankfully, have a little more variety. It may seem at first glance that Heat’s alternate costume is just the same one in different colors (very much like it goes in the first game) but upon closer inspection, you’ll notice that while his original costume is a sweatshirt and pants with a hat strapped to his back (which he never wears, so it really has no purpose) his alternate costume is what may perhaps be the actual racing suit he had on when he got into the accident that gave him his supernatural control over fire: The bottom of his pants are even scorched (a very nice touch, if I may say so). Strike has basically the same alternate costume as in the first game (also still losing his trademark ponytail in the process, thus looking even MORE like Bono from “U2“), but Hiro now sports a sailor outfit for his alternate costume (which annoys me only because when I choose pirate zombie Bi-O, with his stage, my boyfriend will choose Hiro and put him in the sailor outfit just to be a wise guy). A fun thing about Hiro’s sailor outfit is that not only will he sometimes have a different victory “taunt” (though most of them aren’t really “taunts” as well as just different kinds of shows of joy and bravado), but if he is attacked, he’ll lose his hat, which will remain off for the rest of the stage. Kelly’s original outfit also has a hat, but I don’t think I’ve ever been successfully attacked as her, so I don’t really know if her hat falls off if she’s attacked. In Shorty’s alternate costume, she almost looks like she should be one of Strike’s accomplices, sporting a big “S” on her shirt just like he does, and all-black clothing. Her hair is also in four short little ponytails on the top of her head instead of her traditional pigtails (which have gotten significantly shorter and choppier since the first game). One of the oddest alternate costumes (or really the weirdest to start with) has to be Comet, who goes from wearing a waitress outfit that is see-through in the back to a black vinyl dominatrix-bunny outfit (minus the bunny ears) that just doesn’t seem to look right on a roller-blading teenage girl wearing a little waitress hat. My favorite alternate costume award goes to Kelly, who goes from sporting a somewhat saucy female-cop outfit, to wearing what I interpret to be a pinstriped pimp outfit, with fake moustache and cane to complete the look (and comically enough, it really suits her new style of dancing). Overall, though, the most bizarre alternate costume award has to go to Pander. He may have been weird to begin with, with his disturbing visage and one large shoe and sock on one foot, but his alternate costume, as simple as it is, is just plain freakish. For some reason, all his alternate attire includes is a bobbing flower sitting on top of it’s head (which has that “Um Jammer Lammy” two-dimensional style to it). And don’t think it bobs to any music or anything, because it doesn’t. I suppose it’s just there to be comical.

I should mention the dancing styles themselves, which have a lot less variety to them (especially with the lack of minority characters in this game). All of the female characters besides Comet just use a feminine pop/hip-hop fusion kind of dance style, while the guys stick to their original dance styles with new moves and better fluidity. Tsutomu, as I said before, really has no dance style that I can interpret, and Bi-O’s style is just kind of muddled, but in a good way. Despite the variety it claims, there are even LESS distinct styles of dance in this game than in the original (I really miss Pinky and Hamm…).

The Music

Probably the biggest disappointment to most fans of the original game. Unfortunately, the second game’s music was done by a different crew than on the first, so the quality is a lot poorer, at least in the opinion of most players. All the songs in the first game were wonderful and catchy, while in the second game, there are a lot less songs that really stand out. Also, it doesn’t seem like the songs are really trying to be themes for the characters, but just “good music to dance to”. Obviously, the Japanese versions of the songs will be a lot more tolerable than the American versions (same with the Japanese vocal taunts from each character). The translations in the American version are rather goofy and confusing at times. My boyfriend claims that every song is either referring to sex or drug use, and I’m starting to agree with him (I think lines like “Let‘s all go get high“ and “I know you can‘t resist my tasty lips“ speak for themselves…). I am separately bothered by Kitty N’s song simply because of how truly arrogant the translated lyrics sound. The Japanese singers do a lot better job on their songs than their American counterparts, in general. One of the greatest insults in this game as far as music (at least when it comes to translations) is Shorty’s theme, which in Japan, is appropriately sung by a little girl (or at least someone that sounds like one) just like the Japanese version of her song in the first game was. For some reason, they have a woman singing her song in this game, and while it somehow worked for the first game without being too noticeable, it just comes off horrible here (I believe another reviewer, either here or elsewhere, mentioned that the singer’s voice even cracks during one line).

In the first game, the only song without any real lyrics was Gas-O’s, though in this game, Bi-O, Robo-Z, Pander, and (if I’m remembering correctly) Capoiera’s songs have no lyrics (Pander‘s song does have a Japanese chant during the solos, but I don‘t think that really counts as much as “lyrics“). The only one of these songs I really enjoyed was Bi-O’s, because it very slightly reminded me of a “White Zombie” song (not any song in particular, but just the style of it). All of the non-lyrical songs tend to sound repetitive, though, which is slightly annoying. Robo-Z’s song was a great disappointment compared to his/her song in the first game, though I have to admit, it has a great and very easy beat to follow (though a faster beat that in most songs). Pander’s song is the fastest out of them all, and can make even normal mode become extremely difficult towards the end (even if you’re using a character that has easier normal gameplay). As for the other songs, I suppose you really enjoy them more after you‘ve been playing the game for a while. I was pleasantly surprised at how catchy Kelly’s song was, especially compared to her song in the first game. Tsutomu’s song, as I mentioned before, has a confusing beat to it (though maybe that’s just to me) and Heat and Strike’s songs are as they would be expected: not bad, per se, but not particularly spectacular (Strike‘s song has the easiest beat to follow, and for some reason, has come to really grow on me) . Hiro’s song isn’t quite as dreadfully annoying this time around (of course, this may just be my opinion concerning the first song, since I’ve never been too fond of the song “Staying Alive”, which Hiro’s first song heavily borrows from). I can actually honestly say that Hiro’s song has also grown on me after a while. Another song that I enjoyed was the “Magic Tower” song from Comet’s stage: While it does sound a bit like Madonna’s “Beautiful Stranger” in some ways, it’s still very catchy, and WILL get stuck in your head at some point.

Oddly enough, the music I enjoyed the most was the “Freeze Time” music, which was a happy, short little ska tune that just made me want to get up and start dancing myself! It’s kind of annoying that the music isn’t more varied for the characters, really only spanning pop, rap/hip-hop, techno, and a tiny bit of disco and rock. If they produce another Bust A Groove game, my suggestion would be to include a ska dancer , maybe a swing dancer, a cabaret-style jazz dancer, and maybe even a country line-dancer and an old-fashioned tap dancer (it would certainly make the game a lot more fun to have more dance styles to choose from, as well as a greater variety of song styles!)

The End?

A major disappointment that stands out among the rest is the fact that unlike in the first game, this game (at least the American version) completely lacks ending cinemas. The first game allowed you to see what happened to the characters after defeating the boss, but in this game, you just see the character dancing in a circular crowd of two-dimensional people that look like Parrappa the Rapper/Um Jammer Lammy refugees. The last disappointing thing is that, if you don’t use Shorty to beat it the first time, you have to beat the game more than once before you start unlocking any of the hidden characters, which lengthens the life of the game, but becomes tedious when you have to play so many times just to get through all the hidden characters. For some reason, you don’t have to play through every character during each actual “game“, which seems strange to me. In the original, you play against every character to get through each game, but in the sequel, you play depending on how many points you earn. There are three tiers, and if you earn enough points, you advance to the two higher tiers, the highest being the one where you will go on to compete against Pander. However, no matter what tier, you will always end up competing against Robo-Z as a boss, either as your final, or right before battling Pander.

I should mention that, when it comes to unlocking the hidden characters, you do have to play through the game once with every character, including Robo-Z, to unlock EVERY character. Also, the hidden characters are sort of on a wild-card system. For example, you don’t have to beat the game with Hiro in order to get Hustler Kong: You could be playing as any character, and when you got to playing against Hiro in his stage, you would suddenly find yourself playing against Hustler Kong, which would then indicate that you would be unlocking him when you win the game. So, except for playing as Shorty to get Columbo, as well as having to beat the game with EVERY character in order to unlock Pander, getting a hidden character does not depend on beating the game with their regular counterparts. I like this system, because it comes as a pleasant surprise to see who you might happen to unlock each time you play. Fear not, though, that you might have to continue beating the game after you’ve unlocked Pander to get any straggling characters, because as far as I can tell, by the time you’ve played through every regular character, you’ll probably have gotten all the other hidden sidekicks.

Overall, this game has a lot of improvements, but also it’s share of a few little downfalls. There are so many things to master, and so many hidden possibilities and sources of fun, as well as a ton of tiny details that it takes many times playing the game before you even notice, or score enough points to get or find them (such as the “technical difficulties” screen on Kitty-N’s stage, or little tidbits like how if one or both players choose ChiChi and Sally on Capoiera’s stage in 2-player mode, you won’t see anything jumping around in the background. Also little things like the fact that the voices of Hiro’s fans that shout out his name during all his solos and when he wins become distorted on Pander’s stage, the cheering crowds heard during Michael Doi’s solos, or really just all the many little noises, effects, movements, and surprises that are so overly abundant in this game, all add to the fun. Honestly, you really have to play this game for a long time to get the full enjoyment out of it, though I wonder if it’s possible to really catch absolutely everything in it, because the possibilities are so numerous, and some of them are hard to get (for example, try playing with both people as Shorty, and have both of you achieve the highest levels so that Columbo jumps out, and then both somehow manage to remain within 1,000 points of each other so that both Shorty’s and both Columbos all dance during the fever time). Along the same lines, try both playing Capoiera or ChiChi and Sally and both getting the freeze time, etc. etc.

In essence, though a lot of things might be disappointing to many fans of the original, I find that it is still well worth playing, and at least to me, well worth buying, Perhaps I just don’t get sick of games as quickly as others, but I’m still not done getting my fun from it, and I think many others will agree that it has more than double the lasting charm of the original game, and then some.