Just Dance Versus Dance Central – Which is better?
You have an Xbox/Wii/PS3/PS4/Xbox One but you don’t know which motion sensor dance games to buy. It can be a tough call as there is almost an oversupply of dance games for all current and next-gen consoles.
Personally, I prefer the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, as I find the motion detection through the Kinect and Kinect 2 sensor to be far superior to the motion-sensing peripherals on other consoles.
Other than that, Dance Central and Just Dance have some differences but are similar in many ways. Just Dance is more suitable for those who just want to have fun. Dance Central is more suitable for those who want to learn to dance.
Dance Central is developed by Harmonix, who previously created the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games. Just Dance is created by Ubisoft, which is not well known for its music or rhythm games.
Dance Central has been claimed to be the best-selling dance game series thus far. Dance Central was also one of the launch titles when the Kinect sensor first appeared (previously called Project Natal when it was in development).
Just Dance also has a strong following, with the first few games only being released for the Wii (later released as Greatest Hits on other consoles). Just Dance is available on all current and next-gen consoles. Just Dance has even released games for PS4 and Xbox One (until now, Dance Central has been protected and not in development for current systems).
Dance Central is more realistic and has a more variable difficulty. Songs on Dance Central are rated from 1 to 5 stars based on difficulty. You can also choose individual difficulty for each song, from beginner to hard. As you progress through the lower difficulty moves, you can move up to the harder difficulties to try it out.
As the difficulty of the song increases (player choice), the moves become more difficult and faster paced. They are also based on dance moves from previous difficulties, with hard difficulty incorporating moves from easy and medium with new moves added. One minor drawback to Dance Central is that the dance moves don’t always flow as smoothly as in Just Dance, which seems like a minor drawback to me.
There is also a practice mode in Dance Central that you can use to practice moves from a particular song. You can slow down the song, practice certain parts, and practice the entire song in practice mode.
Just Dance, on the other hand, does not have any practice mode. Most of the songs are on normal or hard difficulty and most of the songs are usually more up-tempo (plus an exercise if that’s what you’re looking for). Just Dance has cards for upcoming dance moves that scroll across the bottom (from right to left) as you dance to the on-screen character’s choreographed dance to the song you chose.
Dance Central uses a similar system but has cards with the names of the dance moves, which scroll from bottom to top on the right or left side as you follow the on-screen dancer/character’s dance to the song.
Just Dance allows you to unlock songs by using Mojo Points (and in Just Dance 2014 Xbox Live Points, Wii Points/PSN Points) to unlock new/alternate dance routines for songs, mashups, and battles. You can also download new songs through points or money (depending on which system you are playing on).
In Dance Central you have the option to import songs from previous dance central titles, as well as new songs through DLC with points or money. With this you can create a huge library of songs in one game with up to 100-200 songs in one game. With Just Dance, you usually have to change game discs to get more songs or play different songs.