Bust A Groove (PlayStation) review "This game is good for alot of things, a fresh new look on gaming, fun for parties, or showing to your girlfriend when she says you can't dance. I'd say rent this game first no matter how much I love it, because theres always games I love that other people despise, Pokemon for example."

Bust-A-Groove.

Sounds like a sequel to the old Bust-A-Move game, but is instead, something far different.

A kind of combination fighter/Parappa the Rappa game, Bust-A-Groove shines in its originality. Before it, and to this day, there are very few, if any, games that use the same format as this one. And for that reason, its worth at least a trial.

Stats, Shall we?
Gameplay:10
Sound:10
Control:9
Graphics:8
Re-Playability:High, i'd guess.


Gameplay.
Truely original, this game is one you'll not be used to playing instantly. As with RPGs or a Fighter, they all follow the same basic format, and you pretty much know how to play the game as soon as you press that little circular ''Power'' button. This, is unlike any other.

First off, The Characters each have unique ways of acting. Such as the character Capoeira, who uses nothing but the right hand, or Heat, who never has the same combination twice.

Secondly, the game brings on a not-so-new-but-new-enough style of gameplay seen kind of in the parappa the rapper games, but no. When the game starts, the music plays, and you start doing your dance moves. They start out small, and can get up to be 6 buttons long. But you don't just smash these buttons in and go on to the next one, you have to have groove, son!
You have to press your buttons in time with the music, only pushing buttons when a new beat occurs. You have four beats per combo. And, this can get quite hard! Pressing 6 buttons in a four beat section in time with the music gets pretty complicated, but that just makes it that much more fun to tear into your friends at a party.

Thirdly, The game takes an enourmous amount of time to beat in every possible way, if it is in fact possible. When you do a combo, it opens up up to 5 more combos to do instead of the most obvious one, these help to mix up your dance and make it all that better.


Sound.

Music is outstanding, then again, thats to be expected. Can't have a dance game without good music! And lucky for us, the music doesn't just suck, It will have your foot tapping, and you'll find yourself more often than not tapping your foot with the beats, not to help yourself time, but just because it's that good.

Sound effects are very scarce, and aren't really high quality but at least they don't ruin the game. The ones that are there, such as the ''CHING!'' noise when you do a prefect string of combos, aren't too amazing, but are still pretty nice and get the job done.


Control.

Control tends to be a pain, as pressing the buttons so quickly tends to get you confused, but thats just part of the game! For the most part, the controls are nice. They vary from person to person to give you a set-up of combos that fit to your liking, But this can be annoying when switching from someone like Heat to Shorty.

Not really much to say about control, but hey, i thought i'd add it.

Graphics.

For its time, the graphics for this were austounding. Absolutely magnificant. But, now as we roll on, at the time i'm posting this, MGS2 is out, and it makes Bust-A-Groove look like Super Mario World. But at least they don't suck so bad that the game becomes no fun to play.
The special moves your character can do tend to be very nicely done, much like something out of recent RPG battle magic animation. Overall though, they're nice, but unfortunantly, already outdated.

Re-playability
This deserves over a 10, but i'm too much of a sheep to let it go that high. Everyone else uses 1-10, I have to too!
This game is never the same game twice, regardless of which character you choose. If you choose Capoeira, You have the ability to use different combos to do different dance moves, and be able to customize your favorite moves. If you choose Heat, the same thing, but his are already different, so its hard to get the same thing twice.

This game is good for alot of things, a fresh new look on gaming, fun for parties, or showing to your girlfriend when she says you can't dance. I'd say rent this game first no matter how much I love it, because theres always games I love that other people despise, Pokemon for example.
~Vince

Community review by vince (Date unavailable) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.