Just Dance

In 2009, Ubisoft released one of the many dancing games that were on the Wii, perhaps to gain a few decent sales. The game was critically bashed for its movement detection and lack of unlockables... but something happened.

It turned out a lot of gamers didn't really care about scoring or unlocking content, they wanted to... Just Dance. Thus the game became a runaway hit, maintaining sales even over a year after its release. Ubi started on sequels and spinoffs immediately. But they didn't blow it like many Wii sequels by giving no marketing. Thus the sequel sold even better than the first... and thus a franchise was born.

In addition to the main game games, the series has spinoffs: Just Dance Kids, Dance on Broadway, Just Dance Summer Party,. several Japan-only Wii exclusives (Including a Yokai Watch themed) and a cellphone app titled Just Dance Now. The base gameplay was also utilized for the Licenced dance games, Michael Jackson: The Experience, The Black Eyed Peas Experience, and ABBA: You Can Dance!, and for the Merchandise-Driven Smurfs Dance Party, which was released at the same time as The Smurfs movie.

The surprise success, that even Ubisoft admitted wasn't expected, caused a revival in dance game releases, not only for the Wii, but also Dance Central, Dance Paradise, and Dance Masters for the Xbox 360 Kinect, and Singstar Dance for the Play Station 3.

Now has a Shout Out page.

Compare We Cheer, Dance Dance Revolution.

Tropes used in Just Dance include:

Air Guitar: One of the moves on "Girlfriend" and "Call Me" in 2, and on "I was Made For loving you" in 3, which also has air drums air vocals and air bass.
- "Rasputin" also features Air Violin.
Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: More like Amazing Technicolor Game.
Boss Rush: The Dance/Sweat Mashups in the third game are this in a sense; See Call Back.
Call Back: In addition to containing pieces of its own dance routines, 3's Dance Mashups occasionally feature bits of dances from the second game.
- If you look closely at the dancer's TV head during the chorus of "Video Killed the Radio Star", you can see clips of past dances in the series playing in it.
  - "Rock Lobster" in the upcoming fourth game contains backgrounds from past just dance games.
Camp: A notable trend in many songs, such as "Funkytown."
Cash Cow Franchise
Color-Coded Multiplayer: Well let's face it every game (Except The Black Eyed Peas Experience) is this.
Curse Cut Short: Given the E10+ Rating of the series expect this to happen a lot.
Cover Version: A few of the tracks in the games.
Coy Girlish Flirt Pose: The dancer at the beginning of "Firework".
Crossover: With the Rabbids (another Ubisoft property) in "Here Comes the Hotstepper."
- And the Super Mario Bros. theme(complete with the man himself) appears in the Japan version and as DLC for the Wii version of the third game.
- There is also Just Dance: Disney Party with songs from borth the dosney film cannon and Disney Channel series.
Downloadable Content: Starting in the second game. Since Just Dance 2016 there is even a online service called Just Dance Unlimited for extra songs, most of them for previous games but they had also some exclusives
Exergaming
Expansion Pack: Just Dance Summer Party, being comprised of (most of) the DLC from Just Dance 2.
Going Mobile: Just Dance Now.
Licensed Game: There's about a dozen of them.
Fighting Game: The stage for "Kung-Fu Fighting (Dave Ruffy/Mark Wallis Remix)" looks like this.
Multi Platform: The third game, the first game in the main franchise to do so (Michael Jackson The Experience was another game to have this game's factor to be on the PS3).
- Up to Eleven example is that Ubisoft even though there's the latest console for Just Dance, outdated consoles will still get the latest installment, like the Wii getting Just Dance 2019 and Just Dance 2020.
Palette Swap: The pumpkin puppet from "Proffesuer Pumplestickle" was re-used for "This Is Halloween", as Jack.
Pastiche: The song "Let's Go to the Mall", from a joke on How I Met Your Mother, is a parody of 80s bubblebum pop, so the dance in this game is a pastiche of 80s dances.
The Points Mean Nothing: While some gamers really don't like this, others love these games for that reason.
Polygonal Graphics: The Broadway game.
Rotoscoping: all the visuals of the games choreographies are created this way.
Scoring Points: One of the factors of the game (But who cares about that).
Shout-Out / Reference Overdosed: See Just Dance/Shout Out.
Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Pretty much thanks to curse words being censored (It's rated E10+ What do you expect?).
That Russian Squat Dance: "Rasputin" features this.
Tron Lines: Some of the more Electronic-heavy songs' stages look like this.
The Unexpected: Katy Perry's music appearing in 3 games of the main series.
Unlockable Content: Played straight with "Gifts" in the third game.