Dance Central 2

Gameplay

Dance Central 2 keeps the same basic idea as the first game: players follow on-screen flashcards to copy the dancers’ moves. But a lot has changed under the hood. Multiplayer is now included, voice commands have been added, and the Break It Down training mode got a major upgrade. The Freestyle section can still be used, but players also have the option to turn it off. When they do, extra moves show up in its place, creating a single continuous routine depending on which mode is active. A story-driven campaign called Crew Challenge lets players unlock new content as they progress.

The game offers five distinct modes. Perform It is the standard mode where one or two players dance through routines. One player can swap in or out while the other keeps dancing, and each player can choose a different difficulty level, though that choice must be made before the song starts. Dance Battle pits two players against each other. The song includes two special interludes: one where only one player dances while the other is temporarily inactive, and another where both players hit moves from the routine for extra points. During that second interlude, up to four moves can appear at once, with some highlighted in gold for a bigger score. Again, players can use different difficulty settings.

Break It Down is a training mode that lets players learn routines step by step. It has been improved so that players can select specific moves to practice and can even record themselves dancing to compare their performance with the on-screen dancers. Crew Challenge is the campaign mode. Players work their way up by impressing different dance crews. After successfully dancing to a crew’s challenge song, they earn the chance to represent that crew, and the more reputation they build, the higher their notability rises. Finally, Fitness mode tracks calories burned and time spent dancing. An on-screen indicator shows these stats when the mode is active. It comes with pre-made playlists, and players can also create custom playlists outside the mode to use during workouts.

Plot

The story campaign begins with the player meeting dance crews one after another. The first is Riptide Crew at High Tide, followed by Flash4wrd at Tee Off, then Lu$h Crew at Set Adrift, and Hi-Def at Lowdown. A crew member hears about the player’s potential, and as the story progresses, more people start talking about them. After the player proves their skill through dancing, they are accepted into the crew and receive a crew card. While collecting these cards, the player hears warnings from crew members about The Glitterati, a dance crew the others view negatively. When the player finally meets The Glitterati, the crew initially doubts their ability, but after an impressive dance performance, they too hand over a crew card. Once all five crews have been joined, the player is brought to The Airship. There, they meet Dr. Tan, who admits he has been watching their every move. He introduces D-Cypher, a robot dance crew he built. Dr. Tan’s plan is for these robots to defeat the player so he can take over the dancing world. When the player beats D-Cypher, both robot members power down, and The Airship starts to break apart. Furious, Dr. Tan delivers a long speech vowing he will not quit, then flees with a hysterical laugh.

Characters

Dance Central 2 has eighteen characters you can play as, and they come in pairs called crews. Six of these characters were also in the first Dance Central game. When the game first came out, ten characters were ready to use right away, and six more could be unlocked. Later, four extra unlockable characters were added because of a Facebook campaign. The crews are: Riptide Crew (Emilia from Dance Central and Bodie), Flash4wrd (Taye from Dance Central and Li'l T), Lu$h Crew (Miss Aubrey and Angel, both from Dance Central), Hi-Def (Mo from Dance Central and Glitch), Icon Crew (Marcos and Frenchy, added on March 2, 2012, unlocked by logging into Xbox Live before starting), Ninja Crew (Shinju from Dance Central and Kichi, added on May 1, 2012, unlocked the same way), The Glitterati (Kerith and Jaryn, unlocked by finishing their campaign in Crew Challenge), D-Cypher (CYPH-78 and CYPH-56, unlocked by finishing Crew Challenge once), and D-Cypher Elite (Dr. Tan and CYPH-ELITE, unlocked by finishing Crew Challenge on every difficulty). Most characters have extra outfits called "Street Style," which you get by earning 36 Stars total on songs from that character's crew. Characters who came back from Dance Central also have a "DC Classic" outfit, which is what they wore in the first game. You unlock these by typing cheat codes in the "Redeem Code" section, except for Mo, whose DC Classic outfit is unlocked by importing songs from Dance Central.

Soundtrack

Dance Central 2 includes 44 songs. Songs marked with a light blue background are locked and become available after finishing the final challenge song for the corresponding crew in the Crew Challenge mode. Music from the first Dance Central game, including any downloadable content, can be used in Dance Central 2. If you previously bought DLC for the original game, it will appear automatically. However, the songs that came on the first game's disc must be brought over using an Import Pack. This required redeeming a code found in the Dance Central manual from within the game. The Import Pack cost US$5.00 (or 400 Microsoft Points before August 26, 2013) and needed an Xbox Live gamertag to download. Buying the pack also gave players Mo's "DC Classic" outfit as a bonus. As of October 25, 2016, importing songs from the first Dance Central was discontinued. Anyone who bought the Import Pack before that date can still access its content. Besides the first game's DLC, Dance Central 2 had its own DLC on the Xbox Live Marketplace. Most individual songs were sold for US$2.99 (240 Microsoft Points before that currency ended), while some were only available in "Dance Packs" that bundled multiple songs for a higher price. These packs sometimes included songs that could also be bought separately, but at a lower cost per song. The Xbox 360 Store closed on July 29, 2024, so Dance Central 2 DLC can no longer be purchased.