UNiSON (2001)
I’ve only played the Japanese version of this game, thanks to my friend’s brother, who has access to a Japanese PS2. The story of the game is cute - the city is under tyrannical rule, and dancing is prohibited by the dictator. Three girls - Trill, Cela, and Chilly (representing the three difficulty levels) form a group called Unison to sing, dance, and perform in order to encourage the public to revolt and lift the ban on dancing.
Despite the fact that most of the songs were originally by female singers, the Japanese version re-recorded the songs (including YMCA) with the voice actresses for Trill and Cela. Their dance instructor, sporting a ginormous afro, trains them to dance with commands similar to real-life.
The game play is interesting as it involves both joysticks to represent arm and leg movements and requires a lot of memorization. The instructor teaches you the steps (joystick movements) in bite-size chunks, only allowing you to pass to the next section if you memorize and perform the steps well. Before being allowed to dance your steps in public, you must be able to perform the whole song from start to finish in the studio.
Here’s a sample of the training. By the way, the voice actor for the instructor is the same actor for the City Hunter anime.
UNiSON (2001)
I’ve only played the Japanese version of this game, thanks to my friend’s brother, who has access to a Japanese PS2. The story of the game is cute - the city is under tyrannical rule, and dancing is prohibited by the dictator. Three girls - Trill, Cela, and Chilly (representing the three difficulty levels) […]
