Game Theory - Just Dance Has LORE?!

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he breaks down the LORE of Just Dance! *Credits:* Writers: Matthew Patrick, Tom Robinson and Eddie “NostalGamer” Robinson Editors: Dan "Cybert" Seibert, Warak, Koen Verhagen, Jerika (NekoOnigiri) and Shannon (Bomb0i) Sound Designer: Yosi Berman

Really? Only four stars again? I've been playing all night. I've mastered the choreography Memorized the song beat by beat. Nope by nope. How am I not getting five stars on this? I will get it perfect this time. Just one more game. What's going on? What's happening to me? Stop! Stop! Welcome to Game Theory. The show that's gonna be okay as long as you... Dance. Matt's voice was totally destroyed at VidCon, so that means you get Head Editor Dan today. Jerica, hit the air horns! Gee, thanks, glad we're friends. Anyway,

Today we're talking about a game that honestly, I never thought we'd cover. But month after month after month, every time we went onto the Game Theorist subreddit, I would always see people asking for a Just Dance lore theory. How? How would that even work? I mean, the clue is in the name.

You Just Dance. Sure, there have been a lot of entries in the series, and I'm sure they're chock full of little Easter eggs. But Easter eggs don't necessarily mean lore, unless you're Scott Coffin. And that's when we discovered that the Just Dance developers have hired someone whose job title is, get this, lore master. Since Matt found out, he's been signing his emails as Matt Pat founder, CEO, lore master,

and internet dad. But if these guys have gone to the trouble of hiring a lore master, clearly there is lore to find. So, hit me with your best shot, just dance. Let's see what you got for old teen theorist. If you don't know what I'm talking about, where have you been for the last 14 years? Are you okay? Do we need to call someone?

Pretty sure everyone in their grandma has played this game at some kind of gathering or another. But regardless, just dance started out as a minigame from Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, where you mirror the moves of the character you see on screen. The mini game was such a hit that it birthed the entire motion-based multiplayer franchise we know today. Each game includes a collection of songs with their own choreography. One minute you're dancing and jiving to dancing queen, the next you're not talking about Bruno. You pretty much have a song for everyone on you here.

They even have YouTuber songs like Tom Skaz, Beep, Beep, I'm a Sheep, which is a certified bop. But where's the love for classic Pokemon Masters are broke? Pokemon Masters are broke. They can't feed them bills. It's like one of the few scripts that I've personally written. It would be really cool if they did that. Maybe in Just Dance 2024, that song will finally get the love it deserves? On the surface, it seems like a simple party game, and for a long time, it was.

But the most recent game, Just Dance, 2023, has a narrative-driven story. In it, a girl named Sarah is taken from the real world and brought into the game by this blue-skinned character in order to stop an evil witch called Night Swan, who is abducting and taking over the other dancers that show you the moves for each dance, known as coaches. But that's just the story Ubisoft wants you to see. There's a whole world of stories going on in the background while you whip and nay-nay your way to Superstar Rangued. Oh, man, why do you make me say these things? While a lot of the settings for dances take inspiration from the music videos of the songs you're dancing to, the coaches that teach you these dances begin to overlap and

tell a more connected story. They aren't limited to just their primary song. They appear as background characters in other songs, and even started to become lead characters across multiple songs and even games. The most talked about coaches to follow this trend are the Bride and Rasputin, which people have decided should be shipped. Seriously, is there nothing the internet won't ship these days? Don't answer that. In the internet's defense, there is good reason for this particular ship. In the very first Just Dance game from 2009, a dance coach dressed as a bride dances to Katie Perry's hot and cold, which makes sense. The original music video did focus on Katie Perry dressed as a bride. In Just Dance 2019, we see this same bride dancing a duet to Maroon

5 Sugar with another Just Dance coach, the one for Just Dance 2's Rasputin. Given that the original music video is also of a wedding party, that would seem to imply that these two are a thing. Maybe this is just before the bride calls him out on his hot and cold tendencies. All of which culminates in Just Dance 2023, where the opening shot for Sweet But a Psycho is of a wedding cake with Rasputin and the bride as toppers. However, clearly things haven't gone well. The bride mimics Ava Max's streaky eyeliner like she's been crying while tearing down photos of them together.

And Rasputin is nowhere to be seen. Poor bride, she's sweet but a psycho. Matt, why? Seriously, Matt, I can't keep doing these puns. But this is just the tip of the Just Dance lore iceberg. This thing gets way deeper and spans way more songs. In Just Dance's 2021 Season 4 trailer, we were given a sneak peek of a new story, that of the traveler. He runs through portals that put him in different locations to chase down this one blue-skinned woman

whose name we learn is Cihanova, thanks to a tweet from the developers. By the way, all these locations are the backgrounds of other dances from previous games and are all from different years. He's not just traveling between levels within his own game, but between all the dances ever created for Just Dance. How are us normal non-time space traveling people supposed to compete with that kind of affection? That's just setting unrealistic expectations for the rest of us. Sadly, this relationship wasn't built to last. I'm starting to see a theme with all these Just Dance storylines. When Just Dance 2020 came out, it had the song Save Your Tears,

where both the traveler and Sihaw danced to a song that gives us some insight into what happened between Just Dance. Dance 2021 Season 4 and now. The lyrics, I don't know why I run away and take me back because I want to stay, show us that this couple hasn't been together since that fateful meeting. That one of them ran away, but they now realize it was a mistake. I think it's likely the traveler who ran away. Firstly, we know he has a thing about running and has the ability to go literally anywhere. But also, because of what we see in his solo song, Rock Your Body.

In it, we see the traveler's mansion that appears to have been decorated by M.C. Escher. He dances around the floating platforms with copies of himself. Give this guy all the superpowers, I guess. But at the end of the song, the traveler opens up several portals and each clone walks into one, with the traveler himself walking into a portal that leads to the dance levitating. And can you guess who the coach for this dance is? That's right, it's Sihaha. Seeha leads the dance to save your tears, which ends with the traveler opening a portal for Sihah,

and they go their separate ways. Fortunately, unlike the Bride in Rasputin, this story has a happy ending. Remember that tweet that gave us Siha's name? It also reveals she is pregnant. Clearly, Beast 2 did a little bit more than Just Dance if you catch my drift, huh? Another tweet shows a comic strip of The Traveler with a blue-skinned child, wearing a crown and a belt buckle with the traveler's symbol, which matches the blue guy that brought Sarah into the world of Just Dance 2023.

He also has a name, by the way. He's called Wanderlust, and you'd once again only know if you follow the Twitter account. I see you guys are taking the J.K. Rowling approach to lore. Regardless, what this is. particular story does is open up the lore to be contained and not just within the current game wonderlust in just dance twenty twenty three is the son of the characters from just dance twenty two and his father the traveler has traveled to dances from just dance twenty twenty twenty one and twenty two so what if there's a bigger story going on here one that spans the entire franchise so i picked up my weimo and got ready to feel my body burn baby burn as i danced the night away playing through all these different games so let me tell you

It was worth it. The song that caught our attention was toxic by Britney Spears from Just Dance 2023. Because, well, look at this dance. And now imagine Matt doing that dance. That's objectively funny. The coach is dressed as a flight attendant dancing her way through the plane, which is all pretty normal for this series, until the chorus kicks in and two guys in black suits aggressively approached the flight attendant,

forcing her to dance fight back. I knew flight attendants were trained, but I didn't realize martial arts was part of the onboarding process. It turns out this is not. no ordinary flight attendant. The coach's name is Agent D, which I discovered from Twitter again. Could you imagine if all games did this? Lord would be so much easier to solve.

Ska-haven! Sorry! Something was got in the back of my throat. I think it was Freddy. No, don't put that... No, don't put that in. I hear it now. Back to the story.

Agent D continues to move through the plane, fight some bad guys, rescues the tied-up pilot, flies off to the sunset. So basically everything you would expect from a dance game. This isn't a plane hijacking. This is a rescue mission. And while the story seems pretty tied up, unlike our pilot, it actually raises a lot of questions.

Who does Agent D work for? Who did the guys in the suits work for? And why was the pilot tied up in the first place? Fortunately, the answer was staring me right in the face, thanks to our friend in Hot Pink, the pilot himself. The pilot is the coach for a song in Just Dance 2017, and I'm going to slaughter this. Drogsta Dintay.

It's the Numa Numa song. And let's quickly move on before you. YouTube slams us with the copyrights hammer, I see you. The song itself is actually sung in Romanian, and so if you're able to move past the song's virality in memeability and actually translate it, you start to reveal some information about how the pilot may have landed himself in hot water tied up in the cockpit. The first line of the song's first verse, Hello, Salu, Suntay, uh, ha, do.

I'm so sorry, but translated it says, hello, hello, it's me in Outlaw. And the Numa Numa A in the course literally translates to don't take. Take me. Don't take me. So wait, the pilot is an outlaw. An Agent D has just freed him from what looks like federal agents. Are the dance coach is the baddies? This just raises more questions. It turns out we play as criminals semi-regularly throughout the series.

In Just Dance 4, two coaches are escaping prison in striped outfits in Everybody Needs Somebody. In Just Dance 2020, the song Policeman shows the coach getting harassed by a policeman. And then we have the classic Lady Gaga's telephone in Just Dance 2023. Now, all of these once again mimic their music video counterparts, but it is interesting how often we hear and see coaches being harassed by law enforcement, and it's still not clear who is in the right. Are the coaches actually breaking the law, or are we in a footloose-style world where dancing is slowly becoming outlawed? It's hard to say. That is, until this random little moment in the middle of telephone. All the different Lady Gaga coaches from her different songs are all in a lineup, and the camera pans out for a brief moment behind the one.

one-way class where a hand reaches out and points to the one in the center. This person is the one pulling the strings. Convicting the dance coaches and having them locked up. But whether that's a good or bad thing, will rely entirely on if we can figure out who that hand belongs to. And lucky for us, our dance marathon proved helpful once again. There's only one character in the whole dance verse with a clawed hand like this, Night Swan, the villain of the Just Dance 2023 story mode.

She first appears in Can't Stop the Feeling, where she is seen abducting other coaches, and then in her song, Witch, we see her placing them under a spell, forcing them to join her army. Why? It turns out Knight Swan's whole motivation is that she is obsessed with perfection. She wants every dance danced perfectly. No mistakes, no screw-ups. How do I know this? Say it now with me.

Because of Twitter. I promise that's the last time I'm going to say that, unless Matt's lying to me. This explains everything that we've seen so far. Night Swan is the one in charge, in control. She's able to mind control whoever she wants, making the law enforcement detain whoever isn't dancing perfectly throughout the series. And then once they're put in jail, she is able to put herself in charge of the prison system

and pick out her next set of victims. Which means that during toxic, the guys in suits are working for Night Swan. They finally caught the outlaw pilot and are going to be. to bring him back to Knight Swan for conversion. That means Agent D isn't trying to take down the law. She's a freedom fighter trying to save those who Knights Swan wishes to control to create her perfect world. All of this leading to a final showdown between Sarah and Night Swan, where Sarah frees the other coaches and Knights Swan retreats defeated. It feels like a pretty happy ending, except Knight Swan hasn't actually been defeated. One, we all know if a character doesn't die,

then the battle's not over. And these days, even if they're They do die. That doesn't mean much either. Thanks, Marvel. But also, let's think about her plan a little closer. Turning dancers into mindless drones that just dance more and more getting perfect scores every time. Doesn't that sound familiar? It should because that's exactly what we're doing by playing this game.

The goal is to dance each dance as well as we can. The better we do, the more points we get. How many times have you lost your cool because you didn't get it just right? Or because your friend beat you in the way? the dance, meaning you had to try again and again and again. That's exactly what Night Swan wants. We are so focused on the dance moves being just right that we, much like the coaches, are just mimicking, becoming mindless drones doing nothing but dancing over and over and over again

just to get that perfect score. That, my dear theorists, is the real story behind just dance. It's a warning. Sarah's story is designed to mimic our own. Fun fact, Sarah and Night Swan are actually played by the same actress. Sarah's initial timidness while all her friends were playing is because she knows the monster she becomes when playing this game. But Wanderlust reminds her of the fun it can be to just dance.

And eventually she overcomes her corrupted self. All while meeting a bunch of fun characters along the way, each with their own motivations and stories to be told. If all you're doing is focusing on getting the dance is perfect, you'll miss out on these cool details we've talked about. today. The personalities of the characters, their journeys, their heartbreaks. It's all right under our noses, but we were all too blinded by our want for perfection. Despite playing these games for decades, we totally miss the point. So the next time your friend invites you to dance

along to the latest bop, instead of worrying about winning, let the devs and their lore master tell you a bunch of new and exciting stories. Invest in these characters and their relationships. And most importantly, just dance. Not for a high score, but for fun. But, Hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.