This is the start of a series of reviews I will be doing of the various games I own. We're starting out strong with a shovelware licensed game based on a BBC dance show I have never heard of. Awesome. Oddly enough, the PC version of this game is... just a completely different game??? It's a Sims clone, rather than a dancing game, which strays even further from the premise of the show, which is SINGING. Neither of these games are even like the show, which is incredibly stupid and funny I think. I may try to buy the PC version some time soon, so possibly expect a review. Maybe I'll do a simulator week or something. This game is a rhythm game and it sure is.... playable? I guess????? It has a really weird format of having two lanes but 4 directions per lane, which effectively just makes it a normal DDR-esque game but set out weirdly. The maps are way too easy, with the Hard difficulty effectively being a Normal in most other games, if that. From what I heard of the songlist, I will admit that it has some good song choices I have not heard before, but being all licensed I can't really count that as too much of a positive towards it, considering it was probably just what was popular at the time. Additionally, there's not even any original (or even licensed) menu music, as all menus are eerily silent.
This game has no way of choosing the song you want to play in singleplayer. You can choose in multiplayer but, otherwise, you have to go through the campaign mode or the rehearsal mode, which I think is just a practice/learning mode. You get the choice from a few characters, which, I assume changes the songs you get in your campaign mode playthrough. They give you the character types of "Glamour", "Urban", "Teen", "Zen" and "Rock", which explain nothing and have no relation to the music played. Another issue with this system is the fact that Fame Academy has 14 SONGS. That's an abysmally small amount, around some of the lowest song lists of the PS1 DDR games. (for context, the European version of DDR Supernova on PS2 contains 60) The campaign only has 7 songs to go through, but from what I can tell they're always the same 7?? So I guess the other songs are just for multiplayer???? Admittedly, it could be argued that the short songs list is made up for by the longer song lengths but, honestly, the repetitive and easy charting of the songs just makes it boring. The characters have a variety of designs and clothes options, which I really did not expect. They're all just fairly normal looking people at the end of the day not all too unique but honestly some nice clothing and designs, although the fact that some of the clothes options can lighten some of the darker skinned character's skin tones sucks. I chose Sacha because she had a kinda cool goth outfit. Each character has a short bit of story text for the start and end, which is a bit fun but also I really could not care less. It's like the usual thing for contest shows like this of "They have X issue, but can they overcome it to become the winner?". Sacha's was... anger management? I think? She just had some basic section of text at the end saying she was learning to be less violent and was releasing a single. The ending has nothing to it, no music, no credits. There's just nothing of note at all: it just kicks you back to the menu after showing you a pile of text. I wouldn't have even known it was the final song beforehand if not for Mr. Generic White Guy Announcer saying it was.
One final thing I noticed is that there's an optional "Singing Mode", but all it seems to add is a purple orb on the top of the screen. When you hold a Trigger button, the mic on the orb lights up green or red. I think the point is that you hold it while they're singing and let go while they're not, since the red appears when you hold the button during an instrumental section, so it adds nothing at all to the gameplay, really.
Box art-wise, this game is pretty basic for a dance game. Well, at least the version I have. The UK version has a kinda nice looking blue to purple gradient background that looks like a mix of an ocean and a final boss void. There's a weird blurry... echo(?) of the logo around it and a girl's silhouette, filled with kinda weird looking faces. However, the German version of the box art is, in fact, extremely cool, in my opinion. Those red blurred lights in the background and the really good-looking limited colour character art make this box art look much cooler than the other version.
Game: 3/10 Music: 5/10 Box (UK): 5/10 Box (DE): 8/10 Ugh... I think that's enough time spent with this game. It's not completely lifeless but it's fairly shitty in most aspects. I still don't understand why this game exists and if there even was a need or desire for a game so loosely themed around some random BBC contest show. I commend whoever made the characters but I don't have much else to praise here other than some of the music choices. If this is what the route to fame is like, I'm fine, thanks.
(EDIT: Music score changed from 6 to 5)
