Britney's Dance Beat (2002)

This PS2 rhythm battler featuring the music of Britney Spears is a decently fun little game. Emphasis on the "little" part, as it offers a mere 5 songs to play. If you ask me, it's 3 great ones in "...Baby One More Time", "Oops!... I Did It Again", and "I'm a Slave 4 U"; and 2 pretty good ones in "Stronger" and "Overprotected". Most people these days will get this game for free online, but as something that was once boxed and sold on store shelves, it strikes me as a pretty poor value, and a game that was made too early in its star's career.

Even those playing for free will feel the lack of content. The single-player mode has you battling a CPU opponent through 10 increasingly challenging and complex levels, with an easy and harder version of each song incorporated, and that's pretty much it in terms of gamplay-based progression. Otherwise what is left is to play multiplayer and unlock a few bonus videos.

The rhythm gameplay involves a circular display with different face buttons or d-pad directions to press as an indicator rotates over them. This can be done either with a controller, or of course a dance mat. I played with a controller and could imagine it working a bit better on a mat, but it felt fine. I do think the circular format makes it particularly hard to read d-pad notes on the offbeats, as they look like they are aligned with the prior beat's face button press, but you kinda get used to it.

The battle element comes into play as doing well will make the game harder for your opponent, delaying or adding notes, obfuscating them until the last second, making it a bit harder to see, or just straight-up changing a note at the last second. There's a meter at the bottom of the screen that shows who is currently doing better. I liked how this keeps you on your toes and adds some tension of whether you will win or not, though I would have preferred some kind of actual better scoring / rating system for single-player.

The main thing I don't like about the battle setup is that occasionally you just don't get to play for several bars while your opponent does a solo section. Not very fun, and it makes it even harder to track who's actually "winning". I also encountered a bug where the opponent can send you an extra note right as you lose control for that, which counts as a miss to end your combo.

Anyway, I still enjoyed the game, particularly as it got more challenging. The visual aesthetic is nice, the songs are still enjoyable, and the gameplay was easy to get into but still kind of tricky in a nice way. Just really needed more songs and a better reason to keep playing.