Review copy provided by Kuju and 505 Games.
Ahh, I remember when the Zumba craze hit the world some 10 years back. It seemed like everyone into fitness dabbled in the dance-inspired workout in some fashion or another. Fast forward to 2019 and here it is: I have finally tried my hand at Zumba thanks to Kuju and 505 Games Zumba Burn It Up! (affiliate link) for Nintendo Switch. It was quite an interesting experience and it became clear quickly that this game is meant to be an exercise tool first and foremost.
Gameplay
Zumba Burn It Up! plays like an exercise video meets Just Dance. Players will follow choreographed routines that are happening on screen while holding one of the Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons. Points are given out based on how well your motions follow those of the routine on screen. After the song is over you are given a rank of 1 - 5 stars, your overall score, and the amount of energy you burned. There is also a technique percentage to show just how close your motions are to optimal. Not too difficult of a concept to pick up in the slightest!
Zumba Burn It Up! features 31 songs ranging in tempo and intensity. I have no clue personally what any of the songs were or who they were by but that didn’t really matter to me. This is meant to be an exercise game so as long as I’m not repulsed by the soundtrack, which I wasn’t, it serves its purpose in my mind. Each song has its own choreography from real-world Zumba dancers that are designed to work different parts of your body. The different intensity levels are great to use for warming up and cooling down from a longer session and I appreciate that they are labeled clearly.
Dancing is the name of the game and that is all you will be doing with it. You can choose to play any of the included songs by themselves and once you finish, you are returned to the main menu. The more interesting game mode to me was the Full Class though. Full Class takes you through a timed workout session using different selections of songs. You can choose between short (15 minutes), medium (30 minutes) or long (60 minutes) classes to get in an optimal workout based on your available amount of time. The varying intensities came into play wonderfully here and are in my mind the best way to experience the game.
There is one final mode available in Zumba Burn It Up!, which is a party mode where you can gather 3 additional friends to dance with you. This mode is pretty identical to the standard single-player experience with all 4 players dancing along to the routines. Scoring is interesting though as it will be based on the player that has the lowest score at the finish. I’m not sure about the overall appeal of this mode but it is a welcomed addition.
Visuals
Zumba Burn It Up! has a fascinating look to it. Rather than a digitized persona found in games like Just Dance, routines are performed by real-life dancers. It was a bit odd to me at first but I think it works better for Zumba. The dancers are placed on digitized backdrops and they look nice without being too distracting. Probably one of the coolest things I think Zumba Burn It Up! did was give credits to all the dancers that appear on the screen when a song loads up!
Audio
Audio quality is great for all the included songs in the game. I couldn’t notice any compression at work and the game sounded good to me on both my TV and in handheld mode.
Replayability
To get you coming back for more dancing, Zumba Burn It Up! has a number of weekly and daily challenges for players to complete. I am a fan of these challenges and maybe it’s just me, but I felt like they really incentivized me well.
What It Could Have Done Better
I only have one real complaint with Zumba Burn It Up! and that is it is too easy to fake it. I mean there really isn’t much that can be done to counter this when the only point of tracking is a Joy-Con, but simply flicking it around can result in some fairly high scores all while sitting on a couch. This game will require a bit of an honor system and you don’t want to cheat yourself out of a good workout, right?!
Verdict
Zumba Burn It Up! was a far more interesting experience than I gave it credit for when I first started reviewing it. While more of an exercise tool than a game, it does what it intends to well as long as the one playing it is invested. Now, I am a terrible dancer so I looked absolutely ridiculous and uncoordinated, but after attempting numerous songs and doing the classes I can definitely feel the burn in my arms and abs and heart rate. So, in the end, the goal of the game has definitely been achieved. If you are looking for a way to get in some exercise while also having fun, Zumba Burn It Up! (affiliate link) is worth looking into!
