Holodance

At 71 years old I'm quite certain most other players of this VR game are considerably younger than I am. I just started playing it yesterday. I've logged in 2.2 hours of play so far, gathered 10,200,000 points, and am enjoying it a lot. I exercise close to 3 hours a day, and this game will now add a bit more to that. Primarily arm exercise of course, but arms need exercise too. This game is different in that you are not just hitting targets flying at you, you have to use your brain too. You need to quickly determine what type of target is coming and where you need to hit it, and then move your arm in the correct direction to capture that orb and get the points for it. Plus you have very little time to make these determinations. Very much recommended for couch potatoes to help keep them from making permanent double indentations in the couch cushions. The more I use it, I'm sure the more I will understand. It's pretty user friendly though after you play a few songs. I'm still tryin...

I tried them all out: Audioshield, Soundboxing, Holodance, Beats Fever and Airtone. I directly need to say Audioshield was the worst of them. 1. Airtone (most expensive, great look and gameplay, limited songs) Highly recommended! 2. Holodance (really really great, nearby nr. 1 and by far nr. 2) Highly recommended! x (Soundboxing - can not recommand at this time as it is very buggy, uploading beatmaps does not work and virtual keyboard does not work for Oculus users) 3. Beats Fever 4. Audioshield Audioshield: it did not feel like a rhythm game at all and it had only a few sound-stages. The gameplay was not in sync with the music as the algorithm does not do that well. Every game with predefined beatmaps is far superior. You Tube integration does not help. Gameplay feels often chaotic and shallow. Soundboxing: Gameplay felt more serious as in Audioshield. It has user made beatmaps and a youtube integration. You can easily create beatmaps to your own favorite songs and share them. I...

[h1]The good:[/h1] [list] [*]Automatic mapping. It's fantastic! It worked really well with everything I threw at at, and the layout of notes doesn't feel random. It's still quite a new feature, but it's seriously promising. [*]This game has the [i]largest[/i] manually-mapped library out there, at over 15,000 individual songs! Each song has between 1-10 difficulties, and they're all perfectly on-beat. This is largely due to osu! support, an insanely popular pancake rhythm game. It leans towards Japanese culture, but there's plenty of western music too! [*]Different playstyles! Jashan, the developer, is working on a few completely different ways to play the game. You'll find something to love. [*]The developer. Jashan is a fantastic, responsive developer who is clearly passionate about this game. You can easily chat directly with him through the game's Discord, or Twitter. Got a problem, or some feedback? Send it directly to him. Seems silly to praise, but it's critical to listen to feed...

This review is based upon the state of the game in Early Access as of Jan 1, 2017. Not a traditional rhythm game, this game has a very limited selection of built in tracks, and plays primarily music from other sources. The sources are OSU files and the game does contain a link to a 3rd party website where you must obtain them for yourself. This game doesn't play your music library as its key selling point is accurate beat maps to the music. Thus you need the OSU files to be able to play anything beyond what's offered. It says it has a story mode, but as of right now it's just some static levels with some decently modeled dragons. Game progression is weak, making you play the same level 3-4 times in a row to different instruments to progress. Think of it like this, imagine that to unlock the next songs in Rock Band you had to play the same track as Guitar, Bass, Vocals and Drums in a row before you could play more. So that being said, what does this game offer? It has a fre...

Many people may want this for the OSU support. That's fine. However, I think that part has been a bit too focused in on. 1) It is a bit hard to find a song easily. From what I saw, there isn't any thumbnails to distinguish. While some might say that I should just remember, when you have a massive OSU library it isn't easy to remember every title to every song. I should have a way to visually find the music I want and quickly. 2) The graphics are not on par. The menus, the environments, and the models look low quality. I know that a music game shouldn't solely be based off of the graphical quality of the game but subjectively the game's art could use a lot of work. I was hesitant to buy it based off that but others had said it would be different in-game or that I was looking at older art. I have to disagree. Not to mention, I had graphical glitches in the story mode in the first scene. That's a great way to leave a bad impression. 3)There should be a seperate mode instead of just be...

I have to admit, I was skeptical. I really thought this game would be just another Audioshield. I didn't think another rhythm game would be able to beat (No pun intended) it in terms of fun, and worried it would be a clone lost in my game library. But in reality, you can't even compare the two. Their only true similarity is that they are both rhythm based games. Holodance starts you off in front of a giant dragon who teaches you the ropes of the game. The controls are very intuitive and easy to use. One button (the trigger) is required to select a mode, and the gameplay itself only consists of physically hitting the notes. You are playing the songs through a transparent board. The notes hit behind it, while you hit the board where the notes are striking. All twelve songs contain different instruments that double as different difficulties. This was the number one complaint with Audioshield. Being too easy. This is in no way shape or form, too easy. The difficulty progresses as the lev...

Quite a satisfying rhythm game. Compared to Audioshield it doesn't allow you to load up your own music, but the advantage of this is that the orbs can be perfectly synchronised to whichever instrument you are playing, which feels extremely satisfying! The positioning of the orbs also feels a lot better than Audioshield, to the point where I felt like I was playing an instrument and dancing rather than just flailing my arms about randomly like I was in Audioshield. The game also doesn't care which hand (or head!) you use for which orb, which is for the best IMO as you can just concentrate on enjoying the music :-) The game isn't finished yet, and I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the tracks. Here's hoping for some Symphonic Power Metal (probably not, but I can dream) :-p Plus bonus points for fistbumping a dragon!

As a Vive owner, Audiosheild completely blows it away, [if you are looking to "dance/ move around"]. If you are looking for a precise rhythm/ reaction game you may enjoy it. The story mode is like some lame Disney dragon thing. You can't really move around as you have to catch the balls at the exact time at the exact forward x & y axis. If your hand is too close to your body, you "miss". If it is too far forward, "you miss", which for me felt very restritive. I don't want to stand perfectly still like a robot while listening to music. After trying about 5 songs; not fun at all. Worth trying the demo anyways...

This is by far the VR game I have spent the most time on. Most other games, I only manage to play a few hours before getting bored, but I have played this one a couple of hours each week since December last year, and it keeps being enjoyable! The story mode is ok to get you started, but the best part of the game is the freemode with OSU beat maps, and especially when you are able to play well on higher difficulties. Then you actually get some decent excercise and you can develop some pretty insane reflexes over time.

[h1]Holy crap![/h1] Holodance basically fixes all the annoyances that made me refund Audioshield after an hour. The tracking in this game is spot on - it's not like Audiosurf where your gameplay has no effect on the music, but more like Guitar Hero, so it actually feels like you're playing the song. Missing cues means the notes don't play. There's also the support for Osu beatmaps, and if you have no idea what that means, it means there's a whole community out there tracking up songs that can be played in this game. Just google Osu and look for the one with the pink cookie logo. The price is perfect, the game is great. The voice acting is [i]unspeakably[/i] corny, but given that's the aesthetic they were going for (hey, this is a game in which you high five dragons), I can't really fault it. Highly recommended for everyone with VR gear!