Floor Kids PS4 Review

Floor Kids PS4 Review

In today’s gaming society it is very hard to find a game that is different from the norm. It seems most developers are hell bent on creating games that have been done to death whether it be your common shooters or open world adventure games, we have all had the joys of playing most. It starts to get to a point where we have been there and done that. Floor Kids is a fresh new idea for a game that we haven’t seen for a very long time.

When you try to think of Breakdancing, there’s only one game that I can really think of; B-Boy, a 12 year old PS2 release. Its a shame really. The idea of matching a beat to button presses has been done with a lot of other games, even if it was just a minor subgame within a game (God of War 3 for instance used it to open a door), but there has never been a dance game that you can control with your controller in hand. Yes, OK, we have had Just Dance where you throw yourself around in front of the PlayStation camera or even the release of dance mats years ago but lets be honest; that took effort to drag our asses off the sofa.

There’s no real story to the game, but to be honest I’m not sure one could have been created for a Breakdancing game unless you came along with the idea of 8 mile with dancing. That’s not a bad thing though. You dance your way through various locations unlocking more venues and building up your crew of dancers. You earn crowns dependent on your dance performances, the more crowns you earn the more venues you unlock and then perform at until you unlock the World Peace Summit and perform there (everyone knows thats where every dancer in the world aims to be obviously(!)).

So, the general idea is to pull of dance moves in time with the beat and rack up big scores. This is done by each character having their own set of moves, which are broken down into four categories: toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes. As each tune plays you have to pull off various moves which is pretty straight forward, but you have to add in the element of originality, changing moves as the music progresses rather than just sticking to a couple of basic moves. Half way through the song and at the end there is always a chorus section which comes in to play. This basically means hitting your button to the beat then followed by some furious button mashing. Throughout this process there is an element of freedom to how you pull off moves which will keep you coming back to try and improve your score.

There is only one problem with this as far as I’m concerned. You don’t really seem to be in control of keeping to the beat of the music other than for the chorus parts. You don’t have to hit a button to the beat and your moves change as the game seems fit rather than immediately which would throw your dance out of time. In other words, you can decide to change the move you are pulling off at the time and it will take a split second to sync with the beat of the music before it does change.

{EDIT} This will probably teach me not to read up on games. I review as a gamer rather than trying to get too much into technicalities. I have been told by the game developers that ..

if you don’t change your moves in time to the beat of the music, you do actually get rewarded in Funk for tapping the controls in time to the beat. If you are off beat the player still dances, you just don’t get the funk points that you would. Transitions are a unique characteristic / challenge of the game. Other games make use of an idle transition animation system. Thereby making the moves instantaneous. Floor Kids shows off the uniqueness of the break artform which has no idle state. Each move has a custom link to each other move with a VARIABLE length because of the break physics. We knew this would cause some players to feel, perhaps, less in control, but we traded it off to preserve the nature of the subject matter and the uniqueness of the dance

The other issue I have is the music within the game. Although it is great, its all the same tempo and with each track there are 2 chorus parts, so it starts to become rather monotonous after a while. It needs changing up somehow; slower beats, different chorus amounts etc. That being said, the chorus’ do change between tracks as far as button presses are concerned. Add to that the characters all seem to pull off the same moves with the same button presses, its all too repetitive.

With a local 2 player mode thrown into the mix, its quite fun to play with a friend. Whilst said friend is dancing you can taunt them and vice versa when you are busting some shapes. Whilst you do taunt the other person you build up a ‘Burn Meter’ which, once full, you can throw at the other person and watch them fall to the floor failing miserably. Unfortunately though, its still the same grind as the main game and does become boring very fast.

The one major saving grace of the game for me is the graphics. Hand drawn in a cartoon style, they look amazing, but its not enough to save the game from its bad points. Someone has certainly taken their time in producing them and its certainly appreciated and I can see the talent involved.

In a market where this type of game is none existent, there is certain to be a fan base for it. Even though the game has issues, I will still be going back to it to play over and over, but its not for everyone. Its stylish and fun but with a lack of any real challenge it can become boring after an hour or two.

6/10 is the best I can give this game. I would love to give it more, but it needs some major work done on it. Perhaps some DLC in the future with new tracks that are different from all the others that are included within the game would help massively.

{EDIT} Due to not understanding the physics of the dance incorporated in the game and now knowing that there are penalties for not hitting the beat, I am happy to increase my score to a 7/10

Gamer since the age of 2 when I was introduced to the Dragon 64. Age is just a number, in my head I will be forever young

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