Script:
Hola! Como Estas? Bien e tu? That’s all the Spanish I know, which is unfortunate as I will be salsaing to the most popular Hispanic music with Baila Latino available for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and other consoles. The game is published by our good friends at My World, makers of Yoga Master. Let’s hope this game is better than that one. The review is part of Shovelware month. A yearly tradition where I play four low-quality fitness games to see if there is a diamond in the rough. Let’s see if this one is a diamante. I’ll stop with the Spanish.
[Intro ]
If you have played just dance or any dancing game, you have played Baila, Latino. The gameplay is simple. You hold the joy-con in your right hand and follow the prompts on the screen’s bottom along with the dancer. Depending on if you are dancing in rhythm, you get a rating. That rating fills up the meter at the top, and you get a star. How many leads you get is what your rating is on the song. The gameplay loop is familiar to everyone who has ever played this type of game. As far as the move set goes, it’s pretty diverse with many Latin moves that I’ve seen on TV. I’ve never taken any dance lessons, so I am not sure how accurate these moves are to real life, but they seem standard. My main issue with the gameplay is the reading of the joy-con. No matter what I do, it seems to have a hard time reading me. I feel like I am doing it in rhythm, but I kept getting a low rating. I do just fine in Just Dance, so it could be that the scoring is more stringent. I never got past two stars except for playing multiplayer. For some reason, the gauge never depletes when playing with two people.
The most crucial part of any dancing game is the songs. I want to start off by saying my knowledge of Hispanic music is absolutely limited. I am not sure if these songs are actually popular or not. Here is a quick flash of the setlist in the game. This includes all twenty pieces in the original game plus the five DLC songs available for free. From what I understand, the songs seem to be all covers, which is acceptable in a budget title like this. The only song I know from the list is the Macarena. The rest are all new songs to me, and they are all pretty good. Each one is super danceable and fun to play. My favorite from the game is “No Hay Otra Cosa”, “Lamento De Corazon”, and “Sin Ti No Puedo”. Sorry for completely butchering those song names. Across the twenty-five songs, there isn’t a bad one in the bunch, which is impressive. I would usually say that only twenty-five songs in a dancing game are pretty low. However, for the discounted price point of ten bucks, it isn’t too bad. You get forgiveness this time.
As far as the graphics go, the video footage of both the dancers and the backgrounds is way too blurry. It’s not just my recording device. The game looks like this for me as well. The compression is horribly done and really ruins the visual experience. Other than that, the backgrounds are super creative for each song. Some elements match up with the music or change, and it’s engaging to watch.
My main complaint with the game is that they forgot the game. For example, let’s take a look at the different modes. You can dance by yourself. Dance with someone else or view the credits. There are no unique modes, no playlist, nothing to unlock, or anything. There is no reason to continue playing this game. After finishing a song, you either get to replay it or go back to the main menu. There should have been more added to this, such as continue to a different song or something. You can’t even see you’re the highest score since the game doesn’t record it. Making the point system and stars useless in single player. For multiplayer, it’s a little bit better with options to battle one another or drops whoever has the lowest score, but more should have been done.
Speaking on what should have been done, let’s go through What I want in a sequel.
[What I want in a Sequel]
I hope there will be a Balia Latino 2 since the concept is excellent. First off, double the song list to fifty songs and charge fifty dollars for it. If you are going to make a game like this, you better go all in and beat out, just dance. Next, have the game track your calories. Mario DDR came out sixteen years ago and did that. Common! Have the ability to create and make your own playlists is a must. Have unlockable songs and maybe behind the scene footage as an incentive to continue playing. Lastly, have daily, weekly, and monthly challenges like Zumba Burn it up does. In general, to make a good dancing game, just copy the better games than you do and then do more. Man, I should go into the world of game development. I’m sure it’s better than the world of WPF.
Overall, Balia Latino is a fair game to whip out at a party every once in a while. It’s not for anybody who wants to dance solo. If you were to find the game on sale, then I would pick it up for multiplayer, but I would skip it in general. The game could have been so much better if more effort was put into it. When the game was initially released six years ago, it got low scores for various problems. The publishers could have fixed these issues and pushed out a much better game. Instead, My World shat another half-baked dud onto the Nintendo Switch. You’re 0 in 2 guys. Let’s hope their third game is better.
So, guys, thank you so much for watching this video on Balia Latino. The next game on my list to complete is the Smurfs dance party. Really going to be happy about this one. If you guys have any suggestions on anything you want me to try, then shoot a comment in the comments below. I will do pretty much any challenge or advice provided. If you guys want, you can follow me on Twitter @truejackjenk. I post about the videos that are coming out, and… that’s it. That’s really all I do on the site. Like this video on YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel. I post a new video every single. Lastly, have a fantastic day, everyone. All you people are just incredibly amazing.