"Good, but it falls short of the original"

Game play - 8/10

Some of the stages can be frustrating on normal or mix difficulty (Pander's stage has a fast song, and you have to press the buttons very quickly). The stages can do some strange things, depending on how well you dance. The flashiness of the stages are what makes the difficulty of this game. Things moving and flashing lights, and other things distract you and sometimes make you lose your count and miss button presses. To dance well you have to be perfect, and press the fourth beat button at just the right millisecond. Simplistics aside, just like the original, this game is very addictive and has a wide variety of dancers, songs, and dance types that should appeal to almost anyone.

Control - 10/10

All you do is press a button combo, and on every fourth beat in a song, you press a final button. If you press that fourth beat at the exact correct moment, you'll get a higher score and the next combo will be more complex, longer, and harder to do. You can attack your opponent to knock them out for a few beats, dodge an attack, or attempt to reflect an attack of theirs back at them. The control is simple to use, but the whole game is about your reflexes and being able to get the fourth beat.

Story - N/A

There really isn't any story that I know of. I know the Japanese version had endings for each character that told story stuff, but they were cut out of the American version.

Audio/Video - 10/10

The songs in BAG2 pale in comparison the the songs in the original BAG, but some of them are pretty good. The graphics are some of the best I've seen on the Playstation, and some of the stages are very flashy and interesting (like the movie studio).

Replayability - 8/10

You'll want to play through the game at least once with every single character, to unlock the ability to use them in the dance editor, which allows you to view all of a characters moves and put together dances of your own. Also you only start out being able to use half of the characters, and have to play through with certain dancers to earn the 8 extra dancer.

Once you've unlocked everything you can continue to have fun competing with another person in the two player mode, and see who has better reflexes.

To buy or to rent? - Buy, it's unlikely you'll find it for rent anywhere anyway

Well this game, like the original, is worth owning, but only if you like this type of game. Most likely you won't find it for rent anywhere. If you liked BAG you should like BAG2 as well. If you're going to buy it though, good luck finding a copy. It seems to be becoming rare already like BAG is now.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/27/00, Updated 10/30/02