Dancing Under the Sea

Dancing is an art form that requires coordination, flexibility, and a great eye for detailed direction. Sounds a lot like the traits that make a good gamer! In Octopus Dance , your hand-eye coordination, finger flexibility, and ability to follow choreography is put to the test over five Stages. Each Stage has 10 sets of dance moves that are first performed by the Instructor, counted out with beats, and then mimicked by your Mii. Perform the move successfully in time with the Instructor to boogie your way to a star for the attraction! You have four hearts in which to complete the dance session, and once you’ve cleared all Stages, an Extra Stage unlocks for an even greater challenge.

So what are you waiting for? Bust a move!

Controls

The GamePad is used to control your moving and grooving Mii. Moving the Left Stick and Right Stick controls your Mii character’s arms, allowing them to swing in any direction, while moving the GamePad itself allows your Mii to jump and lean from side to side. Each set of moves lasts for three beats and ranges in speed and difficulty. After the Instructor shows you how to perform the move, follow his counts and input the correct commands on the second run. If you make a mistake, you lose a heart.

Wii Remote Assisted Play

When a friend plays along with you using a Wii Remote, they can target objects in the background and interact with various elements. Players using the Wii Remote can obtain lost hearts for the GamePad player when the dancer recieves an OK or Perfect mark during Stages 1-5..

Five-Step Program

Each of the five Stages in Octopus Dance consists of 10 sets of dance moves, and each set has three beats. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there are three beats in every set! That Instructor likes to mix it up now and then, speeding up the tempo or taking breaks from performing for one or more beats. The answers to completing this attraction are a careful eye and patience! Make sure you closely study a set of beats before repeating it.

Icon	Name	Conditions
	Perfect Perfect	Perform continuous perfects.
	Perfect Streak x10	Perform 10 perfects in a row.
	3 Inky Moves	Perform 3 successful beats after being inked.
	That’s a Wrap	Clear the Extra Stage.
	Flawless Fifty	Achieve 50 continuous perfects.

Stage 1

The first Stage of Octopus Dance throws you a few simple, slower beat sets to help you get into the groove. Once you reach the fifth group of beats though, things speed up. Listen carefully for the increase in tempo and match the Instructor’s beat to nail those poppin’ moves! This faster pace continues through until the ninth set of dance beats. For these last two bits of choreography, the speed picks up again and the Instructor cuts down the typical three beats to just one or two, adding in pauses during the choreography to try to throw you off. Don’t fall for his tricks! Focus on the counts and you’ll make it through just fine.

Stage 2

At the start of Stage 2 the Instructor spins your Mii so both of their backs are facing the TV, which means they’re looking right at you through the GamePad. The new choreography adds in more one-handed movements into the mix. When that happens, be sure to move only the proper stick! Just as with Stage 1, this second run of moves starts to pick up the pace at the fifth set and then kicks it into high gear for the last two. This speed increase should be no issue now that you have experience switching gears!

Stage 3

You’re past the halfway point, your Mii character’s back is once again to the GamePad, and the Instructor has all new choreography to test your coordination even further. Stage 3 introduces a motion control element to the routines, so that you’re tilting and shaking your GamePad in order to complete the dance beats. It adds another level of game immersion but remember to keep yourself centered ... as in, always return to the center, neutral position after tilting. If you leave your Mii out on a limb you could earn yourself a Miss.

As usual, the speed picks up at the fifth and ninth set marks, but Stage 3 includes additional hazards beyond the speed jumps. You may have noticed the addition of a little octopus friend on the screen. He looks harmless enough swaying in front of your Mii and the Instructor, but he can spray ink onto the touch screen, obscuring your view and forcing you to watch the TV for directions on the next set of dance beats. Successfully complete them and the ink is washed off quickly. However, even if you miss, the ink disappears eventually.

Stage 4

There’s one more type of choreography to add into your growing list of impressive moves. In Stage 4, the Instructor shows you how to swing your arms from one position to the next, rather than simply jabbing an arm in a certain direction. This allows for more complex moves and holds. As with the other Stages, the speed increases at sets five and nine!

Final Stage

The Final Stage of the standard game is all about advanced hand-eye coordination and memorization. For the choreography on this Stage, the arms tend to move independently, shifting from one complex pose to another. Pay attention to the shapes the arms make and do your best to recreate them! The Little Octopus may throw around some ink for fun, just to make your final push for the Attraction star all the more challenging. Once again, watch out for those speed increases at sets five and nine!

After completing Stages 1 through 5, an Extra Stage unlocks. Return to Octopus Dance with the same Mii to keep busting moves beyond the Final Stage!

Extra Stage

The Extra Stage makes you leave everything on the dance floor! This marathon Stage is twice as long as the previous ones, and it throws in every bit of choreography you’ve previously learned. It also regularly adjusts the tempo and the number of beats in the sets. Look at the back of the Instructor’s head on the GamePad to see the number of beats in the following set. You perform the Extra Stage with the Instructor and your Mii character’s backs to the GamePad, which keeps your focus all in one spot. However, ink is squirted onto the GamePad touch screen from time to time throughout the dance sets, so be sure to look up when necessary!

Of the 20 high-energy dance sets, there are several extra tricky ones to watch out for! Starting at set number nine, the Instructor pushes the max number of beats in a set to seven. This means you could have up to seven different beats to perform in a row! Really focus on arm position and how one pose flows into the next. At the tenth set, the speed increases, and from then on, the tempo periodically changes from fast to normal to faster. When you’ve completed the Extra Stage, you can officially consider yourself a dancing queen ... or king!

Results

While you’re catching your breath from the awesome dance workout your Mii just received, you are shown a breakdown of your score. The number at the top of the screen is your overall score for the run, and under that you can see the scores for the Perfect and OK rankings you received during your time with Octopus Dance. Each OK awards 10 points and each Perfect awards 30 points! At the bottom of the screen is your bonus score, which is derived from strung-together combos and your completing entire Stages with Perfects.