I’ve always wanted to be able to dance, but my two left feet and social anxiety prevents me from learning. After all, how could I join a dance class when I’m so clumsy that I’d no doubt be a complete and utter embarrassment to myself?

That’s why, when I saw the announcement of The New Salsa Academy, I thought ‘what the hell, let’s give it a go’. After all, I’d be in the privacy of my own VR headset (something that makes me looking embarrassing to onlookers regardless of what I’m playing!), and if it really can teach me how to dance – even to an amateur degree – then it’d be worth it. 

Many thanks to the publisher for the review code.

Interested in The New Salsa Academy? Get 25% off with our referral link here.

KEEPING YOU ON YOUR TOES
Luckily, The New Salsa Academy is perfect for absolute beginners like me as it takes you through the basic steps and gradually builds upon them at a comfortable rate. Each section starts with an instruction and a demonstration, followed by you repeating the moves to the metronome and then later on with music. After that, there’s extended practice with an AI partner, and a chance to show off your moves to earn some points before moving onto the next step.

Image

There are two teachers available, Rodrigo Cortazar and Asya Sonina, who are both professional Salsa instructors and teach you inside their virtual dance studio. They’re life-like renditions of the dancers too, which makes following their movements far easier, and the simple yet effective studio looks realistic enough to ensure they don’t feel out of place in their virtual environment.

Your instructor will depend on whether you are taking the lead or following, but they both offer clear guidance on the steps you need to make. Rodrigo is more enthusiastic than Anya, attempting to joke around a little more to lighten up the mood, but also occasionally fluffs his lines too. Of course, keeping the mistakes in makes things more realistic, as real teachers tend to make mistakes too. With regards to Anya, I didn’t experience many of her lessons due to her teaching the followers but I did like her teaching style – especially as she doesn’t have Rodrigo’s maniacal laugh!

Image

What I enjoyed about The New Salsa Academy’s classes are that they’re reasonably short in length and focus on teaching you the important movements and things you need to take care of. It rarely feels overwhelming (at least until the final ‘turn’ move, which I had some trouble with) and you can always replay a particular chunk of a lesson should you need to do so.

The practice segments also work well too, as they’ll judge you on things like accuracy and timing and give you feedback on where you may be weak. Whilst I would have preferred some more detailed feedback telling me exactly which segments I messed up on (as just telling me that I messed up the beginning doesn’t really help me all that much), but at least it can detect when you’re not up to par and even slow down should it feel that you need to do so.

Image

Overall, it’s a good preliminary tool to help give you the foundations of Salsa which you can then build upon with proper classes – or just leave you with a basic level for you to use whenever the opportunity arises. I do wish that the game featured a more realistic dancing companion, since the blue blob you dance with doesn’t quite make you feel like you have a proper partner … and for that matter, there’s no actual salsa music to dance to when you’re done with all your classes. The finale is simply just doing each step in turn, and it feels rather anticlimactic when you’re expecting to actually be guided through a whole song.

But, this is an App Lab game, and as such you can expect more updates with additions further down the line. After speaking with one of the developers, it’s clear to see that a number of my issues will be addressed in the future. From content designed for dancers of different levels, to more realistic dance partners, there’s plenty of exciting things being worked on to ensure you keep coming back once you’ve finished the initial course. And, considering the price of the whole game is probably about the same price as a single Salsa class, that’s not half bad.

VERDICT
The New Salsa Academy is a great way for beginners to learn how to dance Salsa. With instructions from two professional dance teachers, an AI dance partner, and feedback based on your accuracy and timing, it really can help people who want to learn how to dance. And take that from someone with zero prior dancing knowledge and two left feet!