Overview
-Estimated achievement difficulty: 7/10 (but highly dependent on your rhythm, flexibility, stamina, and dance skills)
-Offline: 50 (1000)
-Online: 0
-Approximate amount of time to 1000: 20-30 Hours
-Minimum number of playthroughs needed: At least once per song in Perform It, at least one Fitness playlist, and all songs in Crew Challenges at least once
-Number of missable achievements: None
-Do cheat codes disable achievements? No known cheats
-Does difficulty affect achievements? Yes, for Hard Act To Follow and all of the achievements related to Crew Challenges
-Glitchy achievements: None reported.
-Unobtainable achievements? No
-Extra equipment needed? Yes. Kinect Sensor is required, as well as a second person.
Introduction
Dance Central 2 is the second installment in the Dance Central Series by Harmonix. Dance Central 2 builds on the strengths of Dance Central, adding new game modes, new songs and new moves. It's a really fun game and a great workout. Unless you've taken dance classes before, it will also be a pretty tough game. There are 44 songs that are new to Dance Central 2. For 400 MSP (and the code on the back on your Dance Central manual), you can import your DC songs and downloaded songs into your DC2 library. If you've played Dance Central, and especially if you've gotten all of the achievements in it, a lot of these achievements will come easily, being familiar with some of the moves already, as well as being better at reading the flash cards. For those who haven't, since you'll likely be doing dance moves you've never seen or done before, don't stress out if you can't do really well your first attempt. Just relax and enjoy the exercise and you'll gradually get better at each song by learning the moves. The Break It Down mode in this game is excellent, so if you have trouble with any moves definitely make good use of this mode. Steps two through four below are interchangeable, just make sure you enable Fitness mode first in step one.
Step 1: Listen to the Intro/Fitness Mode
Load up the game, go to the main menu and let the theme song play through until you unlock the achievement Patience Is a Virtue. This is a good time to import your songs from Dance Central, if you have it. You'll be at the title screen while importing, so you can kill two birds with one stone. Then start up the game. Go into Fitness mode and the first thing you'll want to do is turn on Fitness mode (the first option in Fitness mode). This will allow your calorie and time-related achievements to start accumulating. At the bottom of the list, select the second-last option for the 30 minute playlist and play it all the way through. It doesn't matter how well you do, just play it through. When you finish, select to view your photos. Select any photo and then select to Upload. All of this will unlock Patience Is a Virtue, Working It Out, Biggest Winner, Endless-ish Setlist, Get the Picture, and Fitness Fanatic for a total of 95
Step 2: Break It Down mode
After step one you should be familiar with a few songs. Pick one you're most comfortable with, especially one you've already gotten five stars on, and select to play it in Break It Down mode. When you get to a move you're most familiar with, nail it first try. Then purposely mess up a move to be forced to try it three times. Use the Slow It Down and Video Record features to get flawless ratings on two separate moves. There are normally four or five recaps, so work on nailing all moves in at least one recap. When you're done with Break It Down, select Perform It and get 5 stars on the song. When done, go back into that song, select Break It Down again but instead, pick Focus on Select Moves, select any one move, and then start the session to unlock your last achievement. This step will unlock the following: Targeted Practice, Teacher's Pet, Slow Profile, For The Record, Nailed It!, and Recapable for a total of 105
Step 3: Dance Battles/Two-Player Achievements
For all of the Free-4-All and Dance Battle achievements, you will need a second person in the room with you. You'll have to play at least 20 songs so you can win 20 Dance Battles, and make sure you win at least three in a row. You can have a second person just stand there to make things easier on you. You'll also want to play a song in Perform It with a second person, where the two of you will be playing co-op, and you'll want to practice a song until the two of you can earn five stars together. This step will unlock the following: Bragging Rights, All Over The Place, Chump To Champ, Vanquisher, Proved Your Point, and Perfect Pair for a total of 130
Step 4: Perform It Mode
After playing the Fitness playlist in step one and at least 20 Dance Battles in step three you should have scores for a good deal of the songs in the Perform It list. Go through and play all of the remaining songs, starting on Easy and working up to Hard, making sure to get five stars on each. Also go back and get five stars on any you may not have during the Dance Battles or Fitness playlists. Pick a song you feel most comfortable with and play it until you can nail every move, which will give you gold stars. There are quite a few songs where 2,000,000 points can be gotten on easy, namely "Hot Stuff" and "Nothin' On You," both of which are pretty easy. You should also be able to get a flawless finish along the way, since most songs have very simple poses at the end. By the time you finish the list, you'll easily have gotten 100 stars. This step will unlock the following: Certified Double Platinum, Star Quality, Eclectic Taste, Gold Digger, Solo and Steady, Finishing Touch, Hard Act To Follow, and Dance Hall Legend for a total of 190
Step 5: Crew Challenges
After step four, you should have gotten five stars on every song on Hard, which will now enable you to cruise right through the crew challenges. Again, you'll want to play each song to get five stars on it. Difficulty achievements do stack, so doing this on Hard will unlock all of the Crew Challenge-related achievements, as well as Full Dance Card and Shop and Lock for a total of 370
Step 6: Mop Up
Depending on how long it takes you to finish the above steps, and when you turned Fitness mode on, you may need to mop up a few achievements. You'll have to finish up your cumulative total of 3500 calories burned and five hours played in Fitness mode, and you may also need to have more pictures taken to reach the 1000 picture total. Perform It mode is the fastest way to get pictures (17 per song). If you haven't already, you will also need to get two other people to join you for a freestyle section in any song. These will get you your last four achievements: Survival of the Fittest, Thrash and Burn, Latest Model, and Photo Bomb! for a total of 110
Step 7: Conclusion
No matter how you tackle it, Dance Central 2 will be an exhausting run to the 1000. Expect to put in a good deal of practice with each of the songs, especially if you haven't played Dance Central. Don't give up though, since there isn't really a quick way to complete this game or get better without lots of practice. Thankfully this game has an excellent Break It Down mode, which will help with even the most difficult of moves. Take your time, be patient, but most importantly enjoy the dancing and the great workout this game has to offer.
[x360a would like to thank Necrophage33 for this roadmap]