Shut Up And Dance is about the MC, his mother and sister (this game is meant to be played with a patch or else nothing really makes sense here!) who have to adapt to a new life after the father of the family died. Money is scarce and they are in debt even.
As it turns out the father was involved in some science project, for various reasons only the son, that is, the MC, can help with that project so he gets contacted by Emma, a (very pretty) scientist who worked with the deceased father. As it turns out the father was working on a machine that can transfer memories, to help with the side effects of that transfer the MC needs to take pills... and said pills have an interesting side effect. If the MC causes strong emotions in someone else he can more or less control their minds through the power of pheromones.
The basic story is of course rather far-fetched, but ok. There are sillier plots in VN land though and the mystery of the father's death is interesting enough to keep you guessing what's really going on here.
But the story mostly falls apart when it comes to the personal interactions, which is unfortunate. So depending on whether or not you place some importance on good and more or less semi-realistic character interactions Shut Up And Dance may disappoint you.
Just a few examples... for some reason the MC collapses on the street (side effect of the pills), his right hand gets injured, the doctor who treats him gets (accidentally) mind controlled (which also results in completely random sex...) and ultimately the doctor suggests to the mother that she must help her son with "stress relief" or else he may blackout again.
And of course the mother agrees just like that and this is the starting point of her sexual relationship with the MC............... it can hardly get any more silly or unrealistic. I wish the devs had found a better way to get things going between the MC and Megan. It's not super terrible, but very clichéd.
Then there's the sister, Sarah, who has the hots for the MC (and vice versa) for some undisclosed reason. She's just lusting after the MC. No explanation provided. Well, other than her exceptional looks of course. Sarah is one of the prettiest characters in the game (any game really).
What follows is the - more or less - patented sex progression route.... so expect lots of handjobs, blowjobs (why are VNs SO obsessed with these things, it's so boring after the 3rd, 4th or 5th time.....), the usual drill, and of course some of the characters are super ok with doing everything BUT actual sex, this trope needs to be retired once and for all... only in chapter 7 the sister Sarah finally accepts her desires and goes all in.
Also, Shut Up And Dance more than one time makes generous use of "humorous" interruptions... either characters suddenly come home, or the door bell rings etc. It gets tiresome when you have seen this stupid plot device one too many times. I get it, developers aim to stretch content or else games would be much shorter overall, but please come up with new ideas to do that. The comedic sound effects that play when this happens don't make it any funnier. That being said, how these interruptions ultimately play out may also depend on how you shape each character's path, more about that later.
The story with Megan, the mother, is a bit different than Sarah's, here things escalate much more quickly and the MC and her will have sex pretty early in chapter 2... only for the mother to do a 180 turn and to stop all intimacies because she feels super guilty after the deed.
Which is of course not entirely unrealistic... she will only come around again in chapter 8 on the love path.
But it may be a somewhat unpleasant surprise for those who expect more action with Megan. Things will come to a screeching halt here for quite a while. I do like that aspect of her character arc though, it's actually a novel approach. Usually things are teased to the stretching point in other VNs, then the deed is done and all barriers are broken down. Here Megan feels serious guilt and thinks her intimate relation with the son is a huge mistake.
Depending on which path you choose for Megan (more about that later) it can take quite a while (chapter 8, as mentioned) before she comes around again.
So what you get is basically this... super slow burn with Sarah... fast action with Megan... and when Megan reconsiders and gets her crisis of conscience things with Sarah heat up considerably. So there's always tension and some action. Things will never be boring. And of course there's Faith who will have several scenes with the MC.
The game has two chapters with outdated graphics, 5 and 6, everything else though looks quite refined, the render quality is great. You will have to tolerate the huge drop in quality in chapters 5 and 6, but it's not too terrible. So I encourage you not to stop after the remastered chapters and keep playing.
Animations in the remastered chapters as well as chapters 7 and 8 are great. So on a technical level Shut Up And Dance absolutely excels.
But apart from somewhat silly character interactions the game has another huge issue. And that is unavoidable content and forced sex.
You can't avoid the friend of the mother, Faith. You will have sex with her, even if you don't want to. Nothing you can do about it. You only have a choice in sharing Faith with her son or keeping her for yourself. So at least sharing can be avoided.
You can't avoid sex with one of Sarah's friends, Jenny. I am not saying many would reject her (she is of course pretty), but the option should exist, even if only a minority would maybe reject her.
You can't avoid sex with the doctor very early in the game.
And of course you can't avoid either the mom or the sister either, but very, very few would want to do that, they are the main female characters, the core of the story and it would make absolutely no sense to avoid them. But if, for some reason, you may want to pursue super pretty scientist Emma exclusively for example... (which would mean zero action throughout the current build) you can't, at least as of now.
In other words: you cannot - at least as of now (chapter 8) choose any real paths. You will always have a sexual relationship with Megan, Sarah, Faith, Jenny, the doc and you will begin dating Carrie and do some stuff with her. And the MC is on the path of Emma who just filed for divorce from her husband because he is - of course - a cheating bastard. And I am pretty sure Ange is next on the list as well. And color me surprised if the Aunt won't be added as well eventually. Her husband is of the "never at home, because work" variety.
So if you want a game that allows you to pick and choose: Shut Up And Dance may annoy you a lot. You can't pick and choose at all. Several things are force fed to you.
There is also a completely pointless and unskippable fantasy lesbian scene. The MC dreams about his sister Sarah and Jenny after playing a naughty card game (Jenny and Sarah kiss). One reviewer here apparently believed this scene is real, it's made abundantly clear that it's not, it's a fantasy. So there's no reason to get upset about sharing Sarah. You won't.
Now it's generally assumed that all men want lesbian scenes between potential love interests and love that stuff... I don't think that's true. Not even remotely.
Well, at least it's not real, but there should be an option to avoid these scenes altogether. I'd rather have no content than content I don't want to see.
You also can't avoid interacting with your cousin Ange... she's the stereotypical super tough girl with countless tattoos. Again, it's down to taste, I hate tattoos... but if you like them Ange is certainly very attractive. Via Ange the MC will get involved with a crime gang selling drugs... this too is unavoidable and meant to spice up the plot. The crime gang subplot is ok though and actually quite fun. Ange is also a fun character and interacting with her results in various good moments, not even talking about anything sexual here.
Character design in the game is mostly good, but Megan has a bad case of balloon breasts and exaggerated hips. She looks like something a horny teenager may draw in a sketchbook. Of course this is entirely down to taste, apparently quite a few people like these caricatures. I don't. But you may.
Other characters look a bit more like real women and faces etc are all very well designed, everyone is more or less really attractive in this game. My personal favorite is Emma, followed very closely by Sarah... but Emma is a super slow burn character, so far there have been zero interactions with her, but there are early hints that this will soon change in future updates.
What I find so immensely disappointing are the forced relationship, no solo or at least pure mother/sister paths (as of now), lack of meaningful choices here and there and forced anal sex with the doctor (nothing you can do about it, it is - so far - avoidable with actual main love interests though!).
I have literally zero interest in Faith, her son Jake or anything involving them. And when Faith reveals that she once had a lesbian encounter with the mom (a tame lesbian kiss, but still) I fear the worst for upcoming episodes, I hope that at least this will be entirely avoidable. It's generally very disappointing when bi-curious tendencies are not entirely optional. Knock yourself out when you like that, but please, just make that entirely avoidable/skippable.
After complaining about a lack of choices for some length I do want to point out though that you can shape and affect how several relationships develop!
For Megan there is a love and corruption path. I chose love, I am sentimental and romantic, and on the love path everything is, as expected, very wholesome. But there is also a corruption path, so your experience may vary depending on your choice. But I can't say anything about the corruption path, since it's nothing I would choose.
With Faith you can decide if you want to mind control her early in the game. You can tell her son about the pills etc or keep it a secret. If you do mind control her Faith will be nude when alone at home with her son or the MC. You can also choose if you want to share Faith with her son.
With Sarah you can try to ease her into anal sex, I didn't, I have zero interest in that, but if you are into that, you can do that.
And Ange also has a few options regarding the mind control angle, the MC can reveal certain things to her or keep them secret.
Let's talk about the mind control angle here, it's not what you might expect! If you are heavily into mind control and corrupting people... Shut Up And Dance will probably disappoint you. I don't like mind control at all, at least when it's used to corrupt love interests, so this is a big positive for me, but be warned, if you expect to create mindless sex slaves here this is not necessarily the game for you.
And quite frankly... mind control is NOT needed since Megan is super hot for her son, Sarah is head over heels with the MC as well, Faith jumps on the MC's bones whether you like it or not, Jenny also pounces on him very enthusiastically, Ange seems to be quite fond of the MC as well.... so the mind control angle is mostly used on villains or to get out of certain delicate situations. The MC only (accidentally) mind controls the doctor and his mom very early, but then stops. And uses it once on the aunt to help out Ange (she wants her aunt to be less strict to her and to leave her be).
And that's another positive thing about Shut Up And Dance, the MC is not a nasty scumbag (at least on the love path with Megan etc), he's more or less nice, he wants to make at least his mom and Sarah really happy, he treats them really well (inviting them to dinner, treating them to a nice spa visit etc) and that aspect is actually pretty wholesome.
Even Ange, whom you may think is a bad girl, only has actually pretty positive plans once she learns about the mind control, she wants to do good things, like dismantling the drug gang and generally helping people. So she's a wannabe superhero in disguise! That was a pleasant surprise and subversion since you may assume that Ange may be a selfish bitch who will use mind control for nefarious purposes, just based on her character design. She's nothing like that at all. I liked that a lot!
All in all Shut Up And Dance is somewhat of a mixed bag. It could have been really, really good... the renders, other than in the yet to be remastered episodes 5 and 6, are excellent, animations are great, the story, while pretty silly here and there, is at least fun, but the lack of proper character motivations for the mother and sister to jump on the MC, a complete lack of choices when it comes to who to romance and more or less pointless naughty card game scenes (mom and sis will kiss each other of course... as well as Jenny and Sarah... the usual, it's basically spin the bottle, just with cards) and unavoidable fantasy lesbian scenes really diminish the overall experience.
And as mentioned, if you want to use mind control a lot on women in this game... you are out of luck. But for me that is actually a positive thing.
So what's left to say... if you are ok with all the downsides Shut Up And Dance can absolutely be fun, it most likely will be fun. Just be aware that you have little choice in several important matters. There are choices here and there, you can affect paths, but to have no say at all over who to romance is a major annoyance. So be aware of that.
If that doesn't bother you... absolutely play the game. It's your usual shuffled combination of various VN tropes with pretty women. Including yoga, sunlotion and all the other stuff you certainly have never seen elsewhere before....
But despite all that you can have a really good time with Shut Up And Dance. It's your wholesome version of a mind control game where the MC doesn't want to take advantage of loved ones. And that is, for me, one of its redeeming qualities.
Also, while I complained a lot about a lack of choices when it comes to the love interests, chances are pretty high you may like (almost) all of them. And if you do like all of them Shut Up And Dance can easily be a 4 star game, really good. Not super smart maybe, but super fun and with at least some original ideas like Megan's arc and Ange's character which is nothing like you'd suspect at first.
My advice: give the game a try. See if the lack of certain choices bothers you too much, if not... I am certain you will like this. I ended up liking most of it despite being somewhat annoyed by the lack of choices here and there. But a true 4 star or even 5 star game still needs more choices in my opinion.
