Ubisoft’s Just Dance still seems to have fans back in Korea, the home of Hallyu – and Ubisoft noticed.
Yesterday, Belift released the music video to jellyous, the latest single off of kpop girl group Illit’s third EP, bomb. The music video is filled with references to video games, which we’ll come back to below. But there’s a section where the members seemingly play Just Dance, with the players even holding what definitely looks like a Wii Mote.
The Just Dance games were a major part of Nintendo’s 2000s era revolution with the Wii, as possibly the most successful third party title on the platform. The franchise would also go on to appear on the PlayStation and Xbox, but no one will dispute that it is associated the most with the Wii and its Wii Mote controllers. Illit’s members would have been at the right age to have been growing up when the Wii was at its peak.
But we believe credit for this, and other video game references, should go to the production team at HAT TRICK, and especially the group’s creative director, Serian Heu. They have dropped some references to video games in Illit’s performances and videos before, but jellyous is where they really decided to make a video with video games for the theme.
Aside from Just Dance, the games clearly referenced in the music video include Grand Theft Auto, Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training, Resident Evil, and The Sims. There are also scenes that hint at mechanics and tropes from video games, such as the high jumps from Infamous and Saints Row 4, the bullet time from Superhot and Max Payne, and the Mii Plaza-like grid which the girls seem to virtually enter and exit as if they were Miis themselves.
Oddly enough, there’s also a lot of references to Nintendo’s hardware. Aside from the Wiimotes, there’s a scene where Illit member Yunah holds what appears to be a GameCube controller, and the Nintendo DS seems to be a motif for the whole video. Suffice to say, Heu and the people at HAT TRICK seem to be real gamers, of a certain age range to boot.
You can find the Just Dance account in the video’s YouTube comments, where they simply respond:
What can we say, of course they’re Megastars!!
We don’t know if this could lead to Illit’s songs showing up in the next Just Dance, or if all the Nintendo references could hint or lead to an endorsement. But if nothing else, this is a music video that we believe gamers are going to enjoy a lot, and the music isn’t too bad either.
You can watch Illit’s latest music video, jellyous, below.
