Story mode mixes a series of routines with a basic plot; you’re the replacement cheerleader after the squad’s star gets injured, and the vast majority of the team actively dislikes you. They’re catty high school punks who come up with stupid insults like ’newdles’ and other annoying nonsense, and it’s all done with voice actors who range from vaguely acceptable, to badly overacting, to being graduates of the Keanu ’...Whoa’ Reeves school of emoting. Surprisingly, the story does touch on several interesting topics later on, centering around all sorts of problems that students face, but this is ultimately just the wrapping around the gameplay. What really matters is how well that holds up.

All Star Cheer Squad falls flat here, partially due to the developers but some of the blame goes to their choice of controller. Many of the motions look like you should put your arms wide apart, but doing so is as liable as not to pull the Nunchuk out of its socket even if you use the wristband hook to keep it in... the cord is just too short. This leads to doing very half-hearted gestures within a small range of motion, but even this is kind of hit-or-miss. Some gestures require you to do them one exact way for the game to recognize it, while at least three different gestures would register even though I was just standing there in an ’arms neutral’ stance, doing literally nothing. This was probably the natural result of designing a game around a three foot cord, and when it’s combined with frequent, long loading times it’s pretty hard to accept that.