Rather embarrassing
Gameplay-wise, this game is a mess. Michael only has three ways of dispatching his enemies. He has exactly one punch, one kick, and his special ability. If Michael is well, magic stars fly from his punches and kicks to extend his reach. If Michael is hurt, well good luck. Michael's special ability is determined by his dance meter. If you have a full meter, you have the most control over how far open you want to open up that can of whoopass. Tap the button, and Michael just spins around, sending enemies that have ganged up on him flying away. Hold the button down for a few seconds, and Michael tosses his hat out. But his strongest attack is the power of dance. Michael forces everybody to dance until they all drop dead. And everybody succumbs. Even the dogs. Even the spiders. No matter how utterly hilarious it looks to see dogs trying to do "Smooth Criminal". The animation of the zombies dancing to "Thriller" is cool, but nowhere near on the level of the original music video. As you do your special abilities, your dance meter gets drained. Inexplicably, your dance meter also happens to be your life meter, so you can literally get yourself in trouble trying to save your own life.
The rest of the game isn't much better. In order to proceed to the end of the stage, Michael has to find all the kidnapped children in the stage, and the numbers go up as the stages go along. Let me tell you. Finding these brats is a pain in the neck. Backtracking is pretty common in this game unless you know where to look. The madness doesn't stop there. Every once in a while, Michael will get the opportunity to catch a shooting star. The game never explains what Michael has to do to trigger this event, but if you're lucky, Michael transforms into a robot of death, capable of flight and shooting death lasers. The animation of this robot is really laughably clunky. Finally at the end, Michael transforms into a super space fighter, and the last stage is a duel to the death with the evil gang lord in outerspace. But where's my radar?
The graphics in this game are terrible. I know the Sega Genesis is an old system, but many of its games took full advantage of its power. Look at Sonic the Hedgehog. The original. It was a gorgeous game with huge characters. The graphics on this game look even worse than some NES games. The sound fares a little bit better, but hearing classic Jackson tunes being reduced to low level MIDI songs is rather depressing. At least the songs in Sonic were fun to listen to.
In short. . . why is this game currently the number one Genesis game here at Gamespot?