Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!
Gone are the few glaring problems that Ouendan had. No longer do songs have unskippable cutscenes that double the length of their play time. Every single song allows you to skip to a few seconds before the timing sequences begin so that if you fail, you don’t have go crazy watching the same introduction scene over and over (Ready! Steady! Go! I’m looking at your direction!)
Not only are the songs really good covers of popular songs (even if I don’t like them all), the fact that you can unlock a few more songs after the main game ends is an excellent change to the formula. In Ouendan, the only benefit of going back to previous levels was for points. These points would eventually allow you to achieve a higher rank. For what purpose? Nothing really. Now, those points and ranks are used to unlock three new songs that are added to your play list once you reach the proper level. This is a fantastic incentive to go back and actually do better at songs you struggled on instead of getting the lowest rank possible just to open up new content. It also means I’ll probably be playing this game for a much longer time, as I suck horribly at some of the levels, and I’ll want to open up ever song I can.
The reason I want to open up all the songs is that there are new stories and new characters on each stage. These characters have cameos in other levels, but you get a new story and situation each time you unlock a new level. The final stage is an epic struggle that features all the characters in a fight for survival. It’s totally awesome set to a Rolling Stones song!. The last song is much better this time around, because while it might be really hard to survive the level, it’s actually one of my favorite songs on the play list. I didn’t mind the hour it took for me to beat it.
The "hard" difficulty I just unlocked is going to keep me busy for a while too. The difficulty is on par with Ouendan, which is to say it goes from easy songs to progressively more difficult, but with practice you can improve. Only the last five songs of the game on Normal required a few hours to pass. For "S" ranks, I’ll need to put in a lot more time. For someone that can do reasonable well at the easier levels of Ouendan, you might be able to beat the game quickly, but the harder levels are much tougher. Get ready to play this game for a while if you want to see it all.
The multiplayer allows for single/multiple cart competitive play, as well as co-op (!) play. Awesome. You can even save and trade replays with people and compete against them as "ghosts". Saving your best replays? That’s only going to increase the desire to go back and get a high score for bragging rights.
This was one of my most anticipated titles of the year, and it’s exceeded my expectations. I played the entire normal setting today, and beat it. I only stopped due to hand cramps and eye strain. I can’t recommend this game enough. Right now, it’s probably in my top five favorites of the entire system, and I’ve only had it for a day. It’s unseated Ouendan as my favorite music game, and will probably spawn a huge cult following in America. As good as Ouendan was, and as popular that was, I’m actually kind of afraid of the band wagon that Elite Beat Agents will create on Internet message forums.There was a period of months where all anyone would talk about is male cheerleading, and now we’ve got a game good enough in the same genre, made by the same people, to put that to shame. There might not be much more to talk about on the Nintendo DS scene for a while as people discover this excellent title.
