From the makers of Gitaroo Man comes this fantastic quirky little rhythm game. "Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan" apparently translates as "Get it together! Fight! Cheering Squad" and gameplay involves cheering a distressed citizen on during some personal crisis by touching the touch-screen in time to the music: a game not just "suited to" the DS, but quite impossible on any other format.
You must use your stylus to touch numbered circles on-screen in order. A larger concentric circle shrinks around each of the numbered circles, and you have to touch the screen as closely as you can when it appears that the two circles share the same outline. There are also some spinning moves where you have to rotate a circle quickly either clockwise or anticlockwise to score bonus points, and a "wave" move where after touching circle 2 for example rather than lift off and touch circle 3, you hold the stylus down and drag to circle 3. Doing all of these successfully when prompted results in a boost to your dance troupe's ever decreasing health bar.
It is extremely fun to play and the J-Pop and J-Rock tunes will get stuck in your head for sure. I've already cheered a struggling student lad on to pass his exams, now I'm trying to cheer a horse on to win a race and simultaneously foil a robber on a motorcycle's attempt to steal the race prize money! I'm also trying to help this hot office worker to work really hard in an attempt to catch her hunky boss's eye.
The Japanese screen text doesn't detract from the gameplay at all, as the story is told in comic-book format and it's usually easy to tell from the over-emotional manga pictures roughly what's going on and assemble your own story around what you see.
Starting up is easy, you just start the game, select a dance troupe (which also determines the difficulty level) then scroll around a town map using the stylus, searching for people in aid of some cheer. You'll soon figure out what buttons on screen correspond to "Retry" and "Back To Town Map" and "Quit" and what not, so this game is completely import-friendly so there really is nothing stopping you in experiencing this really fun, inventive game. Fans of Gitaroo Man should check it out, as it really is as good and features the same comedy, beautifully quirky stylised visuals, ingenius gameplay and the lovely storyline(s) which is, at times, touching and inspiring in a "believe in yourself" Saturday-morning-cartoon-y kind of way.
People who enjoy the wackiness of the Wario Ware games, or people who enjoy more straight-forward Dance Revolution type rhythm games in general would do well to try and play this somehow, as it is unlikely to ever be available in English as it makes Wario Ware seem perfectly sane in comparison.
Fuck, anyone with a heart and/or a sense of humour should get this.
With this type of game, concerns are always about the lifespan, but if these first missions (and the ridiculously difficult stages of Gitaroo Man that required the dexterity of Hendrix) are anything to go by it will probably last a while. You will want to replay the levels you struggled through with C rankings, not only to feel less inadequate, but to hear the catchy songs again. Add to this the unlockable extra-difficult mode where you play as the cheerleading trainer, replay value and lifespan would appear to be quite high.
This gets NINE videogame hearts out of 10 for making me incredibly happy.
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
http://ds.ign.com/objects/746/746980.html
http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/ou...html?q=ouendan
Buy it here for almost the same as you'd pay for a UK release:
www.play-asia.com
Linear Mode
