Elite Beat Agents Review

Over the past year, one of the most imported DS titles has been a little rhythm game from Japan. Titled Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, the game featured cheerleading squads arriving at difficult times in people’s lives to cheer them on to victory. With a track list of Japanese pop and rock tunes, the tap and drag gameplay quickly spread through online word of mouth and developed a large U.S. following (larger than it’s Japanese following where it suffered from weak sales and had become a budget title). This year, Nintendo brings the gameplay to the U.S. in the form of Elite Beat Agents, with new missions, new music, and new features. Does it maintain the magic of it’s overseas counterpart?

…As Easy as 1-2-3

The actual gameplay of Elite Beat Agents (EBA) is simple. Circles appear on the screen and the player must tap them, in order, to the beat of the music. The game may also throw out paths to trace with the stylus between the tapping or ask the player to twirl an onscreen spinner as quickly as possible. Of course, it’s not as simple as it sounds, because in the higher difficulty levels the circles, paths and spinners come at a pace that requires practice and memorization to complete the level, and even more dedication to get the best possible ending for each level.

Gone are the cheerleading squads from Ouenden, replaced with teams of Agents who arrive on the scene to perform musical numbers and help people in various situations. In the end, the difference is negligible. The end result is the same: a row of 3 people dance while the player taps and drags with the music. The storylines vary from a cat trying to save a baby at a construction site to a girl remembering her dead father – and yes, it is as sad as it sounds.

You Make Me Feel like Dancing

The soundtrack to EBA has been one of the most discussed issues with the game. Arguably the audience for quirky Japanese import titles isn’t exactly the same audience that would be listening to Avril Lavigne, Good Charlotte or even Destiny’s Child. They are included here however (or at least some fairly good sound-a-likes) and yet, despite the unusual song choices, it works. Some of the most fun you’ll have are in levels with songs you would never listen to outside of the game.

Everyone will have a favorite and least favorite track and they will almost never be what you would expect. I personally can’t stand playing the "Highway Star" level. While I love the story of a pug dog just trying to make his way home, the song itself I find to be complete torture. However, I honestly love the levels based on a Cher's "Believe" and Destiny's Child's "Survivor" – something that I never would have guessed would happen. However, the songs just work perfectly with their storylines and, especially in "Survivor," the tap sequences follow the music flawlessly.

That’s What Friends are For

One of the biggest improvements EBA has over its Japanese counterpart is the vastly improved multiplayer. You can now play many of the songs in single cart multiplayer with up to four friends and you get to pick from all the songs if everyone has their own copy. In addition, you can save a ghost version of yourself playing each song that you can play against in the multiplayer mode. Multiplayer even has several new storylines not in the single player mode. It’s the icing on the cake to an already great game.

Another subtle improvement made to EBA lies in the storyline scenes at the end of each level. In Ouendan, not passing a section of the song resulted in a "bad" scene; however, if you finished the level successfully, you still got the happy ending. In EBA if you fail a section of the song, not only do you get a bad scene for that section, but the ending is also adjusted to reflect how well you performed. For example, in the level featuring a cat saving a baby à la Mindy & Buttons (to the Jackson 5's "ABC"), perform well and the kitty gets a reward of unlimited fish but perform with mediocrity and the kitty gets a vastly reduced quantity of fishy treat. It's a small change, but one that pushes the replayability of EBA even higher.

Let’s Dance

So at this point a normal person might be thinking, “a game featuring bad pop music, bizarre story lines, and simplistic gameplay…I think I'll pass.” However, skipping out on EBA would be one of the biggest mistakes a gamer could make this year. Somehow the developers manage to pull everything together and make it into one of the most enjoyable, addictive and genuinely funny game experiences of the year. The gaming cliché of “easy to learn, impossible to master” is strongly in effect here, where getting that A or S ranking becomes an obsession and one more game is always necessary.