Video game: Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan

Your life is falling apart and you're up against impossible odds.

Perhaps you're a teacher, passionate about making a difference, but your students blatantly ignore and ridicule you.
Perhaps you're an artist, with a looming deadline and no inspiration.
Perhaps you have to impress your ogreish mother-in-law and become a model Japanese lady.
Or it might be just that your city is under threat from a 20-foot-tall giant mouse.

Who do you turn to at such a time? Why, an all-male cheer squad, of course.

This is the ouendan (cheer squad): a team of three very manly men, built like tanks and ready to dance and shout to spur you on to victory. After all, every problem can be solved if you have enough willpower!

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, and its sequel, Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii
Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 are rhythm games for the Nintendo DS. These games are only available in Japanese, although an English spin-off game, 'Elite Beat Agents', has been made, with the same gameplay style.

In each stage you have to help a number of people in need by cheering them on to victory. You do this by hitting the right notes on the screen at the right time, in rhythm with some popular Japanese pop/rock hits.

Each person in need has their own little story, shown in manga (comic) panels before the stage. If you cheer them on well, they succeed in each step; if you cheer badly, they suffer setbacks and might even fail. The stories themselves are very funny and melodramatic. There's one stage where your hero, a violinist, is crippled by stomach cramps on the train and might miss his big concert. You have to *cheer on the medicine in his stomach* so they can overcome the gastrointestinal nasties!

The art is also funny; I especially like the 'determined face' of the characters in Ouendan 2.

If you have the chance to get one of these games, you can find online English translations of the manga panels for Ouendan 1 and Ouendan 2.

Example

As an example, one of my favourite stages has a talented doctor who leaves a lucrative position to go and help villagers on an island that has no doctor. The villagers are very excited, and mob him with their requests:
"I'm not sexy at all!"
"My daughter-in-law's food tastes bad!"
"My cat isn't speaking!"
"I can't connect to the Internet at all!"

The doctor protests that he's there to help the sick, but they demand cures for all their random problems. In desperation, the doctor calls for the Ouendan...

The Ouendan cheer him on. The first step has the doctor cure an old man's baldness; next, he doctors a sick horse (by tickling it?!), then, a microwave oven, and finally more baldness. The outcome of each of these sub-stages depends on how well you hit, drag and spin the rhythm markers. If you miss too many, the doctor's willpower drains and he may fail to impress the villagers. If you really miss too many, the stage will end entirely and the doctor gets kicked off the island.

Music

The music is great! Most of the songs on the games are covers of popular hits, and I recommend tracking down the originals. If you like Japanese music, it's a good way to discover some new groups.

My favourite tunes from Ouendan 1 are: Linda Linda (The Blue Hearts), Kokoro Odoru (Nobodyknows+), Guts da ze! (the Ulfuls), Shanghai Honey (Orange Range) and One Night Carnival (Kishidan).

From Ouendan 2: Vista (Going Under Ground), Julia ni shoshin (The Checkers), Kibun Joujou (Mihimaru GT), Rirura riruha (Kaela Kimura), Shonen Heart (Home Made Kazoku).

My opinions

I recommend this game; it's good fun and not too difficult (though once you've finished normal difficulty, you can unlock Hard and Very Hard mode, with new characters). I think Ouendan 1 has more heart - the situations are slightly more realistic - and the stages are slightly more fun to play, but Ouendan 2 is wackier and funnier. Also, Ouendan 2 has bonus stages you can unlock with enough points, which makes it more motivating to get good scores and progress as far as you can.

[The next stuff is no longer game review, but about my progress.)

I finished both games on Very Hard mode (rare for me), though I don't think I unlocked 'Hidden Mode' (where you can increase the difficulty by removing the rings from the rhythm markers). I don't remember, because recently I reset both games so I could play them again. (You can reset a game by holding down the A B X Y L R buttons simultaneously when the game is starting up again.) Right now I'm about 3/4 through 'Very Hard' mode on both games.

I think Hard and Very Hard are more fun in that you feel like you're really blasting, jamming along to the song. It's harder to get a good score in Easy and Normal modes, since I feel like I have to wait so long between each beat, and I can't race through like with the harder modes. But now the problem is how fast the motivation meter runs down. If you muff up any combination, you basically fail the stage.

In particular 'Samurai Blue' is driving me nuts. The stage itself would be quite fun - it's very satisfying landing constant blasts of 300s. In some ways, Samurai Blue is worse on Normal and Hard modes - so many markers filling the screen that it's actually hard to see them all clearly - but on Very Hard you have to land *so many* perfect combos, it's hard to sustain. I always stumble on the third or fourth screen. Oh well, I'll beat it soon. ^_^

Other levels I don't like are the other bonus stages - the monkey one is boring, the boy one has a dull song *and* lots of sliders, which I don't like. I don't like the ice skating level. It's supposed to be emotional but it's not as good as the 'emotional' stage on Ouendan 1. It's also the first stage I got an 'S' (perfect score) on, mainly because on Very Hard mode, if you miss even *one* marker on that ice skating stage, you're pretty well guaranteed to fail.

For playing, I like the fast songs like Bambina and Shanghai Honey, with lots of individual notes and not many sliders. My favourite stories are the doctor one, the werewolf one, the teacher one...

Anyway, I'm going back to my game. I'm gonna stop alien robots from taking over the city. Wish me luck. ^_^