Rhythm
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English guide to Ouendan 2 menus
Among its other many virtues, Ouendan owed a lot of its overseas hype and success to its undaunting language barrier. Despite the menus and manga panels being filled with Japanese text, importers were able to follow the rhythm title's illustrated screwball plots and quickly pick up its self-explanatory controls. Ouendan's recently-released sequel, Moeru! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2, likewise requires little-to-no familiarity with the Japanese language in order to enjoy the game.Even with these assurances though, there are still many import-shy gamers who hide behind their mothers' skirts at the sight of kanji characters. Fortunately for them, the Platformers has translated Ouendan 2's menu selections, providing a visual guide with an overlay of English text. Most of the buttons and icons are obvious, but having a quick reference like this would be useful for first-time importers. Now there's no excuse for avoiding the cheer squad!
Ontama shows random Dreamcast influence
This is probably more of a coincidence or an unintentional influence than anything else, and there's always the possibility that we're imagining things, but doesn't Ontama's protagonist Beat look somewhat familiar? He looks like a cross between Sonic Adventure-era Sonic (look at the poses!) and Jet Set Radio's main character, also named Beat. Well, if you had to pick two games to resemble, you could do a lot worse than these, both of which had fantastic art. The actual game, a rhythm-puzzle thing that we totally want, doesn't look like anything else. We've got new screens after the break.
DS Daily: OUENDAAAAAAN
It's out, and we don't have it. It kinda hurts. Some bloggers seem to have gotten their hands on a copy, so we know it's possible that one of our faithful readers has Moeru! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2! We need to live vicariously through you, hypothetical reader! We need your impressions! Those of you who don't have it or just don't have it yet: do you have one on the way? Do you consider this the biggest game release of the year? Or are you holding out for a US release? Or an Elite Beat Agents 2: Beat Harder? Personally, we'll take any and all iNiS music releases and will be importing Ouendan 2 as soon as finances allow.
Eat! Hot Noodles Tasting Spirit: Ouendan-esque ramen commercial!
This commercial may or may not be a direct parody of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! but it is certainly evocative of our favorite male-cheerleader-based rhythm game. And it performs a public service!If you watch this ad for Nissin's UFO ramen bowls, you'll learn an important life lesson about without having to pay the no-doubt exorbitant tuition required to attend the "UFO man school." The lesson is as follows: finish your freaking noodle bowl if you value your life. True story time! When we were in college (not that long ago!) you couldn't get these things in American grocery stores like you can now. We ordered a bunch of Japanese food online, and had a horrible allergic reaction to one of these noodle bowls. Delicious noodles, though!The video is posted after the break, with no further embarrassing personal anecdotes.
Today's beatiest game video: Ouendan 2
Today's video pick -- other than all of those Halo videos of course -- shows footage from Oundan 2, the sequel to the Japanese game that became Elite Beat Agents. There's no word yet on an American version of the title, but rhythm fans and importers should stick this on their list. The game is out in Japan on May 17. See the video after the break. %Gallery-1975%
Jammin' out with Traxxpad for PSP
Rhythm games belong to a genre that has received a lot of attention over the last few years, probably as a result of a little title called Guitar Hero. Eidos hopes to get a piece of the pie with its own Traxxpad, coming to a PSP near you. The game turns your PSP into a portable music studio where you can synthesize and cook your own beats to make your own jamalicious tracks. What's most interesting is the ability to export your killer tunes via mp3, so you can roll down the street and blast your freshly cooked tunes into the eardrums of any nearby bystander. Delish. Take a look.
Rhythm Tengoku taunts us even more
Rhythm Tengoku, the Game Boy Advance rhythm-minigame collection from the Wario Ware team, is headed to the arcade as a collaboration between Nintendo and Sega. And as an arcade game, it's even less likely to come to the US.Rhythm Tengoku is a collection of weird minigames in the same style as Wario Ware, but all involving performing exceedingly random tasks in time with music. It appears to contain the same minigames as the original, with some new stages, as well as the welcome addition of simultaneous 2-player.If this arcade game comes out somewhere we can play it, we'll take back every bad thing we ever said about minigames and recent Sega games. We'd also take a localized version of the GBA game. We're simple folks.
The Ouendan experience
With only a week to go before its release in Japan, Nintendo has put up a suite of videos for Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2. In addition to the traditional commercial spot and gameplay trailer, there are five "experience" clips showing people tapping and singing along with the rhythm title's songs. We would post videos of our own experiences with Ouendan, but they'd consist of us sobbing in a corner as we played through "Over the Distance," a heart-rending ghost love story that calls for you to reunite a restless spirit with his grieving girlfriend for one last goodbye. We haven't cried that much since the last time we saw Grave of the Fireflies. Oh the humanity! Bring a tissue when you saunter past the post break for the melancholic scene from the original Ouendan game.
Blood on the dance floor
As you've probably picked up from our coverage of Puzzle Quest's RPG/Bejewled mix and Kanji Ken's beat-em up training game, we are in love with titles that mix genres in new ways. Banpresto's Custom Beat Battle: Draglade does just that, weaving together rhythm, fighting, and RPG elements into an exciting pattern.You customize and arm your fighters with beat combos, pulling off special attacks by timing button presses with a meter that displays a rhythm sequence. You can also level up your characters and buy items for them at shops. Punch and kick your way past the post break for some Custom Beat Battle: Draglade trailers. Now that we've got rhythm fighting, rhythm action, and rhythm platforming on our handheld, what's next? We're hoping for a math-and-music-based shoot-em up where you solve equations with the beat while trying to dodge bullets. We'll call it... a logarhythm-up.
Elite Beat Agents all the rage in Japan
Wired's Chris Kohler has been enjoying some time in the Land of the Rising Fun lately, documenting his trip through about a billion photographs. This one above, is of interest. It shows Elite Beat Agents, which is pretty much a sequel made exclusively for the U.S. market to that of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, which is the title on the right. What's odd is that in Akihabara, the area of Japan that Chris has been trekking around, has a few places that sell import games, but he has found Elite Beat Agents in several locations, each one priced at 4890 yen (which comes out to about $41.50 USD). This is also odd, because Chris reports that the prices from shop to shop usually vary. See also: Was EBA good enough to make you import Ouendan?
Friday video: Get down, Boogie oogie oogie
Finally, we can see one of the most important aspects of EA's Boogie: the dancing. Our Featured Friday Video for this week shows off the new rhythm title in motion, and the best description we can think of is "spastic, but in a good way." Also on display: the characters, called Boogs, who can be customized (another EA game that uses cutesy customizable avatars, but not Miis?), and who don't all look like Earl. The factsheet for the game mentions minigames (wouldn't be a Wii game without 'em) and a music video mode that lets players save their performances with added voice and custom camera angles and effects. Unfortunately, you have to check the site for the video, since we can't embed the Vooks player. We do have screens, though, after the break.
Keep up the neighbours with four player Drum Master
Namco Bandai have announced that Taiko: Drum Master will feature a four player mode in its forthcoming DS incarnation. Previously popular in the arcades and on PS2, the rhythm action title is based on Taiko, the Japanese drum. The game will support download play from one cart, so maybe you'll want to start persuading a friend to head down to your local import shop. Players can drum along to a variety of musical styles, ranging from Jpop to classical via the theme from Super Mario Brothers. You'll also be able to customise your drum with a selection of cute costumes. With this due out in summer, and Ouendan 2 on its way soon, it looks like rhythm action fans are in for a treat over the coming weeks.Screens after the break.
Friday Video: Masters of drums
Since Taiko Drum Master was announced this week for the DS, and we also happen to be a little fond of rhythm games, we thought we'd bring you another pair of videos dedicated to getting your drum on. The first makes us yearn for arcades, because there's nothing like huge drums or motorcycles and steering wheels to really get you in the game. We also want that guy's skill, because he really knows how to rock out. The video was originally posted to Chris Kohler's Game|Life blog, so you've probably seen it before, but we felt it was a good finisher for the week. The second shows off a Taiko Drum Master mini-game featured in Nodame Cantabile, which was recently released in Japan.
We can't resist looking at Ontama again
We knew we were going to blab about Ontama more. Sure, it'll probably turn out to be a mildly interesting game for children, but until we find out for sure we're going to continue on the OMG RHYTHM GAME tack. Here are a few things we learned from watching the video again and from poking around the recently updated website, making full use of our terrible Japanese language skills.Not only does the game involve tapping directions on the D-pad rhythmically while circling blobs on the touch screen, it also involves blowing into the microphone. For something that seems to be for young audiences, it certainly has a lot going on. Also possibly of interest: J-pop fans may (or may not-- we have no idea!) be pleased to hear that Ontama contains music from a group called 80 Pan.And, via Insert Credit, a little background on the developer Noise Factory: they used to be an internal SNK team who developed fighting games for the Neo-Geo. The fact that a fairly hardcore fighting game developer is working on this is another reason to think that quality gameplay might be found in here.
Taiko Drum Master headed to DS
Poor Sony. First we stole Crash Bandicoot, and now it's Taiko Drum Master, which previously appeared (outside of the arcade) on the PS2. But the move only makes sense, for a number of reasons; in 2004, the PS2 was on top. Now it's the DS, and publishers can't fit their popular properties on the dual-screened handheld quickly enough. Second of all ... it's a rhythm game, and as we've seen, there's really no better platform for rhythm games. Namco Bandai is trying to be all secretive about the controls, but let's see ... rhythm game ... DS ... anyone out there have any idea how this might work? If you said "touch screen," you're probably correct. If you said something else, like "donkey face" or "mudpie," you might want to check for, uh, insanity. Or something.Game|Life's Chris Kohler has a translation of the partial songlist from the Japanese version (including the Mario theme!), which is set for this summer. There are also a couple of scans, and you can check those out after the jump.
More hot rhythm game action
If you don't want to (or can't) try the flash-based preview of Nodame Cantabile DS, you can always kick back and watch this video. Not into this kind of thing? Maybe you should give it another try, because we have seen the future, and it is the rhythm game ... at least, it seems to have a lock on a big part of the DS's future. The game is out for the DS this week in Japan.
Ouendan 2's epic boxart
Due for release in Japan this May 17th, Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2's packaging art has two-stepped its way onto the internet. The cover features the sequel's two rival cheer squad team leaders with their arms outstretched, magnificent rays of light bursting behind them. Their eyes and expressions are brimming with determination, as if to say, "If you don't dance, well you're no friends of mine."With a partial songlist, screenshots, and boxart now out on the internet, unchained, all that's left to cast loose is the actual cartridge. We've already put in our pre-orders for the rhythm game. Have you decided whether or not you'll be importing Ouendan 2 yet?
Confirmation and vague release window on Guitar Hero DS
At this point, we think it may be safe to assume that any and all awesome franchises will appear in some form on the DS ... and as long as they put some effort in, hey, we're not complaining. At last, Kai Huang, president and founder of RedOctane, confirmed to GameSpot that the company is looking at a DS Guitar Hero for release early next year. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to have said anything else about it, but if we're a year away, there may not be much to say. Of course, We're curious about the approach they're going to take with the portable Guitar Hero games; there's even a version set for mobile phones, and so we can only guess they're looking at several control options. We predicted an Elite Beat Agents-style scheme, and we're sticking to that for now.
Follow the bouncing ball with Ontama
Ontama is a new rhythm game for the DS. Which is, really, all we needed to know for our hype-generating machine to go into full power. In case you hadn't noticed, we tend to get worked up about the music games. Rather than telling little mini-stories like Elite Beat Agents, Noise Factory's new game seems to be a somewhat more stripped-down, arcade experience, with characters that seem to be limited to describing gameplay. We don't exactly know how the game works, but we can tell that you touch little round creatures (probably the Ontama themselves, since that translates to "sound balls" or "music balls") to send them into icons on the top of the screen; you then hit directions and buttons that correspond to those icons at the right moment, like Parappa the Rapper. Enjoy the trailer after the break, and see if you can figure out a little bit more of what's going on.
New Ouendan 2 screens: versus mode CONFIRMED, excitement UNCONTROLLABLE
Some incredible new screens of Ouendan 2 have exploded onto the web and filled us with hot-blooded rhythm spirit. Two new scenarios are featured: the first involving a girls' choir who need HEEEAALP performing harmoniously, and the second involving a soccer player who requires the power of your dancing to succeed. Wait, cheering for a sport? Preposterous.One especially notable feature evident in the screens is a new multiplayer mode, where one member of both the Ouendan squad and the new rival squad face off. Judging from the little antenna icon on the screen, it's definitely wireless play. Our case of rhythm spirit will be incurable if the game turns out to be online.
