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Elite Beat Agents Review
Written by Justin Davis on Wednesday, November 8, 2006
User Score
The perfect amount of challenge. The epic final song.
A few questionable tracks.
Am I being overly hyperbolic by describing Elite Beat Agents as a dream come true? It's true that great games receive sequels all the all the time; I can sleep easy at night knowing that some day, there will be another Advance Wars title, for example. But in the case of EBA, it's a follow-up to a game that I really, truly expected would never see a sequel. It's a great feeling.
For those that aren't "in the know," the game is actually the English localization of the Japanese rhythm game Ouendan, which received a very rare 5/5 from Mo, where we described the game as "charming, wickedly amazing, and a game of the year candidate." For those hardcore that imported Ouendan, EBA actually serves as a full-fledged sequel, and not as a localization. All the Japanese tracks have been replaced with English songs, so of course all the corresponding rhythm beats had to be re-mapped from scratch as well. Each song also has an entirely new story, told in comic-book style, to accompany it.
To play the game, gamers tap circular notes that appear on the touch screen, matching the music's beat. Large rings materialize around the note and begin to shrink, and once the ring reaches the size of the note itself, that's the time to tap. Like most rhythm games, this visual cue should be seen more as a visual guideline - you'll be much more successful if you just allow yourself to "feel the rhythm." The genius of the game is that these notes are then linked into chains, with one chain leading right into another, requiring not only the necessary rhythm/timing, but also the motor skills needed to tap specific points all over the touch screen. Thankfully the notes are numbered, so it's usually easy to tell where you'll need to tap next.
As an Ouendan veteran the game wasn't too difficult for me (I cleared normal and hard in one evening), but it does seem to be a little more difficult than the original. I remember spending many, many hours repeating Ouendan's harder tracks over and over until finally being able to clear them, so those being exposed to the gameplay for the first timewith EBA will almost assuredly find the game to be plenty challenging.
EBA's tracklist is, unfortunately, a little lame. There are flashes of brilliance - You're the Inspiration, Jumpin Jack Flash, and Sk8et Boi work better than expected in this setting. Others, most notably Highway Star and I was Born to Love You I wouldn't mind never again being exposed to. I'm not entirely sure if I'm being unfair or not. For all I know Japanese audiences found the original's soundtrack equally "lame," but I love it because I don't speak the language. All I can say is that those tracks have stuck with me over a year later, and I can say with certainty that these won't.
Some people say that rhythm games live or die by their soundtrack, and while I generally agree, I still strongly urge that no one pass on EBA just because the track list isn't as strong as it could have been. For one, the difficulty of the later levels will separate the rhythm men from the rhythm boys, and for another, even the "bad" songs fit into the wacky/zany nature of the whole experience. There's nothing quite like two ditzy movie stars calling for held on a deserted island, and seeing the Elite Beat Squad show up out of nowhere on a banana boat.
The bottom line is that if you never played Ouendan, EBA is a terribly original title that makes perfect use of the touch screen, and deserves a place in your DS library. If you did play Ouendan, you're not reading this, because you already knew EBA was a no-brainer, and are now rocking out. I'll admit that developer Inis would have had to screw up pretty severely for EBA to get anything less than a 5/5, but there's a reason for that. This is simply a winning formula, through and through. Buy it. Love it.
posted November 8, 2006