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Elite Beat Agents Review - DS

Introduction

In 2005, iNiS developed a music game for the DS called Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan that Nintendo published but only released in Japan. It received good reviews from critics, and Nintendo clearly saw potential, because iNiS was soon put to work developing a version for Western audiences. The result is Elite Beat Agents, and it was well worth their effort.

Gameplay

Elite Beat Agents is a rhythm game that exclusively uses the touchscreen of the DS to play. Basically, numbered, circular buttons appear on the bottom screen. Around each button is a ring that shrinks in size until it overlaps exactly with the edge of the button. When the two line up, that’s when you tap the screen. Of course, you’re pressing in time to the beat of the song, but these rings are very useful to show you what beats you’re actually tapping to. Obviously, you follow the numerical sequence of the buttons as they appear, and different phrases are displayed in different colours to help you out. Adding complexity are long bars that you drag the stylus along (in time with a moving ball) and the occasional spinner that covers the entire screen and makes you frantically draw circles to reach a certain level before time is up.

At the top of the screen there is the ‘Elite-o-meter’ – a bar that is constantly decreasing. If it reaches zero, you fail the song. To fill the meter, you simply tap the buttons well. Like every music game, you’re rated for timing, and the better you perform, the more points you receive and the more you fill the bar at the top. Conversely, if you screw up and miss a note or hit it ridiculously out of time, you’ll decrease it further. And that’s basically all there is to the game. It’s a simple concept, but it’s a blast. It feels great to tap, slide and swoop your way through songs in time to complicated rhythms and music.

Each song actually tells a crazy story centred on a character in trouble, and how the Elite Beat Agents ride in to save the day. As you progress through the song, the story will be told on the top screen, but due to the frantic nature of the game you’ll rarely have the chance to take a breather and check it out. Alas, the mystery of exactly why a portly man is trying to sneak past guards by holding up brick-patterned fabric and standing against a wall remains unanswered to this day.

Three to four times in during a song, you’ll reach story-driven checkpoints. Here, you want your meter at the top of the screen to be showing yellow (“yes”) rather than red (“no”). If you’re in yellow, the story will progress favourably, whereas if you’re in red the story takes a turn for the worse. However, failing an individual section doesn’t fail the song, and all the subsequent sections are identical regardless of how (continued next page)