From the creators of Gitaroo Man comes Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, a rhythm game where you play as a group of male cheerleaders in trenchcoats to help others in trouble which range from the normal such as a student studying for a test to the strange such as a businessman fighting a large blue mouse a la Godzilla. Using only your stylus you'll be tapping markers in time to help decide how the episode will turn out. Let's go a bit more indepth.....
Graphics 9/10
Almost everything is rendered in comic book style which looks like it's ripped out of manga and gives this game the humourous edge at times but you will be concentrating a bit to take notice of the top screen while playing this. Thankfully, it takes a mini break to show a mini clip which tells if you played well enough to see if the story will progress or not.
Music 8/10
What good would a rhythm game be without decent music? Thankfully this isn't a problem.... unless you dislike J-pop. But with 15 tunes to play from the likes of Asian Kung Fu Generation to L'Arc En Ciel, chances are you'll find a favourite amongst them. Unfortunately some of the songs do sound a little tinny but that shouldn't put you off.
Gameplay 9/10
The phrase, "easy to pick up, ages to master" seems to apply to this game. It will start off easy and then gets a little harder and harder until the point where you'll find yourself playing the level over and over again until you lose count just to complete it. While the game is about tapping markers in time to the beat, at some point during the game, it will tell you to spin a little disc in the game round and round and at another point, you'll have to use your stylus to follow a small ball. Things like these help break things up a bit.
Import friendly?
Do not think that you need to learn a huge amount of Japanese to play this game. Yes it would make the little comics that appear during the game make more sense, but it doesn't exactly take a genius to work out that in one part of the game you have to help policemen fight off a bunch of invading robot aliens.
Conclusion
This may not be THE best rhytmn game on any console but it is one fine rhythm game for the DS. Certainly a contender as a sleep hit for the DS.
Overall score 9/10
(Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan can be bought from Lik-sang. Plug plug wink wink).
