Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (DS) Review
A sports teacher at a Japanese high school struggles to get the respect of his female students. His last resort is to scream OUENDAN! to request the male cheerleader squad come to his aid. Weird? Yes. Weird is a word that can describe Ossu! Tatakae! Ouendan! very well, but theres more than meets the eye in this awesome Japan-only DS title.
Developed by Inis (also known by their work on the cult hit Gitaroo Man for PS2) and published by Nintendo this was without a doubt one of the best games for the DS in 2005 and a title to have in mind if considering importing something from that far away land.
Ossu! Tatakae! Ouedan! Is basically a rhythm and music game. The player must tap certain colored and numbered markers on the DS screen in the correct order while listening to the J-Rock tunes that fill the games soundtrack.
There are 15 levels that must to unlock and once you finish the last one a new difficulty level is unlocked as well. Even though the first 15 can be finished in a couple of hours, the gameplay is so addictive and the songs so catchy that youll keep going back to this game just to enjoy the music. The last two difficulty levels (hard and cheerleader) are insane (or shall I say Japanese hard?), which will require hours and hours of practice if you want to fully complete the game.
Each song has its unique story: help a student to get good grades, encourage a horse to win a race and save day or guide a lost soul back to his former lover. These are presented in manga-comic style, which makes the game super import friendly (and that comes from somebody that has no Japanese language knowledge). The graphics are bold and have lots of detail but dont push the hardware to the limit.
But besides the graphics and the addictive gameplay, the soundtrack is want makes Ossu! Tatakae! Ouendan! so special. There are fifteen covers of J-Rock and J-Pop songs from quite well known artists like Larc en Ciel, Morning Musume, Bz and Orange Orange. Even if you never heard of them or you are into this kind of music, the combination of the tunes with the gameplay and the whacky stories will make you love them all.
Ouendan features multi-cart multiplayer only, which makes the odds of playing this mode really low. I havent met anybody with the game in real life, so I cannot comment on it. Players engage one of the games stages and play at the same time trying to get the highest score.
This game is a great tech demo for the DS. It has fun gameplay that features an intelligent use of the touch screen, good use of both screens to tell the story in each level and a soundtrack that wont be forgotten. What are the chances of a release outside Japan? Pretty slim. This title has very strong Japanese references in all its stories and the music. It is not everybodys cup of tea. But if you are considering importing a game, this is a great alternative. I cannot be done on any other system, it is lots of fun and it wont let you down.
