Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! follows the tradition of interlacing an absolutely bizarre setting within the unique music-based gameplay. Parappa the Rapper had it, Gitaroo-Man had it, Bust-a-Groove had it. And now, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! has it. The game follows a trio of motivational "soldiers" that show up when there's trouble afoot in the town. By screaming "Ouendan!", these guys come a-running to motivate the seeker with manly poses, but it's up to the player to control just how well these guys can motivate the person in need.
Situations are all over the spectrum. Some guy needs help with his pottery. Another needs to kick some ass in dodge ball. A violinist gets struck by an intestinal virus and needs some assistance before he finds himself running for the toilet. There are 15 different situations, each with their own songs attached for the trio to "dance" to.
Like most rhythm games, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! is a follow-the-pattern challenge that matches the beat of the song that's being played. However, this isn't your ordinary rhythm game; this one uses the touch screen of the Nintendo DS, offering up a unique style of gameplay that couldn't have been pulled off on any other system.
During the song, a series of numbered circles pop up on-screen, and it's the player's task to tap the circle to the rhythm of the song. The game offers a bit of assistance by providing a collapsing ring around each circle as they appear, and when the collapsing ring matches the circumference of the beat circle, that's the exact moment that it needs to be tapped. Added to the challenge are beats with pathways -- tapping isn't enough. These elongated beats require players to tap and drag their stylus to the beat, following a virtual volleyball from one end of the beat to the other, and many times back again. Earlier levels feature straight paths, but when you get into the thick of the challenges, you'll have to follow crazy curves and squiggles as they're painted on the touch screen.
Naturally, the closer to the beat you are, the more heartily you're rewarded with points. Miss completely and you're not only penalized with a lack of score, but you also bring the progression bar closer to the zero point. Miss too much, and the song stops abruptly and the game ends. Occasionally the game will kick over to a "turntable" where you'll have to do the "spin" motion as fast as possible to continue the song; the faster you do it, the more likely you'll hit a bonus for spinning it beyond the limit.
All of the gameplay is handled on the lower touch screen, but the story unfolds on the upper display. But since all your attention should be on following the rhythm and pattern of the song, you'll most likely not even see what's going on with the people you're trying to motivate, at least beyond the three instrumental breaks within each song. Most of the imagery is done by basic animated manga-style panels, with the lower screen providing 3D motion-captured movements of the trio striking poses.
Because Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! is entirely music-based, it's a very good thing that the music is actually wonderfully composed and performed. There's all sorts of different styles of music tunes within this game, and the audio quality is compressed decently. It's not quite standard bitrate MP3 quality, but it's damn close. It's clear that Nintendo's using a beefy cartridge for all of the music and sounds in Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!
Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! kicks all sorts of butt as an addictive Nintendo DS experience, and while it starts out rudimentary and slow-paced in the early levels, it's one hell of a challenge in the later songs due to the off-rhythm beats and wild beat paths that you'll need to follow as quickly as possible. I had some problems following the pattern due to a physical issue: my huge hand blocks the view of the touch screen in places, making it difficult to see the next pattern to tap with the stylus. I found that a pen length stylus is a much better option for this game than the tiny stick included with every DS system.
This rhythm game also features some strange multiplayer modes, but it requires multiple copies of the game for participation in this mode. Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! does have a single card download function, but this only sends the training mode over to the card-free DS systems.
The language barrier in this Japanese-only release is rather high, but that's only if you're looking to follow each of the stories and understand the music lyrics. Otherwise, this game is completely playable to non Japanese speakers. And because of the enormous amount of Japanese text and vocals, and its heavy focus on the Japanese culture in each situation, it's not looking very good for a US release of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! So scoop this one up if you can score it from your local game importer.