A Dance Dance Revolution in the tip of your stylus.
The game system is quite simple: there is one song playing and small colored balls appearing 'randomly' in the screen. Press the circles with your stylus accordingly to the rhythm. Don't worry if you don't think you have the guts to follow the rhythm: as the right time to press the circle approaches, a blue wide circle will appear around the sphere that must be pressed. As soon as the blue circles get close the main sphere, press it.
Tired of pressing spheres? No need for worries, I assure you you'll never get bored, since pressing spheres is not the only element in the game. There are also variations of it, like dragging the sphere one side to another one or turning some sort of 'weel of fortune' on and on 'til the but circle disappears. The faster you turn it, more points can be earned.
It may sound very simple (and it is), but you'll notest the difficulty will raise as you go further in the game.
'Okay, I get it. Ouendan is a game where you press spheres. Then what?', you must be asking. Well, it may not seem, but there's a whole story behind this game. You see, 'Ouendan' means something like 'people that cheer', right? The story is basically about some crazy guys who decided to motivate desperate people, like frustrated students who want to pass the tests, girls who are in love with someone and situations like those. Before each song, there's a small story in the comics format that tells the situation of a certain person and why s/he needs help. This is where the Ouendan appear. As you press correctly the spheres, the Ouendan cheer with more or less enthusiasm. You can measure the enthusiasm by a small gauge that appears on the top of the touch screen. As soon as the gauge gets to 0, the Ouedan will lose their enthusiasm and stop cheering. By doing this, the protagonist of the comic will also lose his/her will to keep on going and... GAME OVER. So, do your best to keep the gauge full by hitting the spheres correctly.
So, there are basically four levels of difficulty in this game, but only Easy and Normal are available in the beggining. As soon as you finish each difficulty, you'll unlock the other ones. No bonus tracks. Too bad.
The soundtrack may be the best part of the game. Those who are familliar with the J-pop (Japanese popular music style) may know a few bands that are in the game, such as Asian Kung-Fu Generation, Blue Hearts and Morning Musume.
The music selection seem to be done very careful (and I'm grateful for that), but there are still a few songs that doesn't seem to have a rhythm, so apparently you have to press the spheres following the vocals. Those songs are pretty much confusing and you may stop for a while in those.
About the graphics: the uper screen is purely 2D in the animated-comic format, with very collorful characters and scenarios. The story is quite interesting, but since you'll be paying attention to the spheres of the touch screen, you won't really pay attention to what's happening there. Luckily, there's a replay mode, just in case you want to see what happens in the upper screen. The touch screen show, besides the spheres, the Ouendan cheering as background. The characters are 3D, as well as the background, but there are a few slashes in 2D. It isn't the biggest graphic innovation, but you won't really care for the graphics, since the game doesn't really give you time to look at the background. The spheres are large enough and easy to see, even though the background is colorful and moving, it won't get in your way nor affect the gameplay.
Do I have to say about the gameplay? The time response is almost simultaneous for the touch spheres, the drag spheres and the well.
Well, I guess that's all I have to say about the game. Excellent game, indeed. It can keep you entertained for quite a long time.