Without doubt the finest game on the Nintendo DS. Absolutely worth the price of importing it.
While Ouendan is one of a few rhythm action games currently available for the Nintendo DS, its in a gameplay world of its own. Created by those responsible for the critically-lauded Gitaroo Man (PS2), Ouendan’s gameplay is both familiar and refreshing, largely because of the DS’ touch screen. It’s deliciously simple: players must tap large, numbered dots on screen in time with music, and sometimes need to hold down the stylus for sustained beats or to spin massive wheels. While all of this is occurring, whichever team of cheerleaders you’re playing as dance in the background (there’s a different team for the easy, medium, hard, and very hard modes – the latter two of which need to be unlocked), and anime-esque drawings appear on the top screen to advance the level’s story. Oh yes, it can get quite chaotic, and it is a glorious thing when it does.
In fact, Ouendan is so glorious as a whole that it is difficult for me to find fault in the game at all. The most important aspect of any rhythm game is the general responsiveness of the system, and Ouendan has no trouble in this regard. The game registers every stylus tap, drag, and spin with utmost precision and never seems to suffer any sort of latency. Furthermore, there are never any problems with the game failing to recognize a tappable region. It’s a bit strange to be specifically pointing out things that the game isn’t doing wrong, but these problems could very easily have occurred and it’s a cause for celebration that Ouendan so nimbly evaded them.
The real cause for celebration, however, is the music. Those who aren’t fans of any sort of rock will probably feel a bit out of place in Ouendan, but anyone else is in for a real treat. Naturally, all of the lyrics are in Japanese, though this is really no hindrance whatsoever. Every single one of the game’s 15 songs rock hard, and while they all pretty much fall in the same genre (save for one more subdued track), none of them come off as derivative or overly familiar. The audio is clear, crisp, and really deserves to be listened to on headphones as the DS speakers don’t really do the songs full justice.
From a visual standpoint, Ouendan also passes with flying colors. The 3D-rendered graphics are pretty much as expected considering the DS’ technical capabilities, but the anime-styled segments really shine. The art is crazy, vivid, and very expressive, and there’s always something going on. This can be a bit frustrating for players who must see everything, as there’s always a little something happening on the top screen during play, but that’s perhaps what the replay mode is for. The graphics aren’t all that smooth, however, which is a noticeable though slight flaw.
No game is perfect, and while Ouendan comes close, it has a few issues that could’ve used ironing out. First and foremost, the game gets to be rather unforgiving by the time you’ve reached the end of the normal mode. The challenge can be rather enthralling, but players may find themselves repeating the same level over and over again before they’re able to finish it successfully, which is awfully frustrating. This problem leads rather nicely into the next, being the DS’ stylus. It’s simply not comfortable to play this game for too long with the small stylus that comes with the DS, especially when things get overly intense. Unfortunately, it’s not completely feasible to switch to another, larger stylus: I tried using one from a tablet PC that’s the size of a pen, and I found that it blocked the screen from time to time, which made it hard to see the points that I had to hit during gameplay. In fact, even without using another stylus, I found that my hand was sometimes obstructing the onscreen dots, which was incredibly frustrating. While these sound like major problems, keep in mind that they appear rather scarcely.
Convinced? I would gladly pay the price for Ouendan again if I had to, and it is indeed a shame that the U.S. won’t be seeing it any time soon. While the DS has some incredible titles in its line-up, Ouendan manages to take the cake for me. It’s an incredibly simple concept, but in practice its absolutely gripping, completely addictive, and a ton of fun to play. Worth every penny? Yes indeed.