More people need to experience this game.
To start off with the basis of the game, it's very simple, blank notes come across the screen and you have to press them at just the right time,like in the usual rhytm based game fashion, but there's a twist. You can't just hit the same direction of the note, its not THAT simple.The notes have to be filled in before you can do anything with them, and here's where the Ontama comes in, you have to tap these little guys first to activate the note, which then in turn lets you press the direction of the note, completeing the circle, so in other words...
Tapping the Ontama fills in the blank note, then you wait for the note to position itself perfectly inside the circle and press the direction it faces on the d-pad. Depending on how well you timed it you get Master, Great, Good, Bad, Miss. It's DDR for your fingers.
So to win, you have to reach the end of the song of course, by getting Masters, Greats and Goods, and the game ends if your performance meter reaches 0%.
Now here's where the advance techniques come in at. If you've got fast fingers then you'll probably spend most of you're time just tapping rapidly on the many Ontamas that fill the screen, but for those who want to jack their score and overall grade up, we have the a secondary option, drawing a circle. If you have a group of Ontamas close together, you can draw a circle around them and erase them all at once, this goes towards the next note you hit getting a multiplier, depending on how many Ontamas were in the circle. For these notes though, you have to hold down on the d-pad for a certain amount of time. Then we have the blow feature. When things get way to tough and you can't even see your screen because it's overflowing, it's time to blow into the mic, this blows away everything on the screen, and the only thing you have to worry about is hitting the notes. Since this would be a easy way of winning, it's more of a desperation move and you're only allowed so many times to use it.
You have a total of three modes to play, Story, Freeplay and Challenge. Then you have Options, Shop and Tutorial. That's it. No multiplayer, yes, I know, a scary thought that may have you thinking twice before buying this. Trust me, it's still a great game.
Story mode leaves a lot to be desired, no memorable dailouge, bland overused plot, not much to see. It's more of a chore than enjoyable, but you will have to run through it more than 3 times to unlock everything.
Freeplay is where you'll spend most of you're time, and you can guess by now, it's where you just have fun, changing around the rules,difficulty and everything else, the only object here is to beat your old score.
Challenge is running through a series of songs, survival mode if you will, but it's better than Story.
After playing a song you get credits which you can use at the shop. Bonus songs, different objects to replace your notes and Ontamas, etc. You'll be visiting this place many many times.
Overall, the Music is varied and all of it is original, but guys, it's from Atlus, what's to worry about? Some have lyrics others are instrumentals, but all of it is great. The real reason you'll be sticking around on this one is for Freeplay mode, which is where the game shines at, the list of songs isn't big, not even hitting the 20 gap, but none of the songs get repetitive, they all stay fresh and new. my only complaint is the game is missing multiplayer, if it had this, I would raise the score even more.