"Quirky Japanese gaming fun, with a rhythm twist!"

What else can I say about Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan that hasn't been said before?
Not much, honestly. The sheer originality of the game has caused it to quickly become one of the most popular import games for the Nintendo DS.

In Ouendan, you play as a trio of male Japanese cheerleaders of the same name. In Japan, these strict males cheer on the serious sporting events that take place throughout the country.

The point of the game is to assist people desperately in need of help by cheering on them alongside a catchy Japanese song.

The humor of the game comes from the sheer absurdity of the situations you are put up against in the game. From helping a young man study to assisting two policemen defeat robots from outer space, the weirdness flows out at a staggeringly hilarious rate. Very often, characters from different stages will appear in other stages as cameos, which is a nice touch.

The language barrier is there, mainly in the manga panels and the ongoing story during the stages, but, most of the stages are easily understandable through the visuals, which are very well done. As for the menus, they are simple to navigate.

Gameplay in Ouendan takes place entirely on the bottom screen. It consists of hitting a numbered mark when a circle closes upon it with your stylus(to the music), dragging along a track with your stylus, or spinning your stylus rapidly in a circle to power a meter. Depending on how well you are doing, the story might make a turn for the better or worse, as illustrated on the top screen. You are able to track how well you are doing through a meter running along the top of the bottom screen. The learning curve in the game is slightly unbalanced at times, in my opinion. The difficulty of the different stages often will ramp up between each group of songs, sometimes at a frustrating rate. Be prepared to repeat certain songs often.

Alright, time for the music. From Asian Kung-Fu Generation, Morning Musume, and L'Arc~en~Ciel, there are a wide variety of songs in the game. However, all 15 of the songs in the game (except one) are performed by a cover band, and edited for the game. This is not evident unless you listen to the originals of each song after you play the game, so I wouldn't consider it a low point of the game. Audio quality is tinny on the DS speakers, so, headphones are definitely a must for this game.

Graphics in the game are vibrant and rich in color; the manga panels and artwork in each of the stages are very well done. The trio of Ouendan, who perform on the bottom screen, look slightly blocky at times, but this is not noticeable during gameplay. They tell the story very well, even for the non-Japanese speaking public.

I am not able to cover multi-player, for it requires more than one cartridge per player. The only single cartridge content available is a downloadable version of the tutorial stage.

Re-playability is a major feature. It's a blast replaying stages again to achieve higher scores and ranks. The sheer fun of the game's stages will make you want to come back to this game again and again.

In short, if you love weird games, you love rhythm games, and you own a Nintendo DS, I highly suggest that you purchase this game at any chance you can get. Aside from some learning curve issues, I found virtually no faults to be found in this game.

(At the time of this review, there is a semi-sequel to this game to be released in America called Elite Beat Agents. All of the game's major points have been Americanized, but the gameplay is apparently entirely intact.)

I give this game nine giant mice out of ten.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/09/06