"A Great "Otaku" Game for People Who Love Strange and Quirky Japanese Games"

The Good: Bright animated 2D visuals, Makes full use of the DS's hardware accessories, "Shop" mode, only $20 brand new.
The Bad: The soundtrack is neither catchy or fun, touch screen controls correlation with the beat is off sometimes.
The game: is very Japanese and different !

Ontamarama is (thankfullly) another rhythm/action game for Nintendo's popular handheld. Upon starting the game, players chose between characters "Beat" and "Rest", which are certainly not the most creative names in a music genre game. Beat and Rest each have their own story mode. There is also a free play mode available if you wish to play a certain individual song at anytime. In the story mode, players must fill up "Ontamas", which are small circle like creatures, by tapping them with your touch pen, which in turn fill up "notes". The notes are on a line, and you have to tap them with the D-pad as they make their way into a circle. You'll be making full use of the DS's hardware, which is great and somewhat interesting in public situations. I definitely look a little eccentric on the BART trains, when I'm frantically tapping the DS screen, pressing the d-pad, and blowing into the microphone.

Ontamarama has been deemed very difficult, which I don't necessarily agree with. The game is actually really easy until you reach some later songs on hard mode, and you can also make use of your microphone and shop to help you along the way. You can use your microphone by blowing into it up to 5 times (after using the shop to buy upgrades), to clear all Ontama on the screen. This allows you to concentrate on the notes only. Also, you use shop mode to purchase upgrades that make the game easier, ie: line lengthening, easy start, etc. Although I admit it would be nice if all those options worked on hard mode.

The game is definitely worth playing for the price tag, and it's something different. I'm growing tired of seeing DS players playing the same titles over and over again while taking the train to work. That's not to say it's a great game,It has it's flaws, like it's generic soundtrack. A little J-Pop could of helped. Also, critics are right when they say the timing of the notes are little bit off, as the notes do not correspond to the music well.

Nonetheless, if you've played a lot of DS titles and are running low on high quality games, pick up Ontamarama. Shop mode adds replay value and again, you can buy it new for 20 dollars!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/03/08

Game Release: Ontamarama (US, 11/06/07)