Elite Beat Agents

"These Agents Have Been Well Trained."

Intro

Music games have developed into a profitable niche in today's video game industry. Countless series such as SingStar, Rock Band, and Guitar Hero have replaced the music that blares from our television speakers. Now comes Elite Beat Agents, a 'spiritual successor' to the Japanese hit "Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!" (Hey, Fight, Cheer Squad). This quirky game for the Nintendo DS borrows the same gameplay elements, while switching it up a bit, and adding an entirely new (and English) soundtrack.


Presentation

Elite Beat Agents (EBA) is split into three main sections: Story, Practice, and Multiplayer. The Story follows the eccentric, dance-driven Elite Beat Agents, who travel around the world helping those in need. They perform song and dance routines to classic tunes, which boosts the confidence of the person in distress. Stories fold out in comic book fashion, and is intercut with 3D animations of the agents as they dance. During a song, one can pass or fail at different checkpoints, which can have positive and negative effects on the outcome of the song. However, many songs are simply fun to fail, as they have hilarious results.

In practice mode, one can simply replay a song to increase one's score. Across one's entire play time, your overall score is tracked, and improving scores leads to higher rankings, which in turn unlock more songs. Also, one can save a replay of their song to view later.

The multiplayer portion is a head to head battle with another human player. There are different scenarios from the storyline, and there are "attacks" that can be used against your opponent. Both LOCAL multi-cart and single-cart play is available, but only 5 tracks work on single cart play.


Graphics

Graphics in Elite Beat Agents are filled with color and wonder. During the song, 2D animations portray what is going on in the story, and during breaks in the song, comic book images fill you in as the plot develops. At the bottom of the screen, The agents are dancing and grooving in full 3D. The story characters are also drawn very well, and they exhibit emotion to a very high degree.


Sound

Before I move onto songs, I will talk about the effects/voice work. Most sound effects fit very well into this game, as they fit the over-done/eccentric comic book theme. Though there is very limited voice work from the agents, (the stories are mostly text based), all agents are portrayed to be very colorful and original.

Now, what defines a music game is its soundtrack. Elite Beat Agents has a very diverse soundtrack, with tunes ranging from Ashley Simpson and Madonna, to oldies like Earth Wind & Fire and David Bowie, to more modern rock like Sum 41 and Good Charlotte. The audio quality of these songs are very good, and nothing seems compressed. The only problem with this game is that all of the songs are covers, not original recordings. Although the cover artists do a fairly good job, it would have been much better to have the original singers.


Gameplay

Gameplay is fairly simple, but is very engaging as well. As a song plays, a player will tap on markers that are on the touch screen, with the markers being in match with the music. Markers will be organized into colored phrases, which will help the player know which marker to hit in succession. Sometimes, players will drag their stylus in a pre-determined path to gobble up points, and spin the stylus in circles to rack up points.

Unfortunately, although the gameplay is very solid, there are a few minor flaws. One major setback is that one's hand tends to cover the screen while playing, which can prevent one from knowing where to hit next. Although developers tried to fix this by color coding phrases, it is still flawed.

Also, the point/combo system is flawed as well. See, as one hits markers, a combo multiplier will continue to increase, from 1x, to 2x, 3x, 4x and so on. This can prove annoying if one makes a mistake later in the song, as if his combo multiplier had been high (in the 100's), it would now be reduced to 1. This sometimes prevents one from building up a high multiplier if the song is almost over. This also means that one could make many mistakes in the beginning of a song, but still score higher than if they had made one mistake during the end.

Lastly, with the point system, it is possible to score a higher score then what you had previously, but get a lower letter rank (you are ranked from top to bottom : S, A, B, C, D).


Lasting Value

With four difficulties (1 unlocked), there is definite replay value in the campaign. Campaigns can last from 2-10 hours, depending on the difficulty. One can continue to play for weeks to raise ranks and improve scores, and there is always a solid multiplayer, although it works best if you have a friend with a copy of the game as well.

Overall Score (not an average)

Presentation - 10/10
Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 8/10
Gameplay - 9/10
Replay/Lasting Value - 9/10

Overall Score 9/10.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/29/09

Game Release: Elite Beat Agents (US, 11/06/06)