Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan

While I'm not going to re-write the GIGANTIC post I made back before gff's crash, an Ouendan thread needs to exist for the good of humanity. Here, we discuss how awesome, balanced, innovative, cool, and utterly mind-blowing this game is.

For the people who have been under a rock since september of last year, here's a small description:

Originally Posted by Gamespot

The male cheerleader is a little known and mysterious individual whose existence borders on the supernatural. Much like the yeti, unicorns, and the rarely seen feral Care Bears, male cheerleaders aren't something you see often. There is, of course, a reason for this.

No, it's not because the notion of men jumping around like their female counterparts is both unsettling and hilarious. The reason the male cheerleader is rarely seen is because he's off doing important work just below the radar of the common man. What kind of work? Up until recently, no one really knew just what male cheerleaders did. However, the recently released import Ossu! Tatakae! Ouendan! for Nintendo's DS sheds light on the secret lives of male cheerleaders with a fun, addictive rhythm game that's something all DS owners must experience.



Ossu! Tatakae! Ouendan! is a rhythm action game that puts you in charge of a trio of male cheerleaders that, much like Batman, is never far from those in need. The trio remains in a state of catlike readiness until it hears the call of "Ouendan!", or "Let's cheer!", from someone in need of help. You'll find two main modes in the game, a single-player experience that offers easy and normal difficulties, as well as an unlockable cheerleader difficulty and a multiplayer mode for two to four players.

The single-player game is a collection of 14 slices of life that finds your trio of cheerleaders making the rounds in Japan and helping anyone that cries out for help. You'll find people in need by using the DS's stylus to navigate a 2D map of the city. The needy masses can be seen running around at specific locations crying for help.

You'll tap an individual to select him or her, and then you'll hop in to help him or her. As you progress through the game, you'll open up additional needy folk in search of help until you reach the mother of all help requests and find yourself saving the world.

The multiplayer mode comes in two flavors, a simple two-player versus and a four-player rumble, that let you mix it up with friends over the DS's Wi-Fi. You'll be able to choose from any of the 14 songs, and you can compete against your friends. The interesting twist is that although the songs are recycled for this mode, the artwork is not, which lets you appreciate a few more hilarious story sequences, most notably two that feature monkeys (which is always a plus).



So just what is the gameplay in a male cheerleading game like? It's surprisingly easy to pick up, but difficult to master. Developer Inis, which was responsible for the underappreciated Gitaroo Man for the PlayStation 2, has put together a very smart system for Ossu! Tatakae! Ouendan! You'll basically see a series of numbered circles that you'll have to tap in time with the music. A shrinking concentric circle will serve as your guideline, and it will alert you to when you can tap the numbered circle.

As you progress through the game, the mechanic expands a bit to include dragging a circle between two points in time with an onscreen icon and using your stylus to fill an onscreen gauge by spinning it on a wheel that appears on the touch screen. Your taps will yield points that fill a dwindling energy bar that cycles between red and yellow at the top of the screen. If the bar runs down to nothing, it's game over.

Okay, so now you've seen the game. If you have't imported it so far, there's no problem. Considering there's also apparently a european version going to be released, according to Kotaku:

Originally Posted by Kotaku

Nintendo DS import favorite Ouendan [Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan] will be getting a Euro release. A Nintendo of Europe team member slipped word to game journos that the game will be heading to the UK sometime in the future. No word on a U.S. release, but it should be in the cards.
The rhythm game follows a troupe of cheerleader like helper dudes that go around encouraging people who are stuck in difficult situations.

Source

Well, time to discuss.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'm still stuck on Ready Steady Go on Insane(or what I always thought, was called "pro" mode) though I'm not in any hurry to complete it. I managed to get an S on the peaceful ghost stage on Insane, but so far that's it.

I wish the first song, Melody, was a little harder on the hardest difficulty. I mean granted, it is harder than the previous Melody's, but in comparison to, say, the police stage, it's very basic. Melody's a great song and it really shouldn't of been used as a tutorial-type stepping stone.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

It's Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, 押忍！闘え！応援団 or "Go! Fight! Cheer Squad" when translated.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Ouendan played on DS Lite

Not really that much of a difference. People over at gamefaqs are drooling over this for some reason, but it really isn't worth buying another DS for.

I must get back into this game when I have more free time..

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Translation of Guts Da Ze right there.

There's also a translation of Taiyou ga Moeteiru here.

Well, enjoy.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I think surasshu uploaded a torrent somewhere, but I can't remember off hand exactly where.

I actually just spent the past 15 minutes trying to find a working one, but alas there's another torrent at mininova which has the OST.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Quote:

I am proud to say I suck at this game! But it is still fun.

I'm still on normal mode (my bad), although I haven't touched the game in awhile. Do you need to hit a lot of perfects in some of the songs so your life won't run out? Because on one stage, I went without missing a hit, and still died near the end.

Remember this, spinners can kill you. You can go perfectly fine in a level, getting all 300's up until the spinner section, and then you'd lose. This most easily happens on the pyramid stage, which probably has the most amount of spinners in the game.

In other news, for some reason my game didn't save after I managed to get an S ranking of pottery class in cheerleader mode. Damn, I love that level, too.

FELIPE NO