Review: Dragon Ball Z – Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3)

My favorite game on the Nintendo DS is not a Castlevania game, and it’s not a Metroid game. It’s not even a game that was released in the US. No, my favorite game on the Nintendo DS is a game I dropped fifty big ones at Play-Asia to import, and it’s Ouendan.

Most DS enthusiasts, I daresay, have heard of Ouendan. I first learned of its existence from 1up. The video of the game in action, along with their description, sold me on it, but it wasn’t until I saw mention of it in other places that I actually went and ordered it.

Ouendan and its US counterpart, Elite Beat Agents, were developed by iNis, who were behind Gitaroo Man on PS2.

Ouendan is a rhythm game that has you tapping, sliding, and circling to keep up with the rhythm of some fifteen or so songs in order to make a comedic and sometimes dramatic story unfold in the background. You represent a trio of Ouendan, which are a real thing in Japan: trenchcoat-wearing pep-rally emotion-driving types who shout and dance to inspire. It’s a wild concept, wilder still that it’s based in reality.

Ouendan boasts, as I said, 15 songs and four difficulty levels. At the highest levels, it is a very hard game, and is certainly not for those who get frustrated enough to harm themselves, their game systems, or others. It takes serious discipline at times to not pitch this game out the window, but the payoff is enormous.

It also supports multiplayer with two game cards, but I haven’t found another person with a copy of the game, so I can’t try it. The language barrier is only slight. There are resources online that will explain what on the menu will take you where, and you don’t need to understand the dialog to play the game, just look at the funny pictures. The music is fantastic if you like Japan’s pop music, but I imagine some might be turned off by just how different the game is.

All the same, I give this game a five out of five. As rhythm games go, it’s a complete success, and I consider this the finest game available for the Nintendo DS today.

Once I had beaten all the difficulty levels on Ouendan, its English counterpart, Elite Beat Agents, was practically already here. Dying for more of the same, I preordered, and picked it up. Not surprisingly, the people at Gamestop had never heard of it, and didn’t even know it had arrived. It took some patience but they finally opened the UPS box that was sitting right there and sold me my game.

The presentation level in Elite Beat Agents is really a notch higher than in Ouendan. It’s apparent that it had a significantly higher budget, as there’s a lot more 3D graphical power in use, even down to the world map which changed from a flat, sliding city to a 3D world with pop-up song locations. It’s an all new game that operates using the same mechanic as Ouendan, with covers of a very broad range of US popular songs stretching back to songs like Highway Star and YMCA, and up to songs like Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne. Yeah, it’s crazy stuff, but it all works in the game, somehow. You just need an open mind to songs you wouldn’t normally listen to.

Elite Beat Agents also has four difficulty levels, but after getting my ass handed to me by Ouendan over and over, I breezed through all the difficulty levels in this game in about a week of casual play in the evenings. Your mileage will vary if you don’t let Ouendan kick you around first.

The overall quality that Ouendan had is still there, despite their considerable efforts to wash it out into an “Americanized” package. That’s saying quite a bit for iNis’ skills in development, because it’s effectively every bit as good as Ouendan. Still, I give Ouendan the edge, because the music is not going to be familiar to anyone in the US really, and that takes away the whole, “am I listening to a Cher song?” effect you get in Elite Beat Agents.

Nonetheless, I give Elite Beat Agents a five out of five, because it’s still a fantastic game, and I won’t impose my taste in music on the rating of this game.

Despite disappointing sales for both titles, a sequel to Ouendan is in the works, due this year in Japan. I’ll be picking it up.