Review: Ossu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2.

By Stephen Munn | March 16, 2008

What is it?

This is the sequel to the Japan-only Ossu! Tatakae! Ouendan!. Ouendan is a rhythm game franchise, so far only on DS, which involves three mechanics: tapping, sliding, and spinning (describing a circle) with the stylus to follow timed on-screen prompts that are aligned with the licensed music in the game. This is the third game in the franchise, the second one being Elite Beat Agents, which was a reworked version of Ouendan with western-style characters and concepts.

How does it play?

Ouendan 2 takes the refinements provided by Elite Beat Agents and applies them to the style and environment that the original Ouendan had. That is to say that there is a lot more 3D in the game and the manga images are cleaner and in a better resolution. There is also rumble support if you’re into that kind of thing, and the spinners are a lot more user-friendly, which means you’re less likely to tear a ring into your touch screen like I did with my launch-style Nintendo DS “phat” years ago. Finally, the ability to skip cutscenes at either end of the songs has been kept from the US episode.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing new here in terms of mechanics. You’ve got the same set of actions (touch, slide, spin) so it’s basically an enhanced, stand-alone expansion pack for the original. If you’ve played Ouendan and Elite Beat Agents, this game has nothing to offer you but new songs. The only innovation here is the second, blue-clad ouendan that you’re competing against and eventually cooperating with in the final confrontation. If you haven’t played Elite Beat Agents, you’ll enjoy the multiplayer mode here, which functions the same way it did in that game, but thankfully polished up a little bit.

How does it look and sound?

The visuals are comparable to those in Elite Beat Agents, but the exotic and fun Japanese style of this game is far more appealing if you have any kind of interest in Japan. Many of the situations are even harder to comprehend than those in the original game if you don’t have a solid grasp of the language.

The sound is great, but can only truly be fully appreciated with headphones. Sadly, you can recognize the low fidelity of the audio when you wear headphones as well, which is somewhere around radio quality. This has been the case throughout the series, and is to be expected from a game that uses full digital music crammed into a little DS card. I’d rather have more music at a lower quality than vice versa.

The songs themselves are on par with the songs in the original. I’ve had people tell me they disagree, but I think these songs are just as memorable as the originals. Taking into account the lack of originality in the game due to its evolutionary (rather than revolutionary) advancements, it’s understandable that some people would find the songs lacking. You can pay more attention to the music when you’ve got the mechanic down, and it’s easy to forget the less catchy songs in the original game.

How is the replay value?

Very good. Beating songs doesn’t mean acing them, and while you’re unlocking more brutal difficulty levels and the pairs of teams that go along with them (there are four to master, if you’re insane) your cumulative score raises your rank, which unlocks additional songs to play at each difficulty level. Eventually you’ll have unlocked everything, but the challenge level gets so high that you might find yourself deciding you’re satisfied with the game before you get there.

Is it worth it?

If you’ve played through the other two games in the franchise and you loved them, you’ll love this one as well. You’ll especially enjoy the nods to both earlier games throughout. If you’ve got an Action Replay, you can unlock the EBA team to play in Ouendan 2, something the Japanese could do at DS Download Stations.

If you haven’t played Ouendan, you might skip right to this game as it’s a more refined experience and it’s tough to go back to the lower presentation level of the original after playing the newer games. The addition of the multiplayer is nice too, making this one a better value than the original.

Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 for Nintendo DS gets a four point five out of five.