[Euan]

With so many games these days over-reliant on physics, polygon counts and image, it’s refreshing to see a game which goes back to gaming roots, and shows what our favourite hobby is all about - having fun. Showing the big finger to the Xbox 360’s capabilities and standing up to the ‘unstoppable’ Play station 3, Ossu! Takatae! Ouendan epitomises what gaming is all about.

Now there’s two thing you must know about Ouendan before we start. First of all, the complicated name suggest that this game isn’t English, and infact it’s not. This game, as of yet, is yet another Japan-only game, but like Jump Superstars DS, the amount of people willing to buy this game if it arrived on these shores is phenomenal. That’s despite this game, essentially, being about a group of male dancers. Yeah.

Second of all, if there were to be an English translation of the game, the direct meaning of Ossu! Takatae! Ouendan is “Hey! Fight! Cheer Squad”. This gives a good enough indication of what the game is. Although the cheerleaders are never involved in direct combat, they ‘save the day’ for those in need, arriving with one shout of ‘Ouendan’ and solve over 15 different problems over the course of the game.

All of the 15 problems are equally bizarre. They are also hugely entertaining and funny. The language barrier doesn’t play much of a part - even though there are apparently many clever text-written jokes in Ouendan. Although a girl meets boy story with the girls’ father not approving may not seem very bizarre, it becomes so when the ‘red group vs blue group’ challenge each other to a chariot-esque race. Oh, the Japanese...

Does the story line sound simple? Well, surprisingly enough, it’s surpassed by the game play. It’s so simple it’s actually rather hard. Ouendan relies heavily on music for the cheer squad to dance to. Circles with numbers appear on the bottom screen and begin on with a larger circle surrounding them. The bigger circle decreases in size and when it’s a similar size (or equal to if you want the maximum points) you use the stylus to press the circle.

Points are awarded depending on how close you were to getting the circle ‘spot on’. A health bar at the side decreases and increases depending on how well you did - if you picked up the full 300 points, your health bar will increase slightly. If you pick up 100, which is close but not quite close enough, it will decrease slightly. If you continuously are getting the lowest you can get, 50 points, you will be facing game over sooner rather than later

Although it may sound complicated from this review, the system is easy to grasp and despite the obvious Japanese-English language barrier, it will take you no time at all to understand the ways of Ouendan.

So what makes this game hard then, I hear you ask? Well, there’s two factors to that as well. First of all there’s the obvious speed. They’re not going to give you this at a nice, slow rhythm - although there will be a couple of slower levels, most will be absolutely frantic. Second of all, there is the constant rhythm changes. As seven or eight circles are appearing on your screen, you’re tempted to just tap all of them with exactly the same gap in-between them. That however, generally doesn’t fit in with the music, so you will be left cursing yourself as you completely mistime a circle.

Two complaints with Ouendan now, surprising considering the addictive and almost impeccable game play, is firstly the lack of game modes. It’s basically fast, faster or fastest (oh and there’s an even faster, expert mode if you so desire). Secondly, the levels. Although there’s enough levels to keep you going on normal mode for a while, it would have been nice to be even more... but we could always get a sequel, couldn’t we?!

The graphics are typically Japanese, manga-style. It’s basically in the most part still imaged which sometimes move, but even so they are stylish and at times gorgeous.

The music? Absolutely brilliant. Seriously. I have to admit, I’m not a fan of Japanese music (mainly because I can’t understand the words, heh) but when I heard the tunes Ouendan has to offer... well, I was speechless. I could honestly go through the list of levels (each level has a different piece) and couldn’t pick one which I thought was mediocre. Or even just plain ‘good’. They are all either brilliant, or super super brilliant. Get me?

There’s a couple that stand out in particular. One I even regularly listen to whenever I’m online - IGN, if you are willing to check, have a video of it (WITH MUSIC) available.

There is also a little voice acting, though not much. When a level is about to begin, the cheer squad each shout a word (for the life of me, I can’t work it out - it may be Ossu, Takatae and Ouendan, bWith so many games these days over-reliant on physics, polygon counts and image, it’s refreshing to see a game which goes back to gaming roots, and shows what our favourite hobby is all about - having fun. Showing the big finger to the Xbox 360’s capabilities and standing up to the ‘unstoppable’ Play station 3, Ossu! Takatae! Ouendan epitomises what gaming is all about.

Now there’s two thing you must know about Ouendan before we start. First of all, the complicated name suggest that this game isn’t English, and infact it’s not. This game, as of yet, is yet another Japan-only game, but like Jump Superstars DS, the amount of people willing to buy this game if it arrived on these shores is phenomenal. That’s despite this game, essentially, being about a group of male dancers. Yeah.

Second of all, if there were to be an English translation of the game, the direct meaning of Ossu! Takatae! Ouendan is “Hey! Fight! Cheer Squad”. This gives a good enough indication of what the game is. Although the cheerleaders are never involved in direct combat, they ‘save the day’ for those in need, arriving with one shout of ‘Ouendan’ and solve over 15 different problems over the course of the game.

All of the 15 problems are equally bizarre. They are also hugely entertaining and funny. The language barrier doesn’t play much of a part - even though there are apparently many clever text-written jokes in Ouendan. Although a girl meets boy story with the girls’ father not approving may not seem very bizarre, it becomes so when the ‘red group vs blue group’ challenge each other to a chariot-esque race. Oh, the Japanese...

Does the story line sound simple? Well, surprisingly enough, it’s surpassed by the game play. It’s so simple it’s actually rather hard. Ouendan relies heavily on music for the cheer squad to dance to. Circles with numbers appear on the bottom screen and begin on with a larger circle surrounding them. The bigger circle decreases in size and when it’s a similar size (or equal to if you want the maximum points) you use the stylus to press the circle.

Points are awarded depending on how close you were to getting the circle ‘spot on’. A health bar at the side decreases and increases depending on how well you did - if you picked up the full 300 points, your health bar will increase slightly. If you pick up 100, which is close but not quite close enough, it will decrease slightly. If you continuously are getting the lowest you can get, 50 points, you will be facing game over sooner rather than later

Although it may sound complicated from this review, the system is easy to grasp and despite the obvious Japanese-English language barrier, it will take you no time at all to understand the ways of Ouendan.

So what makes this game hard then, I hear you ask? Well, there’s two factors to that as well. First of all there’s the obvious speed. They’re not going to give you this at a nice, slow rhythm - although there will be a couple of slower levels, most will be absolutely frantic. Second of all, there is the constant rhythm changes. As seven or eight circles are appearing on your screen, you’re tempted to just tap all of them with exactly the same gap in-between them. That however, generally doesn’t fit in with the music, so you will be left cursing yourself as you completely mistime a circle.

Two complaints with Ouendan now, surprising considering the addictive and almost impeccable game play, is firstly the lack of game modes. It’s basically fast, faster or fastest (oh and there’s an even faster, expert mode if you so desire). Secondly, the levels. Although there’s enough levels to keep you going on normal mode for a while, it would have been nice to be even more... but we could always get a sequel, couldn’t we?!

The graphics are typically Japanese, manga-style. It’s basically in the most part still imaged which sometimes move, but even so they are stylish and at times gorgeous.

The music? Absolutely brilliant. Seriously. I have to admit, I’m not a fan of Japanese music (mainly because I can’t understand the words, heh) but when I heard the tunes Ouendan has to offer... well, I was speechless. I could honestly go through the list of levels (each level has a different piece) and couldn’t pick one which I thought was mediocre. Or even just plain ‘good’. They are all either brilliant, or super super brilliant. Get me?

There’s a couple that stand out in particular. One I even regularly listen to whenever I’m online - IGN, if you are willing to check, have a video of it (WITH MUSIC) available.

There is also a little voice acting, though not much. When a level is about to begin, the cheer squad each shout a word (for the life of me, I can’t work it out - it may be Ossu, Takatae and Ouendan, but I can’t be too sure. Regardless, in that department it certainly beats most DS games, a lot having never used voice acting at all.

Why should you buy this game then? Well, although it’s an import and not available in your local EB games or GAME store, taking that extra bit of effort ordering from Lik-Sang is well worth it. Even the language barrier doesn’t effect things much, as you’ll quickly get used to the menus and the story is understandable even without a word of Japanese. With fantastic melodies, addictive game play, some cute graphics and a well-rounded package, you certainly wouldn’t be disappointed with your £30-odd quid that it will cost you.

Overall: 9.4/10 - one word, FUN.