Go! Fight! Cheer Squad - Ouendan!

The march of the DS lite's continues. Since Blondie and I got ours a month or so ago, we've convinced at least 3 more people to go out and buy them too. Having finished New Mario and Mario Kart I was keen to get more games. The useful metacritic site and posts on the DVDforums drew me toward the Japanese rhythm game osu! tatakae! ouedan! The story is fairly wacky, but you have no idea just how wacky until you play it. Essentially the game involves controlling a group of cheerleaders who are drawn by the frustrated cry of "Ouendan!" (lit. cheer squad) from people in need of motivation. By tapping, dragging and spinning the stylus on the touch screen, the cheer squad perform their moves to encourage a positive outcome in the story. Of course, being a J-game the music is a wonderful selection of J-pop from the last 20 years. Sounds weird, but when you realise that the stories involves such things as a violinist requiring the cheer squad to help him overcome a sudden bout of diarrhea on the train, cheering on a horse to not only win a race, but then catch a thief on a motorbike or the classic fable of a man trying to save a girl from a giant mutant mouse by engaging it in a fist fight. You really can't make this stuff up. The gameplay takes place on the touchscreen, whilst the story progresses on the top screen giving you a feeling for how things are going. Of course, sometimes it's funny to loose so you can witness both sides of the stories.
This is the kind of game that, before the internet, would have been lost. It sold very badly in Japan, but as yet, isn't available outside of Nippon. People started importing it from such Asia suppliers such PlayAsia (use code "WGDS1" to get $5 off an order) and word of mouth spread quickly to ensure that the game sells for a premium. Sites dedicated to the game sprang up offering translations of the menus and links to the original music videos on Youtube. It's incredibly addictive and most of the songs have already wormed their way into my head and refuse to leave.
A western version called "Elite Beat Agents" has been announced for later in the year. As expected, the game mechanics will stay the same, but the stories, characters and the music will all be different making it, essentially, a sequel. The same thing happened with the Donkey Konga games. I'll link a couple of the weirder stories below (don't worry, they're perhaps even funnier without any knowledge of Japanese) and make sure you click the link to check out the original music videos!







The female cheerleaders are unlocked on the "insane" dificulty level, where as the regular male cheer squad features on the first 3 dificulties.