Elite Beat Agents
By Will Bartos
Monday. Mar 05, 3:48 PM
Music and weird dancing solve everything, apparently.

Bemani style games have been gaining ground in the United States for some time, ever since “DDR Fever” took off all those many years ago. The Dance Dance Revolution series has been very successful, and games like Guitar Hero are bringing other beat-style games from Japan to the States. Even the DS has been touched by this trend, and the Touch Generations branch of Nintendo has been kind to release the wacky Elite Beat Agents to us Americans.

The premise: random people across the world are having problems. A girl wants to date the popular high school football player, but can’t say it because she has to babysit crazy kids. A magician and his assistant fall on hard times, get caught in a robbery, and have to save the casino they work at. A dog accidentally falls asleep on a truck and has to find his way home. All of these pleas for help are not unheard, particularly since they seem to be screaming “HEEEAAALLLLP!!!!” all the time. A figure known as Commander Kahn hears these pleas, and he dispatches his Elite Beat Agents to help these people in distress. Their answer to everything? Music and dancing! This is where the player comes in.

The game is controlled entirely by stylus. Players must tap the screen in the right position at the right time. A properly timed hit will garner the top score per hit, and keeps the time meter going to zero. Misses will drag the timer down. Players will also be dragging the stylus across paths, which could backtrack on themselves. Let go too early, and a miss will register. A bonus wheel will also show up, and the player will have to spin the wheel with the stylus to bring the spin meter up. When the meter is full, extra spins garner extra points. So it basically comes down to position, time, and path memorization. All of this is done in time to music, which – surprisingly – isn’t too bad.

The presentation of the game is highly stylized, from the 3D dancing men-in-black to the cartoon animation on the top screen. All the music is licensed music, even though they’re all covers. “Highway Star,” “Y.M.C.A.,” “Material Girl,” and other familiar tunes blanket more than 15 levels, covering multiple eras of popular music. The only downside to this is that the player won’t be able to see all the detail of the game itself, as they’ll be too busy trying to keep in tune with the dots and paths on the screen. Thankfully, each stage allows for a replay of the stage, not only showing your path to success, but also the progression of animation and dancing.

As strange as the premise is, the game is very well done. It’s easy to play, hard to master, and fun by yourself or with friends on a local scale. The replay value is incredibly high, as the game boasts four difficulty levels, and the added multiplay will keep people playing for a long time. This game did scream online multiplay, but it does not support Nintendo Wi-Fi. Hopefully other games of this genre will support the online, whether it’s for sharing replays, ghosts, or actual online play. The uninitiated will find the game’s premise and stories a bit wacky, but will go beyond the surface to find great gameplay. It’s a great start for a Bemani-style game on the DS, and we hope for many more.

Will Bartos

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