Nintendo DS

Posted: 2024-12-27

Normally I wait until I see a credits roll before I review a game but I need to write about Elite Beat Agents. I've only put in maybe an hour of gameplay, and thats really all you need to see in a rhythm game.

EBA goes extremely ham. You are an agent for as military organization that using music to solve very mundane problems in an elaborate and over-the-top fashion. Your boss, Commander Kahn sends you and your 2 partners onto various missions. Im deeply pleased any time Daddy Commander Kahn tells me I did a good job. (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ) The guy even lambasts you and kicks you out of a mission if you close the DS in the middle of a song. Incredible

The gameplay is pretty straighforward. Hit the markers on time, slide at the right pace, and spin the ball at the end of every song. EBA fully utilizes the touchscreen with similar gameplay style to Osu! (Upon further research, it seems that Osu! was based on the gameplay developed for EBA. That explains why the gameplay looked so familiar. (=u=")7) The game has a decently harsh punish for missing notes. It doesnt take much to fail a song, but there is an easy mode, and like any rhythym game, the player is expected to practice a track over and over again. The downside is that this game doesnt let you preview tracks. There is a review mode, but it only lets you review your own gameplay up to the point of mission failure. You can complete a section, and then get caught totally offguard and be required to redo the song from the beginning. It also turns out reducing the difficulty starts a seperate save file, so you'd have to redo the entire story mode up to the point where ther player got stuck.

The song selection seems to be exclusively western rock produced in English. In fact, the entire art direction and style has a very westaboo slant. I find this incredibly charming and delightful. °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

I kinda understand why Osu! players went kinda hard with this style of rhythym game, you're not just hitting a button, the dynamic range touch controls offer is much more engaging tha other styles of rhythym game. Its honestly what i was hoping to get from Theatrhythym but thats not the world we live in. :3c

Nintendo DS

Posted: 2024-12-12

Cute game! This one is a collection of minigames and a deck building game. All the minigames are varying levels of cute, fun, and frustrating. This game takes advantage of the Download Play feature of the DS, so its possible to play with your buddies with just the one cartridge. Overall, this one’s a winner. d(￣◇￣)b

There is a single-player story mode, and it is required to unlock all the minigames in the first place. The strory is basic and cutsie. You play as a chocobo that opens a cursed book, which trap all your friends inside picture books. You must find the picture books, restore them, and free your friends inside. I mean, this is a childrens game. Which is for children. Genuinely a nice change of pace between the high stakes, world-ending plots of your standard RPG.

Weeeell... this is ultimately a final fantasy game. So that cursed book? It does want to become an all powerful being and... take over the world? I dont know. I'll be honest, i wasnt paying the best attention to the plot. ¯\_(σ ‸ σ)_/¯

Anyways, you have to play most minigames to get to the end. You have to beat each minigame up to about mid-level difficulty to move on. Some minigames are easier than others. Some of the AI definitely cheat. Kinda par for the course for this type of game tho.

There were a few moments when i was hung up on a minigame i reeeeally wanted to earn a gold star on when it was completely unnecessary. One minigame had me blowing into the mic for a solid 15 min i was trying so hard to get a high score i did not get the high score ʘ‿ʘ. Sometimes its easy to forget that some of these games are designed for kids on long car rides with nothing else to play. It was in my better interest to move on.

Also the AI cheats. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ In some mini games the AI just blatantly cheats with perfect movement and thats not cool or fun. For these specific games it felt like a miracle getting through the mandatory portions.

I did mention there is a deck builder in this game. It is required for story mode. You do find various cards to build your deck throughout the game. And, being that this is a childrens game. Which is for children. The deck building game is pretty straight forward. I beat every opponent within 2 tries. The mechanics are pretty basic. There are 4 colours (plus colourless). Theres attack. Theres defence. You generally want your number to be bigger than their number. And the game is generous enough to tell you the colour of the cards your opponent is holding. This game is simple and it wants you to win. (b=u=) There are a few effects that carry over from round to round, otherwise there are not a lot of details to keep track of in your head.

The only major downside of the deck building game is there is no way to skip the battle cutscenes. The game animates card summoning, attacking, defending, and returning to the user. Theyre not very long, but they do add up when you have to watch the same scene a dosen or so times a battle.

The final confrontation with the cursed book is not a battle in the form of cards, however.

Its air hockey. Yep. The final fight is a few rounds of air hockey. Genuinely wasnt expecting that. This minigame was properly difficult. It didnt help that it was possible to instakill yourself by accident lmao