Elite Beat Agents
Elite Beat Agents is a music video game developed by iNiS and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld game console. It was released in North America, Europe and South Korea. It is the spiritual sequel to Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, a Japanese rhythm game released in 2005, sharing many common elements with it. Similar to Ouendan, the player taps and drags on indicated locations on the touch screen of the DS in time to the rhythm of the music to score points, while the upper screen shows comic-style scenes of the fictional "Elite Beat Agents" cheering on others in tough situations through their dance moves. The improvements made in this game were implemented in the Japanese game's sequel, Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2.
Elite Beat Agents was released under Nintendo's Touch! Generations label in North America, which markets games to audiences outside of the traditional gaming community. Though sales were not as high as expected, the game was well-received by critics and merited several 2006 gaming awards.
Story
The main characters of Elite Beat Agents are members of a fictional government agency responsible for helping those in need. When someone facing a crisis reaches their breaking point and cries out for help, Commander Kahn dispatches the agents to help them succeed. The agents never assist the person directly, but encourage the person through their dancing, motivating the people they assist to overcome various obstacles. The person's degree of success depends on the accuracy of the Agents' dance moves, as demonstrated by multiple endings for each story.Like Ouendan, the tone of the stories told in Agents is primarily humorous. The individual stories are not linked by an overarching narrative; though some characters take part in multiple stories, there are unique protagonists for each song. Although the first few stage scenarios are fairly mundane, such as helping a babysitter control a trio of rowdy children while trying to ask a potential boyfriend to go steady, they progressively become more fantastic. For example, one of the last stages is about a washed-up professional baseball player who rescues one of his young fans from, and subsequently battles with using baseball equipment and techniques, a fire-breathing golem in a theme park. The one notable difference to this trend in the game is the stage "A Christmas Gift", in which the agents assist a young girl in reuniting with the spirit of her deceased father. This shift in tone is further marked by the game's "clap" gameplay sound effect being replaced with more subtle chimes accompanying the stage song, "You're the Inspiration".
Also in contrast, the final levels in the game involve most of the characters previously helped by the Elite Beat Agents joining together to help eradicate a music-hating race of aliens, the Rhombulans, that have invaded Earth. When the Agents are seemingly turned to stone while shielding the rest of the humans, the crowd's combined determination allows them to break free and defeat the remaining Rhombulan troops. A blast of spirit energy is released from the crowd, destroying the aliens' leader and saving the planet.
Several of the levels in Agents are thematically similar to those found in Ouendan; for instance, a level taking place inside the human body, and a level. In addition, some of the story characters from Ouendan have cameo appearances in Agents. In the final two stages, as in Ouendan, all of the characters in the game reappear.
Gameplay
The fundamental aspects of gameplay are unchanged from Ouendan to Agents. The stages of Agents are presented in a comic book fashion. After the introduction to a character and their problem, the agents are deployed and the action begins. The play mechanics involve performing one of three actions with the stylus in various combinations.- Hit Markers - Operated by tapping numbered circles.
- Phrase Markers - Operated by tapping and holding the stylus on a ball within a circle while following it along a path.
- Spin Markers - Operated by spinning the stylus around the on-screen disc until bars on both sides light up.
Each stage is divided into multiple gameplay sections separated by story sequences, the specific number of which vary by stage. If the Elite-O-Meter is in the yellow when the player reaches one of these breaks, the story will depict the person in need making significant progress towards his or her goal. If it is in the red, the scene will instead depict the person encountering a setback. In between breaks, during the gameplay, the top screen shows the person attempting to accomplish what they need to do at that time. The scene depicted changes every beat, or when the markers switch color, depending on the player's progress. If the player scores an "Elite Beat" by scoring 300 points on each marker in a single beat, then the person makes a lot of progress very enthusiastically. If the player scores a "Beat", the person will be shown making average progress on their goal. However, if the player does not score a special beat bonus at all by scoring a 50 on a marker or missing it entirely, the person on the top screen will encounter difficulties and setbacks. The player receives bonuses to the final grade and unlocks artwork for completing a stage with positive outcomes at all stage breaks.
Each stage has three possible endings for its story. The ending depends on the number of gameplay sections passed. If all gameplay sections are passed, the story will have the best ending, with the main character succeeding in its challenge. If at least one section is passed, but not all of them, then the story will have the average ending, where the main character succeeds with moderate success. If all sections are failed, however, the story will have the worst outcome, where the main character finishes his or her endeavor but still fails.
High scores are acquired by achieving combos, or stringing together a series of successful actions. The longer the player is able to maintain a combo, the greater the multiplier applied to each successful action. Should the player miss a marker completely, the multiplier will stop and the player must start a new one. The game keeps track of individual stage high scores for all difficulty levels, as well as a cumulative high score that affects the player's "Agent Rank." The Agent Rank is a special title such as "Soldier of Song" or "King of the Beat" that will change as the player's cumulative high score reaches specific milestones. Elite Beat Agents features three bonus stages that are unlocked when three such ranks are achieved.
The player's performance in each stage is rated by a letter grade, with "D" being the lowest possible rank and S being the highest. To achieve an S rank, at least 90% of all beats must be 300, another 9% must be at least 100, and no more than 1% may be 50. The player must end with a "Perfect", obtained by missing no beats throughout the entire song. However, it is possible to break a combo by missing a dot on a Phrase Marker track and still get an S rank. Due to the nature of the game's scoring mechanic, it is possible to achieve a new high score in a stage while simultaneously earning a lower grade than the previous high score performance, although this is somewhat rare.
A few additional features have been introduced to Agents from the gameplay in Ouendan. Primarily, these include the ability to reveal more statistics about a player's performance when they complete a song; the ability to save their performance as "ghost" data that they can later use in a "Vs. Ghost" multiplayer mode; the ability to review the last few moments of a failed performance, and the ability to skip the musical introductions to stages.
Multiplayer
Up to four players can compete against each other using the wireless capabilities of the Nintendo DS using one or more copies of the game with 2-4 Nintendo DS consoles. The same song list is used, but the stage is set using one of five predetermined, competition-based scenarios.Only songs that the "host" player has completed are available for play. Each player attempts to perform the song in the same manner as the single-player mode. There is no Elite-O-Meter, but instead, the cumulative performance of each player is tracked during the game. At the normal break points for the song, the scene depicts which player is ahead, though it is possible for both players to be tied at this point. During the song, each player can fill a star meter by completing Elite Beats; when the star meter is full, the screens of the opposing players will shake for a few moments, and the on-screen markers will be reduced in size for a short time, making them more difficult to hit. The winner is the player with the best cumulative performance at the end of the song.
When utilizing single-card multiplayer, only five songs are available on "Cruisin'" and "Breezin'" difficulties. When all players have a copy of the game, all of the songs and difficulty levels become available, but each scenario is still assigned to a certain song.
This mode can also be played by a single player against a saved replay for any song.
There is also a cooperative mode, in which players take turns to play. Each user must have a copy of the game to do this. Each song uses the same scenarios as the single-player game, but only the stages the host has completed in single-player are available. Both players share a single Elite-O-Meter, so if one person fails, the game ends for both players. The players take turns playing certain segments of the song, as well as Spin Markers. When it is not the player's turn to play, the markers are grayed out.
Development
Due to the surprisingly high import rate of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Nintendo and iNiS began discussing the possibility of officially exporting the game to other regions. However, as Keiichi Yano, vice president of iNiS and director of the game explained in an interview with 1UP.com, selling the game at retail in Western markets would have been unfeasible due to the game's innate reliance on Japanese popular music and cultural references. It was due to this fact that when Yano and iNiS began work on the North American version, the gakuran-wearing cheerleaders of Ouendan were removed and work began on a replacement. The first concepts were of a trio of dancers styled after the Village People; this was changed to a trio of government agents, using distinctly Western references such as the Ghostbusters, Blues Brothers, Men in Black and Austin Powers series for inspiration. In addition, the concept of the Elite Beat Divas and Commander Kahn directing the Agents came from Charlie's Angels, while the phrase "Agents are go!" was derived from Thunderbirds and the NASA launch sequence. During development, 1UP.com listed Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca" as one of the game tracks, but the song was not included in the final game release.In a 2016 interview, Yano stated that he would love to bring a sequel to Elite Beat Agents to a Nintendo platform, but the exact circumstances will depend on the capabilities of those platforms and how well the game fits to it.
Reception
Upon release, Elite Beat Agents was critically acclaimed, receiving an average score of 87.7% on GameRankings. From the date of its release to November 28, 2006, Agents sold 120,000 copies. Reggie Fils-Aime has stated that while sales were strong, he was disappointed that they were not better, having expected 300,000 copies sold in light of critical acclaim. He has also stated that he hopes that Nintendo can work with iNiS on a sequel. Only 179,000 copies of the game have been sold in North America by January 2009.Elite Beat Agents won several awards in 2006. It won the Nintendo DS game of the year award from both IGN and from Nintendo Power. IGN gave it several other DS-specific awards, including Best Music Game, Best Artistic Design, Best Story, Most Innovative Design, and Best Licensed Soundtrack. They also awarded its developer, iNiS, with best developer for the DS for its development of Elite Beat Agents. Nintendo Power gave it several other awards as well, including Best Nintendo DS game, Best Music Game, Best Alternative Game, and Best New Character in regard to the Agents. They later named it the best Nintendo DS game released and the seventh best game of the decade. Other notable awards include Best Music/Rhythm Game from GameSpot, an entry on the list of "52 Games We'll Still Be Playing From 2006" from Gaming Target, Best Puzzle Game from GameTrailers, and Quirkiest Game from Electronic Gaming Monthly.