Platform: Nintendo DS
ERSB:E Everyone
Genre: Rhythm, Musical
Number of Players: 1-4
Publisher: Nintendo
Release Date: 6/11/2006
Official Website
Writer: Typhoid

Rating: 7.75

Elite Beat Agents: MIB tries DDR

The shortest description possible is that EBA is Dance Dance Revolution for your stylus, but you’re doing it to save the world. Several circles appear on the screen, with numbers 1, 2, 3+ on them. There are outer circles around the number circles that are slowly shrinking. When the two circles meet, you are to tap them in increasing order of the numbers (like how you tap the floor mat in DDR when the two arrows meet). As you advance levels the tapping gets more difficult, like several taps or having to trace a pattern around the screen.

Graphics:
It strongly resembles manga or anime. Very bright colors, cartoonish, and the animation is exaggerated and juvenile. This type of art works very well with the style of gameplay.

Controls:
Extremely easy to pick up and play but difficult to master. The stylus is used for the entire game, and it’s very intuitive. There are training levels, but I didn’t even find them necessary. However the problem that occurs is as you use the stylus, your hand often obscures portions of the screen which makes it difficult to see your next move. The other problem is the difficulty of this game jumps exponentially and suddenly you’re over your head. It no longer is a matter of reflexes but also memorization. So expect to fail a lot, but try to remember what sequences you can.

Sound:
The sound effects are seldom more than taps or clicks. The quality of the music all depends on your taste, but since they included so many music genres you might only like a few songs. There aren’t that many songs so if you have to replay any stages you’ll get sick of it quickly. There are 17 songs I’ve seen so far, though I’m told you have the ability to unlock 3 more.

Flow:
There really wasn’t any attempt made to give good flow to this game- every 30 seconds or so your game play is interrupted by cut scenes. If you enjoy hearing a story rather than playing through a story, it won’t bother you at all. For me, I spent a lot of time frantically mashing buttons trying to skip the interruptions to my game play. Also since the game is exactly the same but just harder with each increased difficulty, you don’t want to watch the same cut scenes 5 times. The flow gets worse throughout the game as you realize that the first 15 levels are just tutorials. Then the difficulty increases exponentially and turns from fun to frustrating.

Fun Factor:
It’s easy to breeze through the boards, then the difficulty shoots up and you’ll find a level you just can’t pass. It’s pretty frustrating, but still very fun. It’s nice to see a game to be completely designed for the DS. There are some parts that are too disturbing to be fun however, like the level about the little girl celebrating her dead father’s birthday.

Is there a female playable character:
Why on earth isn’t one of the main Elite Agents a woman? Because, as the manual states, they need to save the girl power for the second team “Elite Beat Divas.” Wearing very… non-professional clothing, it’s hard to believe they’re agents like the black suit dressed Elite Beat Agents. However I haven’t even seen them in my game and am unlikely to ever see them because you only get them on the highest difficulty level, which is far beyond my current skills.

As for the NPC’s (Non-Player Characters), I could not believe my eyes. Here’s a chosen selection of the women in this game: the seven year old girl who wants to marry someone like her dead dad, and the two blondes who feed diamonds to their cats and who get their way by jiggling their breasts at males (including animals).

Replay Value:
Unfortunately this game really isn’t that long if you’re good at it. Beginner stage is only 16 stages (15 regular and 1 boss), and except for the final one I whipped through it in just a few hours. It would have been less than an hour if it weren’t for the unskippable cut scenes. You really have no choice but to replay this game if you want to get your money’s worth. The game creators try to encourage replay, because if you master the game on more difficulties you get 3 more songs and you eventually can play as the three skimpily-dressed females.