Elite Beat Agents – NDS – Review

Elite Beat Agent is
taking rhythm games to the next step by incorporating the Nintendo DS touch
screen. Played entirely on the touch screen, EBA has players tapping,
scratching, and circling to the sounds of upbeat classics and recent hits.

In Elite Beat Agents, a
team of trained professionals are called to solve the problems in this world.
Led my Commander Kahn, the team seeks out citizens in need and dances their way
to safety. Using your stylus and rhythm, it’s your job to help these average
people to extraordinary things.

The gameplay in EBA is
broken up by song, and each song is paired with a scenario that the Beat Agents
must aid. These scenarios range anywhere from hilarious, to sad, to just plain
crazy. Overall they are very entertaining, and actually give the game a lot of
character. For example, one scenario is to help a baseball player save children
from a theme park ride that has come alive. How do the Beat Agents do this with
song and dance? We’ll probably never know.


At first only a few songs
are available, but as you complete them and go up in rank more songs become
available. The songs are selected on a globe that you drag the stylus over to
rotate. Songs show up as people in trouble all over the globe.

When playing Elite Beat
Agents, dots show up on the screen. Along with these dots, a circle appears and
slowly closes around the dot. The point is to tap the dot as the circle
collapses on it. To help even more with tapping the dot at the correct time, the
dots are numbered in the order they will need to be touched.

Other than just tapping
dots, sometimes a thin line shows up on screen with a dot at the end. Touching
this dot at the right time triggers a ball that follows the line, and you must
drag your stylus along with the ball to score for the entire line. These add a
nice change of pace from just tapping, and in later levels really add some
difficulty as the ball moves faster, and sometimes you are required to drag back
and forth over the same line multiple times.

Elite Beat Agents, in
typical rhythm game fashion, focuses strongly on its soundtrack. The dots appear
along with the music and fit well with the beat to each song. The game has a
really good soundtrack, too. There’s plenty of variety, and everyone is likely
to recognize at least a few of the songs.

There is a meter along
the top of the screen that shows how well you are performing the song. If it
drains all the way, you fail. Successfully hitting notes will fill the meter,
while misses will drain a decent amount of it. It is also constantly draining
throughout the song, though it drains slower than if you miss notes. The closer
to the beat you hit the notes, the more points you score and the more the meter
is filled.


Elite Beat Agents Screenshot

During the song there are
checkpoints. These checkpoints give you a little break from play and show you
the result of the last chunk of song you just performed. The meter along the top
of the screen is split in two pieces. If you can stay above the middle point you
will succeed in completing each task, which usually involves helping the
characters of the current story. If you drop below the middle point you will
fail at helping the characters and a different series of events will be shown.
This doesn’t mean you fail the song, and you can actually complete an entire
song without succeeding in a single checkpoint.

A replay feature is
included, so that you can save and watch how you did in any level. Not only
that, but you can challenge your own ghost using saved replay data in a versus
match. Replay data can also be shared with friends, allowing them to watch your
crowning achievements, or blow your highest score away by defeating your ghost.

At first I was worried
about the difficulty of Elite Beat Agents. I had played quite a few stages on
the hard difficulty and still wasn’t having much trouble. My doubts were quickly
destroyed, as later songs become very difficult. In early songs, the dots are
lined up nice and neat for you. It is clear in what order you must tap them, and
they are evenly spaced. As you progress, dots begin to bunch up, sometimes even
stacked on top of each other, or are randomly placed all over the screen.
Following the tap order becomes more of a challenge, and more drag lines are
mixed in just to spice things up.

Elite Beat Agents is
mostly a rhythm game, but with its fabulous presentation, wacky story, and
frenzied gameplay it can easily be enjoyed by anyone. With no specific buttons,
puzzles to solve, or enemies to defeat there’s virtually no learning curve. Good
music, entertaining scenarios, and fun gameplay make EBA a fantastic title for
the DS.             

Review Scoring Details
– Elite Beat Agents

Gameplay: 9.4
At first it seems
almost too simple, but the simplicity just makes learning the game easier. If
you want difficulty, Elite Beat Agents has it. If you aren’t ready for the
harder songs, no problem; this one is fun no matter what skill level you are.

Graphics: 8.5 
There’s no
breakthrough graphics here, but the story is fleshed out in absurd comic strip
style scenes. The style of art gives EBA so much character, and it adds to the
humor of the already outrageous themes.

Sound: 9.2
The music in EBA
is great. Songs like Material Girl by Madonna and Makes No Difference by Sum 41
are just a couple examples. The soundtrack includes songs new and old from
multiple genres, so every gamer is bound to like something.


Difficulty: Easy-Hard
Only two
difficulties are available in the beginning, and both start out pretty easy. The
higher difficulty gets pretty tough, but the real challenge begins in the
unlockable difficulties.

Concept: 8.0 
A rhythm game
using a touch screen is a great idea, but it still feels like they could have
done a little more. Keeping the game simple allowed for an even difficulty
spread, though, plus now there’s room for a sequel.


Multiplayer: N/A

I
wasn’t able to test the multiplayer modes without another DS, but there was both
a versus mode and a co-op mode.

Overall: 9.4
There were a lot
of times I was laughing out loud while playing this game. The cut scenes truly
are great, and the gameplay itself keeps getting better and better as you
progress. Elite Beat Agents is one of those games that both novices and experts
can enjoy.