When it rains, it pours. I regularly tell myself to not buy a certain game, or any games, for a while. But my will inevitably breaks. I bought 2 more games over the weekend, one of which was planned. As promised, I finally bought No More Heroes. I'm not really going to talk about it much here. I've moved up to assassin rank #8, so I still have 7 more assassins to take down. I really enjoy it so far, but I'll post some of my thoughts on it in a couple weeks after I've had time to play it some more.The other game I bought, which I always kept an eye out for but didn't intend to buy yet, was Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 for the DS. I wish the title was a little longer, but I'll call it Ouendan 2 for the sake of simplicity. Wikipedia translates the title as "Burn! Hot-Blooded Rhythm Spirit: Hey! Fight! Cheer Squad 2." As you should be able to tell from the title, Ouendan 2 is a rhythm game, and was developed bu iNiS. iNiS is primarily a rhythm game maker, having made Ouendan 1, Elite Beat Agents, and also Gitaroo Man, which Michael at the Brainy Gamer heaped praise upon a few months ago.
The gameplay in Ouendan 2 is simple at heart, but so far incredibly difficult. There are three types of mechanics you use to tap out the rhythm of the J-Pop song. The primary one is the Hit Markers, which you just tap in time to the beat. Next is a Slider, where you follow a ball and slide the stylus along a track. Last are Spinners, which are discs you must spin in a circle really quickly to earn bonus points.
I'll talk more about my impressions of Ouendan 2 later, but I did want to touch on why I bought it. Part of the reason is that this is a fairly popular Japan-exclusive DS game. Seeing as I'm in Japan for a little while, I try to buy some games that are harder to get in the U.S. I'll also probably purchase Ouendan 1, although I rarely see it in stores. A second reason for buying Ouendan 2 was that I'm trying to extend my gaming interests a little bit, or at the very least I want to try games in genres that I rarely explore. I don't think I've ever played a rhythm game, so this should (hopefully) provide a good first experience for me. In fact, part of the reason I find the game so difficult may be because I've never played this type of game before. Of course, it's also supposed to be relatively difficult on its own.
So I'm glad I found the game, and that it was 50% cheaper than I had ever seen it. It looks to be a refreshing experience and a nice change of pace from the RPGs and strategy games I lose myself to.
2 comments:
I'm curious to know what you will finally think about No More Heroes. I assume you're playing the Japanese version of the game, which is different from the one we got here in the states. Ultimately I suppose it's basically the same game, but the cartoonishly over-the-top blood-fest in the uncensored version changes the game's aesthetic quite a bit.
I confess that I couldn't manage Elite Beat Agents. My wife is a genius at it, but it knocked me down too many times for me to continue. It's a brilliant game - and I love watching her play it - but I guess I lack the requisite skills! :-(
Guess I'd better stick to Gitaroo Man. :-)
I look forward to getting farther into No More Heroes, so I can gather my thoughts about it. I'm sure it will generate at least a couple of posts. Actually, I had forgotten about the censorship until after I had played it a little bit, and searched online for information/videos about the game. From a couple of gameplay videos of the US version, it looks quite different without the blood, but it's still pretty fun.
I haven't played EBA, but Ouendan is hard. It's too early to tell if it's a game that will remain hard for me forever, or if I'll slowly improve. We'll see. At least the scenarios are ridiculously goofy. I just played one where a werewolf needs support from the Ouendan team to hide his 'problem' from a girl. Very strange.
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