Ouendan 2

After coming back from Athens, I had a lovely little package waiting for me at home. Inside it was Ouendan 2 for the Nintendo DS, or 燃えろ！熱血リズム魂 押忍！闘え！応援団２ (Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Tamashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 ~ Burn! Hot-Blooded Rhythm Soul: Hey! Fight! Cheer Squad 2). The game is what Japan is so famous for. Outrageously zany, rhythm fun. I would strongly recommend it for anyone who likes rhythm games and appreciates japanese pop music.

You lead a cheering squad that runs to save the day whenever a person calls out for help. With just 3 simple moves, touch, slide and rotate, one would think it is quite simple. Those of you who can't tap to music, beware! It will be too hard to handle as you complete each mission. The harder the better I'd say, since you get to enjoy the songs and also not finish the game in a few hours, but those stages toward the end will drive you nuts. You can play as either the newest recruit (easy mode), or the cheering veterans (normal mode), but once you complete these 2 modes a harder mode unlocks and even an insane one after that.

I still haven't completed the game in normal and the highest grade I got while cheering was a B with 100000 something points... Yeap, it's insanely difficult from the start as it is, but you can enjoy the best ending to those wacky situations once you get the hang of each song. Hold your horses for those rewards though... One thing that's changed in this sequel is that you get multiplayer, with up to 4 players cheering together or in 2 teams pitted against each other.

Not having knowledge of Japanese won't trouble you at all, since it'll be really easy to move around the menus and well, it's a rhythm game! If you decide to import it, I think you'll get your money's worth. At least, it's better than the lame rest-of-the-world-second-rate-version of the original, the awful sounding Elite Beat Agents!