Here's the basic gist. You play as a cheer squad(a male cheer squad for the most part, but...) and it is your job to seek out people who are in trouble and in need of some encouragement to help them overcome their problems. You use the stylus to touch various numbers at the right time and the correct sequence on the screen in order to get the perfect cheering session. Sounds simple, right?
Yes the object of the game is pretty simple, however like most games in its genre the tricky part is getting the timing right.
The game starts out with two modes Easy and Normal, but you can unlock Hard mode after beating normal mode and Hell mode after beating that.
When you play the game for the very first time you are automatically thrusted into the tutorial mode. There, you can learn all the different beat icons in the game. The first kind are the standard stand-alone beat which is labeled by a number which you can touch once. There is also a conjoined variation of the beat in which you would have to hit the same beat multiple times. Another beat is a rolling drum beat in which you would drag a rolling ball using the stylus at the end of the note. A variation is the continuous rolling in which you drag the ball back and forward from on point to another until the beat is finished. The last beat is the spinning wheel in which you use the stylus to spin a wheel round and round until you fill a spin meter to the top before the beat hits the mark.
You can see what all the beats look like here: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/aosj/operation/index2.html
Now, while this game is in Japanese it is fairly easy to navigate(heck, there is a FAQ to tell you what the options are). The game also have auto save incase you are worried of accidentally erasing you game.
About the missions, you really don't need to know Japanese to know what is going on for each character's story since the manga-like panel presentation and the simplicity of their plots make it easy to follow. When the level starts with the music cue, the story takes place on the top screen while the game takes place on the touch screen. Though, you probably won't see some of the action on the topic screen while you are busy hitting the notes, at intervals you can see if you actually helped the person in need or not depending on your results each session.
About the music. Yes, it is liscenced music from well known Japanese music artists such as Asian Kung-Fu Generation and The Ufuls and while the sound isn't PSP-quality, it sounds dencet on the DS. And hey, it even has L'Arc~En~Ciel's Ready, Steady, Go!.
So, did anyone else here import this? Also to the people who have probably imported both Ouedan and Dai Gassou! Band Brothers how do they both compare and contrast in terms of difficulty, gameplay, etc.? I was looking into getting Band Brothers and I want to see if it was worth spending $45 to import it(thanks to a Play-Asia coupon) or is there any other GBA or DS game I should import instead?
