80%Nintendo 3DS

https://thekonnetwork.com/2025/01/17/elite-beat-agents-ds-rhythm-game/

60%Nintendo DS

EBA is an amazing game that created a whole OSU genre (not this game, of course, but its Japanese original-adaptation), nevertheless, not without a huge spoon of tar... I'll start with the good - cool eye-catching visuals, very interesting comics, a unique story for each song, in general, there are no complaints about anything, except... Gameplay. Half of the circles don't hit beats, is that okay at all? A rhythm game, for a minute, requiring you to act clearly in rhythm with the music, can't catch the beat of its own songs!? Yes, it happens not always and not even in every song, but this problem is there and I couldn't enjoy the game fully because of it. What kind of rhythm game is it where you have to turn the sound off to get through? I didn't notice this problem in Ouendan. Yeah...

90%Nintendo DS

P1 ~ Pre-History (93)

100%Nintendo DS

Music Lives!

There's something deeply special about Elite Beat Agents that caused it to resonate with me more than almost any other game I've played this year.

For starters, and this is probably the most important attribute of the game - but the actual rhythm gameplay here just kicks ass. Incredibly intuitive and just fun to tap away to the songs, with enough depth to create some genuinely quite challenging levels towards the end. You do have to play through the game several times to reach the hardest difficulty, and thus the hardest levels - but they definitely reward you with some really stellar final challenges. I wouldn't ever go as far to say that its unfair, (although it might feel that way the first time you hit every single beat and still somehow lose), but I've definitely heard the final few songs quite a handful of times.

Speaking of which, while there is definitely some inherent "oldness" to some of the songs here, something that was true even when this game came out - there's still enough really solid songs that somehow fit the gameplay shockingly well. There are a few songs that feel a bit out of place, with 'ABC' and 'I Was Born To Love You' feeling especially weird for rhythm-game-songs - the vast majority of levels here remain a blast to play,

But more so than anything else, I think what I'll remember most from Elite Beat Agents is just the fact that this might be the most charming game I've played. Each song is built around a "scenario" which feature the most stereotypical American stories possible - and I absolutely love them all. From retired baseball player comes back to fight monster, to 'nut-salesman' fights zombies, the premises here are just all so absurd, (with the exception of the Christmas one, which is... uh a bit of a tone shift), and they sell each one with such enjoyable illustrations. Everybody taking breaks to dance to the music always gets a kick out of me, and, add that to the immensely amusing title characters - and you have a 4 hour game that contains 4 hours that's hard to forget.

I'm generally somebody who doesn't continue playing a game after the credits - but that wasn't the case for 90% of my time with Elite Beat Agents. And as I kept playing, and levels that once seemed impossible began to suddenly seem otherwise, a thought I never imagined having began to slowly creep it.

This is one of my favorite games I have ever played.

10/10
Game #65 of 2024, November 22nd

100%Nintendo DS

It's just so much fun.
I wish there were more QoL features, like skips for the outros, skips for lower difficulties, practice mode, reducing the required amount of spin for spin notes, etc, but it's still smooth without those.
It's kind of amazing that after about 15 years my brain still remembers the note patterns. It used to be way harder for me than it is now.

100%Nintendo DS

It makes no difference to me 🗣️🗣️🗣️

85%Nintendo DS

Cool, but I think that the soundtrack was "old" even at the time of release, like Just Dance (1) on Wii.

The last level was just too hard, so I had to use infinite health cheat.

To be continued... (never)

70%Nintendo 3DS

It's a rhythm game and all it's strong and weak parts come from there. So not my cup of tea in general.

Pros:
* Super funny comics before each level!
* Commander Kahn screaming "Agents are Go!"
* Songs are great
* This game utilizes stylus in the best way possible.

Cons:
* It's a muscle memory game. So it's repetitive by design. Not my cup of tea. But I see how it can be addictive.

85%Nintendo DS

Fun rhythm game, the manga panels are fun, but it is hard to follow the chapter´s story because you have to be watching the touch screen following the patterns. It´s distracting, you just can´t fully understand every chapter.

Anyway, good music, good challenge, awesome style.

90%Nintendo DS

Very very fun game. Some notes are iffy tho, and the game could have more songs, and unlocking the last mode if the easiest mode isn't played should definetely be a thing. But overall quick and fun to play and replay.

40%Nintendo DS

There's some goofy fun to be had - back in the days of 'anything-goes' low budget DS development - but the track selection is like the music you might hear in a roller skating rink in Boise, Idaho, and the actual rhythm mechanics are genuinely bad. So many better games in the same genre to choose from.

100%Nintendo DS

Absolute masterpiece. Excellent graphics, excellent music, and excellent gameplay. 100% this game sure was frustrating but a blast nonetheless.

60%Nintendo 3DS

Its a solid game, interesting that it incorporates a story, stylus stuff took me a min to get but the licensed music kinda klils it. i need to play that japanese exclusive version

80%Nintendo DS

fun wack nonsense. gameplay is really solid but my hand covers the screen half the time so its hard to see what i need to press some of the time, even on a bigger screen like a DSi XL. The plot is absolutely zany and the OST aint half bad. its just overall a fun time to play, so play it dangit

60%Nintendo DS

This was a weird little game that did bring me joy for the short amount of time it lasted!

80%Nintendo DS

8.3/10

70%Nintendo DS

I honestly went into this thinking I wouldn't like it - but Nintendo knows how to give you a good time. Funny, charming and like a portable "Dance Dance Revolution" game, everything in this game comes together well. It's short, but never outstays its welcome.

100%Nintendo DS

One of my favorite games of all time. I know it's a ripoff of Ouendan. I need to play those. The scenarios are fun, the gameplay is fair, and each level is fun in a different way.

70%Nintendo DS

The following paragraphs sum up what I think about the gameplay for this rhythm game:

"See, in this game you are supposed to tap the lower screen to the rhythm of the music, touching colored circles whenever a shrinking outline centers with them. All would be good if it wasn't for the fact that the producers of the western version of the game probably understood very little about music theory. To anybody who is trained in music, this game is hard as hell. Not because the patterns are particularly difficult, because they aren't, but rather because the circles are simply misaligned in a way that makes no sense.

Sometimes you have to follow the rhythm of the vocals, sometimes you are following the bass, sometimes you don't really know what you are following... and each and every correct tap you land makes a cymbal sound - though get this, you are not following the drums most of the time. I suppose that to the average player this can maybe work out, but to somebody who plays the drums, it is stupid. I scored higher with my sound turned off than I did with my sound turned on." - MarkDarkness https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/933052-elite-beat-agents/reviews/140179

I play the guitar in real life and, like with the musician above, this game was hard as shit for me on Cruisin, which was supposed to be normal difficulty, because it's basically a "practice makes perfect" game. Trial and error is never fun to me in video games because replaying the same thing over and over again just to progress a bit gets repetitive and boring. On Cruisin, some songs were really hard and took many tries, while some were super easy and only took one try; the difficulty was all over the place. You basically had to memorize the notes and not follow the audio because the rhythm sucks. Because of all of this, Cruisin felt like the hard difficulty setting so I dropped it down to Breezin, which is supposed to be easy, and had a much more enjoyable experience, so I think Breezin is the best difficulty to start with.

Other than that, the game was good for the most part. I thought the music and the graphics were both good. I also liked how ridiculous it is with all the little stories and the agents helping people with the power of music. Most were funny, but why did they have to include one scenario (Christmas) that was super sad and emotional? It felt completely out of place.

So yeah, my main complaints are that the rhythm doesn't make any sense and that one scenario that changed the mood of the game. But aside from those things, it was a decent game.

50%Nintendo DS

This game fluctuates between insultingly easy and insultingly difficult. The interface is too busy and in the later missions the overlapping rings are so distracting that it's hard to know when or where to press. It's impossible to respond to some of them on the fly, so you're forced to memorize the patterns. Once you've done that, it's trivial, but that means you're just sitting there listening to the same inferior cover versions of pop songs ten times in a row, which gets stale. The comic-style cutscenes were fun enough to keep me from hating the game, but they don't totally redeem the experience.

80%Nintendo DS

A fun rhythm game that can be played in short bursts. Very simple concept of hitting the beats, but gets more and more difficult. I found the animations in the game amusing, however I'm not quite so sure about the music selection... but it's still fun nonetheless.

70%Nintendo DS

A short, charming experience.

70%Nintendo DS

Pretty good rhythm game with decent renditions of songs but its way too short!

90%Nintendo DS

https://outerheavenpt.blogspot.com/2014/08/analise-elite-beat-agents-nintendo-ds.html

90%Nintendo DS

good for quick burst

95%No Platform Specified

Westerners who've played the original Osu! Tatake! Oendan! might end up a little disappointed that the Nintendo of America version might lack the kitschy Japanese flavor with its bandana-adorned personal cheerleaders and incomprehensible J-pop tunes accomodating the quirky, lost-in-translation stories. But even with new characters, popular Western tunes, and plots that actually make sense, Elite Beat Agents retains the awesome, addictive gameplay core.

And let's be honest: the Elite Beat Agents are too cool for school and could kick those pansy bathrobe-wearing cheerleaders' asses any day of the week.