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Twilo

Elite Beat Agents videos (4 songs)

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The EW&F one looks like an absolute blast. I'm glad that through Elite Beat Agents more people will get to experience the awesome that is Ouendan.

YMCA is a terrible choice for the soundtrack though... :eek:

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Looking over the soundtrack, I gotta admit I was a little bit disappointed. Still, it's Ouendan, so I'm buying it on day one and will love it anyway, but it feels kinda like a missed opportunity to grab the uninitiated with a completely kickass tracklist.

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It's a mechanical sequel, not a spiritual one. The spirit of Ouendan has been purged and replaced with showbiz cheese. Fiery passions have become a disco star and cheesy dancing. The perseverance of characters has become privilege and luck. Celebrity has been used instead of human affirmation.

It's just a bit charmless, and I'm a little disappointed. Glad it was a friend who got it and not me.

That said, the mechanics are greatly improved and tightened: you can skip straight into the gameplay if you want rather than sit through the first few bars of a song.

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It's just a bit charmless, and I'm a little disappointed.

I don't see how you could possibly think that this:

eba_cheese_big.jpg

is not the most endearing thing ever.

Honestly, I don't think any of the criticisms on your Functional Autonomy thing are valid; Ouendan has plenty of examples of people looking for fame or money.

Scuba diver looking for treasure, meet pottery man looking for fame (and a fur coat).

EBA does tend to equate happiness with some fairly superficial stuff at points.

I think Cleopatra slavedriving so she can lose weight for Mark Anthony is pretty damn superficial.

I agree with your suspicion that you like it less because you understand it more. I thought it was funnier in Cops vs Robots in Ouendan when it seemed like they were using waterguns for NO GOOD REASON. Further inspection of the text on the robots reveals that they tell you not to get water on them. I prefer it when things seemed to happen without any real explanation or cause; it makes for comedy gold.

Why can salaryman enlarge his size? Because this sort of thing is common in japanese superhero shows (Ultraman etc.). The culture gap ADDS to Ouendan: who knows, maybe EBA will sell well in Japan.

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Fair enough. I will laugh very hard indeed if EBA outsells Ouendan in Japan.

I see that image as really cheesy and disconnected from human motives. The fire of Ouendan struck on the nature of motivation, but that woman above, like all the characters in EBA, just doesn't express the same determination. (Edit: I also agree with you on the Cleopatra level of Ouendan, and pointed it out as the most EBA like of the bunch, and likewise the weather woman as most Ouendan like of EBA). I see a big difference between the artisans, small business proprietors etc. of Ouendan and the treasure hunter types in EBA.

The contrast isn't absolute, but I still think it's a profound reversal between the games. Ouendan just didn't have the showbiz aesthetic they've put into EBA.

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The arm-waving thing is one of my favourite additions; the scope for visual gags is excellent (Such as in the taxi-driver stage, when the guy has a cop chasing him, and in the waving scene the cop pops up next to him; another example of a genuine problem not related to fame or money etc.).

The rhythm of the waving also helps you get into the song, sort of like the visual component of a metronome.

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(commence topic derailment)

Got distracted by your Alice in Wonderland review instead. Sounds like a pretty cool game! You should definitely check out Wendy: Every Witch Way too, if you can find a copy. It's a platform puzzle game where you flip gravity to progress through the levels, really cool. Like Alice, it's pretty easy for the most part, but it's a really cleverly designed game, I reckon.

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