Customer Reviews

Elite Beat Agents

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Elite Beat Agents is one of those games that seems awfully silly - but is incredibly addictive once you get started. It's a rhythm game with some fun songs to play along with.

The plot is the silly part. Secret agents watch for trouble - babysitters trying to calm down kids, little girls missing their daddies - and jump in to help out. The way they help is by dancing along to the music. This is like finding a "plot" for tetris. Just ignore it :)

The real fun is the actual gameplay. You have a song playing in the background - the 19 different tracks include songs like YMCA, Material Girl, You're the Inspiration, La La, Sk8ter Boi, Let's Dance and much more. There's a good mix to please most players. Now you tap along with the song on circles on the screen.

Let's say you're playing Material Girl. They might show 4 circles in a row for you to tap along with the song. A larger circle will show around each circle, closing in on it and matching it right when you're supposed to tap it. Sometimes you slide along a line. Sometimes you double tap. The taps make drum beats and cymbals, so it really does sound like you're playing along with the song. The "closing circles" are really easy to see and understand and draw your eyes along.

In between verses, the top screen shows you manga-like scenes of the "story" you are following. So in one story, a weathergirl is trying to get rainy clouds to go away so she can have a picnic with her son. The scenes show her getting help from people in blowing away the clouds. Depending on how well you do in your playing, you get different endings - so you really have incentive to do your best and to replay.

There are two levels of difficulty, and on each level you get a rating of how well you did. You can easily go back and replay levels to get the highest rating in each one.

You might think that 19 songs aren't a lot, but really, you don't play a song just once. That would be like listening to a song just once on the radio or on your MP3 player! You listen to and play them repeatedly because it's fun to hear the song and fun to play along.

Highly recommended!

Here's another exclusive, unique, and innovative triple A title for the DS. Elite Beat Agents follows the exploits of three black suit wearing secret agents on a rescue mission. And the only way to find success with your mission: dance to the rhythm! Now I know what your thinking, that this game is something for acquired tastes and isn't for everyone. While this may be true in some respects, Elite Beat Agents is surprisingly easy to get into and pick up and play. The bizarre but wonderfully drawn cut scenes help reel you into the gameplay, as the soundtrack features a whole laundry list of older and more recent pop songs that are sure to grate on your nerves at some point or the other, but they all feel at home here as you use your stylus to keep the rhythm going. What's really surprising is that how addictive the gameplay becomes once you really get into it. This is easily one of the best games stylus-use wise for the DS, totally making excellent use of the touch screen as well. There's some unlockables as well to help keep your interest, however the only real downpoint of Elite Beat Agents is that at times the game can get too challenging for it's own good. There will be frustrating times aplenty, but the good obviously outweighs the bad here. Even if games like Dance, Dance Revolution (which is one of the most easily comparable games to this) aren't your thing, if you have a DS you should really give Elite Beat Agents a try, I think you'll be pleasently surprised.

Fans of dance/rhythm games rejoice, for you touch screen narcotic has arrived.

I originally got to play a demo of this at a local electronics store. It consisted of the first level which, obviously, was simple enough. Still, anyone familiar with games in this genre know "simple" lasts for about three songs. I promptly bought it first thing the day it was released.

The premise of the game, while seemingly cheesy to describe, is absolutely brilliant.
Ready? Here goes: You are a trio of elite special agents who go around and assist people by dancing.
Each story conflict is told through an anime comic style on the top screen, with the dancing happening on the touch screen. There are animations occurring on the top screen during gameplay, but you don't really have time to watch it seeing as you're too busy concentrating on getting your dance on.

To get through a given level, you'll need to tap, spin, or drag numbered circles to the rhythm of the song.
There are two difficulty levels to begin, being able to unlock an additional two.

With gaming classics like "Walkie Talkie Man," 80s flashbacks such as "Material Girl," and Pop tracks like "La La," Elite Beat Agents is filled with hours of gameplay.

As with most multiplayer DS games, I'm kinda disappointed you can't play the game over WiFi Connect.
Also, and this really shouldn't be filed under "con," but it would have been great if there were an option where you could play your unlocked songs while the DS was closed. Sort of a little added "Hey! You get a mix album!" would have rocked and I'd be forever grateful if Nintendo threw that in when they make a sequel (that's right, I've owned the game for less than a day and I'm clamoring for a sequel.)

Over the years I've played my share of rhythm games from Parappa the Rapper on the Playstation to arcade embarrassments like those Para Para games (which, while fun, were just painful to perform in public). So I entered Elite Beat Agents (EBA) with more than a little baggage and a confident swagger that it would not be anything I've never seen before. I was wrong. This game is immensely fun and addictive. I tested it at the bus stop across from the shop where I bought it and did not stop until I got home (almost walked into a couple of trees along the way home). The game starts nice and easy and quickly develops into a challenge without being mind bogglingly difficult.

The song choices are great and even though I had some misgivings about some (like Avril Lavigne's "Sk8er Boi") I was blown away about how RIGHT all of these song choices were. EBA just makes them fit.

The animation is quirky, fun, and laugh out loud entertaining. You cannot help but fall in love with EBA.

If you have not bought this game yet you should seriously consider placing an order for this gem right now. EBA is easily one of the DS's best games, period.

I am the sort of person who thrives on negativity. The prospect of failure inspires my personal greatest. The snark factor that accompanies truly bad products is often more entertaining to me than things that are really objectively good. I love to criticize and rarely sing praises... but that just goes to show how much I love Elite Beat Agents. This game has joined my rather limited collection of handheld games, and if the DS never produces another excellent game that's okay, because EBA is reason enough to own a DS.
People have lots of problems. The elite beat agents try to solve them with the power of pop music. As the music plays, you tap the touch screen with the stylus in sync with the music, and it causes the agents to dance. Miss a beat and they fall down. There is a meter at the top that is constantly decreasing. Missing beats causes it fall more rapidly, but hitting the beats gives it little boosts. Hitting all beats in a sequence will net you an Elite Beat that will give the meter a big boost. In the harder difficulty levels this is the only way to stay alive.
EBA is pretty short. It only has a grand total of 19 songs, and three of them you'll have to unlock by reaching a certain total of high score points. Luckily, the game has about four difficulty levels to entertain you with. That and it is just so much fun to play that you'll find yourself coming back again and again. I find it difficult to fault it for length because this is a hand-held system after all, and getting 19 full length vocal songs plus the 3D dance animations for the agents on one cartridge is a feat in and over itself.
Each song is accompanied by a little story that plays itself out in comic book style on the top screen. Your performance during the song effects how it turns out. Each section of the song is broken into 3 to 5 segments, and depending on how well or poorly you do effects if something good or bad happens to the characters. Most of the stories are pleasantly amusing, and more importantly, very fun to watch.
Elite Beat Agents is pretty much perfect, and its forced me to admit it. Hopefully, there will be a sequel one day.

I had no intentions of picking up this game until I was in Target and playing it on their display DS. Immediately I found myself liking the game, even though I didn't really understand how to play. Once I found out the extremely simple to learn controls, I played the first level.
One of the things that attracted me to the game was the art and animation. On the lower screen, you have three agents in 3-D, and on the top screen are characters in the same style as the Wario-Wares characters. You have to play songs and hit the notes in time to the music in order to make the people happy. Every once in a while, you'll get a break and watch a scene where good things (or bad things, depending on how you did) happen to your characters.
The game itself is quite difficult, much like playing DDR, except you use your hands. If it gets too easy, too, there are other difficulty modes, and I've got a feeling there's a lot more to unlock.
The only thing I wasn't so impressed with about this game was the music selection. I would have preferred them to pick songs like those in DDR instead of having pop hits like "Sk8er Boi." I know I probably won't ever play the level with "Sk8er Boi" again just because I simply hate that song.
So if you love crazy games that keep your toes moving in time to the beat, definitely pick this one up.

After stealing the game from my boyfriend whenever he would let me have it for a couple hours, he got it for me for Christmas. When he first got it for himself, I thought it was boring and I was going to hate it. But now I can't stop playing. It's nice because the songs aren't long so you don't have to commit too much time to playing each time you turn it on. I find it really challenging, as I have no rhythm. I've been telling people it's like DDR, except you're tapping on a screen rather than tapping your feet on the floor. To me, it's definitely worth picking up. The only negative...too much stuff that can be skipped. Luckily, they have a skip option!

I own the game that Elite Beat Agents is based off of (Osu! Tatake! Ouendan), so I was very excited for this game to be released here. Elite Beat Agents keeps the same addictive gameplay as the Japanese counterpart, but changes out the songs (while adding 4 more for a total of 19), telling new hilarious stories, and making general enhancements (such as reviewing your recent failed attempt, saving replays, skipping long musical intros).

One can only complain about the tracks themselves. A few of the songs don't seem to fit in with the game (slower tunes). Other songs you know so well that the cover just doesn't sound quite right.

But overall, here's a game that once you start playing, the time just flies by. Harder levels are frustrating, but by practicing, they're never impossible (and the feeling of accomplishment is great). I'm hoping that iNis makes this game a series. I also can't wait to see what they can do on the Wii.

First of all, this is an amazing game. Being a hobbyist drummer, I love rhythms and music and this game got me addicted. Initially, it seems not that difficult a game to play. You start with the easier level of difficulty, playing the easiest stages, and, one by one, stage by stage, you start practicing, and practicing, and beating the stages and the first difficulty level. When you get to the second difficulty level, things start to get a little more difficult, specially in the latest and more difficult stages, but, after trying it some times, you will manage to beat them all. Then comes the real challenge, the hard mode (called Sweatin'). That's when you feel the thrill! The most advanced stages are really demanding but, again, you will eventually beat them all and advance to the next and last level, the Hard Rock level (that I'd call insane! :-)). History repeats itself and will probably manage to beat again the 19 available stages. So, what is it that I want to tell you? What I want to tell you is that if you are happy with just beating each stage at each level, the game is not THAT difficult, BUT, if you plan on getting to 80 million points so to unlock all the unlockables, then you will need persistence and practicing a lot. THEN, after you get there, you will start looking at that score and you will start thinking why the heck there are NINE digits for the total score and not eitht, after all, 80,000,000 uses eight digits! The thing is that you can get past the 100,000,000 points! How to? THAT is when you will need more then ever too much patience and too much training, practicing, and going back to previously beaten stages to beat them again but now that you are used to it, without missing ANY hit and trying as hard as you can to not miss ANY 300-point hit. The way points are counted and accumulated in this game, if you miss ONE SINGLE hit, during a stage, your total points for that stage will EXTREMELY decrease; you need to start it over and try again until you miss NONE during the whole music. That is the only way to make points enough to get you to the 80 million mark. BUT, if you want the 100 million mark (which doesn't bring you any more bonuses at all, just the beauty of having an "1" in that ninth digit and make that ninth digit worth), you will need not only not to miss ANY hit but also score 300 points in MOST of them, which means PRECISION! (you will need no more than 5% of the hits with no-300 points, as an average!). And THAT is when you find that this game CAN BE A PAIN IN THE NECK because the exact timing for some 300-point hits is just awkward, out of sync with the most obvious references, sometimes in sync with some very obscure element of the music, so obscure that you can do it sometimes, but not always, and hitting 300-point through the whole music without any mistake becomes mostly impossible! I've seen some videos on youtube of some players that do score all 300-point hit in all songs but, for me, it is just impossible. I have managed to have all-300 point hits in just some musics in the easiest level of difficulty and in just one music in the next easiest difficulty level! Anyway, I got to 101 million points being the maximum around 104 million. I got happy with my acchievement, anyway. It reached my limit of patience and skills for the game.

So, I removed one star from this game because, when you reach the level where you want all 300-point hits, to get to 100+ million, it becomes, many times, frustrating and irritating because the "point of exact hit" of the markers are too much obscure, even for a hobbyist drummer that knows about rhythm very well like me.

I tried this game out at a store once and I bought it a few days later. I always liked DDR but I was never very good at it. The cool thing about Elite Beat Agents is that it's a music game like DDR but it has a very original style. The idea of tapping, sliding and spinning along with the music works really well, and the reason they use pop-rock songs is because pop-rock songs make for REALLY HARD levels. There are 2 difficulty levels available from the start and by beating the medium difficulty you unlock a third difficulty level that's really hard. I haven't beaten hard mode yet and even when I was on medium it would take me hours to beat the later missions. You just find yourself playing them over and over, slowly learning to memorize the levels, and you don't get tired of it at all. It's a really perfect timing game and you end up liking songs you never thought you would like before. Plus, the stories are great! Cheesy but very original, and you get different outcomes depending on how well you play.

I know it's hard to believe this, but this might be one of the best games on the Nintendo DS, period. You have to try it to see how fun it is. You won't find another game like it.