Review: Elite Beat Agents

Elite Beat Agents is a very interesting game. It's a rhythm game in which you tap little circles that appear on the bottom screen of the DS in time with music. It sounds very simple - and to an extent, it really is a very simple game. The gameplay itself could almost be a minigame in another game. But Elite Beat Agents has several different things going for it that make it into a full-fledged - and very fun - game.

1. Humor. While you're busy tapping along with the song, the agents are dancing in the background of the bottom screen, and funny stuff is happening on the top screen depending on how well you're doing. Each level has its own plot - someone (or some animal) needs help, and the agents appear and inspire them with song and dance. The situations, what happens during the level, and what happens at the end of the level all definitely serve to inspire you to beat the level, just to see what hilarious thing happens next.

2. Difficulty. The difficulty curve in this game is very good. Levels range from quite easy to nigh-impossible, and there are rewards for high scores (which often require nigh-perfection) on top of that. The curve itself, like I said, is also very good - the levels start easy and ramp up, and as you learn the mechanics of the game and just generally get more skilled, you become able to handle the harder levels that you get access too. Moreover, the rewards for doing well are good enough to keep you coming back - two harder difficulty levels, 3 hidden levels, and assorted useless but cool features, such as viewing brief cinema scenes again or watching the credits.

3. The Songs. The songs themselves are usually pretty good, and they help to keep you interested. They are, above all, catchy (expect to have them stuck in your head for days to come, especially when you have to spend a fair bit of time to beat them on higher difficulties), and though I personally disagree with some of the choices (Skater Boy...), I think that they certainly serve their purpose, and none of them are especially painful to listen to. Plus, if you already know a song going in, you can expect to do a lot better on the song than you would otherwise - I personally always found Material Girl to be easier than other songs of supposedly equal difficulty, for instance. Seeing a song you know show up is a always a pleasant surprise, though be careful - you may think you know a song, only to realize you only know the chorus - this happened to me on ABC, Canned Heat, and others.

4. General Addictive qualities. The game just keeps you coming back for more - if you keep playing over and over, you can beat basically any level, and like I said above, the songs are catchy, the humor is fantastic, and when you finally do beat a level, the sense of accomplishment is great. So basically it comes back, once again, to pacing.


Things I can learn from Elite Beat Agents:

If you infuse the game with enough other positive qualities (music, humor), the basic gameplay of a game can be quite simple and the game itself will still be great.

A good difficulty curve is key in all games, but especially rhythm games, since the only major change in gameplay in rhythm games tends to be the difficulty.