Ontamarama

Offering a new twist on traditional rhythm games, the anime-flavored Ontamarama has you keeping the beat with one hand and quickly ensnaring colorful. Castleville legends app download windows 7.

by Aaron Kaluszka - October 30, 2007, 12:00 am PDT
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Ever wish you could play two games at the same time?

Ontamarama continues the unexplainable penchant for O*ama-named games. The oddly-named rhythm game features anime-style characters and a distinctively modern Japanese soundtrack. Its gameplay sets it apart from other rhythm games, though probably for a good reason. Can you pat your head while rubbing your stomach? You’ll need more multitasking ability than that to play this game successfully.

The rhythm portion of the game works much like Dance Dance Revolution. Directional indicators scroll from the right, and their corresponding directions must be pressed when it enters a circle on the left. Sustained notes must be triggered and released at the appropriate times. The game accommodates both right and left handed players here, allowing use of the D-pad or face buttons. The big twist that makes Ontamarama unique is that the directional indicators must be charged up with Puyo blob-like creatures called ontama before they become active. The ontama appear on the touch screen and must be touched at any time before their corresponding directions scroll past. The result is more like playing two games simultaneously, a standard rhythm game and a DS touch screen game.

Hook champions lol. In normal mode, this is completely manageable and a pretty fun challenge. However, there is a huge difficulty jump in hard mode, and the game just ends up seeming evil. While neither the directions that must be pressed nor the ontama that must be cleared ever become overwhelming by themselves, managing to clear all of the ontama in time for the incoming notes becomes a formidable task. As if the gameplay wasn't frantic enough in Hard mode, songs sometimes require players to hit two directions at once besides dealing with all the ontama. This means that players have to use both thumbs while also juggling the stylus. If you’re looking for a DS acrobatics challenge, you’ve found it. Harder levels will literally require you to split your attention and gaze between the note scroller and the ontama board. Good peripheral vision and quick planning skills are an absolute must.

There are several variations of ontama that add challenge. Giant ontama must be touched twice before they disappear. Groups of same-colored ontama may be cleared by drawing a circle around them. Unfortunately, the drawing recognition is a little flaky, which can easily result in death. Finally, there are white and black ontama. White ontama increase the player’s performance gauge while black ones do the opposite. Black ones are particularly nefarious as they move around and cover the other colored ontama. As a last resort when the number of ontama on-screen becomes unmanageable, players can blow into the microphone to generate a whirlwind that clears all of the creatures away, thus filling up the oncoming notes. This can be done up to three times per round (or up to five times, if upgrades are purchased).

Ontamarama is full of characters named after musical terms. Players can start the story mode as either a boy named Beat or a girl named Rest. In the story, players come upon an ontama that is being pursued by a variety of characters. Wanting to protect the ontama and figure out why it is being pursued, the protagonist must defeat these characters through ontama battles. Story mode features a dozen music tracks, which vary from jazz to pop to death metal. The majority of the songs are upbeat, memorable, and fun to get into; however, they suffer somewhat from audio compression. Additionally, the sounds generated by pressing directions changes throughout the song to match the given active instrument. This can be confusing, especially when a single button press can generate several notes. Timing sometimes feels slightly off as well.

After the story mode is cleared, several other modes become available. Challenge mode groups sets of four songs together that must be cleared in sequence, while free play mode lets players try for their best scores on each individual song. Points are awarded for completing songs, which may be exchanged at the shop for in-game upgrades such as longer stylus drawing capability and extra breath usage. Automatic clearing of songs as well as completely new songs can also be purchased in the store.

Though the gameplay often resides on the frustrating side of the fence, the game features a relatively short but memorable soundtrack and plenty of colorful characters. Ontamarama is certainly no Elite Beat Agents, but its style of gameplay is definitely unique. Perhaps it should have been called Multitasking Training in Japan in order to gain better sales.

Score

Graphics

The anime-style graphics are colorful and well-drawn. The game is entirely in 2-D and there are some interesting water-like effects on the touch screen. The matches are flashy, though players are likely to miss the animation on the top screen due to their concentration on the bottom.

Sound

The compositions cover a variety of musical genres, and though there are a few duds, nearly all of them have a catchy beat that make them fun to play. Unfortunately, the samples seem rather low quality, which is particularly noticeable in songs with voice.

Control

There are a few issues here. First, the timings don’t always seem to match the songs, though this may be partially due to some odd music style choices. The biggest problem with control is in drawing circles to surround the ontama. This doesn’t always work consistently, causing frantic moments when players have to go back and try again in the slim slice of time remaining. The microphone control works well in those overwhelming times of stress.

Gameplay

Here’s a game that sounds interesting in concept, but turns out to be only mediocre in actual play. Since the touch portion of the game doesn’t use rhythm of the music, it acts as a distraction to the rhythm portion of game. Of course, you can’t actually play the rhythm portion successfully without clearing the ontama.

Lastability

The game includes a dozen standard stages as well as unlockable tracks. While normal story mode won’t take very long at all to go through, the songs can be played individually to gain higher ranks. Each play rewards points that can be used in the store to unlock extra abilities and songs.

Final

Sound Factory attempted a new way to add challenge to a standard rhythm game. While the challenge is certainly there, the end result is closer to attempting to play two games simultaneously, one rhythmic and one arrhythmic, a combination that often ends up more frantic than fun.

Summary

Pros

• A unique type of challenge
• Colorful graphics
• Mostly good music

Cons

• Inconsistent drawing recognition
• Large difference between difficulty settings
• Not the best music correspondence
• Touch portion of the game lacks a rhythm component

Talkback

Game Profile

• Reviews (1)
• Previews (1)

• Screens (3)
• Artwork (13)
• Box Art (1)

Worldwide Releases

Ontamarama (おんたま♪おんぷ島へん Ontama Onputouhen) is a rhythm game published by Atlus for the Nintendo DS. It was released in Japan in July 2007, and in North America on November 6, 2007. The game uses both of the DS's screens, touch functionality, and the microphone during game play.^[1] The story revolves around colorful spirits called Ontama, who live on a tropical island and can create music. The player must quickly capture Ontama with the stylus while keeping up with the beat.

Plot[edit]

Taking place on a tropical island, the focus of the story are the Ontama spirits. Someone steals the Ontama by hypnotizing the island's people. Beat and Rest, the main characters, are both 'Ontamaestros' and they attempt to free the Ontama by battling the islanders in musical fights.

Storyline[edit]

Ontama are colorful musical spirits that exist in the world of Ontamarama, a peaceful world of beauty and natural rhythm. Ontama are extremely precious to the people there because their playful nature and soothing music bring happiness to everyone; Ontamaestros devote their lives to study the Ontama and learn how to orchestrate them to make music.

A young boy and girl, Beat and Rest live on a small tropical island in this world. As childhood friends as well as friendly rivals who aspire to become famous Ontamaestros, they compete to see who will be the one to achieve their dream first. One day, on their way back home from the OntaConservatory, where they study to become Ontamaestros, Beat and Rest find a weakened Otama in the middle of the road. This surprises them because Otama rarely appear in these places. It turns out that Blast, a demon seeking power, is capturing all of the Otamas. The player picks to play as either Beat or Rest, and must play against various enemy ontamaestros who use captured Otamas.^[2]

Characters[edit]

Beat: A high spirited boy who is studying to become an Ontamaestro. He is good at sports and has the ability to communicate with Ontamas.

Rest: A smart girl who thinks before she acts instead of relying on her instincts like Beat does. She is studying to become an Ontamaestro.

Coda: The teacher at the OntaConservatory. She has a friendly face but strict personality. She teaches the player how to conduct music with Ontama in tutorial mode.

Alto: A fairy who, while taking a nap with the Ontamas, was woken up by a terrible noise. She becomes hypnotized by a robot and is forced to capture Ontamas.

Aria: A maid in the village inn who follows a strange woman outside the window at night. It turns out the woman is playing a mysterious melody to capture Ontamas. When the woman discovers that Aria had followed her, she placed a Track Disk into Aria's necklace, causing her to fall unconscious.

Gig and Club: Club and his pet alligator, Gig, grew up together. Although Gig was too wild to be a house pet, Club found a way to calm Gig down using the music of Ontamas. The two of them are in search of an Ontama that will play music by itself without having to be conducted.

Elegy: An infernal robot created by Blast to collect the Ontamas. Elegy cannot speak but is able to fly.

Poco: A boy who lives in the jungle. While investigating the cause of strange phenomena in the jungle, Poco meets a boy who tells Poco that the strangeness is caused by the Ontama. The boy hands a track disk to Poco, tricking him into capturing Ontamas in order to save the jungle.

Dia and Tonic: A boy who was adopted by a wealthy family and led an extravagant, but boring, life. While strolling through the forest hoping to find some excitement, he finds Blast, who convinces Tonic to work with him.

Suite: A fangirl of Blast from the demonic realm. She decides to follow and help Blast when she accidentally sees him go into the human world.

Rubato: A butler who has served and raised many princes in the demonic realm. He follows Blast in order to keep an eye on him.

Blast: A prince of demons who yearns for greater power because he is insecure about his short stature and weaknesses. He escaped to the human world in order to gather Ontama to strengthen his powers.^[2]

Gameplay[edit]

Ontamarama's gameplay is a combination of games like Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) and Elite Beat Agents.^[3] The player must hit a D-pad direction as it passes through a circle, similar to DDR, but with the stylus. Each arrow has a color and will only register if enough colored energy is stored. To store energy, the player must touch colored Ontama that move across the touch screen. Black Ontamas may appear and block the colored ones, and some Ontama need to be touched twice.^[3] Blowing into the microphone allows the player to clear the screen of all Ontama, but this can only be used a limited number of times.

The player should focus on clearing all the Ontamas on the screen. Ontama can be freed by tapping them with the stylus or drawing a circle around a group of Ontama of the same color. The player can also hold or swing Otama to clear them. Points are rewarded when Ontama are freed. However, Black Ontamas penalize the player for clearing them. Chains and bonus multipliers increase the score. For example, three Ontama cleared in a row gives the player a 3× multiplier. Once an Otama is freed, it fills its corresponding colored note, which corresponds to an arrow on the control pad that must be pressed at the time when it reaches the circle at the end. Hold notes require the player to press the button down at the start of the note and release it at the end of the note. Depending on the player's timing, a score (Good/Great/Master) is added to the overall performance score.

There is a performance gauge that indicates how well the player is doing. The player will have to replay the song if performance falls to zero.^[4]

In addition to gameplay, Ontama Points can be used to buy items from the shop.

Ontama[edit]

Different colored Otamas have different abilities.

White: Do not correspond to any notes, but give a boost to the performance gauge.

Black: Do not correspond to any notes and lower the performance gauge.

Red, Blue, Green, Yellow: Normal Ontama that correspond to notes.

Modes[edit]

Tutorial mode is for beginners to learn the basic gameplay.Story mode is the only mode available at the start; it goes through 12 stages. There are three levels of difficulty.Free mode is unlocked following the first time Story mode is beaten. It gives the player access to play any of the songs from Story mode, including bonus tracks. There are multiple modes to unlock, such as Challenge mode and Random mode.

Song List[edit]

The song, 'Let's Go Onmyoji!' is a recognizable song for fans of J-Pop. The other songs were created solely for the game.^[5]

Development[edit]

According to Atlus USA, Ontamarama was a worthy project for them to take on because 'it stood out as a lively and fun game that is easy to learn, yet challenging to master.'

The North American version of the game has almost all the same songs as the Japanese release. However, a few songs had to be dropped due to licensing issues.^[5]

Reception[edit]

Ontamarama received 'average' reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.^[1]IGN felt that the gameplay was too complicated, but that the game had plenty of charm.^[3] Aaron Kaluszka, a reviewer from Nintendo World Report, said, 'Ontamarama is certainly no Elite Beat Agents, but its style of gameplay is definitely unique.'^[10] In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of one seven, one four, and two sixes, for a total of 23 out of 40.^[7]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abc'Ontamarama for DS Reviews'. Metacritic. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
2. ^ ^ab'Official Ontamarama Website'. Atlus USA. 2007. Retrieved February 4, 2013.
3. ^ ^abcdPereira, Michael (November 20, 2007). 'Ontamarama Review'. IGN. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
4. ^Wang, Bo (Anjelous) (November 20, 2007). 'Ontamarama FAQ for DS by Anjelous'. GameFAQs. Retrieved February 4, 2013.
5. ^ ^abSpencer (October 8, 2007). 'On-talking-marama! Atlus discusses Ontamarama'. Siliconera. Retrieved February 4, 2013.
6. ^Alexander, Leigh (December 7, 2007). 'Destructoid review: Ontamarama'. Destructoid. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
7. ^ ^abrawmeatcowboy (May 29, 2007). 'Famitsu review scores'. GoNintendo. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
8. ^VanOrd, Kevin (December 6, 2007). 'Ontamarama Review'. GameSpot. Retrieved October 15, 2016.
9. ^'Ontamarama'. Nintendo Power. 223: 86. December 25, 2007.
10. ^ ^abKaluszka, Aaron (November 30, 2007). 'Ontamarama'. Nintendo World Report. Retrieved October 15, 2016.

External links[edit]

• Ontamarama at MobyGames