GDC 2007: New Characters for Ouendan 2

March 8th, 2007, 02:46 Posted By: wraggster

At the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today, VP of Development at iNiS Corporation Keiichi Yano announced at his session entitled "From 'Ouendan!' To 'HELP!'": Inside the Elite Beat Agents" that the upcoming Ouendan sequel will feature a new rival group of Ouendan cheerleaders that players will both encounter and play.

Keiichi Yano mentioned that Nintendo will reveal more details on the sequel, later this week, but he gave us a glimpse of the new game and characters on the overhead projector. He also revealed that the original cast of Ouendan characters will return with a slight, ever so subtle edgier art style.

The sequel will be called Moeru! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashi: Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2, which, according to Keiichi Yano, loosely translates to "Burn hot rhythm soul!"

In his panel at GDC, Yano revealed the behind the scenes effort in not only bringing the Nintendo DS rhythm game Osu! Takakae! Ouendan! to life in Japan, but what lengths the team went to bringing the design to the US with different characters. He credited inspirations such as Ghostbusters, Men in Black, and The Blues Brothers for the creation of the Elite Beat Agents team, as well as Austin Powers and Charlie's Angels for their drive to motivate through music.

One tidbit of note was the revelation that the Elite Beat Agents were originally inspired by The Village People, and that the team was originally set to be called the Disco Rangers.

No details were revealed on a possible sequel to Elite Beat Agents, only hopeful words that the series may continue in some capacity...either as a continuation on the Nintendo DS or on a different game platform. Yano did seem very excited for the Wii platform in particular, and mentioned that Inis is in talks with Nintendo about developing on the system.

via ign

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