Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan

It's me, Osu! A rhythm video game created and published by iNiS and released solely in Japan is called Ouendan,[a] or Ouendan, and it was released in 2005 for the Nintendo DS. As in a manga comic, the cheerleaders in Ouendan support a variety of afflicted characters. Stages in the game require players to tap the DS touchscreen on precise areas that appear in time with various Japanese pop songs, racking up points for accurate timing and keeping the stage from ending prematurely. Elite Beat Agents, a Westernized spiritual sequel, and Moero!, a straight Japanese sequel, were all developed as a result of the popularity of this game in Western markets. The Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii is Ouendan 2!

iNiS Vice President Keiichi Yano spoke on the development process for Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan at the 2007 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. In the beginning, he was inspired to create the game by the Nintendo DS, and after successfully presenting it to Nintendo, he began working on it. Ryta Ippongi, the main character of Ouendan, first appeared in concept art wearing his gaku-ran uniform shirt unbuttoned and sporting a shorter hairstyle. They were drawn in a manga style, which made Nintendo like them, Yano said.

On top of that Yano showed us a prototype stage from the Ouendan game, which had an adorable dog in peril. Ultimately, the stage was removed from the final game since failing it meant the puppy would die.

Ouendan's soundtrack is made up of popular J-pop tunes. The majority of the songs are from the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the exception of "Linda Linda" by The Blue Hearts and "Neraiuchi" by Linda Yamamoto, which were released in 1987 and 1973 respectively. Except for 175R's "Melody" (which also plays over the game's end credits), all of the songs featured in the game are covers, not original recordings by the artists.