Elite Beat Agents

The fundamental aspects of gameplay are unchanged from Ouendan to Agents. The stages of Agents are presented in a comic book fashion. After the introduction to a character and their problem, the agents are deployed and the action begins. The play mechanics involve performing one of three actions with the stylus in various combinations.

Hit Markers: Operated by tapping numbered circles.

The main characters of Elite Beat Agents are well-trained spy members of a fictional government agency responsible for helping those in need. When a person facing a crisis reaches their breaking point and cries out for help, Commander Kahn dispatches the agents to help them succeed. The agents never assist the person directly, but encourage the person through their dancing, motivating the people they assist to overcome various obstacles. The person's degree of success depends on the accuracy of the Agents' dance moves, as demonstrated by multiple endings for each story.

Like Ouendan, the tone of the stories told in Agents is primarily humorous. The individual stories are not linked by an overarching narrative; though some characters take part in multiple stories, there are unique protagonists for each song. Although the first few stage scenarios are fairly mundane, such as helping a babysitter control a trio of rowdy children while trying to ask a potential boyfriend to go steady, they progressively become more fantastic, with higher stakes. For example, one of the last stages is about a washed-up professional baseball player who rescues one of his young fans from, and subsequently battles with using baseball equipment and techniques, a fire-breathing golem in a theme park.

Due to the surprisingly high import rate of Osu! Tatakae! com that the selling the game at retail in Western markets would have been unfeasible due to the game's innate reliance on Japanese popular music and cultural references. It was due to this fact that when Yano and iNiS began work on the North American version, the gakuran-wearing cheerleaders of Ouendan were removed and work began on a replacement.

The first concepts were of a trio of dancers styled after the Village People called the Disco Rangers; this was changed to a trio of government agents, using distinctly Western references such as the Ghostbusters, Blues Brothers, Men in Black and Austin Powers series for inspiration. They were initially named the Super Sonic Agents, but the name was scrapped due to possible confusion with Super Sonic from the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series, although a vestige of this former name ended up in an E3 trailer for the game. In addition, the concept of the Elite Beat Divas (the Agents equivalent to the Ouendan Cheergirls for expert difficulty) and Commander Kahn directing the Agents came from Charlie's Angels, while the phrase "Agents are go!" was derived from Thunderbirds and the NASA launch sequence.

Upon release, Elite Beat Agents was critically acclaimed, receiving an average score of 87.7% on GameRankings. By November 2006, Agents sold 120,000 copies. Then-president of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aimé has stated that while sales were strong, he was disappointed that they were not better, having expected 300,000 copies sold in light of critical acclaim. Only 179,000 copies of the game have been sold in North America by January 2009.

Elite Beat Agents won several awards in 2006. It won the Nintendo DS game of the year award from both IGN and from Nintendo Power. IGN gave it several other DS-specific awards, including Best Music Game, Best Artistic Design, Best Story, Most Innovative Design, and Best Licensed Soundtrack. They also awarded its developer, iNiS, with best developer for the DS for its development of Elite Beat Agents.