I originally played this game on the Wii's really awful demo service that nobody remembers. From the Nintendo Channel nobody remembers. It was bad but it allowed you to transfer demos to your DS and I, who only had exposure to this because of a commercial involving Beyonce playing Glee Club which, thinking back like, how did this tiny game even get her for their commercial in the first place. I mean, it worked.

Anyway that was basically the start of my journey towards finding out how much I loved rhythm games. And this was honestly such a fantastic gateway. It's crazy charming but I think honestly they cooked pretty hard simply by having you turn the DS sideways. As a kid that's just so different it's enough to make you wanna hear it out.

there's this primal longing deep inside me that can only be sated by playing a game where you have to hold the DS sideways. so shout out to this game for filling that void.

this game is fire as hell. the aesthetics are really nice throughout, and there's so much variety in what you're doing that it never feels like you're just rubbing your shit on the touch screen. i'm glad that this game just revels in its wackiness and never tries to explain itself past. you are playing ping pong, don't mess it up! i'm pretty happy with the control scheme too - sure, the button controls of other games are more natural but flicking the touch screen is way more fun.

sure, there's like one or two games that felt like they just didn't work (i had more trouble with the lizards than moai doo wop 2 tbh), and the grading system is really inconsistent sometimes. like i'll fuck up all of remix 10 and somehow not fail, yet mistiming one karate man pot means a just OK. but even though the rest definitely aren't all winners, it's crazy just how many good ones there are - even though a good chunk of the game is just remixes, i'm still constantly like. hell yeah give me more.

i think if i wanted to go for all perfects it would make me want to die, so shout out to you folks out there willing to do that shit. i'll probably come back to this one at some point because the amount of OKs i got make me feel really insecure, but i'd probably still have just as much fun with it. as long as i'm not doing the lizard one again

Not my first play of this game, First play on original hardware more than a decade ago, current play was with the "touchless" romhack.

This game is great, if played on real hardware, in the manner intended. it's packed full of charm and great music. the touch screen controls are great and intuitive, but way too difficult to perform with a mouse on an emulator.

If you're going to play it "touchless" there's still some merit here, though some games are much more difficult, mostly it feels more disconnected.

Highly recommended either way. Best as the second one you play I think.

Repeating my We Love Katamari review here, because this likewise combines rewardingly tricky gameplay with charming presentation & stellar music. Again, a simple, cartoonish art style means the game still looks great 15 years later, and the characters & stages instantly jump out at you with loud, colourful personalities. There's a decent difficulty curve, and although a lot of the minigames are sequels, they often improve on earlier levels in fun & interesting ways. To nitpick, I had quibbles with extremely strict timing or my touch screen's struggle to tell one kind of tap from another - the game's still reasonable enough to get through, with the option to skip a level if you're struggling after a few goes, but it's annoying if, like me, you're going for 100% on the Superb & Perfect grades. Speaking of, I'd prefer the ability to get a Perfect anytime rather than having a limited window to do so, but that's a smaller bugbear given the added challenge that creates. In any case, between the amazingly catchy music & endearing aesthetic, this is still a 5-star game for me in terms of the pure uplifting joy it brings me.

Fave minigames: Glee Club; Blue Birds; Crop Stomp; Munchy Monk; Love Lab; Frog Hop; Space Soccer; Karate Man; Glass Tappers (and this is a trimmed down list, this game seriously has so many bangers)