Elite Beat Agents - Development

Development

Due to the surprisingly high import rate of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Nintendo and iNiS began discussing the possibility of officially exporting the game to other regions. However, as Keiichi Yano, vice president of iNiS and director of the game explained in an interview with 1UP.com, 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; 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. In addition, the concept of the Elite Beat Divas 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. During development, 1UP.com listed Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca" as one of the game tracks, but the song was not included in the final game release.