Elite Beat Agents



""ARE YOU READY? THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!!""

Elite Beat Agents (an Americanized sequel to the Japanese game Osu Tatakae Ouendan) is a Rhythm Game for the Nintendo DS that makes extensive and exclusive use of the stylus. It stars the EBA, Men In Black who solve the world's problems through music and dance, as opposed to the uniquely-Japanese male cheerleaders from its Japanese progenitor.

Known primarily for its weird Japanese charm and unique control scheme, Ouendan became a hit among import gamers, prompting Nintendo and its developer to bring the game to North America under its alternate name, retaining most of the visual charm of the original, but (understandably) replacing the J-Pop music with various popular American songs to create a uniquely "American" atmosphere. Elite Beat Agents was also treated as a genuine sequel to Ouendan and featured many gameplay upgrades over its Japanese predecessor and even a few cameos from Ouendan characters as an Easter Egg for the import fanbase.

The game sold reasonably well, though despite Ouendan receiving a Japanese sequel, a sequel to Elite Beat Agents hasn't been forthcoming. Many of the mechanics upgrades from Elite Beat Agents found their way into Ouendan 2 anyway, and a special promotion in Japan allowed players to download a special "EBA Mode" that replaced the Japanese Ouendan with the Elite Beat Agents.

These games provide examples of:

 * Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male:
 * Inverted, if you fail "La La", the viruses (males) stomp, punch, prick with a fork and, in general, beat the crap out of the (female) white blood cell. It´s totally hilarious to watch.
 * Played straight with Angelina in a classic Tsundere manner.
 * Abusive Parents: The mother from ABC. She entrusts her 1-year-old baby with $10,000 china, then leaves it alone with a cat. So, she's either a total idiot, or is aware the cat is smarter than it looks. Either way, though...
 * Acme Products: The ABCD company makes many sports goods, ranging from footballs to track outfits.
 * Air Guitar: The agents in "Art and Beauty! Love and Happiness!?"
 * All Men Are Perverts: Cap White aims to defeat Mr. Virus. Mr. Virus intends to rip off her clothes.
 * Amplified Animal Aptitude: The animals in "Cry Wolf! Meteorology and Parenting!!"
 * Amusement Park: The agents have their own amusement park, for some reason. That, or they got away with painting stars on a roller coaster car and teacup. Could go either way, really.
 * Anime Hair: J. His hairstyle was proved possible by singer Eleanor Jackson of La Roux.
 * Autobots Rock Out: Two songs in the final level.
 * Badass Beard: Agent Chieftain.
 * Badass Driver: The taxi driver from the Sk8tr Boi stage, the guy drove up the side of a building for crying out loud.
 * Badly-Battered Babysitter:
 * One of the bonus levels, where a cat tries to save a baby from a dangerous construction site.
 * Could also describe Jane from the first level, depending on how poorly you perform.
 * Bare Your Midriff: The Elite Beat Divas. As well as the Carrington sisters in mission 10.
 * The Beast Master: The Carrington Sisters
 * Battle Aura: The final level, which combines it with a Combined Energy Attack.
 * Big Rock Ending: "Highway Star" has one originally, while "Jumpin' Jack Flash" is given one.
 * Blank White Eyes: Everyone, in every level. At least four times per level, even. Sometimes more. (The "HEEEAAALLLP!" before each stage, as well as during each segment of each song if you're doing well.) Except for You're the Inspiration, where such cartoonishness would have utterly destroyed the mood.
 * Bowdlerise: Parodied in the "Survivor" level, where it takes zombie lore and makes it fit into an E-10 rated game. The zombies don't bite, they kiss, and the protagonist uses peanuts as ammo! Considering the tone of the game, it fits.
 * Brainless Beauty: The Carrington sisters.
 * Butt Monkey: Almost everyone can qualify if you fail at their songs, but Colonel Bob gets this treatment no matter what you do. (Arguably, though, he brings it on himself.)
 * Call on Me
 * Calling Your Attacks: Hulk named his pitches and plate stealing maneuvers..
 * Catch Phrase: Several, including Leo's "Si!" and Hulk's "You bet, kid!"
 * AGENTS ARE GO!!
 * ARE YOU READY? THREE, TWO, ONE, GO!
 * VULCAAANNOOOOOOO!!!!!
 * Hey guys! * boing* HI GUYZ!
 * "Next scene, Chris!"
 * At this rate, we're DOOMED!
 * Circle of Friendship: The game's ending.
 * Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The last level,.
 * Clothing Damage: Happens to Cap White (the Anthropomorphic Personification of a white blood cell) if you fail a section on the "La La" stage, and to the ninja during "Canned Heat" for a similar failure. Sexy for the former, amusing and vaguely gross for the latter.
 * Cool Car: The agents have one. They also have a cool dune buggy. And a sub.And a chopper.And a blimp.And a merry-go-round teacup.
 * Cool Shades: Comes standard with the uniform. Commander Khan has a pair of shades as well.
 * Couch Gag: The way Kahn sends the agents out, and how the agents enter the situations.
 * Crowd Chant: "E! B! A!" in the last level.

"Carringtons: (holding an apple, pear and banana bunch) How do you, like, eat this?"
 * Culture Police: The Rhombulan aliens, who hate music (which is also their Achilles' Heel).
 * Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
 * The version of "Rock This Town" used in the game is a cover of the swing version by Brian Setzer, not the rock version done when he was with the Stray Cats. The changed tempo can wreck your pattern if you're more familiar with the rock version.
 * More commonly, (nearly every stage, in fact) during the chorus of most songs the pattern repeats. If you aren't careful (or fail the same stage often enough to get the first pattern ingrained) when you reach the finale of the song and the pattern changes, this will cause you to miss notes.
 * Near the end of "Material Girl", hearing the bridge that leads to the ending fadeout may cause players to relax. Not a good idea, as it is shortened to two measures and the chorus is promptly repeated again.
 * Dancing Is Serious Business: In some levels, people can die if the agents do not dance well.
 * Defeat by Modesty: Mr. Virus to Cap White.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything:
 * Try closing your DS during the tutorial.
 * In a strange story example, you can see a small cameo by what looks like Tsuyoshi Hanada from the first Ouendan game in the New-York themed "Sk8er Boi" level. The dev team then decided to make an entire scenario in the sequel that explained how he could have gotten there. It would be The Producer Thinks of Everything if 1. it wasn't a game, and 2. the developers were even expecting a sequel to Ouendan at all.
 * Digging to China: During the last pass/fail cutscene in "Let's Dance." If you fail, you get arrested by Dan and Joe.
 * The Ditz: Missy fits this criteria, though she's a class A genius compared to the Carrington sisters.
 * Distaff Counterpart: The Divas
 * Distracted by the Sexy: The Carringtons are experts at creating this reaction.
 * Do Well, But Not Perfect: Once a bonus mission has been unlocked it becomes mandatory for all future playthroughs. Do you really want to face Survivor on Hard Rock mode? Additionally, if you unlock Hard Rock mode, but not the highest rank (Lovin' Machine), you can play as Mr. X instead of Commander Kahn. Who wouldn't want want to play as a seemingly drunken old man in a cat mask?
 * Downer Ending: If you mess up on any level, your character will either die, be badly injured or flat out give up on everything. Even completing the level, but getting an X on all the cutscenes isn't likely going to end well.
 * Drives Like Crazy: Jack, but only when he starts his taxi meter. Once he's at his destination, he reverts back to his meek self.
 * Eagle Land: A mixed flavor, complete with crazy stereotypes. While Colonel Bob, his wife and the Carringtons aren't exactly the greatest people around, everyone else seems to be reasonably nice and hard-working. And even they aren't that bad.
 * Early-Bird Cameo: Happens all through the game: Amanda and Tex from Believe make a cameo in Sk8er Boi; Max the cat from ABC appears in Rock This Town (as well as the opening cutscene for Without a Fight); baby Alden and his mom, also from ABC, appear in the second part of Highway Star, and the Carrington sisters give Sam a ride in the first part; and finally, Colonel Bob from Let's Dance shows up in the intro for the Carrington's song, Material Girl. Phew! Also, unless you've been purposely replaying levels to rack your score up just for this purpose, the first time you see any of the characters from the bonus levels will likely be in the group shots at the end.
 * Eiffel Tower Effect: During the last level, people from around the world dance around various famous landmarks.
 * Emotionless Girl: Lisa, to the point where Leo's entire mission is to get her to smile for a picture. Her response to an oncoming herd of bulls? "BULLS."
 * Epic Hail: "HEEEAAALP!"
 * Everything's Better with Sparkles: Especially at the end of missions.
 * Everything's Deader with Zombies: A bonus level.
 * Excited Episode Title: There's a pattern. The titles tend to be "Shorter Phrase! Longer Phrase!!"
 * Expo Label: The signs that Sam follows home, which may not be literal. There are also humorous signs in "Ahoy Mates! Sunken Delights and Adventure!!" labeled "Mysterous rock", "Enchanted rays", "Beautiful cave", and "Treasure ship".
 * Eyepatch of Power: Captain Brooke has one.
 * Eye Pop: A few times, but most noticeably Max when the baby wanders into danger, and Jake when he sees zombies behind him (since it's only time his eyes are visible).
 * Faceless Goons: The guards in "Canned Heat", whose eyes are all hidden by the shadows of their caps.
 * Fake Difficulty: Unlike other difficulty levels, which, among other differences, scale the difficulty by varying how complicated and intricate the note layouts are, Hard Rock difficulty simply takes the note layout of Sweatin' and flips them over into a "mirrored" version of the Sweatin' layouts, on top of smaller notes (requiring more precision to hit) and a much smaller window of time to hit them.
 * Fan Service:
 * Could there be any other reason the Divas' butts feature so prominently in their dancing? Then there's their Stripperific outfits.
 * The Carrington Sisters in the Material Girl scenario display Gainaxing to woo over the wildlife.
 * Cap White, who milks the Hospital Hottie trope for all it's worth.
 * Fan Disservice: The 60-something Commander Kahn buttdancing. Arguably.
 * Fantastic Voyage Plot: "La La"
 * Fat Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit: Colonel Bob.
 * Follow the Leader: The easy to pick up interface made it a prime target of this from licensed games on the DS, like Looney Tunes Cartoon Conductor, some of the High School Musical games, and a new Michael Jackson game. It was even the basis for the magic system in Sonic Chronicles.
 * Funny Afro: Agent Derek. Morris also has an afro, but it's less noticeable because of his fedora.
 * Funny Background Event: If the markers are the foreground, the agents' dancing in some levels would count.
 * Gainaxing: The Carrington sisters. And the Elite Beat Divas during certain dances.
 * The Gambler: The Full House Bandits in "Rock This Town" use a playing card motif, being Captain Ersatzes of the Royal Flush Gang.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: See the previous entry. Also some of the songs used, if you pay attention to the lyrics. Also if you fail the first part of "La La", Cap White gets the top part of her dress ripped off!
 * Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Lucy's stuffed bear, Freddie.
 * Giving Someone the Pointer Finger: Commander Khan before each stage, with the exception of "You're The Inspiration", "Without a Fight", and "Jumpin' Jack Flash". The agents and divas give the viewer the pointer finger when they ask, "Are you ready?". Cap White first challenges Mr. Virus this way.
 * Gold Digger: Colonel Bob's wife turns this Up to Eleven.
 * Goofy Print Underwear: The pirate skeleton that Captain Brooke fights has a pair of heart boxers and a wife beater.
 * Groin Attack: Hulk Bryman gives the golem one by returning a boulder Tennis Boss style.
 * Heads I Win, Tails You Lose:
 * Hemisphere Bias: The results screen of the final level is a globe centered on North America. In the Japanese games, it's on Asia and Japan.
 * Henohenomoheji: Can briefly be seen at the beginning of "I Was Born To Love You."
 * Historical Domain Character: Leonardo Da Vinci is some Bishonen lady killer, but when he finds Lisa del Giocondo, the woman of his dreams, the agents help him woo her, and when she smiles, he models her for the Mona Lisa. Not historically accurate (Lisa was married already), but that's clearly not the point.
 * Hit Flash: Sure, they could have shown the Agents' horse-drawn carriage flying through the air dramatically... but why do that when they can enter with speed lines and the written sound effect "Clappity-SWOOSH!"?
 * Hot Pursuit: Jack the cab driver partakes in a few while driving a woman in labor to the hospital.
 * Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: "Breezin'", "Cruisin'", "Sweatin'", and "Hard Rock!". Clearing every song on the last one and reaching the highest point rank allows you to use Commander Kahn in Versus Mode.
 * I Know Madden Kombat: Hulk, who beats up a fire golem with baseball skills (and cheers from the Agents, of course)
 * Indy Escape: Part of Chris Silverscreen's blockbuster movie involves the hero outrunning a giant boulder in a tunnel.
 * Interspecies Friendship: The Carrington sisters and the animals on the island, thanks to their charm.
 * Intertwined Fingers: The ending picture of the first stage, and a (one would hope) non-romantic use by the Carringtons in their intro.
 * Informed Ability: The profiles you see before you enter a level have a small tidbit of information about the target. These have no impact on the plot, though some are related to the mission.
 * It's a Wonderful Failure: You ran out of life? Now you get to watch the person you're helping be reduced to a sobbing wreck if they aren't dead. Failed to keep the minimum life for the good cutscenes? You get to watch failure and keep playing and if you fail them all you get to see just how much you screwed up.
 * Isn't It Ironic?:
 * A retired baseball player saves an amusement park from a giant golem and earns the adoration of one of his biggest fans, leading to a successful comeback. Set to an upbeat cover of "The Anthem", a song about how the singer doesn't want success or role models.
 * "Material Girl", if you take it as a satire of what the Carrington sisters play straight.
 * Jet Pack: The Agents enter the "Makes No Difference" stage wearing them.
 * Karma Houdini: The Colonel's wife, who is Easily Forgiven by the Colonel after losing his vast fortune and then breaking up with him because he's poor. Though Colonel Bob did offer one of the Carringtons a diamond. Guess a Rich Bitch wife gets a Rich Bitch husband.
 * Large Ham: The agents. ("Music LIVES!!!!!")
 * Lazy Artist: In the last stage, when everybody is doing the arm waving thing, sure they bothered to update Colonel Bob and Bill's sprites (so that they are in their formal wear and tracksuit, respectively), but for some reason, not Captain Brooke and Ken. Also, in several cutscenes, the people in the background are mirrored. The car show scene in "Canned Heat" and the beginning of the last section in "Sk8er Boi", for example.
 * Life Meter
 * Lighter and Softer: The Elite Beat Agents are a shadowy organization with worldwide surveillance that dispatches teams of well-equipped, trained operatives on missions around the globe. Their principal weapon? The power of dance. Their goal? Inspire people into overcoming their own problems.
 * Mars Needs Women: The Carrington sisters. List of things they've won over via Gainaxing: raccoons, a gorilla, a lion, a bear, an elephant, a parrot, a crab, and an airplane (although it may have been more attracted to their credit card), in Material Girl, Sam the pug in "Highway Star", and.
 * Meaningful Name:
 * The virus that athlete Bill Mitchell receives is named... Mr. Virus.
 * The equally subtle name of the aliens. They're called the Rhombulans... and their leader happens to be a giant eye inside a rhombus. Also, a rhombus is a skewed square, and "square" is/was a slang word for uncool. Probably why they dislike - and die from exposure to - good music.
 * Chris Silverscreen, Hollywood director.
 * The archaeologist who buys the rights for Atlantis is called Dr. Archie Logist.
 * Meganekko: Agent Missy.
 * Mega Neko: The cat from the "Romancing Meowzilla" level.
 * The Men in Black: The Agents themselves.
 * Mickey Mousing: The dogs' barking in the "Canned Heat" level and the "HEEALLLLPS" in the second to last level.
 * Misplaced Wildlife: Foxes, gorillas, bears and cows apparently live in the wild together, and there are parrots, monkeys, lions and elephants on a nearby deserted island.
 * Mondegreen: What the heck is that high-pitched voice saying in Highway Star? (In the original version, the lyrics were quite obvious, but in the game, it sounds more like, "I drive it! Argh, need it! Ah bleed it the same!" The correct lyrics are actually, "I LOVE IT! I NEED IT! I BLEED IT!")
 * Mood Whiplash: After eleven levels of rescuing cartoon caricatures from wacky, off-the-wall scenarios, "You're the Inspiration" gives us a little girl still waiting for her beloved, recently deceased father to come home for Christmas.
 * Multiple Endings: Every level has a "Good End" (cleared all stages), "Normal End" (cleared level, but failed two or more stages), and "Bad End" (total failure).
 * Mundane Utility: Don Tanner using his star football skills to help babysit.
 * Musicalis Interruptus:
 * Must Make Her Laugh: Leo's goal is to get Lisa to smile.
 * Nice Hat:
 * Agent Morris and Agent Chieftan.
 * The Divas also have sweet hats, as seen at the end of Jumpin' Jack Flash.
 * Ninja: Ken Ozu. Initially subverted in that he's a Lovable Coward son of an auto dealer, but if you play the level the right way, he becomes very formidable.
 * Nintendo Hard: One almost can't beat "Jumping Jack Flash" without a perfect score.
 * Seemingly ironically, the easiest mode of EBA seems at times to be the hardest, due to the lower density of beats, making it harder to keep one's rhythm.
 * Part of the problem is that on higher levels you react to the mere appearance of buttons, whereas on lower levels the buttons appear long before you need to tap them and you need to hit them when the closing circle hits the button's outer rim.
 * No Celebrities Were Harmed: Chris Silverscreen is more or less a lawyer friendly version of George Lucas.
 * No Flow in CGI: Chieftain's and the divas' hair never move while they dance.
 * Non-Standard Character Design: Tex's horse (In the bonus level with "Believe") has cartoonier eyes than the horses in the rest of the levels.
 * Oh Crap:
 * Our Monsters Are Different: One bonus level has giggling zombies, controlled by some kind of mushroom spider thing, that can only be defeated by bad tasting peanuts (and dance). You heard me.
 * Paper-Thin Disguise: Nearly everyone knows that Mr. X is really Commander Kahn. And according to Fanon, he's a drunken Kahn at that.
 * Perpetual Frowner:
 * The guy from the aforementioned "giggling zombie" level has a permanent angry scowl on his face, except in the Good Ending where he sort-of smiles in an advertisement for peanuts,.
 * Agent Derek. The reason why his afro is Funny Afro. He does smile if you do well in Jumpin' Jack Flash, though.
 * Agent Chieftain doesn't smile that often, either, but he can still be spotted smiling in one of the splash arts (between unlocking new songs).
 * Phrase Catcher: Sam seems to get called a dumb mutt fairly often in his cameos or in some of his failure scenes.
 * Pose of Supplication: Seen whenever a mission is failed.
 * The Power of Rock
 * Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Commander Kahn's rallying cry, as noted above.
 * Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Sam the pug channels Kenshiro to defeat a group of gangster dogs.
 * Rebus Bubble: Star high school wide receiver Don Tanner views all problems as (diaper/hot dog/skateboard) = Football. (Except Jane in the Good ending, who = a goal post.)
 * Refuge in Audacity: The game couldn't get away with half its stuff otherwise.
 * Required Spinoff Crossover: Inverted; the Elite Beat Agents are playable in Ouendan 2, rather than the other way around.
 * Rich Bitch:
 * Colonel Bob (the oil tycoon from the "Let's Dance" level) is married to one.
 * The Carringtons may come across as this, but they're more vapid than shrill, in any case.
 * Rich in Dollars, Poor In Sense: The Carrington sisters, who did at least have their bouncy breasts to get them through trouble.
 * Rule of Cool: The powers of dance and pop music are able to inspire a washed-up Major League Baseball player to great feats of Baseball capable of protecting a whole amusement park from a rampaging lava golem. At one point he knocks a large, flaming boulder that had just been shot at him away using a wooden bat.
 * Rule of Funny and Rule of Cool: It's hard to determine where one stops and the other starts, really.
 * Secret Level: There are bonus levels unlocked as you go up in high score rank.
 * Serial Escalation: The scenarios start off ridiculous and ramp it up from there.
 * Shout-Out: The top screen during "Survivor" is quite reminiscent of survival-horror Light Gun Games such as The House of the Dead. (Or, Resident Evil: Survivor. ) And if you fail the second section, the cutscene has the protagonist out of ammo, with "RELOAD!" flashing on the screen as zombies creep towards him.
 * Said level is also a glorified Shout-Out to another blond-haired-buzzcut hero, complete with freakish "end boss" looking similar to an Octobrain.
 * Also, one of the agents is named Agent J.
 * The "ABC" level is an obvious homage to Tom and Jerry (minus the mouse). Specifically the episode where the two have to protect a baby that crawls onto a construction site. It's worth noting that Tom and Jerry is quite popular in both America and Japan.
 * One of the game's titular Men In Black wears a fedora and sunglasses.
 * What about Khan and the R(h)om(b)ulans?
 * An alien invasion thwarted by music? Where have we heard that before?
 * Agents are GO!
 * A Pug's Life.
 * The "Sk8er Boi" level is actually a reference to The Tuxedo. Especially noticeable when Linda asks Jack "Hey, is your name James?"
 * The Divas having double consonants in their names may be a reference to another girl trio.
 * There are exactly two animals whom you will help throughout the game. Make a note of their names, if you will.
 * Show Within a Show: "Romancing Meowzilla." From what we see of it, it involves a wedding, an Indy Escape, and the titular beast rampaging throughout the city.
 * Single-Stroke Battle: The ending to the YMCA level. Also, Cap White vs Mr. Virus.
 * Speed Stripes
 * Stacy's Mom: Sofie, if the ending of "September" is any indication.
 * Sucking-In Lines: The Rhombulan mothership,
 * Sunglasses At Night: All of the male agents have sunglasses that they never take off.
 * Surreal Theme Tune: Basically, the game involves helping people do stuff while playing unfitting music... that actually fits surprisingly well. An example: Jack the taxi driver's level has Sk8er B0i as the music, and it would be probably very unfitting... fact is, Jack drives like crazy and does what you would do with a skate board and a ramp, only with a fucking Taxi! And he even climbs an hospital with it!
 * Suspiciously Similar Song: All the songs are covers, likely to save development costs and help prolong the licenses to use them. It also allowed for changes to the songs for gameplay purposes. For one example, if they had used the original version of Jumpin' Jack Flash for the final story mission, it would have been easier to complete as its tempo is slower than the cover used in the game.
 * Taken for Granite:  at the beginning of Jumpin' Jack Flash.
 * Tetris Effect: Take care around polka-dots after playing this game.
 * Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo: The "Canned Heat" level, which is about the son of a Japanese auto dealer having to retrieve stolen car plans... by becoming a Ninja.
 * Those Two Guys: Part of the Power Trio in each difficulty play, following up from Ouendan. Their names are Morris and Derek, by the way.
 * The Divas have Those Two Girls, Missy and Foxx.
 * Too Dumb to Live: The Carrington Sisters. If it weren't for their sex appeal they'd be long dead by now (literally).


 * Tropey Come Home: The Highway Star level, where Sam the pug falls asleep in a truck bed and wakes up 400 miles from home.
 * Truth in Television: For the most part, the game is ridiculously stupid; how does having a group of people cheer you on improve your Ninjutsu or allow you to discover Atlantis? Even the heartwarming "You're The Inspiration" episode doesn't make a great deal of sense. However, in the case of "Believe," the primary problems that dancer Amanda faces are ones of perseverance (working a menial job to pay the bills, learning to sing) and self-confidence (performing in front of others, facing rejection at auditions), the first and biggest problems that a young Starving Artist has to face, while also being the same problems cheerleaders are supposed to fight. Notice that during this level, the Agents don't dance. They don't want to outshine her. They're just there to be an inspiration.
 * Tsundere: Thomas' assistant/girlfriend Angelina.
 * Unsound Effect: The beams that the Rombulans send out go "FLASH".
 * Unusually Uninteresting Sight: That's right; don't mind the dancing FBI agents...
 * Upper Class Twit: The Carrington sisters, who are definitely not modeled after similar real-life socialites.
 * Up to Eleven: The powers of dance and pop music are able to inspire people to feats of great prowess and skill
 * Verbal Tic: I believe Thomas the magician has one!
 * Weaksauce Weakness: The Rhombulans hate music for good reason. Too bad they're in a game full of it.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: In the first three levels alone, baby-sitting, filmmaking, and taxi driving are all cranked up until the knob snaps. It only gets better from there.
 * White-Haired Pretty Girl: Foxx.
 * Widget Series: Toned down from Ouendan, but not by much. All they really changed were the cultural cues.
 * World of Ham: Let's just put it this way: by the end of the game, the only people who aren't Large Hams are statues.
 * Wolverine Publicity:
 * Agent J is only playable on one difficulty (Cruisin'), but he's on all of the game's advertising, the box, the title screen, and a trophy in Super Smash Bros.. Brawl, most of which have him front and center as if to imply he's the leader.
 * Also, "Cruisin'" is the game's "normal" difficulty, so it was probably expected people would recognize the character they play as the most.
 * You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Arguably what the Elite Beat Agents do: Agents show up to convince people that they possess the strength to surpass their present obstacles without help from others.