A wild and wooly dance action game for the Sega Dreamcast. The game catches your eye with the colorful Art Deco-esque level and character designs, and catches your ear with it's funky soundtrack.
((WARNING! The following synopsis may contain spoilers for those who haven't played this game the whole way through. Thank you for your time))
The story takes place in the far future of the year 2499 A.D. Ulala (pronounced like "ooh la la"), the fabulous head reporter for Space Channel 5 and host of her own news program, "Ulala's Swinging Report Show", is assigned to investigate an alien invasion at a spaceport. It seems strange creatures called the Morolians (who resemble neon-colored crosses between Gumby and the Teletubbies) are attacking various locations across the galaxy, zapping people with weird hypno-rays that cause the victim to dance uncontrolably. As Ulala, you have to beat the Morolians and release the people under the control of their Dancing Beams by following their dance moves (either Up, Down, Left, Right, or Shoot, in some combination) as close as you can. There are also sections where enemies and hostages pop out, and you need to fire a special ray beam to release hostages or drive away aliens. At the end of each level, you need to out-dance a giant robot built by the Morolians. Eventually, Ulala and her friends (Ulala's former rival, idol-singer turned reporter Pudding, and the pirate reporter Jaguar, who is searching for "The Truth") discover Mr. Blank, the head of Space Channel 5, had hypnotized the Morolians into attacking the human population as part of a ratings stunt, and have to fight him in the ultimate dance contest.
The Bosses:
Coco*Tapioca- An egg-shaped creature with big bendy arms and tiny legs, it basically looks like a really fat Morolian. At one point, it spits out little yellow drones that you have to shoot at.
Morolina- An oblong sort of creature with lots of tentacles, and a tongue it uses to attack Ulala. As part of the Morolian "Cowardice With Elegance" scheme, it takes a group of students (and their teacher) hostage.
Morolian Monroe- A bizzare twin-headed type boss, a green happy head and a red angry head who fight in unison. They erupt from the giant TV screen Blank uses to control the Morolians' minds and fight Ulala, but she gets a little help from Jaguar.
Evila- A robotic clone of Ulala, designed to be "The Ultimate Reporter". Utterly devoid of soul or reason, and fanatically loyal to Blank, the only way to beat her is to out dance her!
Giant Evila- An enhanced version of the original Evila, this monstrosity steals Ulala's broadcast ship, the Astrobeat (with Ulala's director Fuse still aboard) and tries to destroy Ulala and her friends. But once this bionic beast is defeated, the true final boss appears:
Blank TV- It's a giant TV set with Blank's face embedded on it, but it's more dangerous than it looks. In his mad quest for ratings perfection, Blank has become one with the airwaves. He sucks Ulala into "the Blank Dimension" and tries to destroy her, but with the help of her friends and a little funk, Ulala escapes and takes Blank off the air, for now. But he does get to holler "I'll be baaaaaack!" in true evil overlord fashion. Can we say sequel, boys and girls? |
