time, making them more difficult to hit. The winner is the player with the best cumulative performance at the end of the song. When utilizing single-card multiplayer, only five songs are available on "Cruisin'" and "Breezin'" difficulties. When all players have a copy of the game, all of the songs and difficulty levels become available, but each scenario is still assigned to a certain song. This mode can also be played by a single player against a saved replay for any song. There is also a cooperative mode, in which players take turns to play. Each user must have a copy of the game to do this. Each song uses the same scenarios as the single-player game, but only the stages the host has completed in single-player are available. Both players share a single Elite-O-Meter, so if one person fails, the game ends for both players. The players take turns playing certain segments of the song, as well as Spin Markers. When it is not the player's turn to play, the markers are grayed out. Development Due to the surprisingly high import rate of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, Nintendo and iNiS began discussing the possibility of officially localizing the game beyond Japan. 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 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