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Saturday, December 29, 2012

Song of the Week! 29 December 2012


Innocently enough, 2012's final weekly song from us is a theme song from one of the console Taiko games of this year. And since we've already covered an Ura this month, there's only one other song that fits the bill.

Dokidoki☆Don-chan Sawagi (どきどき☆どんちゃん騒ぎ)
Version
Allx3 (100)x4 (146) x6 (245)x7 (400)
Taiko Wii 5, CD CC-6
105
none
 wii5op


With the advent of Wii U in Japan, Chogouka-Ban is probably the last Taiko game for Nintendo Wii, with today's featured song, Dokidoki Don-chan Sawagi, as its main theme. In a certain sense, this Namco Original follows the exact general trend of the Wii Taiko theme songs, with festivals and Taiko drumming as its main theme, except unlike the last four, it's a relaxing melody instead of the usual upbeat, cheerful tone.

Like its predecessors on the same console, Dokidoki Don-chan Sawagi is sung by Naharashi Miki (ならはしみき), the current voice actress for Don-chan's voice, exclusive to its own game (and thus not playable in any other console/arcade game) and it has to be unlocked first in order to play it.

The unlocking of this song is as tiring as one other song before it which also involved repeated rounds of minigames, Popcorn Parade on Taiko Wii 3 (which we covered back in December 2010). In this one, 50 stamps have to be gained by playing the various minigame courses. You get one stamp for playing one course, and there are 7 minigames in each basic course, making for 350 minigames in total which you have to play, and if you opt for the longer courses, which are 20 minigames each, the count is even higher! Admittedly it is much easier than Popcorn Parade but still a very long slog.

Of course, there are some unique elements that makes Dokidoki Don-chan Sawagi stand out from the other Wii themes. First of all there is the song's BPM, one of the lowest ever made when it comes to theme songs; it's also an index of Chogouka-Ban's total number of playable songs (105)! Its note count is rather small for the 7* Oni ballpark too; however the cluster variety still manages to hold up its own to give a decent challenge, and yes, the slowness can trip up some people. It is also one of the only Oni charts to feature giant notes in abundance, and the only theme to have giant Kat notes.