Header Menu

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Song of the Week! 2 August 2014


August is always a busy month for our humble blog, as it turns yet another year old! Anniversary special events are also approaching fast, but we'll discuss about it another time.

As for now, it's time for our usual Saturday feature! For this anniversary, we'll actually have a 2-part Saturday feature dedicated to what has made our blog stay strong for over 4 years. Of course, without our beloved readers there wouldn't be any Taiko Time blog to begin with, so here are some recently-requested songs from you. As always, thanks very, very much for sticking with us for such a long time!

 Highschool love! Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Wii U EDITION
Version
Allx3 (111)x4 (186)x5 (278)x7 (387)
 Taiko 0 S, Taiko Wii U 1
 138
 none
 tekwiu


Chatbox user Maru's request takes us again into the universe of the Tekken series, with yet another unusual song for a fighting game's soundtrack in the style of Namco Original Haikei, Gakkou ni Te. As usual, we have a quick overlook of the game first.

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is the sequel to the namesake Tekken arcade/console spin-off, in which up to two fighters per player can be selected in both 1vs1 and 2vs2 matches, the latter of which also featuring special Tag combos based on the team members chosen. Being a spin-off title, its plot can also be considered non-canon to the main Tekken storyline, with the rampaging chaos caused by a newer version of training dummy Combot and veteran fighter Heihachi Mishima hosting a new King of the Iron Fist tournament after the consumption of a rejuvenation serum he created.

The original TTT was released on Japanese arcades in September 2011, and upgraded on March 2012 as the 'Unlimited' version, featuring even more items and game mechanics. For the Western market, Tag Tournament 2 was released on both PS3 and XBox 360 as a retail game about one year after the arcade original, featuring console-exclusive characters and DLC content. With the debut of Nintendo's current-gen console, a 'Wii U Edition' of TT2 was made for the Wii U's launch, including all the DLC content from the previous console ports, Nintendo-related extra content (new outfits and the Mushroom Battle mode) and the return of the Tekken 3 fan-favorite minigame Tekken Ball. That's where the song Highschool love! comes in, as one of the 12 new tracks for the Wii U edition of the game.

As can you easily tell from the English lyrics, this is yet another school-centric song about dating in high school like Haikei, Gakkou ni Te, embodying the goofy and cheesy themes of school musicals, no less! It also features a big cast from BNSI for its creation; featuring Go Shiina (椎名豪) as the composer, Yu Manabe playing the violins, jesahn at the electric bass and sax, Petra Rose for the lyrics and six people for vocals: Laura and Nicole Intravia, Joe Popson, Omar Najmi are the main voices, while during the chorus Shoko Doi and Nami Nakagawa (of DON'T CUT fame) contribute as well. Being featured in the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Original Soundtrack Plus, Highschool love! also has a longer version, available in said album.

Lastly, let's address that elephant in the room in the rhythm games lore: in pop'n music there's actually another song made by Yoshitaka 'DJ YOSHITAKA' Nishimura which has almost the same name as this, but needless to say there is no relation between the two songs whatsoever.

This unique Tekken song was charted by Taiko Team sentai notecharter Kan, who wanted to further emphasize the 'musical-esque' vibes of this song on all modes. The Oni chart is an average 7*; it's nowhere near as long as Haikei and filled with repetitive patterns and a slightly more intense final Go-Go Time.

 MATSURI D/A
Version
Allx5 (191)x7 (224)x8 (357)x8 (574)
 Taiko 0, Taiko Wii 5, CD Full Combo
 130
 none
 ma2rid


From chatbox user Marvel Ferdinand, here's a request for yet another Taiko 0 Namco Original, merging the traditional Japanese festival atmosphere with more modern vibes for this Don Point-unlockable Namco Original. MATSURI D/A is a full-instrumental song made by independent composer Vincent. As explained by Etou in a tweet, the D/A part of the title stands for 'DIGITAL/ANALOG', further proving how this song is a unique fusion of old and new. Sadly, not much is currently known about the person using the Vincent alias, but it will be updated once we know more!

Sentai Notecharter Kuboken is behind MATSURI D/A's notecharts for all modes, delivering full-star difficulties on the pre-Oni modes and an 8* Oni challenge with lots of tricky clusters and a killer final stream made of mixed 1/16 and 1/24 notes. Good thing the song is slow!