Header Menu

Monday, July 31, 2017

Chouzetsu-Gikoukei Shoujo Lyrics



Composition: Nekokaburi Cyclone (ねこかぶりサイクロン) (xi+Nekomirin (ねこみりん))

Japanese lyrics sourced from original Creofuga submission

Sunday, July 30, 2017

PS4-1 Update: Postcards from Various Conventions/Events Trial Stations





Session de Dodon ga Don/Drum Session has been on trial-play tour around conventions and events, including Next-gen WHF '17 Summer last month and ChinaJoy in Shanghai this weekend. And of course local gaming press has sent their crew to report and bring back footage. Here are some main findings from those, including the videos from Bahamut and the CoroCoro Magazine YouTube channel:
  • One of the major observations from this is that the drum controller (at least the ones on display) plays kinda bad: the kid playing Heaven and Hell Oni clearly knows what he's doing with his handswitching, but some notes still missed probably due to bad registering (and he kinda want to vent it in the afterward interview but then he held it off, if that's any indication)
  • This might only apply to this smaller-scale trial version, but PS4-1 has some of the shortest loading screens in console Taiko history. It appears that it loads part of it and let you start playing first, while it loads the rest up (note the spinning Don-chan face on top-right corner)
  • The strip background behind Don-chan has an additional scene change (e.g. a few more bright lanterns drops down) when you are half way to the Clear mark
  • There is no celebratory message (Bachio Sensei pops out and shows Clear Successful/Full Combo) immediately after on the scroll-bar
Also with the increasing reportage and trial play appearances, we can step further and begin to break down the difficulty ratings for the new songs! For instance:
  • Firstly not from this haul of footage, but the latest website update has shown that Apollo is 2/4/4/2 in the Training Performance song select screen
  • Tales of Berseria Medley is 4/6/6/8
  • Tsunagare! Hirogare! Uchiagare! is 4/5/7/9 reigning as one of the highest rating console theme song so far, with 314 notes on Futsuu and 209 on Kantan
  • For some reason Heaven and Hell Overture's Futsuu is up to ★5 even though it has been ★4 for ages including on the current AC0
Final note as we are talking about PS4 anyway: The collaborative elements from the previous Taiko no Tatsujin x Tekken 7 Fated Retribution collaboration (including the costumes and health bar modifications) has come to the PS4 Tekken 7 game as downloadable content. Kinda suitable with the all-out collaborative efforts like the tune Heat Haze Shadow2 with Heihachi Mishima in guest session appearance.

Saturday, July 29, 2017

Song of the Week! 29 July 2017


Continuing from last week's not-Japanese representatives in occasion for the Session de Dodon ga Don localization plans, today we're having song representatives for the Chinese and Korean musical scene in Taiko to complete the trilogy!

Thursday, July 27, 2017

PS4 Website Update - The "Everything You Already Know About" Update

まずはランク認定戦 他のプレイヤーとマッチング

Together with today's blog entry publishing on the Taiko Team's blog, Session de Dodon ga Don's website has been updated with all the features that were revealed last week, including the newcomer Taiko Ranked Match mode which is also spotlighted in the pictures above!

The other sections being updated this time around are the Best Replay feature (=challenge a copy of yourself while aiming to beat personal high-scores), Training, Guest Session supporters and the full default songlist.

Namco Taiko Blog (27 July 2017) - Yellow Ver. GV 5.xx Teasers


It's time for another future arcade update teaser! Game Version 5.xx is scheduled to be distributed on August 8th, but the Team doesn't feel in the mood to fully spill out the beans yet, so we'll have another short pointer selection of what to expect from this version enhancement.

Here's what features are expected in the next update:
  • New songs!
  • New 2 Player-exclusive game mechanic!
  • Yellow Version's final main Dojo Ranking courses!
    (Erratum 27/07/2017: Still unable to match the timing for this release, Taiko Team is aiming for the next update after final tuning)
Link to original post

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Taiko Plus/STH: A YouTube-licious Summer Collaboration


Taiko no Tatsujin and YouTube are having a collaboration!

...wait, no, just with UUUM, one of Japan's largest MCN/production company, and their thirty-plus YouTuber talents. ...okay *puts down Nerdfighter salute*

Collab Special Site: https://u.app.taiko-ch.net/

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Twitter Snippets/Across Japan (25 July 2017): Eel Day Deja Vu-Ception


Today in Japan falls the so-called 'Doyo no Ushi' (土用の丑の日, lit. "Midnight of the Ox"), and if this bit might sound familiar to some of our long-time followers... that's because we've already talked about this. Twice, in fact!

Still, enjoy the playable return of Namco Original Unagi no Tamashii Rock, coming to both Japanese and General Asia Yellow Version arcades from today to August 6th.

(...just when will the Taiko Team decide to unlock it permanently?)

Monday, July 24, 2017

Random: Staying Fresh for the New Game: Squid Beatz 2 for Splatoon 2



Continuing from the first game, the brand new Splatoon 2 again comes with the rhythm-action minigame of Squid Beatz 2 (イカラジオ2, Ika Radio 2).

In case you don't know, you can unlock the original Squid Beatz via completing additional amiibo challanges in Splatoon 1. Though being mostly just a music player, you can call upon the rhythm-game part to have notes flow from right to left along a line.

The original was more of just "something to do in this music player", but the new installment has powered-up the gaming aspects including actual hit judgement and scoring, plus gold and silver squid trophies for completing each notechart.

In short, the pink notes (sounds like dons) have you press the direction or A/B/X/Y buttons, the green notes (sounds like kats) takes the shoulder L/R buttons, and the bordered notes needs to be hit on both sides. What is different from Taiko no Tatsujin, in addition to the pink and green notes split into two rows instead of one, there are also places that you have to press pink and green notes at the same time.

The actual difficulty level though is familiar if you play Taiko no Tatsujin well enough. Most HARD notecharts tops at or under Oni ★9 with your typical 16th and 24th clusters and streams.

...wait hold on, that phrase sounds so similar back there...

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Song of the Week! 22 July 2017


For not-Japanese Taiko no Tatsujin fans, the news of a console game for the series that is getting official translations for another language are always the ones of the highest magnitude... let alone three of them, at the same time!

Being an English-rooted news blog and all that jazz, today's featured track comes from the other title that got an English transation in the past, as well as the first non-Japanese Taiko game to come out...

Friday, July 21, 2017

Taiko no Tatsujin [heavy sharpie strokes] Drum Session! (PS4-1)


Remember V Version in Chinese, 3DS2 in Korean, as well as the much shame-inducing first attempt that is Taiko Drum Master back on PS2? PS4-1 is bringing all those three together (only for the Asian market)!

Taiko no Tatsujin PS4 Additional Contents


Key:  Anime  Classic  J-Pop  Game Music  Variety  Vocaloid  Namco Original  Ura

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Taiko Plus/STH: Yup That Happened: GTH June 30 Additions


Now that PS4-1 song inclusion matters are done, let's get back to the things that actually matter. Like the fact that this update happened! ...yup.

Gakkyoku Tori Houdai Adds: June 30
自力本願レボリューション Jiriki Hongan Revolution
   「暗殺教室」より Assassination Classroom
Endless Seeker
   東方Projectアレンジ A-One
交響曲第7番から Excerpt from Symphony No. 7
   ベートーヴェン Beethoven
おおブレネリ O Vreneli
No Way Back (+Ura)
   「GOD EATER」より
マリオネットピュア Marionette Pure

Namco Taiko Blog (20 July 2017) - Session de Dodon ga Don's Initial Song List Full Reveal!


The title says it all, so venture with us after the jump for the final pre-release default song notices for the incoming PS4 Taiko game!

Twitter Snippets (20 July 2017) - A Midsummer Morning's Arcade Gacha/Collab Updates


The weekly blog entry isn't up yet, but here are a couple of notices from the Taiko Team's latest tweets about Yellow Version's going-ons! First, we have the re-opening of the Summer Vacation Limited Parts Gacha, so that those ho still miss some of the title parts from the previous iterations has another chance to pick up the leftover parts.


Up next we have another teaser for the A3! collaboration with Taiko no Tatsujin that is scheduled to begin later this year. Enjoy some silhouettes of the male idol gacha game's A3ders that will be featured in-game during the event!

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

PS4 Update - Greetings from Amazon!


For once, the popular online retailer's Japanese branch is aiding eager Taiko fans in their quest to find out more about the latest shiny Taiko no Tatsujin videogame's song list selection before its release.

Below the jump is a newly-revealed list of songs that has been found -among other places- in Amazon Japan's product page for Session de Dodon ga Don, listed by genre and overall/console debut distinctions.

[SITE] Turning Off Mobile View, A Participatory Experiment

Sometimes it is humbling to look back on what we done, and how many people are affected by it. How long has it been already now?

With somewhere around 10% to 20% of our page views, it is no doubt mobile platforms are a not-insignificant source of our audience. And for that group, currently we have been setting the mobile view as the default layout on mobile platform (more like leaving it like that). Well yes, it is kinda designed to be slim for the smaller screens, but I myself and other frequent readers have noticed that some of its unfriendly designs that can ruin their experience:
  • even the slightest sideways movement can trigger the mobile view's mechanic to turn pages, making it tough to navigate already and almost arduous at some of our wider content like song lists and Ranking Dojo lists
  • most of our links are at the top- and sidebars, and the mobile view shows none of them
  • ...as well as the chatbox and social media applets, which accounts for like 80% of reader interaction we have
  • if you don't want mobile view due to the above reasons and more, changing to desktop view only works with the current session because it's not the default, so you have to change it very often

So starting today and as a prelude to an upcoming event, we will be turning off the forced mobile view like a participatory experiment of sorts. By the end of that event, we will be asking for your feedback on whether we should keep mobile view off of the default.

So what is that event, after all that? Heh... (slips away)

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

PS4 Website Update - Release Date and DLCs for Everyone!


With today's website update, Session de Dodon ga Don's release date has been officially confirmed to October 26th this year, as reported in the revamped Specs sub-section. Today's main course, however, is the preliminary announcement of DLC content coming to the game, with different offerings and methods to receive them.

Monday, July 17, 2017

[COLLAB] - Taiko no Tatsujin x INSPION Collaboration Announcement



If you thought today's surprise song release by Tatsh was the only thing coming out of nowhere for the series, think again! Earlier yesterday, a teaser video was posted on Youtube by the newly-formed sound production company INSPION, hinting to a future collaboration event within the long-running music game franchise and the emerging unit. And honestly, if including a rock arrangement of Yuugen no Ran isn't enough to gather attention, I don't know what will it do the trick!

While no specifics have been given for this impending collaboration by this video alone, it's only fair to spend a few words about the composer/performer of the Yuugen no Ran arrangement: Daisuke Kurosawa (黒沢大佑), already renowned in the music game scene for its extensively huge song contribution to bemani rhythm games, as the contribution song listing page on bemani wiki Remywiki can attest. Other artists that had some music game connections in the past are also part of the newly-founded INSPION company, giving that much hope in the impending event's magnitude!

First Video: OUT OF NOWHERE



  Tsukuyomi (月読命) (5/7/8/10; 973 notes on Oni)
Hey gang, remember that fabled new Zeami song under the Tatsh alias that was going to be released on Yellow Version sometime this summer? ... well, neither do we, as this song was legitimately never heard of before by anyone before its sudden appearance on Yellow Version public cabinets! It's currently argued whether this is the hinted hidden track for Yellow Version's Soroban 2000 morse code renewal on Oni, but we'll cross that bridge when we'll get there.

For the time being, though... here we are, served with yet another Tatsh God Collection track! After Amaterasu, it's time for her moon god sister Tsukuyomi to shine in Taiko lore, sporting a notechart made of even more notes and some aggressive stamina-draining portions thatare sure to play some tricks to players who are not used to the 1/24 spike cluster flair of today's meta.

Addendums (2017/07/17): (a) Reveal tweets by both Taiko Team and Tatsh confirms reading do not include the "no-Mikoto" part that the kanji 命 would normally suggest. (b) Comes to Asia too

Bravoman Lyrics


Composer: Norio Nakagata (中潟憲雄)
Arrangement: Ryou Yonemitsu (米光亮)
Lyrics: Genpei Productions (源平プロ)
Vocals: Hideyuki Umezu (梅津秀行)

Japanese lyrics sourced from Namco Taiko Blog dated July 31 2008

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Twitter Snippets (14 July 2017) - Taiko PS4 Custom TaTaCon's Release Date


The next Taiko home console game has made a name of its own for the fact of not having a pin-pointed release, but thanks to a 2nd-sourced tweet about its related 3rd-party controller release, the riddle that is Session de Dodon ga Don's launch day might be solved! The tweet above comes from Japanese Game Schedule wiki manager Renka_schedule, stating that it was caught the notice of controller manufacturer HORI making TaTaCon peripherals for the PS4 that are coming out in October 26th, at the price of 6458 Yen.

With the previous records of HORI controllers for home console Taiko games coming out shortly after the first game of any platform's release (if not in the same launch day), it's easy to assume that the PS4 Taiko game's release is not that much far from the pin-pointed custom controller launch. As usual, of course, we're waiting for official announcements to see if this claim can be confirmed.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Oh and by the way, folks from bemanistyle.com, if you really want to copy a paragraph from our Taiko PS4 song list page for one of your articles, at the very least make sure you don't copy out Lokamp's mistakes as well :)

Saturday, July 15, 2017

Song of the Week! 15 July 2017


We've had SotW features in the past where the featured track was the Song of the Week, in the sense of it being the only brand new addition for the Taiko scene for the week... but today, we're going one step forward from there.

Enjoy our detailed introduction for the very first "Song of the Day", as in the fact that its Taiko debut has happened on this very day!

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Namco Taiko Blog (13 July 2017) - Elderly Limited Treat


The latest publicly-available Pokemon-related won't be the only new thing coming to Taiko gaming this Saturday, as a new limited licensed song is planned to be playable at selected loc-wait a minute, what's, up with that granny invading the Taiko Yellow logo?!?

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

4th Tenkaichi Otogesai - Participating Games and General Schedule Dates


The picture above comes from one of the latest news feeds from the Arcade Operator Unit's website (available at this link), detailing which music games are joining the competition this year. Aside from the latest versions of Taiko no Tatsujin and the other participating games from last year, the 4th edition of the cross-over tourney will feature the return of Bandai Namco's Synchronica, as well as the debut of Sega's CHUNITHM series. It's highly likely that the newcomer is getting all of the 1st Otogesai's Phase 1 boss tracks crossovers!

Also from the same document, we come to learn the scheduled dates for the event's major phases, with the first song inclusion coming this October (with the tourney's first phases starting on Oct. 13th) up to the Finals which will be held next year on February 10th.

Thanks crystalsuicune for the heads-up from the Taiko no Tatsujin Discord.

UPDATE: Literally some hours after this blog post's publishing, the Tenkaichi Otogesai website has been officially updated with a brand new splash page starring the 4th edition's six contenders! While there's nothing else to the website renewal as of now, it's possible to access all the pages from the 3rd tournament through the top bar.


Monday, July 10, 2017

PS4 Website Update: Customization Screens and Bundle Data

きせかえやいろをカスタマイズできるよ。 たくさんの色から選べる!

While still lacking of a precise release date, the anticipated PS4 Taiko title's website got a minor update today, starring several screens about the customization-related aspects, such as the clothing/color screens shown above and some early Shop screenshots. It's worth noting that this time around it's possible to purchase up to 5 random items at a time!

アイテム玉手箱をGETしよう。 どの玉手箱を選ぼうかな…?
パーツやあいさつがもらえる!

Other lesser updates for today include the addition of the recurring "How to Play" section, the Game Bundle page and the PS4-Exclusive Features page (which is only made of quick links to other already-available parts of the website, such as the Friend/Guest Session modes and the Game Bundle one).

Saturday, July 8, 2017

Song of the Week! 8 July 2017


It's been a while since our last J-Pop Saturday feature... isn't it?

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Namco Taiko Blog (6 July 2017) - Behind the Notechart: Asteroid




Continuing from two weeks ago's feature, here's another Summer Rewards Shop's charting process being revealed in the main weekly Taiko Blog update! This time around, it's the turn of the collaboration-related Variety track Asteroid.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Across Japan (July 5 2017): The Synchronica Games: July 2017 Facebook Tournament

Both of this month's tournament songs are from the sister arcade game of Synchronica, including the newest addition that just came in last week.

Facebook Tournament: July 8~16 2017
    Results Announcement: July 20 2017
God Ray (Oni ★10)
   「シンクロニカ」より Synchronica

夜明けまであと3秒 Yoake Made Ato 3-byou (Muzukashii ★7)
   「シンクロニカ」より Synchronica


Link to original post

Twitter Snippets (5 July 2017) - Act, Addict, Autumn Collaboration


Today's license-happy update for Yellow Version wasn't enough for the Taiko Team crew to reveal, as the notice of a future mobile-rooted collaboration event is in planning for this coming Fall!

After the inclusion of tracks and events concerning gacha games such as Puzzle & Dragons and Chain Chronicle, later in 2017 it will be the time to shine in Taiko for LIBER Entertainment's A3! (エースリー), the male idol-raising game whose title is an abbreviation for 'Act, Addict, Actors'. From the looks of it, the collaboration is up to add both songs and Petit Chara/custom dancers for them, but we'll have to wait a little bit more in order to know how is being set up...

First Video: Yellow ver. 4.05 New Songs



Stay groovy for the licensed picks fresh off the update stove this morning!

Monday, July 3, 2017

UNDEAD HEART (Ikari no Warriors) Lyrics


Composer, Arrangement: Yusuke Takahama (高濱祐輔)
Lyrics, Vocal: Eizo Sakamoto (坂本英三)

Japanese lyrics sourced from official YouTube preview dated April 18 2017.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Across Japan (June 30 2017): At Least There Is Ranking Dojo Gaiden: Yellow ver. Asia G/V 3.04 Update


And we just praised you for being up-to-date with Japan last week >:(

The update in Japan on July 5 2017 is not lucky enough to be 100% replicated. Only the Ranking Dojo Gaiden trials will be making Same day as Japan appearance, while the four day-one new licensed picks are absent as of now.

Ranking Dojo Gaiden: July 5 2017 (Yellow ver. Asia G/V 3.04)
+) 挑戦!世界大会2016決勝
   Challenge! World Championships 2016 Finals
+) 挑戦!世界大会2016 EX①
   Challenge! World Championships 2016 Extras (1)

Link to original post

Saturday, July 1, 2017

Song of the Week! 1 July 2017


This feature is about both highs and lows, as we're going to talk about some of the most noticeable tracks that are representative of the difficulty curve extremes in Taiko gaming!