We've made it through another year, which for the Taiko franchise as a whole has meant quite a lot through a collection of different scenario-changing situation. For that reason, our yearly recap post for this year will be structured in a slightly different way from our former standard.
The ever-increasing number of periods of the year filled with (mostly) minor collaboration events, combined with something that has happened earlier in the year that has made us harder to display imagery from the official blog, has led us to switch to make our recap action more compact, covering three-months periods of time in a single section rather than having one for each month like usual. To make up for this feature-slimmering action, each trimester recap will be followed by Lokamp's personal selection of Taiko-related highlights, covering both the positive and negative extremes of his own preference.
It's time to take you back...
1st Trimester
We've been used by now to have the first months of a year as an 'expectations altar' for future Taiko games to come, be it on arcade or console grounds. For 2018's case, both sides got something to wait in anticipation for, as Yellow Version's firmware successor was been teased since January, spanning all across its March release! We've also heard of yet another gaming platform to receive playable Taiko games on, but that's a story we'll talk about in a little while...
Tiding the wait were a succession of different events leaning to the arcade side, be it for the finals of 2017's Tenkaichi Otogesai or the usual Anime-tied mini campaign jazz (iDOLISH7, Ososmatsu-san, Pop Team Epic). The PS4 Taiko release's DLC catalog also gave out no signs of calling it quits whatsoever, stretching all throughout the year and far into the soon-to-begin 2019!
Lok-approved:
- Taiko no Tatsujin Blue Version - While nearing the end of its days, Blue Version sure has been a worthy successor of the arcade mileage, due to its returning features as well as the overall new additions it got throughout the year!
- Session de Dodon ga Don's 2018 DLC Support - Supplying at least 5 new songs per month with both returns and series/console firsts as paid DLCs, the PS4 frontrunner game proved itself to gather positive attentions all across the ending year, thanks to what currently is one of the best collective DLC song catalogs for the series to date.
Lok-abominables:
- Taiko Portable 1 and 2's DLC Content Termination - 2018 has also meant a lot of official Taiko-related corners on the Internet to be shut down for good, starting with the removal of the the free DLC songs for the first two PSP games, formerly available on their respective websites as freebies for everyone. I hope you got a copy of those in time, if you have these games...
- Taiko Plus (for i-devices)' Song Pack Removal - Half-away through March we have also lost the option to purchase song packs for the iOS version of the Taiko Plus app, with a lot of tracking getting the permanent boot and the subscription-based Gakkyoku Tori Houdai mode becoming the only way to play new songs (outside of collaboration events). While those who purchased the desired DLC packs before the deletion can still play their picks on their original devices, the scenario is way more grim for all the other players.
2nd Trimester
With Blue Version being available since March, the future-content Taiko talk was almost-entirely monopolized by news coverage surrounding the first Taiko no Tatsujin game for Nintendo Switch, acting as the year's big console debut for the franchise. Between magazine scoops and faux video rumors, we sure had our hands full of game coverage to scout for!
Before its July-slated launch, however, there have been other events of relevance for the series to talk about, including the iDOLISH7 arcade collab's full realization, the PS4 Taiko game's introduction of online scoring events and selected Anime song DLC deletion from the catalog of the Ps Vita's V Version additional content pool. Not to mention that the production of official Taiko no Tatsujin soundtracks has come back, at long last!
Lok-approved:
- The TnT 8-fold Soundtrack Collection - Thanks to CLARICE DISC/City Connection's collaborative effort with Bandai Namco, this closing year has seen the release of eight Taiko-related soundtrack albums, collecting over 200 original tracks from the last 5+ years of the series' many entries. Longer versions for selected songs are not missing, either!
- The TT April Fools Rant - I've had a ton of fun trying to come up with random silliness for the fated jokers' day, with this year's April 1st Song of the Week and its... shall we say, content of a "something completely different" nature. With the day being over, that piece has been banished on some corner of this blog, but who knows if I can come up with something similar in the future!
(...or, I don't know, maybe two Saturdays ago) - Deadwantsha - This user from the TnT Discord group has helped us with the timely discovery of Taiko-related news since last Spring's end and all throughout the rest of the year. As usual, we do give credit to the kind people who aid our news-oriented action, but we wanted to double-up our thanks here on this yearly recap due to the relevant number of contributions. We owe you one, mate!
- General-Asia AC Player Base Neglection - Since the final Facebook scoring tournament of March 2018, the General-Asia arcade playerbase has been left ignored on the arcade-update side for quite a while, only now being in a slightly more meek mood. Starting from Spring and stretching until last Autumn, the update delay gaps between the JP version have been wider and wider, giving new songs up to 4 months later than the homeland Blue Version cabs. Giving credit where credit it's due, Number 11 (11号) of the Taiko Team has been posting some lines of reassurance for the update side onto the official JP blog as of the last few months, but that doesn't ease the annoyance of such scenarios, either!
- News Pad-Out - We've been used to face periods of time with little to no content from the official Taiko feeds to come by, but coming after 2017's Taiko Team low participation degree, we've been hitting new peaks of filler-content posting, with the April/June window being one of the biggest ones. I almost feel bad for that Number 11 intern, which is pretty much the only appointed staffer from the Team to ever come up on the official blog...
- TT Blog Housecleaning Delays - We've been also hitting quite a slump on the blog-updating action for older pages, due to real-life commitments that have held hostage the collective free time of us who are posting on the blog. This is highly noticeable in our June Housekeeping plans still not being fully panned out by us in all the pinpointed areas, and for that I would like to apologize to you on that regard. Hopefully we'll be more efficient, next year...
3rd Trimester
Intertwining our blog's 8th anniversary shenanigans, the July-September trimester has been one of the most polarizing cycles of time for Bandai Namco's music series, both for its lows as well as its high peaks. The higly-anticipated Nintendo Switch Taiko debut has happened for the greater Asian countries, but what made us as writers for an English-oriented Taiko news blog gloat to no end was the announcement of new official Taiko games localization projects to the West, the first ones since the PS2 release of the West-oriented Taiko Drum Master!
Localization hype aside, the franchise also has its share of side projects to pursuit in its home lands, including the first collaborative links with the Youtube-related UUUM network and the returning Tenkaichi Otogesai tournament's latest iteration. Not to mention the DLC-suggestion poll that Session de Dodon ga Don players had the opportunity to take part into!
Lok-approved:
- Taiko Localizations, at Long Last - As a writer of a blog about a Japan-rooted music game series, seeing further localization projects of Taiko no Tatsujin games aimed at the audience we've written content for so much time fills my chest with pride and joy for the coming of more widespread ways to let a broader audience try out the series. This is especially good not only for the almost 1-by-1 porting action of both the PS4 and the NSwitch titles, but also for the fact that Europe has not been left behind, for once!!
- Taiko Switch's Starting Songlist - While not being oriented on more challenging picks like the PS4 game, I can appreciate the fact that the Day1 song lot for the latest Nintendo Taiko game shows a different kind of variety in its starting picks, between returning/newcomer tracks and a Game Music genre selection I happen to enjoy more, by comparison!
- The Former Taiko Development Blog's Sudden Closure - Perhaps the lowest point for me closing this year on the Taiko front, as well as the main reason of this very feature series' structure change. With no word of warning, a huge portion of the Taiko no Tatsujin series' history has been bleached for good from the Internet, leaving us with less 'origin-story' pieces to write about as well as a LOT of dead links for our earliest Taiko blog-related posts.
Eight+ years of Taiko no Tatsujin history. All down the drain... - Taiko Team Staffers' Multiple Graduations - As if getting less and less feedback from the people behind the Taiko games for each passing year wasn't enough, 2018's latter half has seen several people leaving Bandai Namco-related business altogether, with composer Taku Inoue and programmer Takemoto leaving during the 3rd trimester. Under the same page also falls the former-gen Taiko sister Daifuku from the livestream session, who left towards this year's end instead.
4th Trimester
On the event side, the returning Tenkaichi Otogesai has brought back the enjoyable formula of a new proprietary song and three foreign-music-game ports (straight from 2017's edition of the tourney), while different platforms have been influenced by events that tied in different IPs, including DC (Ninja Batman), the aforemintioned UUUM and Team Shanghai Alice with the Touhou Project series.
Lok-approved:
- Hi-Difficulty Newcomers Swarm for Blue Ver. - Starting from August's rock-styled additions for the Variety genre, the Taiko series has been getting quite a lot of top-difficulty picks from a wide number of different artists between stand-alone additions and the current Dojo Ranking's final core courses. As we're headed towards a brand new year, I'd say more of that, please!
- Localized Taikos' Western Involvment - Albeit not as complete as the original Asian versions are shaped to be, it's really nice to see that both Drum Session and Drum 'n' Fun are trying to supply the same degree of care on the extra content department! This especially factors in when the latest JP DLC pack releases are mirrored to the West on a seemingly-timely manner, alongside the online scoring events for the PS4 game.
- Discord's Padoru no Tatsujin Xmas Makeover -
It was amazing and you know it. UMU
- Taiko Switch/Drum 'n' Fun's Lackluster 2018 DLC Offerings - Especially when games with more effort put into their respective DLC catalogues are still going strong, it has been downright embarassing to witness the lower quality for additional song packs on the latest Nintendo Taiko title. Lots of returning console song repeats, little to no hi-difficulty contenders to be found and pricier-than-usual 3-songs pack that, again, mostly have songs that were already ported on console Taikos before? Give me a break...
- Hard-to-Track West Updates for the Localized Taikos - Not having a centralized way to get informed in a timely manner on any updates concerning both Drum Session and Drum 'n' Fun means scouting weeks and weeks of Twitter posts from the Bandai Namco accounts alone. Sure, this has to be expected but having an easier way to check out updates (like in-game notices or something) might really improve things up for Westeners everywhere!
- FREEDOM DiVE will become playable in official Taiko games - ...why.
Why, why, why, why, why, why why why why why whywhywhywhywhyWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWH-
To better describe what this closing year has been for Taiko gaming as a whole, I'm afraid that I'll have to resort on some of my personal nerd culture in order to better deliver a point home... try to stay up with me on this, ok?
Among many other elements, TYPE-MOON's Fate franchise has a quite wide range of characters from human history and folklore as a distinguishable trait, appearing in the universe as 'servants' of mages and having their traits classified a-la Dungeons and Dragons by classes and individual stats ranking, usually ranging from E to EX. In some cases, however, such a ranking process for individual stats can't be done for certain servants, due to their own accounted past from their history/fictional source material that was the base for their creations. One of such characters is Edmond Dantes, based on the eponymous character from Dumas' Count of Monte Cristo novel, whose Luck stat is labeled as a question mark ('?'), considering how the literary character in his life has reached both the lowest of living conditions as well as the best-possible outcomes for his own schemes.
That can.. pretty much describe Taiko gaming in 2018! This was indeed the "Luck ?" year, built up after a few years of not-particularly shining years on the fan feedback front from the official development team people which doubles up in occasions to further expand the fanbase like never before, while also being home of some of the most regrettable courses of action in franchise history. It's really hard to tell how the Taiko series as a whole will go on after such a puzzlinmg 12-month cycle, but rest assured that we'll still be on its tail to see with you what other kinds of surprises are brewing from behing the scenes...
Until then, I hope you've all had a dazzling 2018 in general. Take care!
