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Friday, June 14, 2019

Namco Taiko Blog (14 June 2019) - A Primer to the AI Battle Performance Mode


While we've heard before of June 27th as the day of the latest song removal round for Taiko arcades, today we're also informed that said day will also mark a more positive change to the Taiko scene: the introduction of the AI Battle Performance (AIバトル演奏), Green Version's signature game mode!

Courtesy of Etou, today we also have a general description of this game setting, aimed to polish the players' drum-hitting skills.

Similarly to Blue Version's Battle Performance mode, this one is a single-player treat for Banapassport users that is compatible with every available song from public arcades' song list, which is re-tooled to be more of a self-improvement game mode instead of having its own storyline to follow. Your Taiko avatar, in fact, will be facing off against the most adaptable of adversaries for training purposes: AI-Don (AIどん)!

This Taiko drum is designed to adapt to the player's skills upon multiple plays with the new mode, replicating the average playing habits in order to have an opponent whose skill level is somewhat around the same of the player himself! For example, if there are certain clearing habits for specific songs for one player (like, say, can consistently clear Boku wa Synth but often fails Sotsu Omeshiki), the AI-Don will replicate such performances in future plays, both with slight shifts of performance in positive and negative. The prowess of confrontation will be kept fresh every time!


This is an in-game screen for the AI Battle Performance mode, shaped around the usual 2-Player layout with some minor tweaks. Songs now are split into 5 different sections, decreeing the partial winner between the player and AI-Don after each segment's end, while still requiring to reach the Norma quote in the Soul gauge in order to clear the song, as usual.

It's also possible to see your (and the AI's) in-game in real time, as well as play the song with any gameplay modifier of your choice! The same playing conditions you put on yourself (game mode, modifiers and so on) are also applied to AI-Don, of course.



Up here is shown the mode's results screen, counting up the usual Taiko performance data from the main mode as well as the segmental results against the AI-Don play and the final result. Conquer 3 or more segments in order to be crowned winner of the match!

One interesting plus from Blue Version's Battle Performance mode is that every song played on it will have its data saved on the player's Banapassport profile, just like any regular song! Crowns collected and accuracy/score data (with eventual game modifiers being used) will all be registerd, as long as one of the regular Kantan-to-Obi modes for any song is being chosen. As a matter of fact, the in-between mode difficulty mitigation charts from the former BP mode will be back!



Winning AI Battle Performance matches won't be some kind of 'satisfactory per-se' feeling alone, as the number of victories against AI-Don will be actually registered for the unlock of some special goodies, ranging from profile/avatar customization elements to new songs! In the song selection screen, players will be reminded of the amount of victories required to climb the prize ladder, as well as the star-difficulty-restricted win requirements that are needed in order to rise your own AI Battle Rank, in order to better improve the AI-Don's skills for the subsequent plays.

It's also possible to hear more about this upcoming mode by browsing this special page on the arcade Taiko's website. Remember, the release date for this mode is on June 27th!

Dear Asian Donders,
Right-align Small Text has grinded up your unrealistic fantasies
in letting you know that you will get this late July.

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