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Saturday, November 9, 2019

Song of the Week! 9 November 2019


Time for a 9-star Oni song! Quite fitting to do so in the 9th day of the ninth month of the year (at least, according to the ancient Roman calendar), isn't it?

 Argent Memories
Version
Allx4 (126)x6 (203)x7 (307)x9 (636)
 Taiko PS4
 152
 none
 ???


Argent Memories is one of two newcoming PS4 Namco Originals (seconded by Freeway3234) to be composed by independent artist Yoichiro "K Masera" Kitada (北田 陽一郎) (personal website; Twitter), synth player as well as music teacher and doujin circle artist, counting 10 different album releases between Comiket and M3 venues as of today. In music gaming, he already tipped his artist toes in bemani grounds, with his original song EURO-ROMANCE getting in both beatmania IIDX and REFLEC BEAT series. K Masera is also credited in Taiko OSTs as the arranger/sound curator for a couple of the JBG Conservatory-approved Namco Original of the past: Usagi no Shippo and Robot Rock'n'Roll.

In many of his vocals-lead pieces such as Argent Memories, the nicknamed YuusA takes the center stage as the female singer lead. Just a month ago, the couple of artists has been seen together for ex-Konami and ex-Bemani rhythm gaming sensation Naoki Maeda's own music game for mobile devices SEVEN's CODE, with the song Furious judgement.

One of the full-scoring-accuracy songs of the 9* Oni ballpark (meaning no drumrolls or impossible-to-break hitballoons are to be found in its notechart), Argent Memories has a bit of every common charting trope in the same/higher difficulty tier without especially putting its focus on some of these elements. From small consecutive chained clusters to Don/Kat alternations, from slight tempo changes to pattern-repeating long clusters, there's a bit of everything to try without any of the not-BPM-changing gimmicks hogging the spotlight from the others!