Boss battles are a part of Taiko no Tatsujin Wii 2, like in the DS Taiko game before that, brought over because of popularity.
Over the course of the storyline, Don and Katsu, together with their newly found friend Arumi-chan, will have to protect an ongoing festival from being under attack by a fun-hating mad scientist, Dr. Waruru, using the only way they know how, through the power of the Don Spirit! (basically by playing the taiko, the Don Spirit is evoked as power)
The rules are simple. You will play a song with the mecha opponent on the screen. The regular gauge is replaced with two life bars, one for you and one of the mecha. The objective is to lower the opponent's life gauge by playing well throughout the song avoid missing notes and hitting bomb notes, which lower your drum's life.
But the play is often disturbed by your opponent, who sometimes can try to distract the player by covering part of the screen, change the scrolling bar's speed, bomb notes, fight notes and so on. The boss battles can be played in one of three difficulty settings, Ama-guchi, Kara-guchi, and Geki-kara (with the third being the hardest).
If your life bar is longer than the opponents' when the song ends, you win!
Spoiler warning ahead.
There are a toal of 9 bosses in Taiko Wii 2.
Boss 1: Mekadon
Song used: Future Lab (フューチャー・ラボ)
The first boss of the game. In order to prepare you for the oncoming attack by Dr. Waruru and his robots, Mekadon decides to give you a tutorial on fighting bosses, the Taiko way. Future Lab is used as the tutorial song, and Mekadon throws random objects like screws, nuts and darumas for obstacles.
Boss 2: Anchimon (antimony)
Song used: Hello! Halloween (ハロー！ハロウィン)
Dr. Waruru's first mecha is a twin conga, presumably a male/female pair. They don't attack on their own, instead creating little monsters to attack for them. (Note: All of Waruru's mechas are named after elements of the Periodic Table)
But these are no ordinary boss congas. They aren't created by Namco! On July, a contest was organized in CoroCoro Magazine for kids to submit their ideas for boss mechas. The winners have their boss ideas put into the game! Anchimon was created by a 12-year old named Kento Otani, under the name Conga and Ganco. It was the grand prize winner. For more details, click here!
In Taiko Wii 2, Anchimon attacks by blocking off the note bar directly with its little monsters. One of them even tries to create a false note. It's easier than the actual Hello! Halloween, and is easily dispatched of. Don-chan makes a smaller version of himself (Chibi-don) to fight against the monsters on their own height level.
Boss 3: Yttrium
Song used: Many wow bang!
Dr. Waruru's second mecha disrupts the Japanese festival with its irritating and loud noisemaker. It resembles a large bird. Its name, Yttrium, when romanized, is Ittoriumu. It was chosen probably because 'tori' in the middle of its name means 'bird' in Japanese.
Yttrium doesn't have much in terms of obstacles, relying on occasional disruptive pictures of musical notes to block your way. The main trick it has up its sleeve is the noise he creates, replacing Many wow bang! with a badly sung, out-of-beat version of Waruru's theme song to throw you off timing. But once again, the notes in the boss battle don't reflect the actual Many wow bang!. Don-chan turns into a punk rocker to out-rock the noise created by Yttrium.
Boss 4: Gallium
Song used: SORA-I Earth Rise (SORA-I アースライズ)
Dr. Waruru's third mecha uses freezing powers to stop the festival cold in its tracks (no pun intended). This was also one of the first bosses to be featured in game previews, therefore revealing the name of the song to the public before the game was out.
Gallium (which bears a creepy resemblance to Mega Man) attacks by blocking off the end part of the note bar with giant ice crystals. Ice is still somewhat see-through, so notes are partly visible behind the ice. At the end, notes speed up to twice the regular speed. Discounting bomb notes, this is the first boss to follow the notes in the actual song exactly. Don-chan wraps himself in a hot meat bun to combat the cold conditions.
Boss 4: Tantaru (tantalum)
Song used: Fuun Shishi (風雲志士)
Dr.Waruru's 4th mecha uses its bulk and amazing power to smash through and ruin everyone's fun. During the boss battle, it will shake up the entire screen and cause a rock fall (and purported cracks on the TV screen) to block off notes. To battle Tantalum, Don-chan puts on a suit of Yamato armor to defend himself.
Boss 5: Geruma (germanium)
Song used: Yuugao No Kimi (ユウガオノキミ)
Waruru's 5th mecha is a reskin of Gallium, except instead of ice, it uses the opposite element- fire. Its attacks are also largely similar to those of Gallium, except this time they aren't see-through. This is fire we're talking about here.
Made harder by the fact that Yuugao no Kimi has sped up notes from the middle to the end of the song, making them hard to detect and prepare for (especially bomb notes which pop out unexpectedly). Don-chan wears a fire-engine costume to douse the fire.
Boss 6: Tungsten
Song used: Akuukan Yuuei ac12.5 (亜空間遊泳ac12.5)
Another reskinned boss, Tungsten borrows its large, bulky design from Tantaru. This time however, it's not just power, but amazing speed that has to be dealt with. Dr. Waruru uses Tungsten's windy tornado power to mess up the festival.
During the battle, debris from the wind will obscure the note bar, but more worryingly the notes are sped up to x2, x3 speed, at different levels throughout the song. Even worse is that Akuukan Yuuei ac12.5 is a 10* Oni song and its notes are exactly replicated here, this time with added bomb notes, making for a very, very tough time. Don-chan turns into a train to match Tungsten's speed.
Boss 7: Teruru (tellurium)
Song used: SORA-II Gliese 581 (SORA-II グリーゼ581)
Dr. Waruru's final mecha has cosmic powers, opening up black holes to make everything disappear. One of his strongest creations. Related to Arumi-chan in some way, but not known yet at this point in the storyline.
You'll need lots of luck and memorization to pass this, as Teruru turns to the cheating powers of the Doron mode in the boss battle, making all notes invisible save for bomb notes, and creates slight debris when things are being sucked into its black hole. For some reason, Don-chan wears his headphones to this battle.
Boss 8: Arumi-chan (aluminium)
Song used: --- Hikari No Kanata e (ヒカリノカナタヘ)
Kantan Battle
The gauntlet is unleashed! All this time Arumi-chan was Don and Kat's friend, but Dr. Waruru reveals her true identity in front of everyone, as a corrupt, hateful, powerful mecha. Don-chan tries to bring her back to her cheerful self with the power of the Taiko. Will he succeed?
In this long version, there are conversations between Don-chan and the evil Arumi. The lyrics of Hikari no Kanata e were made specifically for this boss battle. It turns from a persuading tone to come back to the light, to an tone of opposition and conflict in the middle, and then back to normal again, reflecting the changes that occur in the boss fight. (Don-chan starts the battle with the aim of bringing Arumi back to the light, then Arumi replying with hateful messages, then the final stretch when Arumi has been significantly weakened by Don-chan and her memories are slowly coming back).
Has more deathstreams and notes than regular Hikari no Kanata e, and Arumi's obstacles block nearly the ENTIRE screen as the middle of the song is approached, and towards the end, the screen-blocking bugger is combined with difficult fight notes and note speed ups. Don-chan doesn't use any costumes for this fight.
Final boss: Dr. Waruru
Song used: Waruru-sama no Uta o Ki ke! (ワルルーさまの歌を聴けぇ！)
His arsenal of mechas all but defeated, Dr. Waruru decides to pay a visit straight to the professor's lab and beat Don-chan by himself. At this moment, the broken-down Arumi-chan revives and turns back to her old self! This is the final battle!
And what a hard one it is. Instead of relying on regular Oni notes, the boss battle uses extra notes in addition to make memorizing beats more troublesome, especially when half the time notes are all blocked off by his limitless supply of smoke bombs. And I do mean completely blocked off. Not as bad as Arumi, but greatly annoying. You'll lose to Dr. Waruru more times than you'll want to. Don-chan wears a Shisa costume to guard the lab from invasion.
As a side note, Dr. Waruru's voice is quite familiar for keen videogamers. Besides voicing the good professor in Taiko Wii 2 (Otowa Hakase), the voice actor, Takashi Nagasako (長嶝 高士) is also the voice of Donkey Kong (Gamecube/Wii games, mostly in Mario Party and sports games spinoffs) and Ganondorf, from the Legend of Zelda games.
The credits roll as you beat Waruru out of the lab, and all is good in the world!
Back to Taiko Wii 2 song list
