The bosses of Taiko no Tatsujin DS3 are all monsters and ghosts from Japanese mythology, and are fought RPG-style to the tune of one of the unlockable songs in the game. Note that since it's a DS game, high-quality videos are not easy to come by, but if there's any, we'll place them here right away!
Basically the story revolves around Don-chan being pulled into a portal to ancient Japan, where he meets a young girl tanuki named Ponko, who had just recently lost her father and wants your help to find him. Your adventure takes you throughout Japan, clearing bosses and beating monsters along the way in traditional, random-encounters typical of RPGs.
Spoiler warning ahead.
Taiko DS 3 has 9 boss battles.
Wanyudo (わにゅうどう)
Starting level: 5
Okinawa Island Challenge Level: 5 (or 6)
Song used: Lovely-X
Wanyudo is a relatively well-known monster. He looks like an oxcart wheel with a man's face in the center. In Japanese folklore, Wanyudo is said to guard the gates of Hell and goes back and forth between our world and the underworld, stealing souls and sending them to hell.
The Wanyudo in Taiko DS3 rolls around burning the city and generally causing mischief. To block your vision, he rolls past the entire scroll bar. Basic and easy, which is typical of the first boss fight. After being beaten, he points Don-chan and Ponko to the place he last saw Ponko's father. Or so he thinks.
Kyuubi Kitsune (きゅうびキツネ)
Starting Level: 10
Okinawa Island Challenge Level: 12
Song used: Hyakki Yakou
Kitsune literally means 'fox' in Japanese. The ones used in folklore typically have nine tails; the more tails they have, the wiser and more powerful they are. Fox spirits can assume human form and are usually associated with trickery and mischief.
The fox spirit here takes on the form of a minister in a city and runs the place riot while the real guy had been exiled to a nearby village. Its true form is smaller and cuter than most other foxes, but watch out in battle! Kitsune won't do much to hinder your vision, but instead introduce false notes (with a difference face on them) to throw your balance off.
Mermaid Queen (人魚の女王)
Starting Level: 15
Okinawa Island Challenge Level: 17
Song used: Bubbly Queen
Not exactly Japanese folklore, but everyone knows what a mermaid is. Half human, half fish, lives in the sea. This particular one lives in what looks like the underwater Dragon Temple of ancient Chinese/Japanese myths, and although she praises her own beauty, when she reveals her true face...
Her methods of messing with your notes are by blowing bubbles at the screen and by washing the lower part with water, making the notes 'float' and scroll slower. She is holding Kat-chan against his will and wants him to marry her, and grudgingly gives him up after you beat her. Kat-chan later goes to accompany the emperor of the neighboring province while you continue on.
Rokurokubi (ろくろっくび)
Starting Level: 22
Okinawa Island Challenge Level: 24
Song used: Tenyou no Mai
Rokurokubi are normal humans by day, but turn into monsters at night, gaining the ability to stretch their necks to great lengths. They are known to live alongside humans, and enjoy scaring people, being tricksters by nature.
This normal-looking lady brings you to the top of a mountain where she transforms into a Rokurokubi and asks you to fight her in order to proceed. This girl enjoys being glamorous, both in her human and monster form. You can tell from her glitzy clothes and accessories, and the concert lighting in the background when she starts fighting you. She talks a lot, and uses her speech bubbles to block your notes off. After the battle, she goes back to her normal self and gives you the drill you need to proceed to the northern lands.
Yukie and Miyuki (ゆきえ・みゆき)
Starting Level: 27
Okinawa Island Challenge: 29
Song used: mint tears
Yukie and Miyuki are based off the 'yuki-onna', or 'snow woman', a female ghost sometimes encountered in dark, snowy nights. They range from being relatively harmless to vengeful beings who freeze people to death.
Although the yuki-onna usually looks menacing, the twin snow girls in Taiko DS3 are quite possibly, the most adorable characters you'll meet in the entire story mode. They hid themselves at the back of a snowy town, causing trouble at a hot spring and making its water turn ice cold. They like things sparkly and clean. As for obstacles, they throw snowmen and clean your note scroll bar till it shines white, and when it shines white, you can't see the notes. They even cry after you beat them.
These two are the ones who break the news that Ponko's father had been killed at the hands of the Monster King.
Ushi-oni (牛鬼)
Starting Level: 35
Okinawa Island Challenge Level: 36
Song used: KAGYUKIYO
Ushi-oni, literally 'cow-demon' are just like their namesake, taking the form of various other monsters but with a horned cow's head being their common feature.
The ushi-oni can take many forms, but the one used here is the unforgiving sea-monster with a spider-like body, though the personality of Taiko DS3's Ushi-oni is nothing like the one in the myth. Although he looks dark and menacing at the beginning, he reveals himself to be gentle and quiet after your battle with him, and gives you the Rain Orb almost effortlessly (which he stole) to stop the flooding in the city, and to revitalize the desert town in the north. The song used is the ultra-slow KAGYUKIYO, but Ushi-oni speeds up the scroll speed by blowing gusts of wind out his nose.
Sorcerer Dokon (魔術師ドコン)
Starting Level: 40
Okinawa Island Challenge Level: 42
Song used: Tokoyami no Mori
These guys look sort of...familiar. If you've played Taiko DS2 before, it's painfully obvious that this bumbling foursome are the Dokon Gang in disguise as monsters. Torabot is a Frankenstein, Nyanki dresses as a mummy, Botan is a vampire, and their boss, Dokon, is a magician, and is the main person you'll be fighting. All four of them will do their own thing to block your vision, making this the first tough boss encounter.
They even send you a letter after the boss fight, and keep on using their hidden identities, denying that you've seen them before. It goes something like this:
'What? You say you've seen us before? You must be imagining things! Eh? Seven Islands? (DS2's adventure mode) Uh...what's that?'
Daidara-bocchi (ダイダラボッチ)
Starting Level: 44
Okinawa Island Challenge Level: 46
Song used: Daidara 8551
*video unavailable*
The first final boss battle! Daidara-bocchi is a giant in Japanese mythology, and is said to be so big he can form entire lakes and craters with just one stomp of his foot. A star was named after Daidara-bocchi (with the number 8551 tacked at the back) by a Japanese astrologist, and that's how the song's name came to be. Is the second-in-command to the Monster King.
It's almost impossible to defeat this guy on the first try as his obstacle is extremely annoying- he jumps up and stomps on part of the scrolling bar, pulverizing it and making things very hard to see, and he does this fairly often. Interestingly, his maximum HP is 765.
Monster King (妖怪大王)
Starting Level: 48
Okinawa Island Challenge Level: 50
Song used: Jigoku no Daiou
Here we go, the final challenge. Rides on top of the in-game Daidara-bocchi, and challenges you to a fight to save the world. Ponko (your tanuki partner) blames him for killing and eating her father, but after the battle, the Monster King reveals himself as Ponko's father in a costume! Tanuki are also another variety of mischief-loving Japanese monsters, and this was just one example of his epic, large-scale pranks (the entire story mode)!
Before that though, prepare for a drubbing as the Monster King is at a very high level with the maximum HP limit of 999. He sits permanently on the far end of the scrolling bar, blocking it, and to make things worse his obstacles, which consist of giant words announcing his attack, and giant meteor showers, block off nearly the entire remainder of what you are able to see. Playing this on Hard mode is a crazy kick.
Master (おやかたさま)
Starting Level: -
Last Island Challenge Level: 50
Song used: Nanori (Tenjou)
Oh wait, this guy again? He's been Ponko's guide and your guide since the beginning of the whole story, and instead of a tutorial match, this time, on Okinawa Island, the old man's not pulling any punches. Think you've got the whole island challenge beaten after downing the Monster King? Think again.
He gets you hyped up thinking of the challenge ahead, except....all there is are bomb notes and nothing else. Then suddenly he pulls an absurd ninja trick on you, in which one note suddenly appears out of nowhere right in front of the target circle and -bam- instant kill. Turns out the entire challenge was a hoax, banking on you hitting that one note to determine whether you win or lose. Look at the video to see if you can tell what the one note is. Bears a lot of resemblance to the ninja Dojo challenges on Taiko Wii.
Back to Taiko DS3 song list
