Namco Taiko Blog (30 May 2011) - Taiko 10th anniversary 2nd big news!

Wanna know what it is?

Taiko goofs, last swarm

Since Youtube videos are getting fewer and fewer about those glitches, it's time to close this Sunday meeting with a generous number of "good" programming skills!

Song of the Week! 28 May 2011

 

Due to the growing number of song requests, this time I'll feature a couple of user requests! Incidentally, both appear in the same Taiko games, and will be revived for the upcoming Taiko DX game.

Classic Showcase: Ravel Songs

Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937) was a French composer, known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects. As a fiery representant of the French in-war musical style, Ravel's musical virtuosity can be tracked down along his passionate piano compositions and orchestral works, far away from the definitions of 'modernist' or 'impressionist' music, which Ravel himself regretted as paragon terms, belonging to art styles.

With the Classic genre in Taiko slowly drying up, most of the latest songs introduced are actually composed by Ravel. All of the Ravel songs currently in Taiko were put into console games first before ported to the arcade, one by one. (with the exception of Bolero, which came out on AC11 first)

Angel Dream III song demo for the rest of us

If you don't have Media Player 11 and are not planning to download the plugin for one reason or other, someone has done us the favor of bringing the sample over to Youtube for easy listening. It's without vocals though- the parts where the vocals are supposed to be have substitute music. Very nice song to listen to- can't wait to hear the final product! PSP owners are lucky this time!

Namco Taiko Blog (26 May 2011) - Angel Dream III song demo

Whatever you want to call it (the song still has no official name), the short sample of Angel Dream 3 is now open for hearing on the blog itself! Don't go to the official site- there's nothing there. The sample is on the blog post and you'll need Windows Media Player 11 to listen to it. For those of you without Media Player 11, you can go download it, or wait for someone to rip it out and post it on Youtube (which we'll then link over if possible)

Link to original post

Random: Cheating on Taiko DS 3

It's quite curious how Namco leaves their marks on its games with cheat codes, isn't it?

Clarification on Ponta & Lawson exclusive PSP DX song 'SMOKY THRILL'

Last time the page was up there were no pictures on it but now P&L has been updated with a few pieces of official art and the method to get the IdolM@ster 2 song SMOKY THRILL for those who preorder Taiko Portable DX from the site.

Together with Angel Dream 3's card, customers of P&L will get a second card to download SMOKY THRILL (presumably off PSN Japan) and a special costume for Don-chan, the Lawson set, which are their employee uniforms. There's finally a picture of that too.

Here's the link to the preorder page, in case you missed it being on PSP DX's song list.

Another PSP DX promotional song

First, Angel Dream 3 being given out through a special PSN card with a copy of the game. Then, SMOKY THRILL being available only through those who buy through Ponta and Lawson. Now, it seems Hori, console accessory maker, wants in on the action too. This came from Taiko Team's twitter:

"『「太鼓の達人ぽ～たぶるDX」発売にあわせて、7月14日にHORI様より「メモリースティック PRO デュオ」が発売予定です！楽曲「風のファンタジー」と「オリジナルカスタムテーマ」がもらえるそうですよー！詳しくはHORI様からの発表をお待ちくださ い！ 』"

On the same day Taiko Portable DX goes on sale, Hori's new Memory Stick PRO Duo will also be released and will come with a theme for the PSP (you know, like changing skins, different title screen and art assets and all that) and one song, Kaze no Fantasy.

I really want to see who's game enough to go through all the effort of getting all the promotional songs in just one purchase come launch day.

Thanks to Lokamp for the find!

Taiko goofs, chapter 7

Brand new game glitches await our brave readers! This lot is all for the Portable games.

Song of the Week: 21 May 2011

 

Hurray, my turn again! Since the last time I was here was to talk about boss songs, I'll be continuing down that line this week too! Guess which game it is this time.

Random: 'My Funny Taiko'

...to be or not to be the Akebobe (reverse) mode? The wonders can award a defective TV are quite strange...

White Rose Insanity preview

Hmm...male vocals? Well it certainly is less insane than I'd imagined it to be. Also based on the preview this is a lot slower than the 200 BPM in Black Rose Apostle...anyone here think WRI is not going to be 10* on Oni? I'd probably put it at 9* if the Ryougen-Senpuu pattern is any indication.

Namco Taiko Blog (19 May 2011) - Taiko PSP DX new songs!

After two weeks of basically nothing but casual chat, Namco finally dropped the bombshell- a second wave of songs to hit Taiko PSP DX, some of which you will be very, VERY pleased to hear about! Read on!

Rotter Tarmination infinite stream

Literally one long, long stream from the beginning of the music to the end of the song without any rest, with intermittent 1/6 to frustrate people. It should be a rousing good time to play, but just watching it is sort of....random. Instead of speeding up at the end, the notes slow down to become almost unseeable.

Feature: Arcade stick vandalism

Why else do you think I always cart around my own pair of sticks when I go to the arcade? Some things aren't just for show, you know.

Saturday Taiko Fever lyrics

Composer: Misumi Yuri (みすみゆり)

Random: Taiko DS 3's final screen

Spoiler ahead. Are you really sure to see what appears if you full combo every song on Taiko DS 3, on every difficulty?

Taiko goofs, act 6

As usual, here's another exposure of programming negligence!

Jigoku no Taiko Jiten lyrics

Artist: Yoshito Yano (矢野義人)
Composer: Misumi Yuri (みすみゆり)

Song of the Week! 14 May 2011

 

We've mostly used the Saturday song of the week feature to talk about our favorite songs and your favorite songs. But what about the songs we don't like? Better feature them too while we're at it (gulp)

Taiko no Tatsujin + update history

All updates are after the release of Taiko no Tatsujin Plus on May 28, 2010.

Version 2.4.0 (August 8, 2014)
-Main mode renamed to 'Enjoy' (お楽しみ)
-Lottery (福引) mode added, allowing players to unlock customizable parts by spending points awarded after every play
-Added outfit, theme and Taiko Skin customizations
-In-game Visual looks and Combo voices updated to be closer to the ones from Taiko Wii U

Version 2.3.2 (May 30, 2014)
-Optimized display of the note names under the notes during gameplay

Version 2.3.0 (April 24, 2014)
-Fixed compatibility issue with iOS6 firmware
-Adjustment made to swipe controls on song selection
-Added compatibility to Roland V-Drum set
-Other minor performance improvements

Version 2.2.1 (December 12, 2013)

-Added settings for Bluetooth Tatacon controller in Options menu

Version 2.2.0 (December 6, 2013)
-Added compatibility to Bluetooth Tatacon controller
-Optimized controls for iPhone4 and iPod Touch
-Bug fixes and maintenance

Version 2.1.1 (November 11, 2013)
-Bug fixes and maintenance

Version 1.12.0 (March 25, 2013)
-Added song demo icon to listen to songs before downloading
-Play area adjusted for iPhone 5
-Information on downloaded song packs refresh after one hour, to reduce server load

Version 1.11.0 (March 1, 2013)
-Fixed login issues to Twitter from Taiko+

December 21, 2012- Taiko+ reached 5 million downloads

Version 1.10.0 (December 17, 2012)
-Compatibility is now full on iPhone 5, minimum firmware needed to run Taiko no Tatsujin Plus increased to iOS 4.3
-Bug fix on unsynced music and notes when playing on iPad mini/4th generation iPad
-Song previews on online store before buying songs
-Improved hit detection for big notes

Version 1.9.1 (November 8, 2012)
-Bug fix on unsynced music and notes when playing on an iPhone 5

Version 1.9.0 (November 1, 2012)
-One new free song, Papa Mama Mc (deleted after November 22, 2012)

Version 1.8.0 (August 10, 2012)
-Results screen now shows number of 良, 可, and 不可

Version 1.7.0 (October 12, 2011)
-One new free song, Saitama 2000
-Forked paths added
-Gameplay mods added (minus random note mods)
-Able to retry song after pausing
-All song packs must be redownloaded after this update to accomodate the major changes

Version 1.6.0 (April 25, 2011)
-Special title screen for Taiko 10th anniversary
-One new free song, Namcot Medley

Version 1.5.0 (February 14, 2011)
-One new free song, The Nutcracker Suite
-Ultraman title screen taken down

Version 1.4.1
-Bug fixes for iPad version

Version 1.4.0 (December 9, 2010)
-Special title screen together with release of Ultraman Pack.

Version 1.3.0 (November 11, 2010)
-Increased options for multiplayer mode, can now battle with highest number of hits, highest final combo number, highest score, highest number of 良
-Bug fix on Taiko iOS 4.1
-Bug fix on high scores from Version 1.2.0

September 29, 2010- Taiko+ reached a million downloads

Version 1.2.0 (September 22, 2010)
-Song list can now be sorted by number of plays and genre
-Change to dancers that appear after Tamashii gauge hits maximum
-One new free song, Bolero

Version 1.1.1 (August 9, 2010)
-Title screen change
-Autoplay added
-Special dancers added to Brass Band Pack songs
-One new free song, Deep Cleansing

Back to Taiko iOS/+ song list

Taiko no Tatsujin Android Version Song List

With the growing number of smartphone competitors in the market, it was obvious that Apple's phones weren't the only platform to get Taiko into the hands of people on the go anymore, so an equivalent of Taiko + was released on Android at the same time the Game Music Pack was available for download for owners of the original Taiko +. The app goes by the official name of Taiko no Tatsujin AR Yokai Battle (太鼓の達人AR妖怪バトル).

True to its name, the application's game mechanics are the ones already seen on Taiko DS 3's RPG-like battle, by featuring the same set of enemies and EXP-based level-up. But unlike the DS game, enemies must be found by the player himself, by detecting the monsters with the phone's AR function (augmented reality) in the world around, much like the Nintendo 3DS game Face Raiders and other similar games that use a console's built-in camera to play games.

This Android Taiko is either pre-installed into the phone memory, or downloaded from Google's own version of the App Store. Like Taiko +, Taiko Android is also free, with three songs at the beginning, with the forked paths feature for the applicable songs being absent as well.

Random: Diet Master

 

...no words for this, seriously.

Ever felt Ryougen was too slow?

More ungodly skill videos. First DDR Taiko, now two TaikoJiro videos that will make you wish you trained more.

Yes I know what you're thinking. The mere mention of Ryougen being easy would send many players into rage mode. Not for this guy here. He can perform well even with the song actually sped up to about 1.5 times the original speed. That's....BPM 330. And he FCed Ryougen no Mai at this inhuman BPM! With only 7 可! He breezed through the 1/6 dkdkdkdkdkd chain and the final Go-Go Time, the parts where all the profanities are spewed at.



And if that's not enough, he has another video where he plays Joubutsu 2000 at super speed. Again, 150% of original BPM. Our god player didn't do so well here as he did on Ryougen, there were certain parts which he didn't bother hitting at all, but check out his finger movements during the 1/3-1/6 murder streams and the final 37564 Don stream. Effortless!

Taiko goofs, step 5

Another Sunday in Taiko Time means another trip through in-game issues!

Random: Taiko played on DDR dance machine

Found by OnosakiHito of osu!

I can't even begin to describe the number of things that are beyond epic in this video. A PS2 is hooked up not to a Dance Dance Revolution dance mat, but the ENTIRE BOTTOM HALF of the real arcade machine? And the guy actually used the four inputs on the dance machine to play Taiko...using his legs? Okay, maybe he's going to choose a manageable song...

....did he seriously choose Taiko Tower 9 (Yawaraka Sensha Ura)? Not only that, he used his legs to FC the entire thing? This guy is beast. He puts many Taiko and DDR players to shame!

This is also possible as Namco x Konami fodder.

Taiko no Tatsujin - Mobile Edition

The mobile version of Taiko no Tatsujin bears the title of being the first Taiko on a portable device and one of the oldest Taiko games. The application is downloadable both with a specific QR code on the official site, or from the homepage of a Japanese web/WAP provider. It's possible to play Taiko on mobile phones with 3 different japanese phone service providers: i-Mode, Yahoo! Mobile and EZweb. Features within the three providers are different, but they share the same tracklist.

Song of the Week! 7 May 2011

 

A double pick, to start May off with a bang! Let me humbly introduce one of the greatest songs in Taiko history.

Notice: Google Blogger downtime

"We are very sorry that users are unable to publish to Blogger right now. We have rolled back the maintenance release from last night and as a result, posts and comments from all users made after 7:37 am PDT on May 11, 2011 have been removed," -Google

On May 11, Google decided to do routine maintenance on the site and server which Taiko Time and bajillions of other blogs are hosted on, Blogger. It was supposed to be a really simple affair lasting no more than an hour. Problems with it extended the downtime to more than three hours, then we were back online.

That wasn't the end of it though.

The following day, on May 12th, the maintenance work they did turned out to be a lot more unstable than first thought, and the entire Blogger was brought down again. No one could post anything. On May 13th, the tech team for Blogger posted that all blogs would be in read-only mode and in a state when the site was last stable, meaning they rolled back all the way to 7.37AM PDT on May 11 and all posts and comments after that were lost. Yep, completely lost. It was Blogger's worst outage in recent history, which speaks volumes of how important consistency is in the online world.

News source

How did we suffer from this?

Post-mortem conducted, and we lost two posts, two comments made on the Diet Master article and some edits made to the Taiko iOS article. We're still a small blog so the damage is still minor. Imagine if we were a full-fledged site and Google decides to A-bomb the entire server....we're basically at their mercy when it comes to reliability.

Anyway, me and Lokamp will work to restore whatever was lost, and we seek your understanding in this situation as it was propogated by an authority far out of our control.

Site admin,
pikaby

Lalala Happiness lyrics

Composer: Oogami Masako (大上昌子)
Vocals: Narahashi Miki (楢橋 美紀), Akane Ueda (上田茜)
Lyrics: Ken Nakadate (中館賢)

Taiko goofs, 4th strike

The Namco parade of in-game issues doesn't stop! Here's a fine selection from every genre of games.