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)
Jigoku no Taiko Jiten (地獄の太鼓事典) --- Old ---| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taiko 1 | x2 (324) | |||
| Taiko 2 | x6 (324) | |||
| Taiko PS2 2 | x4 (208) | x3 (324) | x3 (324) |
Taiko 1, 2, PS2 2, CD Blue
200
Heavy Rock -> Namco Original
heavy Jigoku no Taiko Jiten (地獄の太鼓事典) --- New ---| Version | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x5 (127) | x6 (181) | x7 (348) | x9 (547) |
Taiko PSP DX, Taiko Wii 3, Taiko 3DS 3 197~201 none heavy2Jigoku no Taiko Jiten is one of Taiko's oldest songs, coming from the beginning of the series on the very first arcade, and is Taiko's first rock song, which was then revived on Wii a very long time after. It is composed by Misumi Yuri (みすみゆり) and Yoshito Yano (矢野義人); we've seen Yano's name many times already, most recently two weeks ago for Yami no Tamashii's feature.
Jigoku no Taiko Jiten (literally, 'Taiko Encyclopedia of Hell') was the first member of the old Heavy Rock genre, and its unconventional lyrics encompass the spirit of the huge world of the Namco Original genre, which was to be invented later. The song is basically a Taiko drum fact sheet presented in song, with information on the estimated number of Taiko associations in Japan, and trivia like how far the drum's sound can be heard, and then the process of Taiko drum production, from preparing the wooden body to drying the leather drum face.
The title is scary on the surface (the 'hell' part just refers to the vibe of the song), however despite that, the old Donderful mode of this song is really plain and easy to clear, with no beat clusters although the fast BPM is open for abuse. Note that the Muzukashii mode of Taiko 1 has the same patterns of the Donderful mode in Taiko 2. In the first arcade it only had one difficulty, which was Muzukashii, the highest one at the time. This would actually mean that the song was supposed to be a challenge of some sort back then.
So it makes sense that when Jigoku was revived on Taiko Wii 3 about 9 years later, it was pushed to the high end of the difficulty scale with a brand-new 9* Oni notechart and finally makes full use of the fast BPM, although why this time the speed quivers a little is again, anyone's guess, although the BPM difference isn't significant enough to affect gameplay in any way. This speed is a recipe for amazing difficulty with many beat clusters and balloon notes and a final speed-up zone added for effect. The way the notechart is built resembles that of Hakuchou no Mizuumi ~still a duckling~, in that it has 3 red/3 blue clusters followed by single notes, again and again.
The overhaul didn't just cover the notes, the song itself has been changed slightly (which might explain the BPM variation in the new music file), with the last line changing from '... How was it? Didn't you get pleasure from that?' (…どうだい、アレより気持ちいいだろ？) to '... I'm burned out...' (…燃え尽きたぜ」...). That's why even the SongID of Jigoku no Taiko Jiten changed from heavy to heavy2. It was never explained what 'that' ever meant in the old version.
