In line with Namco's ongoing revival trend, even us, the Taiko Time staff has tried to fetch some of the oldest songs, saved from the rhythmical grave. Here are the results of our digging!
Rhythm And Police Odoro Dai Sousa Sen (踊る大捜査線) --- Old ---| Version |  |  |  | 
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x4 (122) | x5 (184) | x6 (322) | x8 (353) |
Taiko 5, 6, Medal 1, Taiko PS2 3
140.9
Variety -> Drama
sousa RHYTHM AND POLICE Odoro Dai Sousa Sen (踊る大捜査線) --- New ---| Version | | | |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taiko 14, DS3 | x3 (113) | x5 (152) | x6 (298) | x8 (474) |
| Taiko PSP DX | x3 (113) | x5 (152) | x6 (298) | x7 (474) |
Taiko 14, Taiko PSP DX, Taiko DS 3 141 Drama -> Variety sousaRhythm and Police comes from the cult Japanese police drama/comedy show Odoro Dai Sousa Sen (known in English as Bayside Shakedown), originally broadcast by the Fuji Television group in 1997. The song is the opening theme of the TV show.
The main character of the series is a young detective named Shunsaku Aoshima, a corporate salesperson who decided to join the Wangan Precinct of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department out of idealism expecting a life of adventure and excitement. Once inside, he was completely underwhelmed by life on the police force, which he found to be almost the same as corporate life.
The series was so popular that four movies were made following the end of the TV series, with astonishing box office records; the first movie, Bayside Shakedown The Movie, was a major box office hit in Japan earning 10.1 billion yen (84 million U.S. dollars), and was the fifth best performing film in Japanese box office history. Its sequel is Japan's highest grossing non-animated movie and earned over $165 million at the box office. Even an English-subtitled version of the series was broadcast in the United States between 1998/1999 on the International Channel as "The Spirited Criminal Investigative Network".
The old notechart of Rhythm and Police follows the old genre arrangement- from the Variety genre in AC5, it continued to AC6 and was ported to PS2 in the Drama genre. It's one of the oldest examples of mixed beat division from the 1/16 clusters to 1/12 streams. Five years later, the old Variety song received a new lease of life on AC14 and Taiko DS3 (and put back into its old genre). Many more notes were added while still maintaining the mixed arrangement, and Go-Go Time was added too. The trickiest part of the old notechart, the 3 red/3 blue 1/12 streams were dumped in favor of denser, more standard 1/16 clusters, and a new confusing part was added at the end in the form of streams consisting of both big and small notes, like the one at the very end of Gekkabijin. All the balloon notes and drumrolls were taken out.
That's not the only change to the song though. Rhythm and Police is now spelled in the new versions in full capitals, and the song's quality has been dramatically improved, leading to a very, very slight alteration in the BPM. The PSP DX porting led to a star rating decrease for the song too, following the new difficulty standards.
Taiko no Tatsujin - Ai no Theme (太鼓の達人･愛のテーマ) --- Old ---| Version | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x5 (251) |
Taiko 3 75 none aino Taiko no Tatsujin - Ai no Theme (太鼓の達人･愛のテーマ) --- New ---
| Version | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x3 (129) | x4 (142) | x6 (237/251) | x6 (237/251) |
| All (2P) | x3 (129) | x4 (142) | x6 (237/251) | x6 (237/251) (video) |
Taiko 10, CD Full Combo (Extended version) 75 none ainoTogether with Angel Dream and The Carnivorous Carnival, Taiko no Tatsujin - Ai no Theme (Theme of Love) is the third and final unlockable song in the first ever arcade secret code on Taiko 10. Unlike the 'angel/demon' pairing, which are completely new songs, Taiko no Tatsujin Ai no Theme comes from way back in Taiko 3, where it was the arcade's 'hidden ending theme', replacing the default Don-chan Ekaki Uta, in the staff roll of Taiko 3 if certain conditions are met.
Although this pleasant and soothing love song is nice to listen to, sadly it has only ever been on these two arcades, once where it started, and once more during its revival. It is the first old song to be revived via secret code, and the first of two 6* Namco Originals to be revived (the second being Dodododo-Donderful, which is on Taiko 12.5 together with Kissa Rain). It is a rare example of a Namco Original song with full English lyrics, and with the release of Ai no Theme on the Full Combo! soundtrack CD, it suddenly becomes the longest song ever composed in Taiko, spanning 9 minutes and 25 seconds, and the powerful vocalist is an American lady, Argie Phine, who hails from South Carolina and has performed in both the US and in Japan. She is the first foreign vocalist to lend her voice to Taiko.
On Taiko 3, this song was only available for play on Donderful mode as a 5* song. Very minute BPM differences of less than one-ten thousandths of a second exist throughout the song but they are so insignificant that they are commonly assumed as a constant. The notes are extremely simple and sparsely distributed throughout the slow song, and the high-energy ending suddenly ramps things up giving players continuous clusters of 1/24 don notes, which is a difficulty curve later emulated by songs like Kimi no Akari.
Not much changed on its way to Taiko 10 except that Go-Go Time and forked paths were introduced. The old notes remain completely untouched on the Normal path (however the difficulty rise to 6* is unexplained), and Master notes were put into single-player mode, which replaces the final few sparse clusters with one long, hard-to-complete balloon note of 150 hits, even at this slow speed. To get to the Master notes is no mean feat- the condition is to get 20 hits in total on the 3rd and 4th drumrolls of the song, both of which are just one beat long. Same conditions for 2-player mode- although the notes are split 50/50 between 1P and 2P for the first half, both of them get the same 1/24 don cluster rush at the end, and Master Notes are achieved individually.
