Feature: Pathology of Taiko

Just like playing every other videogame, there's always the risk of getting hurt when playing Taiko. Everyone knows the typical warning messages you get on instruction manuals of games, the one about epilepsy and the one about taking a break from playing every hour or so, and not hitting things with your Wiimotes (and the latest one being 3D effects fry children's eyes inside out). Let's be honest- I know none of us give a flying bachi about them, the warnings are just there so developers don't get sued when accidents happen. But sometimes they do happen.

Custom Ura Frenzy - Go Go Kicchin / Dodododo-Donderful!

How hard an old, fast song can be with good incentives? This week's picks focus around two old Taiko classics with fan-made, revamped note patterns. Would you be able to stand them?

Go Go Kitchen lyrics

Artist: Yuri Misumi

Song of the Week! 27 August 2011

 

Another reader request for one of the greatest Taiko classics! Both of them were recently revived for Taiko 14, and the first one has been requested multiple times. Know what it is?

Rinda wa Kyou mo Zekkouchou lyrics

Composer: Yuri Misumi (みすみゆり)
Vocals: Linda (not Linda AI-Cue)

How to download songs (Taiko PSP DX)

The method to download songs for Taiko PSP DX is somewhat different to the one used in previous PSP Taiko games. Now, instead of going online to get the raw files, players will have to sign in to PSN (PlayStation Network) Japan to get at the songs. Here's how:

Namco Taiko Blog (25 August 2011)- Taiko 10th anniversary 5th big news!

And the winner goes to.....

Taiko PSP DX's hidden IDs

 

Image leaked from wikihouse. By checking the download packs's .edat files, skilled hackers are able to chronologically date the downloaded song's release and relative SongIDs, but the August pack has added another couple of ID values, not belonging to any song released for the PSP downloads...

The first one is angelb, could easily be the Angel Beats song My Soul, Your Beats!!, or maybe something else about the Angel Beats anime. The second one, akbac, hints at the release of an additional J-Pop song for the group AKB48.

For the date, the numbers after TEXPACK show it clearly '110800018' is August 2011, with the 00018 being the tag for the song itself. For some reason, both songs are in the same TEXPACK file.

(...by the way, don't you think the large number of AKB48 songs is getting a little too much this generation? With this download, Heavy Rotation and the two songs for the incoming new Taiko arcade (Maru Maru Mori Mori and Everyday Kachusha), let's hope there's still space for other groups!)

Custom Ura Frenzy!

Since these are calm times at the Taiko front, we will post a few Taikojiro videos of custom Ura Oni charts made by fans.

Song of the Week! 20 August 2011

 

Another user request gives a hint for this month's Ura song! One of the longest songs ever made is coming up...

Pavane for a Dead Princess lyrics

Vocals: Ayano Yasuda (安田彩乃)
Original composer: Maurice Ravel

White Rose Insanity lyrics

Composer: Zeami
Vocals: Kyo (狂)

Namco Taiko Blog (18 August 2011) - Taiko Tournament 2011, the Area challenge

After the 2-week Taiko Team hiatus, it can be common sense to expect some great news about the incoming new arcade, or maybe about the September songs for Taiko PSP DX...

Updated top-song tiering

Hi guys, Zekira G. Drake here. Recently, the player-opinion-based tiering for hardest songs (in arcade) have been altered with the Taiko 14.5 update.

Konya wa Homi lyrics

Composer: Yoshito Yano (矢野義人)
Vocals: Hase Yurina (長谷優里奈) (formerly Ochiai Yurika 落合 祐里香)

TT 1st Anniversary quiz: Answers

Okay I've stalled announcing the results for long enough, and it's time to close entries! Before I get to the results, let's check out the answers to all 20 questions.

Taiko goofs returns

Another bug parade awaits our readers after months of inactivity! This time is focused on the latest PSP game; even if has brought new songs and innovations, it also contains some embarassing programming errors...

pikaby asks: Most annoying songs to FC?

Okay, I take it mostly everyone gathered here would already have some prior experience with playing Taiko, so let's talk some more about our experiences, shall we? I wanna hear about the songs you find difficult to full combo or to clear. Oh, but not the bunch of 'hardest songs of all time', I'm talking about songs that are supposedly easier but still give you trouble when playing.

I have quite a few myself...and none of them are 10* Oni songs. Topping the list is Okashi Deka no Uta, the YMCK song. And I thought Family Dondon was bad...not only was this a much harder song overall, but the killer streak was incredibly tough to manage for me, the part where the lyrics are about chocolate cake and everything is at double speed. I bet it was tough on everyone, right? Not really; people left and right had already mastered the song in a matter of weeks. And it took me something close to 7 months to get my first FC for it, and even now it's still a lucky break for me to perfect this song, though I don't mess up as often now on the chocolate cake bit. One of the 10* songs which has this same 1/6 to 1/4 pattern that always kills me off is IN THE ZONE.

Another bulls*** challenge to FC is Make Inu Henjou, from the Muscle March series, which I just FC'ed last week. Eh, I lied, I've FCed the song months ago. But it wasn't a proper FC, after trying for ages to finish that crazy stream before the path change, I finally get it right...only to be pushed down to Advanced Notes. This frustrating thing has already happened to me lots of times before. If I do make it up to Master Notes where the speedup part is, I never make it through without at least one miss (much to my dismay), and I can easily polish off the remainder of the song on Advanced but I'd be missing a few notes off the mark. But I was so sick of it by that time I just relented and FCed the song with the final portion being on Advanced. Only recently did I finally get lucky and clear the final part on Master to get the true full combo.

And the third one is Don Engasu no Fuefuki. It's a lovely song, and the notechart is all fine and good, but the stream that always forces me to break is in the exact middle of the song, and replaying one whole minute of slow and easy again and again just to practice that stream is so tiring...sometimes I just forget it and enjoy the rest of the notes.

Okay, now that's enough about me. Let's hear some from you~!

Sneaky look at Taiko arcade 2011's release date

As someone can remember, we have seen on July some posters and images about a new Taiko arcade flyer, whose technical features promise to be centuries far from the previous arcades. (Click here if you have missed this post!)

Thanks to lepidopodus, a fellow Taiko fan, we have found a website where the new machine can be bought, also listing some interesting information:

1) According to the web page, this new Taiko machine will be released on November this year. The site also points at Monday the 7th as its release date, but is still unconfirmed.

EDIT: After two months, the release date is officially postponed to Wednesday the 16th!

2) Its selling price easily reaches astonishing peaks: while a new Taiko 14 machine costs about 278,000 Yen, the new Hi-tech version can be bought for 998,000 Yen (Holy guacamole, it's about 4-5 times more expensive than the current model!)

True though, that revolutionary advances in tech always costs a whole lot more. It's going to be hard waiting for this one...well there's PSP DX's monthly new downloads to tide us over!

Taikojiro - Plasma 2000

 

EkiBEN or X-DAY on crack? Maybe, or maybe not. This amatorial song's streams and 1-note balloons manages to have its player sweat of tireness, guaranteed!

Song of the Week! 13 August 2011

 

An user request and a staff pick take us into an international journey! Who said Taiko games don't have good English songs?

First video of Tougenkyou Alien

Here instead we have a non-HQ recording of the new August Anime song! Tougenkyou Alien mixes 1/3 clusters with speedy 1/4 sections, for an average 7* song.

...we also forgot to inform our users about a minor update of the Taiko PSP DX website: the past Ustream live session can now be seen directly from the game's official site, together with a special wallpaper about the Taiko Team's live sketches. Are you able to recognize them all?

First video of Tsukikage SASURAI

anongos, one of our devoted followers, has recorded one of the latest Pay-to-play songs from Taiko PSP DX's August downloads. The spiritual successor of Uchuu SAMURAI bears another 8* Oni with other violin virtuosisms!

(I bet this song can easily fit a Professor Layton videogame. Seriously.)

Koibumi 2000 lyrics

Artist: LindaAI-CUE
Vocal: Hase Yurina (長谷優里奈) (formerly Ochiai Yurika 落合 祐里香)

Site announcement: Forked path icon

Hi again! In the lack of any major stimulating news this week in the world of Taiko, I'll probably be bringing a few discussion topics to the blog and maybe some lyrics translations that I've been putting off for a while (including Koibumi 2000), but the main reason for this announcement is to turn your attention to the songlists again, as I've added one more change to it. A small icon for difficulties with forked paths!

A bit small, isn't it? Any larger and it'll look really messy on the already densely-packed tables on the songlist. We only have so much space to work with! Tell me if this icon is still too large and I can make it even more compact.

Again, Taiko PSP DX is the testing ground for the change, so go there and have a look at the forked path icon to see what I've messed up or improved. Remember, I need everyone's feedback so we can make Taiko Time a better site for everyone!

Oh, and I'll be announcing the answers for last week's Taiko trivia and screenshot quiz soon, so stay tuned! I have 5 entries for the screenshot quiz and 2 for the trivia.

The Taiko Tatacon arcade

Found by TranLan from chat. Thanks!



Roganis, from osu!, figured out a way to hook the sensors from a Wii Tatacon to a giant size Taiko drum, and it works! Looks pretty sensitive too. Here's a video of him using the enormous controller on the Wii, playing Sanpo Ura.

Song of the Week! 6 August 2011

 

Back to the J-Pop genre this time! This is nice, one of our user requests will actually become one of the August downloads for Taiko PSP DX.

Site announcement: Songlist redesign

Finally I don't suck in coding HTML! Okay, maybe I still do, but at least I've figured out how to make the songlists into neat, space-saving tables instead of the long messy lists everyone has been accustomed to over the past year. Check it out!

If you haven't yet noticed, Taiko PSP DX was the first songlist to receive this new change for testing purposes, and so far it's turned out well. The few things that have changed are:

1. The genre header is now in large font.
2. The difficulty icons no longer load multiple times because of the table
3. The table has a faint background picture.
4. Ura Oni icon! That red circle you see is used for denoting a Ura Oni diff, and it generates a lot less messy HTML code than splashing red all over it (trust me, it was hell cleaning it up). There's a green and blue one too, which you'll see eventually.

What was not added was:

1. Any method to sort the songs by difficulty/name, etc.: Sorting here is more difficulty than on Microsoft Excel because the tables are self-made and not generated by a software, and Blogger doesn't know what to do with them. To sort them would mean making a separate copy of the songlist with the changes made and that is tiring for us. Maybe in the future we could consider this, but for now it's an idea.
2. Anything to denote forked paths. I've been mulling it over the past day and figured maybe an icon would work well for this. I'll try sometime soon.

Anyway, go to the PSP DX songlist and see the new format- also give any suggestions or critiques you might have so we can further improve it! Thanks in advance.

Taiko Team's First ever UStream: Details here! (Imp't: August DL songs!)

Hi guys, Zekira G. Drake here! Got to get home early and fortunately watch the stream! *bringing along my failure of not understanding Japanese 90% of the time, of course* Alright guys! Watched the Ustream of the Taiko Team today all the way and got a few important details! (though not all obviously since I don't understand JP 90% of the time) This post will be filled with a lot of screenshots since that's basically the thing we'll understand the most.

Namco Taiko Blog (4 August 2011): Taiko Team's first Ustream

Goes live at 8.00pm tonight, Japan time! (and so 12 a.m., according to London GMT) Be sure to catch them! Here's the link for the Taiko Team Ustream session.

The contents of the show include Etou playing a 5-song medley in Taiko PSP DX's Medley Mode, 17Masu showing the Taiko Team around his room and an interview with him, and of course, the revealing of August's download songs! What songs will be added to the song list? This is getting exciting!

The songs Etou will be playing has already been revealed via Twitter over the past few days and they are as follows:

1. Pastel Dream
2. Wanya World
3. Rotter Tarmination (Ura)
4. Ao no Senritsu
5. Mata Saitama 2000

...woah, is he going to be alright? Not to mention he's gauging his performance not by score and combo number, but by the accuracy of his hits too.

Also, Taiko Team are taking one week's break from blogging and will be back the following Thursday on August 18th.

Link to original post

Twitter Snippets (1-2-3 August 2011): Other tunes for Eto's medleys

According to past Monday and Tuesday's tweets, another couple of songs is chosen for the 5-song medley streaming of tomorrow. This time, the Taiko fans have chosen to bring the big guns: Rotter Tarmination (Ura) and Ao no Senritsu.

But there's more to know! Today the final song of the 5-medley session is revealed: the infamous Mata Saitama 2000. Will the actual Taiko Team leader pass these pesky songs with honor?

Yuugao no Kimi lyrics

Composer, vocal(?): Keiichi Okabe (岡部啓一)
Lyricist: Kikuchi Hana (BUKKORO) (菊地はな)

Feature: Mark of the first year

And now it's time for me to write on my impressions of how the last year turned out to be. I'm willing to bet a lot of you are also curious to know how Taiko Time came to be too, so read on; although it's nothing too sensational, making this blog what it has become today after such a short time was lots of hard work for both me and the rest of the team. And of course, I have all you readers and supporters to thank as well! Before this, I'd never imagined there was such a large Taiko fanbase that doesn't live in Japan, you guys are great!

Wanya World lyrics

Artist: Kagamine Rin/Len (Shimoda Asami)

Twitter Snippets (29-30 July 2011): Ustream's medleys, the first songs

Past Friday and Saturday the first couple of songs for the 5-medley Ustream live play were revealed: the first couple of songs played by Eto will be Pastel Dream and Wanya World.

Between today and the next 2 days will be spread the name of the other 3 songs. But remember there is still the 8-song medley with the August downloadables!