New Taiko: New giant rumor sheet!

Another GIANT storm is going to be raised! This time, it's ALL about the unlockable songs in New Taiko! Yes, you heard right! Crystalsuicune found the complete list on 2ch, and they are unlocked when Banapassport users fulfill certain goals at the arcade.

This information must probably be from an inside person who got to see the arcade software first-hand. Please note that all these are just rumors until proven true, like the list on Taiko 14. However, the previous track-record from 2ch has been very impressive.

Spoiler alert!

Random: Densha de Taiko

We've seen quite a few unorthodox controllers being used as input for console Taiko (DDR pad, AC-sized drum) but none as weird as this. That lump of plastic with two levers is actually the controller you use to play a train-driving simulator called Densha de Go!, which originated on arcade and has console ports/sequels on PS1, Dreamcast, PS2, Nintendo 64, PSP, Nintendo DS and Wii, among many, many other different consoles and even on PC. Inevitably, the entire series is Japan-exclusive.

That's the controller you see in the video (though this is the Dreamcast controller all of them pretty much have the same few things anyway). The left lever controls don notes and the right lever for kat notes. Swing them back and forth for one input each. Not recommended for Oni....for obvious reasons!

Thanks to priestesspaula from chat for discovering this and uploading the video!

Song of the Week! 29 October 2011

 

Finally we're only two days from Halloween! This means we can finally answer a request sent a year ago, in conjunction with the holiday. Get ready to be scared!

Namco Taiko Blog 2 (27 October 2011) - New Taiko's "Good-bye songs"

Customary to every new Taiko arcade generation is the inevitable removal of a bunch of songs from the new arcade in a section called 'Sayonara no Uta' or 'Goodbye songs'. It's been a while since Namco made a post like this and none of those we've covered before yet. New Taiko's 4th and final pre-release post is all about Taiko 14 songs that will not be featured on the next arcade generation. Prepare your handkerchiefs!

Namco Taiko Blog (27 October 2011) - Kettai-Ban's preorder surprises

... To be honest, today's Taiko Blog page about the 4th Wii game mainly focuses around the songs revealed last Thursday on the official website, so most of what is seen here is exactly the same stuff. Why the official blog is one week slower than its own official site is beyond me.

Feature: Taiko no Tatsujin at university presentation

It's an 8 minute video presentation of Taiko no Tatsujin by a Malaysian Taiko fan, Lee Jia Yi, in front of colleagues and lecturers in UTAR, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, and is part of an assignment. Making a presentation introducing your favorite videogame is nothing new in university classes in Malaysia, however it's definitely the first one I've seen that involves Taiko no Tatsujin.

The video mainly focuses on how fun it is to play without all the gameplay mechanic explanation we do here so people would feel comfortable playing Taiko for their first time without being intimidated or writing it off as childish. You know, maybe we should revamp our tutorial sometime later as well, I keep getting the feeling that it's too technical for a non-gamer.

Anyway, there's not much more to say, just go watch it. And Malaysian English accent is awesome :) (admin is a Malaysian)

Twitter Snippets (20 October 2011) - Tekken outfit

A tribute to Katsuhiro Harada's fighting games, one of Tekken's staple characters has been transformed into a stylish outfit for Don-chan. Will it appear on Taiko Wii 4 too?

And here's a hi-quality drawing of said character. Do you recognize it now?

NECOLOGY lyrics

Composer: Misumi Yuri (みすみゆり)
Vocals: Kekero Fusajiki (渕崎けけろ)

Song of the Week! 22 October 2011

Care to guess this week's featured song? It's one of the extra songs put into Taiko 14 and its composer made one of the most famous Namco Original series of songs. C'mon, it's easy!

Taiko no Tatsujin Plush

Even Banpresto are getting in on the 10th anniversary celebration by reissuing a new version of Don-chan and Kat-chan plush toys (for $32.90 each, eep...)! They're the same company behind the goofy Taiko hats made a few years back. Too bad that isn't being remade anytime soon. More pics here.

Taiko Wii 4 site updates again

After two great blogs by the Taiko Team, it seems the Taiko Wii 4 website was also updated without anyone noticing, with new songs and one new game mode! Let's see.

I'm really starting to think their online PV team only works one day a week lol

Namco Taiko Blog 2 (20 October 2011) - Taiko 10th anniversary 8th big news!

Geez they're really getting used to posting two entries side by side on one day. Why not space them out? We'd get so much fewer slow news weeks. Anyway...

Namco Taiko Blog (20 October 2011) - Banapassport

And in the third blog post dedicated to New Taiko (and this was a promised update from last week), Namco details how its arcade user profiling system Banapassport will be used on Taiko.

Random: Horse Drum Master

The mad things Japanese do with their free time, seriously. There's no trick to it; all you have to do is play Taiko while wearing a goddamn horse head, rendering everything unseeable. Basically it's a much fancier way to play the arcade while blindfolded, and I got to admit, this does attract a lot of attention, being the crazy trend it is. Why horses though?

I'd wear a deer head myself, cause horns are smexy.



^ lol video title



White horse this time



Haha, who said you could only be horsing around on the arcade?



Horse Tank Ura. I can't imagine ever Full Perfecting anything wearing that; I'd be laughing too hard to even try to pass!



More horse videos should feature people dancing like nutcases during the play, lol.

pikaby asks: Potential Wii4 songlist?

Unlike Taiko PSP DX which had an immense gap to fill with songs that PSP owners had not played before (and it did a stunning job too), the expectations from Taiko Wii 4 are much lower. After all, all the best from the Taiko 12, 13 and 14 generations save for a few songs have been included in the three Wii Taikos' massive tracklists, and there's not much ground left to cover.

Song of the Week! 15 October 2011

 

Due to the unanimous decision made by the Taiko Time staff, a song is going to leave a series page for the first time! The sole Variety song on the Medley series will be taken out and put here, since after some discussion we decided the main purpose for the series was for videogame medleys. Not to mention there are so many non-game medleys that would fit!

Since it's just copied over here though, there's a second features song unrelated to it. It's one of your requests!

Taiko PSP DX's hidden IDs, take 3

Like the last two times, the .EDAT file for this month's download songs contain IDs for songs which have not yet been released for download. Two IDs this time: shtage and lovezu. While the former is completely unknown (yet strangely familiar), the latter is the former ID of LOVE Zukkyun, a J-Pop tune sung by Sotasei Riron which appeared on Taiko 14 and Taiko+. Will those be released as fast as Hyakka Ryouran, or will they have to wait a few more months?

Namco Taiko Blog 2 (13 October 2011) - First plays with New Taiko

 

Today's second post features Taiko Team leader Etou's illustrated tour to the new Taiko arcade, coming this November. Except for the Banapassport/mobile support, all a player should know about the game's basic mechanics are all here!

Namco Taiko Blog (13 October 2011) - Taiko iOS update

Namco promised two blog entries today, and this is the first of the two (as of time of writing the second one isn't up yet). This one is all about the 10th anniversary update for Taiko Plus.

First video of Egao ni Kanpai!

Six stars on Oni! This speedy tune from the 6th Salary Man NEO season can score over a milion points, thanks to its multiple drumrolls and mid-high number of notes.

Unagi no Tamashii Rock lyrics

Lyrics: Yasugawa Shougo (ヤスカワショウゴ)
Composer, vocals: Keiichi Okabe (岡部啓一)

Site announcement: All done!

Finally after months of slow updating and painstakingly cross-checking each and every song to make sure nothing went wrong, all the songlists in both arcade and console have been moved over to the new table format. Fixed along with it are all HTML redundancies and difficulty star errors. Previously what we did was copy/paste every song and their difficulty numbers onto every song list, which proved to be folly since there were many minor changes to non-Oni difficulties most people won't notice. But switching to the new format gave us the opportunity to double-check those mistakes, and many glaring ones were fixed as well, such as song names being typed wrongly or missing from the songlist altogether.

The Ura Oni icons and forked path icons are being used in full force, and the C-Pop genre in Taiko 11 and 12 Asia had artist names added and all translated titles in this genre were replaced with their original pronunciations in Chinese, bringing it up-to-scratch with the rest of the site.

However! No one can ever be too sure, so if you spot an error on the songlists, be it difficulty mistakes, title mistakes or broken videos, just contact us the usual way!

~pikaby

Feature: Decoding Mata Saitama 2000

Namco has been known to relay secret messages through songs and games (mostly through Soroban 2000), but Mata Saitama 2000 is taking it to a whole new level. It's like The Da Vinci Code in musical form and reduced to three minutes long.

Song of the Week! 8 October 2011

 

Rock on! Two user requests today, both rock songs, both console-exclusive, and both Namco Originals.

Twitter Snippets (6 October 2011) - Something about New Taiko

From Taiko Team's Twitter, some fresh images celebrate leader Eto's first Kita Saitama clear on the New Taiko arcade! A much better mode selection screen with new options (gameplay mods and Taiko sounds next to the four difficulties) and crisper graphics, and the same old password system used since Taiko 6, only now with 5 rows of letters. Better be quick while taking notes!

Taikojiro - Garyoutensei Medley

Aside from the custom Ura modes for a week, we face a curious "Garyoutensei in pills" song, which is also downloadable for Taikojiro simulators on the video's description! Forked paths are available as for any other Garyoutensei song.

One more song confirmed for Taiko Wii 4

Well, this was......unexpected.

Namco Taiko Blog (06 October 2011) - October downloadable songs for Taiko PSPDX -- and possible shocking news?

Hi guys, Zekira G. Drake here (pikaby on translation)

As expected, the downloadable songs for October are revealed today.

Warera Muteki no Dokon Dan lyrics

Artists: Kaku Ryoichi (加来量一), Masubuchi Yuuji (増渕裕二)
Vocals: Takahashi Chiaki (たかはし智秋).

Random: other Anime allusions to Taiko games

Found on Glaroid Room. The 12th episode of the Idolm@ster anime show features an old Taiko arcade, as a funny way to tribute the Taiko games. Or maybe, advertising is Namco's main aim?

Song of the Week! 1 October 2011

 

...isn't it nice? Aquabluu created this banner as a cute header for this Saturday article! There will be another rejig in the template for Song of the Week, but let's save that for later. For now let's see what ol' Lokamp has prepared this time!

Since Aqua has featured two picks from the unfortunate Children genre, I wanna pick other two from another (relatively less) mistreated category in this blog... Our past Taiko Time Quiz has also featured one of these songs for pikaby's screenshot quiz! Let's refresh our memories.

Random: maybe many of us were guilty of this one time?

Hi guys, Zekira G. Drake here. Just found something amusing... lol This is a GIF from a popular anime. Notice anything too familiar?

It does not help that the pens seriously look like styluses.

Trollmode activate
~ZGD