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!
After slotting your coins (Namco suggests 200 Yen per player, but who knows if all arcades will do so...), the radiant screen above will appear for a short time, taking the players to a new Player Selection screen.
A festival-like scenario will wait the arrival of one of the drum players! Hitting the surface of one drum, the first player will appear:
Another 200円 coin and a potential challenger may approach the play! Like the past arcades, the first player may speed-up the countdown by hitting his drum's surface. Wait, 100 seconds?! That's ten times more than the previous arcades! It's a solo workout even before you start!
On this screen is also possible to connect the players' Banapassport to the machine (explaining the increased wait time), but Eto saved this part for next week. So, if you're playing without the special card, the drums will be simply named "Don-chan" and "Kat-chan" instead of your player name.
And now, to the Genre Selection screen!
As mentioned weeks ago, the new arcade will let the players choose the song genre then a song before picking a game mode, like what has been done from Taiko 12 onwards. Notice the game tutorial is now placed here instead of at difficulty select.
A Wii-like mode selection will let players easily check the star ratings and other features! But where's Oni mode?
As per usual tradition, ten times on the right rim on Muzukashii takes you to everyone's favorite difficulty. But what about Ura difficulties then?
Now, instead of doing anything at the title screen, players must hit the drum's right rim ten times on Oni again! The rectangle will turn a dark blue to indicate Ura (also hinting that arcades will still not get Ura difficulties for anything lower than Oni unless the song is different). You can even switch between regular and Ura at will. Just tap the right rim ten times again to change back and forth. Convenience! Like on Wii, players can choose their own difficulties independent of each other (however if one player chooses Ura Oni, the other player cannot choose regular Oni)
Hey, Taiko Time's being used for the demo! Sweet!
And finally, a gameplay screen.
Neater graphics, a larger screen, a revised Tamashii bar, difficulty name by the side instead of behind Don-chan... It looks like the play screen we're used to be is changed a lot (the dancers are still identical though). But where is the song name?
As revealed months ago from 2ch's rumors, New Taiko's scoring system will be different so getting high scores is slightly easier. This was from the entry's source code:
新しいスコアシステムのコンセプトは
・コンボに依存しすぎないスコアシステム
・でもコンボを狙いたくなるよう、つながるとうれしくなるように
・今までよりほんのすこし得点が取りやすく
です！
言うより触ってもらうほうが早いですね。
お楽しみに！！
According to the blog post, the scoring system and difficulty stars will be revised for New Taiko, so a 10* song now may not necessarily have 1.2 million points as the maximum. The source code doesn't say much more other than the system will no longer involve getting chains of long combos for high scores, so the new system will resemble Shinta Mode from Taiko 14, except permanently. However, combos still play an important role as every 100 combo a player gets nets him a bonus of 10,000 points.
After a playing performance, here comes a brand new results screen:
A lot easier to read than the last one isn't it? Must be the larger space. Also notice the crown awarded for clearing/FCing a song, just like in the console! This goes into your Banapassport and is recorded there!
And so goes the flow for one song. Oh, and one more thing. Remember how you always have to choose different songs to play in arcade Taiko? Now, in the new version, you can choose the same song twice, or as many times as 200 yen will permit you, if you want to practice!
As said above, no information was given out regarding the Banapassport/Mobile support, but Taiko fans can begin to ask about those feature today on Taiko Team's Twitter page! Etou will be here also to clarify other aspects of this new arcade as well.
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