Taiko Time Facebook Page

Taiko Time does social networking? Really?

Just thought it would be fun to see how many fans we could gather. If you have a Facebook account and actively using it, come by our new page! Blog updates and new posts will get a reminder notice on Facebook so you'll never miss a beat even if you forget to drop by. Also I might go there on occasion to randomly talk and stuff. Now the whole world will know what Lokamp had for breakfast. The horror.

Anyway, for this Facebook page, it's dead easy to find us, search 'Taiko Time' on Facebook's search bar and it should instantly pop up. Also, see that Facebook widget way down there below the Google followers? Just click 'Like' to join the page and view the status updates! Have fun! (you've probably done this thousands of times already, what do I know pikaby is an old-fashioned coot who doesn't do well on social networking)

What's next for us? A Twitter account, perhaps? Maybe, if it's significant enough for us to use.

Ryougen no Mai with 3600 notes

a.k.a what Ryougen no Mai would sound like if the instruments were replaced with an electric shaver.

Song of the Week! 28 January 2012

Today's feature are two songs with one thing in common; both have part of their notes used in EkiBEN 2000, the 9th 2000 series song.

Feature: Taiko in the United States

No, I'm not talking about the English Taiko Drum Master game on PS2. This is unlike any of us has seen before.

See that picture I put above? It looks like an ordinary Taiko no Tatsujin 3 cabinet, but note the banner on the top; it's completely different. 'Wadaiko 3'? Yep, this is not a Japanese region arcade machine, but one of very few English-version Taiko 3s to make it into the US as a litmus test to see how well the series would do outside of Japan, imported in 2002. We all know what happened after that, but that doesn't make this machine any less desirable; it's one of just three or four in the entire world!

And a generous benefactor was kind enough to donate it to the wonderful staff of the Digital Game Museum in Sunnyvale, California, where the machine will be on display to further everyone's knowledge of gaming culture and the Japanese rhythm game scene as a whole. It's definitely exciting to see them acquire such a rare piece of gaming history! If any of you live near the museum, be sure to go see Taiko 3 on display.

You can read more about the details of the acquisition in the museum's website here, and also a full album of pictures of the Taiko 3 cabinet here.

Thanks to the Digital Game Museum for letting us use their information and picture for this article!

Namco Taiko Blog (26 January 2012) - Roses, roses everywhere!

Today's Taiko Blog entry is (finally) the introduction post for the two latest Rose songs, Red Rose Evangel and Blue Rose Ruin, both of which were made to commemorate Taiko no Tatsujin's 10th anniversary.

Rhythm game mashup on Taikojiro

It's not rare that rhythm gamers would want to see their favorite songs on one rhythm series on another, to try them out using different mechanics and playstyle. This happens a lot with licensed songs, but not so with others....thankfully rhythm game simulators are plentiful on the PC, allowing for exactly this sort of play with user-created charts for different games.

Below are three songs from three different rhythm games, played on Taikojiro with custom notecharts. Try to see the song's original gameplay too!

3Q-4U-AC00 lyrics

Artist: Oogami Masako

Song of the Week! 21 January 2011

 

After a calm news week on the Taiko front, it's time for another weekly review! Today the spotlight is on a very rare, yet new, Game Music song.

Namco Taiko Blog (19 January 2012) - World Hobby Fair 2012

Guess you can always count on bad timing to ruin surprises that will be shown on game conventions. Namco has already released 2 console Taiko games in the past year with currently nothing to look forward to yet, but great, the World Hobby Fair is coming. Granted, they have their other franchises to show off but for this game series there isn't going to be anything new.

The team's latest toy is going to be there though; Taiko Wii Ketteiban, and it's going to be on the showfloor for whoever hasn't already bought/played it yet. Could improve sales a bit though, Ketteiban currently stands at around 200,000 units sold and still fluctuating around the top 20 on the weekly charts (23,000 last week).

Not forgetting the other Taiko game, Portable DX, which will also be at the Sony side of Namco's booth at the show.

The World Hobby Fair 12'Winter will be at the following locations in Japan starting late January:

-Tokyo on 21 and 22 Jan.
-Nagoya on 29 Jan.
-Fukuoka on 5 Feb.

You can see the official site for the convention here for details.

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Many wow bang! lyrics

Composition, Arrangement: Yuri Misumi (みすみゆり)

Feature: Deathstream 101

Okay class, quiet please! Quiet.

My name is Pikaby, but you may address me as Instructor P. This class deals with an advanced technique to play Taiko no Tatsujin, and that is being able to comprehend and clear long chains of notes called 'deathstreams'.

Punishment lyrics

Artist: 9mm Parabellum Bullet

Song of the Week! 14 January 2011

 

A J-Pop song on the weekly feature? Save us from this travesty!

...Well, it's not very often the genre is significant enough to feature here, and since we've already done Kurenai, the other band which is popular with the expert players of Taiko is...

Taiko PSP DX's IDs, take 6

Here we go again! Among January's pay-to-play songs, Touch's EDAT file reveals another trio of future downloads, and all of these are familiar picks.

The first one, carniv, is The Carnivorous Carnival, the 2nd most popular song in Taiko (behind the obvious Saitama 2000). Then we jump again to the Anime genre, with Hare Hare Yukai (ID: yukai), the OP theme for the Haruhi Suzumiya anime and one of the few anime songs to have a duet notechart. It is also one of the most demanded songs among Western anime fans for console Taiko but was never released for all 4 Wii and 3 DS Taiko games....the long wait is finally over for them I suppose.

The final song of the trio is Kaze wa Fuiteiru (ID: akb10t), the J-Pop collab song released for the 10th Taiko Anniversary celebrations. Any favorites here?

First video of Kuon no Yoru

Another new Namco Original with a high number of difficulty stars and low number of notes! Directly from  JBG Music School (which made other recent songs like Marble Heart and LOVE Ikusa!!), Kuon no Yoru's 8* Oni offers a speedy gameplay with 1/4 cluster successions, in a similar way to Tenyou no Mai.

Namco Taiko Blog (12 January 2012) - Taiko online tournament results

A few weeks ago Namco mentioned that they would be holding an online contest on Taiko 0 and choose the top 100 in rankings right? The results are out now. (reminder: the song used was Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu -Gekijouban-)

1 だいまじん 1111300
2 あみゅちす 1110570
3 ゆずろーる 1110300
4 りょうや！ 1110200
5 うずらうず 1110150
6 まりさっち 1110100
6 ですの 1110100
6 れっちゃん 1110100
6 いたい 1110100
7 あいうえお 1110040
8 ゆきっ！ 1109900
9 ひゃくお 1109800
10 みりん！ 1109700
10 みきゅっぴ 1109700
11 ぼる！ 1109550
12 ひなっち 1109540
13 ゆいたん 1109250
14 しるばさん 1109200
15 みみみこ 1109150
16 べあとっ！ 1109070
16 すくら～ 1109070
17 でで～ん！ 1108970
18 ことは 1108770
19 け～た 1108670
20 まゆゆ 1108600
21 そらっぺ 1108540
22 せもぽぬめ 1108350
22 みうち！ 1108350
23 はらちゃん 1108330
24 さゆ！ 1108290
25 たすけ！ 1108250
26 びー 1108150
27 ずやか！！ 1108040
28 すらいむ 1108020
29 しんおう！ 1108000
30 ばじーにゃ 1107950
31 だだん！！ 1107760
32 らぶちはや 1107730
33 なか 1107650
34 ひろやす！ 1107600
35 だいまおう 1107500
36 ぺぷしん 1107450
37 しずるちあ 1107370
38 るか！？ 1107350
39 あるてま 1107290
40 ふぇ～す？ 1107100
41 ばちお 1106690
42 おせろ 1106670
43 み～みぃ！ 1106620
44 とよっ！ 1106470
45 ありえん 1106440
46 ういにゃん 1106400
47 ぶらゐ？ 1106190
48 ありさ 1106080
49 ごめん 1106040
50 じゅげむ 1106030
51 おぉさぁ！ 1105930
51 えすみす 1105930
52 めっき～ 1105730
53 おれきのこ 1105550
54 しぐなす 1105520
55 ただのごみ 1105500
56 ど 1105420
57 さくのっ！ 1105390
58 みず！ 1105240
59 りぃは 1105190
60 むしきんぐ 1105180
61 つばさ 1105100
62 ぜつや 1105050
63 めしあ！ 1105040
64 ふにゃ～ 1104900
65 なかにだす 1104780
66 やよいっち 1104770
67 かゎす！ 1104710
68 そろ！？ 1104600
69 おはぎくん 1104590
70 なゆくゆな 1104540
71 もきゅ 1104490
72 かゐぬし！ 1104380
73 ふぶきー 1104350
74 きたころん 1104340
74 ～ゆうひ～ 1104340
75 ともあき 1104270
76 つららら 1104170
77 かいむ！ 1104140
78 まねきねこ 1104090
79 ぉゃっ！ 1104010
80 みさかさん 1103950
81 ざこども！ 1103790
82 うーろん！ 1103700
83 いごろ～ 1103650
84 しいな～！ 1103540
85 なっしぃ 1103520
86 ひたぎ！！ 1103490
87 もょもと 1103320
88 しすい！ 1103280
89 よね！ 1103240
90 よすがちー 1103210
91 ほっしーん 1103160
92 りょう！？ 1103120
93 かなでっ！ 1103110
94 かぜのね 1102990
95 うっしー 1102940
96 ぜのん 1102930
97 さいばら 1102900
98 ゆ～だい 1102730
99 ゃー 1102720
100 ゅるぃ 1102620

The top three will be advancing to a grand final of some sort, while the rest get a special prize. It's yet to be announced though! Look at how close the scores are...I bet the only thing separating them are the number of hits they can muster on drumrolls. Japanese people are godly when it comes to full perfect on crazy songs.

As for news? Well, there's none of that this week, but as a reminder, today is the release date for PSP DX's January 2012 download pack, which includes new Namco Original Kuon no Yoru! Expect a video of it here very soon~

Link to original post

Taiko Wii 2's papercrafts

After two years, the Taiko Wii 2 site minigame is still active and continues to push out all kinds of gifts! The latest downloadable content is the Arumi-chan papercraft, released about 5 months after Don and Katsu's. The timing of the download release is completely player-controlled. You have to wonder how it took so long for the whole of Japan to get to 160,000 hits on the site counter though.

If you wanna make one of these, you can download it (until the next content is unlocked) on the Taiko Web Counter page. Remember that the final goal (222.222 Don Spirits) has yet to be reached! For the download of the previous content you can also check the downloads page, they're all still up for grabs. Remember that Taiko Time does not own any link on that page: they all come from Namco!

 Image taken by Packer from Malaysia's Taiko no Tatsujin Facebook fangroup

Momoiro Taiko Paradise lyrics

Artist: Narahashi Miki

Song of the Week! 7 January 2012

It's already time for the monthly Ura song! Curious enough to know what is it?

Namco Taiko Blog 2 (5 January 2012) - Taiko PSP DX January 2012 download songs

Another year begins with another pack of new songs for PSP owners! Getting curious?

Namco Taiko Blog (5 January 2012) - Taiko 0 Online tournament, the rules

As promised, 2012's first blog entry is about the first Taiko online tournament, focused around the latest arcade. It looks like this one will be the first of a series of similar competitions!

My mine lyrics

Composer: setzer from MintJam
Vocals: Tsukino Shion (月乃紫音)
Lead Guitar: Shogo (しょご)

Taiko no Tatsujin Original Soundtrack - Donderful!

Taiko no Tatsujin Original Soundtrack - Donderful! (太鼓の達人 オリジナルサウンドトラック 『ドンダフル！』) was released as part of the 10th anniversary celebration on December 21st in 2011, three whole years after the '08 soundtrack, and is the 8th big surprise of the 10th anniversary.

Donderful fills in the large gap with style, featuring continuations of well-known Namco Original song series and most of the current generation Namco Originals from Taiko Wii 4 and PSP DX, as well as some HD arcade exclusive songs. Plus for the first time in a Taiko soundtrack, there are four songs which are released on soundtrack first before appearing on any game, two Namco Originals, a Game Music and of course, Shimedore 2000+, an extended version of the 2000 mashup song.
 
The first printing of the Donderful soundtrack includes a promo sticker, but several stock errors have left several 1st-edition CDs without said sticker, forcing Namco to publish an apology post on Taiko Team's blog and re-distributing the pre-order gift.

Song of the Week! 1 January 2012

Many apologies for missing one day! I stayed up all night typing the 2011 flashback post and completely forgot about our weekly section. It won't happen again, not in the near future! Anyway, a quick one.

Random: so it's 2012, eh?