Mini Taiko arcade model... really works?!

These few shots were taken from a gaming convention, which had a whole booth dedicated to Taiko no Tatsujin.

The main attraction in it was obviously the chance to playtest Taiko Wii 5, and the person setting up the booth brought along his Taiko paraphernalia to show off as well. But before I link you to the post and show pictures of that, I'll bring your attention to the main point of the post.

Remember that Taiko no Tatsujin arcade cabinet scale model? The one released as part of the Taiko 10th anniversary gifts?

The booth had one of it set up, and guess what it was doing?

Is....is that a real Taiko no Tatsujin game playing on that tiny screen...? Can you really use tiny sticks to hit the drum and play it?

Well....yes and no. The screen thing is legit, but sound and controls are handled externally. This is a copy of PS2 Nanadaime being played. I can smell that eyestrain lawsuit coming from a mile away!

Here's a few other things on display at the booth; full sets of all Happy Meal toys released for Taiko! You can check out more pictures from the original forum post here (it's in Chinese, just stick to the first post and open the pictures by clicking on the blue links)

Song of the Week! 29 December 2012

Innocently enough, 2012's final weekly song from us is a theme song from one of the console Taiko games of this year. And since we've already covered an Ura this month, there's only one other song that fits the bill.

Random: Taiko no Tatsujin Rotation Play

It's a video of a full combo of Shimedore 2000. But it's not just any ordinary full combo of Shimedore 2000; the song was played by ten different expert players gathered from 6 prefectures of Japan, on one Taiko arcade, in one song. It's the ultimate congregation! The players switch each time the medley changes songs, with some players going for double dip.

And yet with all this rotation craziness (especially the seamless transition at the Yokuderu-Taberuna junction), all ten of them managed to full combo the song. What a party!

Namco Taiko Blog (27 December 2012)- Wrapping up for 2012

It's been a long, long year with many new changes to Taiko no Tatsujin and the way we play the rhythm game (well, not really) and today, in this final blog entry for the year, the team shares a super secret spy mission taking place in the depths of the Future Lab!

SongID listing (Console)

Each song in Taiko is marked with a six-digit code called a SongID, which is basically a filename Namco gives a song while coding the game as a label, to make it easy to tell which song it is for the programmers and producers of the game. Just by one look at the SongID would give a hint as to the song's identity, whether it's the name, or the series, or the song's origin.

Namco occasionally uses the filenames of the songs to hint at readers of their blog, so they could figure out the rest, and it has since become a topic of interest to Taiko fans wanting to learn even more about their favorite games. The ID can be easily extracted from console Taiko games, where the software is easily available to anyone who can tear the programming code apart. Arcade software, however, is much less accessible, so arcade-exclusive songs generally do not have IDs revealed yet, although they technically exist.

The SongID system has been around since the very first PS2 Taiko game, and has been used all the way to now.

This list is arranged by the first appearance of each song in their respective versions, and notechart differences are taken into account. If there is a difference in the notechart it will be shown a second time on the list where the change takes place, marked with .

SongID listing (Arcade)

Each song in Taiko is marked with a six-digit code called a SongID, which is basically a filename Namco gives a song while coding the game as a label, to make it easy to tell which song it is for the programmers and producers of the game. Just by one look at the SongID would give a hint as to the song's identity, whether it's the name, or the series, or the song's origin.

Namco occasionally uses the filenames of the songs to hint at readers of their blog, so they could figure out the rest, and it has since become a topic of interest to Taiko fans wanting to learn even more about their favorite games. The ID can be easily extracted from console Taiko games, where the software is easily available to anyone who can tear the programming code apart. Arcade software, however, is much less accessible, so arcade-exclusive songs generally do not have IDs revealed yet, although they technically exist.

The SongID system has been around since the very first PS2 Taiko game, and has been used all the way to now.

This list is arranged by the first appearance of each song in their respective versions, and notechart differences are taken into account. If there is a difference in the notechart it will be shown a second time on the list where the change takes place, marked with .

Made by You: Special Christmas Edition!

We asked you to submit your self-made Taiko charts for this Christmas day, and the response was really great, we have a ton of charts to feature today...hope I can cover them all!

Namco Taiko Blog (25 December 2012) - Katsu-Don 6.09 firmware Update and January 2013's DonChare unlocks

 

Merry christmas from Taiko Time! Today's special blog entry is about another version update for the current Taiko generation.

Taiko no Tatsujin Chogouka-Ban BGM Collection

 

Taiko no Tatsujin Chogouka-Ban BGM Collection (太鼓の達人Ｗｉｉ 超ごうか版 ＢＧＭ集) is the first soundtrack CD to be released only as a digital download, via the Japanese iTunes store.

For the first time ever in Taiko, this is an album that contains background music instead of actual songs; the various tunes that accompany the menu screens, minigames and letters from Taiko no Tatsujin Chogouka-Ban are in here. The CD also includes a bonus track which lasts 10 seconds long (and is instantly recognizable to all Taiko fans!)

Song of the Week! 22 December 2012

Well, we safely dodged the "end of the world" frenzy and jumped into the end-year holiday period, ready for some well-deserved rest. What better occasion to make a SotW feature larger than usual?

Taiko no Tatsujin Plus Popular Song Pack 10

The 10th Popular Song Pack for Taiko no Tatsujin Plus (iOS) is out now, and there's more to it this time than the usual five licensed songs.

From December 21st, 2012, players will be able to grab these songs from the App Store:

• Memeshikute (女々しくて)
• Kaze ga Fuiteiru (風が吹いている)
• Konayuki (粉雪)
• Kimi o Nosete (君をのせて)
• Lovers (ラヴァーズ)

Konayuki aside, all the songs are the latest licensed songs from the current arcade/console Taiko games. But there's more! Taiko no Tatsujin Plus has reached a staggering 5 million downloads, and Namco are giving out two more free songs to celebrate the occasion. Download a song pack, any song pack, from now until 6pm on January 15, 2013, and you will get these two songs for free:

• My Mine
• Marble Heart (マーブルハート)

Two Namco Originals from Taiko 0! One of which has never seen a console Taiko release until now; Marble Heart by Sariya-jin is the final Don Point unlockable song for that arcade. If you already own all the song packs, you can still get the two free songs by updating an existing pack that you've downloaded.

Shimedore 2000+ first HQ video

Happy end of the world! To end it properly we must have a perfect ending song, and Taiko's perfect ending song has always been Shimedore 2000, the 'end' of the first phase of 2000 series songs. And it has landed on Taiko PSP DX yesterday as part of the last DLC pack.

So, what's different in Shimedore 2000+? It's not the soundtrack version; it has a slightly extended ending after Kidaruma 2000 like for the "Donderful!" version, adding a 'ze' sound at the back of 'kyou no fuku wa kiiro' instead of ending abruptly there like usual. The main difference is that the censor sound in Ekiben at the short drumroll is also gone, but what replaces it....well it's difficult to hear it properly. Wanya World on PSP DX similarly also has the censor sound removed but you can hear it perfectly on the soundtrack CD, arcade and Taiko Wii 4.

So basically it's the same as regular Shimedore 2000, with 1414 notes.

Namco Taiko Blog 2 (20 December 2012) -First Taiko soundtrack on iTunes

 

Hey donders! Have you enjoyed the Taiko no Tatsujin CD soundtracks released so far? If you're asking for more (and possibly on iTunes), Namco has an answer to your prayers....well, somewhat. A BGM collection for Taiko no Tatsujin Chogouka-Ban!

Namco Taiko Blog (20 December 2012)- Arcade Don-chan dressup contest 2

The Don-chan costume contest is back for Taiko 0.5, this time with even more different costume combinations to work with! All the winners from the first contest shown above and in this post.

Rules for this contest remain the same; take a picture of your Don-chan from Donder Hiroba after you've dressed him up and send it over to the Taiko Team's Twitter account.

An example is shown above! This is a snapshot from Donder Hiroba with your Don-chan, name and title. Submit this to Twitter and the winners will be put on another wallpaper like the one shown above, and be featured on the official Taiko blog sometime soon! Contest starts today and lasts one week to December 27, 2012. Get to work!

Next week there will be two blog entries, one on the 25th (Christmas surprise?) and one on the usual Thursday on the 2th.


Link to original post

Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu Gekijouban Ura FC on Detarame

Yes, we don't usually feature videos of people playing Taiko regularly but it's currently a very dry week with no news (and we are busy preparing articles for Christmas) so have this for now.

Can't FC Shoushitsu Gekijouban Ura (currently one of the three most difficult charts ever in Taiko no Tatsujin)? Thia guy can.....on Detarame (Random) modifier. The first person in Japan to do so too.

Matryoshka lyrics

Composer: Kenshi Yonezu (米津 玄師) @ Hachi (ハチ)
Vocals: Hatsune Miku, Megpoid GUMI

*The lyrics below are provided by vgboy from the Vocalochu blog!*

Made by You: Pink Rose Obsession and more

Look at all the Taiko charts you guys have submitted to us! It's going to take a while to check these all out, so do inform us if we've missed your chart! Some of them will also be put off to a later date; and since next week's Christmas week, if any of you have any special Taiko charts you want to share (holiday-themed or otherwise), drop us a video link at the usual places and we'll try to feature them all.

Song of the Week! 15 December 2012

Back in January we opened the month with a Namco Original song that has a Ura and a twin partner. We've been planning to use this twin song to bookend 2012 properly. Remember which song it is?

Feature: Taiko PSP DX's missing DLC songs

December 2012 is officially the last month of the monthly DLC distribution of new songs for the third PSP Taiko game, Taiko no Tatsujin Portable DX.

Since the first pack's release, players have been able to get a sneak peek at songs that would be released later in a few months time simply by checking out hidden SongIDs in the .edat files provided with the DLC songs with hex editing programs. Even the Taiko Time blog joined this "cybernetic expedition" month after month, resulting in the discovery of a large number of SongID of pre-existing songs (or even brand new ones) which were officially released right after the next 1-2 months on average.

The end of the monthly DLC was predicted by a few factors, such as the lack of hidden songIDs in the last few months being a sign of the tap running dry and the lack of brand-new Namco Original songs other than the CreoFUGA winners, as opposed to last year when there was literally at least one new song introduced to the version every month.

Some of the hidden ID songs never managed to get an official release and still lie inside the DLC data as simple IDs. Below there is a complete list of songs that were originally planned for PSP users but then dumped, together with their CENTER number (indicating their original release order of the songs) and the months of their 'unofficial discovery' beneath the ID data.

Namco Taiko Blog (13 December 2012) - Taiko PSP DX December 2012 download pack

Today's Taiko Team blog entry is about December 2012's new songs for Taiko PSP DX's download service, the last one for 2012 and, sadly, the last monthly download pack for this game since it came out, one year and five months ago.

We'll discuss this point later on, but for now keep reading and see what downloadable goodies there are this time!

Twitter Snippets (11 December 2012) - Taiko Wii 5's streaming session

【告知】12月12日(水)22:00～23:00のバンダイナムコライブＴＶは太鼓の達人Ｗｉｉ 超ごうか版特集！太鼓チームを代表して、松本Ｐと譜面ジャーが何人か登場するメカッ！ミンナみてホシイメカッ

Last-hour notice! The Taiko Team has just announced that tomorrow, a Taiko Wii 5 streaming session will be held on their Bandai Namco Live TV channel website from 10 to 11 pm Japan time. Music composer Masamoto from the Taiko Team will also be here to try Chogouka-Ban with the songs suggested by fans and possibly more!

A couple of re-runs are scheduled on Thursday 13th (8 pm) and next Tuesday, the 18th (10 pm).

Shunkan Soukai! Don-chan Sawagi minigames

"Shunkan Soukai! Don-chan Sawagi" is the lengthy name for Taiko no Tatsujin Chogouka-Ban's minigame mode, and it is slightly different from the older minigame modes. Instead of picking a single minigame, players can choose one out of three different minigame courses with multiple games in each, and there are a little over 30 total variations of minigames that can be played. All minigames can be played on all three courses because they are picked at random, but they have their own preference for certain sets of games. Each course is 7 games long.

Suuhaa 2000 lyrics

Artist: Linda AI-CUE

Song of the Week! 8 December 2012

Sorry to keep you waiting, folks! Today we have a pair of user requests.

Taiko no Tatsujin Wii Chogouka-Ban first week sales and Famitsu review score

Media Create figures for the week ending December 2nd, 2012.

01./00. [PS3] 2nd Super Robot Wars OG # (Bandai Namco Games) {2012.11.29} (¥8.379) – 217.710 / NEW
02./00. [3DS] Professor Layton Vs. Ace Attorney (Level 5) {2012.11.29} (¥5.980) – 128.856 / NEW
03./00. [WII] Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Super Deluxe Edition # (Bandai Namco Games) {2012.11.29} (¥5.040) – 115.955 / NEW 
04./01. [3DS] Animal Crossing: New Leaf # (Nintendo) {2012.11.08} (¥4.800) – 105.553 / 1.212.312 (-51%)
05./03. [3DS] Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Magnagate and the Infinite Dungeon (Pokemon Co.) {2012.11.23} (¥4.800) – 48.039 / 169.519 (-60%)
06./04. [PS3] Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational # (Sony Computer Entertainment) {2012.11.22} (¥4.980) – 37.874 / 138.736 (-62%)
07./02. [PS3] Call of Duty: Black Ops II – Subtitled Edition (Square Enix) {2012.11.22} (¥7.980) – 36.234 / 233.584 (-82%)
08./05. [3DS] New Super Mario Bros. 2 # (Nintendo) {2012.07.28} (¥4.800) – 32.973 / 1.453.157 (-6%)
09./00. [PSV] Fate/Stay Night -Realta Nua- (Kadokawa Shoten) {2012.11.29} (¥6.300) – 30.583 / NEW
10./00. [PSV] Atelier Totori Plus: The Alchemist of Arland 2 # (Gust) {2012.11.29} (¥6.090) – 27.651 / NEW
11./00. [PSP] Kamen Rider: Ultra Climax Heroes (Bandai Namco Games) {2012.11.29} (¥6.280) – 20.739 / NEW
12./00. [WII] Kamen Rider: Ultra Climax Heroes (Bandai Namco Games) {2012.11.29} (¥6.280) – 14.237 / NEW
13./09. [3DS] Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate (Best Price!) (Capcom) {2012.11.15} (¥3.800) – 11.721 / 36.325 (+3%)
14./08. [PS3] Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft) {2012.11.15} (¥7.770) – 8.584 / 97.467 (-48%)
15./00. [3DS] Naruto: SD Powerful Shippuden (Bandai Namco Games) {2012.11.29} (¥5.230) – 8.023 / NEW
16./17. [3DS] Style Savvy: Trendsetters (Nintendo) {2012.09.27} (¥4.800) – 7.528 / 188.005 (+2%)
17./14. [3DS] Tousouchuu: Shijou Saikyou no Hunter-Tachi Kara Nigekire! (Bandai Namco Games) {2012.07.05} (¥5.040) – 7.526 / 251.890 (-1%)
18./00. [PSP] UnchainBlades EXXiV (FuRyu) {2012.11.29} (¥6.279) – 6.793 / NEW
19./00. [3DS] UnchainBlades EXXiV (FuRyu) {2012.11.29} (¥6.279) – 6.645/ NEW
20./00. [PSP] Saint Seiya Ω: Ultimate Cosmos (Bandai Namco Games) {2012.11.29} (¥5.230) – 6.448 / NEW

3DS 167.408
PS3 29.809
PSP 15.941
Vita 11.066
Wii 5.550
360 1.217
PS2 812
NDS 457

The general assumption was always that portable Taikos sell better than home console Taikos. This time, we have been proven soundly wrong.

Namco has really done it this time. This is the first Taiko game in 5 years to break 100,000 copies sold on its opening week. Well, actually, 115,000 in four days, and is the highest selling Taiko game from our analysis and also the highest average daily sales too! It comes in 3rd, sandwiched in between three major Nintendo 3DS games (Layton vs. Ace Attorney, Animal Crossing and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon) and the chart is topped by another game from Namco themselves, a Super Robot Wars game. In fact, this week has been a great week for Namco overall; their games are littered all over the top 20!

I don't know what sorcery Namco used to get this particular Wii Taiko so high up as the previous games on this console have all sold poorly compared to their portable counterparts. Is it the licensed songs? The minigame mode? Better advertising? Who knows.

Launch week comparison:

Taiko Wii 5: 115955 (4 days)
Taiko 3DS: 65462 (4 days)
Taiko Wii 4: 32098 (5 days)
Taiko PSP DX: 80215 (5 days)
Taiko Wii 3: 29328 (4 days)
Taiko DS 3: 70000 (3 days)
Taiko Wii 2: 28282 (3 days)
Taiko DS 2: 55950 (4 days)

Average daily sales on launch week:

Taiko Wii 5: 28989/day
Taiko 3DS: 16366/day
Taiko Wii 4: 6420/day
Taiko PSP DX: 16043/day
Taiko Wii 3: 7332/day
Taiko DS 3: 23333/day
Taiko Wii 2: 9427/day
Taiko DS 2: 13988/day

Famitsu score for Taiko Wii 5: 9/8/8/7 = 32/40

Source: Media Create

Namco Taiko Blog (6 December 2012) - CreoFUGA interviews final part

One week after the release of the PSP DX download pack for November, the final set of interviews for the CreoFUGA winners are finally here! Introducing the seventh and eighth winners:

Mihile, who made the Namco original song 3piece-Jazz Party
Joe Kiyoshi, who made the Rage Racer remix song RAGE v.self

Mihile has been waiting in anticipation for his song to be in Taiko for a long time; well he finally gets to see 3piece-Jazz Party come out. Of course he's happy to see it! Joe feels that there are lots of professional sound designers in the list of winners and in the entire participants list. Over the past half a year after the contest ended he's felt that his skills in making music has improved, it feels like one of the great crossroads and a turning point in life. He hopes that all players will have fun playing his song.

The inspiration for Mihile's song was a jazz piano CD, which led her to make a 3-piece instrumental with jazz. Mihile thinks anyone could have made 3piece-Jazz Party, as he mentions composing it in his free time, and had to correct many errors on piano keys while making it. Joe loves the Rage Racer music and composed this remix with "a desire to win" as its theme. He faced quite a few difficulties making the song, the most work being spent on timing his guitar and vocals for it.

Mihile loves game music, and even listens to Taiko songs. He likes 'Etude Op.10-4' and 'Sports Digestdon' in particular. Joe on the other hand is a universal listener and likes rock songs. He's been listening to '30 seconds to mars', an American band. Not bad!

You can find Mihile at his website, while Joe provided his Facebook account.

Mihile's message to donders: He is a huge music game fan, and to play a song of his own making in one is a dream, though he can't DFC anything, he is satisfied enough to FC most Oni level songs. He wants donders to challenge his song! Though he has a request to Etou not to make it too difficult (well we all know how Etou makes insane charts)
Joe's message to donders: If you like cool rock songs with a high tempo, Rage v.self is for you!

The interview is followed by a brief explanation of what Rage Racer is; a spinoff of Ridge Racer made in 1996 for the PlayStation.

And that's a wrap for the eight winners of the CreoFUGA PSP DX music composing content. Enjoy the eight songs, and keep on Taikoing!

Link to original post

Made by You: Evans and more

Today's a healthy mix of both osu!Taiko and Taikojiro simulated charts, made by you!

Twitter Snippets (3 December 2012) - Two forgotten songs' comeback!

Do you remember a Namco Original song called 'Show Done Kai' (Show Done 改)? It has never appeared in any Taiko game so far, but it can be seen in the first series of promotional posters by Namco for the new arcade. It can be directly seen in one of the images with complete star ratings, followed by the rest of the songs that actually made it into the arcade. Many people called it a hoax song due to it not appearing and from the fact that the Kantan difficulty has 6 stars instead of five.

The same fate befell a more recent song supposedly to be in Katsu-Don, called 'Yuugen no Ran' (幽玄ノ乱). An image from a Japanese videogame magazine, made right after Taiko 3DS' release and the Codename Katsu-Don arcade (see here), shows said song together with all the unlockable stuff we already know to be in the arcade, also leaking the Don Challenge unlocks up to October 2012. November's DonChare song was junction, so what happened to this one?

Yesterday, a Twitter user directly asked Namco's Taiko Team about the situation concerning both Show Done Kai and Yuugen no Ran, but Namco's answer...well I think we all expected it.

The Taiko Team denied the existence of both songs, saying they never knew about them! But on the other hand, they said that they might be looking into accepting requests to make both songs a reality.

An additional update for Taiko 0

Well, it looks like third time's the charm! After the early release leaks we got about the current Taiko arcade generation and its subsequent upgrade kit, another massive software upgrade is in the works and ready to be booked for the arcades, simply known as 'Taiko no Tatsujin March 2013 version' (click here for more details). What's new this time?

-) The release date for the 2nd giant update is set for a generic March 2013, consisting this time only of a software update rather than introducing new hardware devices (like Katsu-Don's camera). Be aware that the '20 December 2012' reported in the page is the cutoff date for pre-orders of the software.

-) Just getting the software upgrade obviously costs less than the entire cabinet, priced at 50,000 Yen, lower than buying a brand new Taiko 0 arcade with the Katsu-Don software (998,000 Yen for the arcade base, and 278,000 Yen for the K-D kit)

Credits to crystalsuicune for the find!

Mojipittan Medley lyrics

Composer: Satoru Kousaki (神前暁)

Song of the Week! 1 December 2012

A new month opens with a new song review! For those who think that Katsu-Don's Variety genre is all Vocaloid songs and Yawaraka Sensha, there's actually a lot more to it.