Namco Taiko Blog (17 January 2013) - Katsu-Don 7.05 firmware update

Say, remember the blurred, fancy image leaks provided to us by Etou at the end of 2012? Today the Taiko Team officially decided to spill the beans, which will be added by the end of this month with another firmware upgrade!

Version 7.05 will be released on January 30th, bringing four new features to its players. Let's see what's inside in detail:

1) Introducing the Dojo-Dan mode

For the arcade players who are looking for a greater challenge, a new Taiko mode shows up to test their gaming skills! Intended for 1 player only, the Dojo Ranking mode (段位道場) offers several song courses in which players have to clear sets of 3 (or more) songs in a row, while fulfilling secondary conditions. Each of the 5 courses have different songs, and they have to be played in order from the easiest to the hardest ones, as the higher challenges are locked by default.

In the image above, the "Senpo" (先鋒) course requires you to clear Linda Linda, Uso and Natsu Matsuri while meeting two other conditions: 80% of the Spirit Bar filled in each song and less than 100 combined misses. Later courses feature different conditions.

Since each course has at least three songs, Dojo-Dan mode's courses consume an entire game credit, regardless if you've won the challenge or lost.

Like the regular Mode Selection screen, it's possible to go back to the Song Selection menu by hitting the 'Back' button, as long as there are more than 30 seconds left in the time counter.

Finally, here are some in-game screens! The mode functions exactly like the Taiko Dojos on console Taiko, except this time you get to play it on a bigger drum.

There are short breaks between songs, but if one of the conditions is failed before the course is over, the game stops at the end of the current song. Watch out!

At the end of a Taiko Dojo course, a result screen reviews the player's performance. The full details of your results are shown too; all notes and drumrolls hit in the three songs are combined and shown together on the results screen!

In addition to unlocking the harder courses, Banapassport players will also be able to record their high-scores on their Donder Hiroba page, which lists only the best performance for each course.

2) The "Recommended Song" folder
 

Between the Dojo-Dan and the Tutorial modes,there is also space for a new, rainbow-colored song folder. While it was originally speculated to be the arcade equivalent of CS games's Random Song option, it turns out to be a container for the most played songs!

The Osusume Kyoku (おすすめ曲) folder hosts the top 5 songs played in the arcade (be prepared to see the Don Challenge group play song pretty often)! If you don't know what to play on Taiko and want to see what other people are hooked on, this is for you.

3) Minor fixes in Result Screen's Layout

- Before -

- After -

This is a short one. Many Twitter users asked  the Taiko Team if they can change the shape of the speech bubble in the Result Screen, since it covers both the player's nickname and title. And yes, this was done too!

4) New hidden titles and songs

Katsu-Don's songlist is going to be a little bigger too, with a pair of new hidden songs. The first one's unlocking condition is related to this cryptic hint, given by Etou.

「エトウ」じゃなくて「えとうどん」です！

「えとうどん」に意味があります！！

It's not "Etou", it's "Etou-don"!

There's some meaning to "Etou-don"!!

The other one is linked with the freshly-released Dojo Ranking courses. Of course, unlocking one of the songs results in unlocking a custom title, too.

The firmware update will be out on January 30th, 2013. 
 
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