Today's Ura Oni entry was decided by you - our readers - through the poll which was set earlier this week. With winter fast coming to an end (if you live in the northern hemisphere), it's the perfect time for this request, made by dialgadu77 a few months ago!
Toryu (冬竜 ～Toryu～)| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All arcade | x4 (104) | x5 (188) | x7 (355) | x8 (541) |
| Taiko Wii 5 | x4 (104) | x5 (186) | x7 (355) | x8 (541) |
Taiko 0, Taiko Wii 5, Taiko PS Vita, Taiko +
110
none
furyuIn comparison to the older arcade models, Taiko 0 is able to periodically update its firmware through an Internet connection, resulting in bug fixes, new gameplay features and (of course) more songs for players to enjoy (bringing it up to date with most other modern rhythm games). This song is one of the first brand-new Namco Originals to be introduced in this way.
Toryu (lit. "Winter Dragon") is the romanization of the Japanese text before it, so it is actually repeated twice. The name, with its Kanji in front and English words nested in tildes, makes Toryu look like a song from the Kikyoku song series, but the similarities end there; the artist, instruments and music style are totally different. The composer is a new, anonymous person, nicknamed Azu♪ (あず♪). In a past Taiko Blog entry, Ayu♪ described the song as suitable for a very tough RPG boss battle, as its rhythms convey a lot of energy to the player.
Toryu's low BPM allows for much creativity with cluster density and length. Toryu has many slow-moving clusters and long streams with 1/12 clusters, and the advantage of having a low BPM shines in the final part of the song, where the scrolling speed is increased (x2 for Oni; x1.5 for the other modes) and effectively made double the original BPM, and even the mood of the background music is changed in this part. On Taiko Wii 5, Futsuu has fewer notes in order to make room for a giant note.
Toryu (冬竜 ～Toryu～)| Version | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x9 (687) |
Taiko 0 S, Taiko Wii 5, Taiko PS Vita, Taiko + 110 none ???Rarely do you see extremely difficult Ura Onis being introduced on console Taiko (the previous one being Hakuchou no Mizuumi Ura), and this is probably the hardest of the lot. Not the hardest to clear, but Full Comboing Toryu Ura is an entirely different ball game.
The song's first half has more notes and denser clusters with more complicated patterns, but nothing too taxing; and it is this part that makes Toryu Ura an easy song to simply pass. The real shocker is how much the Go-Go Time speedup changed from the regular Oni chart, featuring even denser clusters; the very first 1/48 beat clusters ever in Taiko no Tatsujin (1/24 on a doubled BPM of 220)! Toryu Ura is currently tied with Joubutsu 2000 for having the densest clusters in the Namco Original genre (45.45 milliseconds between notes!), with the overall champions being Angel Halo and Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu -Gekijouban- Ura.
Although originating on a console Taiko, Toryu Ura only has an Oni chart, as Taiko Wii 5's Uras are only playable on that difficulty.
