Been a slow month isn't it? Not many things to do...let's see some custom-made Taiko charts and songs, shall we? So far, I've covered everyone's creations, but haven't actually featured my own charts, so this edition will be a mix of your creations and mine! Let's all make new creative Taiko charts together!
Remember, we accept new charts anytime so post a video of it at our Facebook page!
The above and another video were actually submitted to our blog in late March, but life in general has not been kind to me over the past few weeks so we haven't had a Made By You in some time (apologies to Jia Yi and Dary16), but let's get to it now then!
The song above, charted by Jia Yi, is the BGM from the second mission in Metal Slug 4, a 2D shoot em up (think Contra) series made by SNK and released first for the Neo Geo arcade/console system in 2002, right when SNK was in the doldrums financially. The game was ported to the major home consoles PlayStation 2 and XBox by Playmore Noise Factory. It is also playable on the Wii Virtual Console. The gameplay is straightforward; just run to the right and shoot all the enemies while avoid being hit, which is a constant for the entire series. The difference in 4 are more powerups and continuation of the story from Metal Slug 3.
The chart, from a song called 'Show Spirit' is dark in tone with many drum beats in the background, giving Jia Yi many many chances to add note clusters everywhere to it. The regular Oni is plain 8* with recognizable clusters (the song's BPM is quite low), but the Ura Oni is really really tough, replacing most, if not all, the 1/16 clusters with 1/24 clusters and turning the rest into mixed streams! It's a more challenging version of Yami no Tamashii and other similar boss Taiko songs!
The next one?
A song, from Packer Woo with no attached chart!
(artwork by crystalsuicune, click the picture to hear the song!)
The title of the song is Hong Kong Magician, and is Packer's second attempt and entry into the Taiko no Tatsujin CreoFUGA 2013 song making contest (entry number 92), after the first song titled 'Zaikyoku'. Hopefully we'll see his chances of winning on the rise!
Hong Kong Magician is different from Packer's usual style of music, with traditional Chinese-sounding elements. Give it a listen!
This is a special chart since it came from our chatbox, from one of our most loyal readers and this is his first time submitting a chart to us. We're finally featuring it here, dary!
The song is The Clear Blue Sky, from a Korean rhythm game known as DJMAX Technika. The game has found decent popularity outside of its home companies, and its tracks are mostly original compositions and submissions from various artists, eschewing the marketing value by licensed songs. Its interface is a multiple input touch screen and you have to hit beats or hold or drag on the top and bottom halves of the screen. It can get pretty fiddly and challenging at times!
The Clear Blue Sky is composed by a doujin artist called Tsukasa Yatoki (矢鴇 つかさ), who is associated with a studio called Arte Refact. He goes around a lot; composing many things for many different companies (even for the rhythm game below which we shall discuss soon) and this song is generally fits Tsukasa's style of gentle piano music mixed with techno elements. The chart is an 8* Oni with many clusters, streams in the middle, and big notes punctuating places appropriately. It's a pretty fun chart overall, if a bit messy with clusters, but hey, everyone has their first time right?
And finally, it's time for my contribution to the column.
Ura Oni
This song, called 'We Gonna Party' is rather obscure, but it's one of the most difficult songs on Sega's washing machine rhythm game 'Maimai', which has eight buttons arranged in a circle and a round touchscreen. Its origin is interesting; it's neither an original composition for the rhythm game nor is it a videogame BGM; it actually originates from 'Halfpipe Tokyo', a roller-coaster like amusement ride shaped like a half-pipe only found in the biggest Sega Joypolis arcade chains. You are strapped to a safe position while standing and you will be swinging around in tune to one of 16 music tracks composed by all sorts of doujin music artists, of which Tsukasa from the previous song is one of them (Fragrance).
We Gonna Party is the final track in the Halfpipe Tokyo album, and is generally a very frantic hip-hop song. I made the 8* Oni chart with intuitive cluster patterns in mind, and the Ura Oni with more energy, streams and increased scroll speed to add more challenge (since the BPM is nothing to write home about; I'd still call it a 9* Ura Oni).
