September 2013 was a really great month for Taiko aficionados, and it ends really well with yesterday's Nicovideo/UStream broadcast by the Taiko Team, and this handy blog post is here to sum it up.
It's a bit weird that we start this recap with one of the shots from the end, but there is a valid reason. As you may already know, the broadcast's main focus had been on the creation of the patterns for another CreoFuga song (which is this week's featured song, by the way), and the previous two used the shot of the song for the top.
However, things were a little bit different this time. As you can see from the video below, the Taiko Team prepared a dedicated software for the live-charting sessions, like a 'prototype viewer' of sorts. This made it easy for those tuning in to pinpoint the exact note/stanza on the screen. Plus, Nicovideo users could answer questions based on live polls on the stream page as to the placement of notes. It's a creative way of getting feedback, but sadly, this caused some serious lag on my computer so I was not able to take any clear shots of the beginning. My apologies!
The video below is Hurtling boys' final Oni patterns, as already shown earlier today on the Song of the Week feature. Etou's first model contained little to no increased scroll speed nor 1/6 clusters and final hit-balloon.
After the usual 10 minutes of break time, Part 2 of the stream featured the Namco Original revival poll that was mentioned last week on the Taiko Team blog entry. After gathering all the preferences from the first part, the two winning songs are both Taiko 13 debut faves: Yumeiro Coaster and Kimi no Akari. The two songs have been chosen from the most voted two groups of songs, each having 4 songs. Group 1 had Yumeiro Coaster, Kimi no Akari, Takkyu de Dakkyu and Total Eclipse 2035; Group 2 instead had Kimi no Akari (again), Total Eclipse 2035 (again), Shiro Neko Caramel Mugen no Wataame and SORA-II Gliese 581 (that's my vote!)
Shortly after the poll, the Taiko Team felt we needed an updated situation about how well Japan is tackling the Dojo Ranking mode on Sorairo. So they showed some more graphs!
Once again, the percentage of the hardest Dojo Ranking trial cleared by each player is being illustrated by a pie chart, in a clockwise progression of difficulty. However, aside from minor changers in the higher tiers, the distribution is still about the same. And look, the 10 Dan clearing rate has been increased! ...by a mere 0.02%. Yikes.
This chart is the performance breakdown for each course, with blue for failure, orange for the Clear (simply fulfil the 2/3 requirements) and green is for Gold Clear (fulfil the trial's requirements and full-combo all the songs). The 10 Dan course saw a 10% net gain of clear performances! (10% up from 0.02% isn't much to shout about though...)
After that, ... Geography lesson time!
This is actually the segment which Etou explains where he will be traveling in Japan to meet the Area Challenge players of the Taiko Tournament 2013. Etou started today from Akita (as also documented by Taiko Team's twitter account with a photo tweet) and will travel across Sapporo, Hokkaido, Sendai, Kumamoto, Hiroshima, Kyoto and Naha Okinawa before meeting the finalists on October at the Future Lab. So, Etou's journey will be something like this:
After that, ... Geography lesson time!
This is actually the segment which Etou explains where he will be traveling in Japan to meet the Area Challenge players of the Taiko Tournament 2013. Etou started today from Akita (as also documented by Taiko Team's twitter account with a photo tweet) and will travel across Sapporo, Hokkaido, Sendai, Kumamoto, Hiroshima, Kyoto and Naha Okinawa before meeting the finalists on October at the Future Lab. So, Etou's journey will be something like this:
...well, moreor less.
The next 10 minutes of the broadcast are about exclusive stuff of the Taiko Tournament's finalists and... Yuugen no Ran (幽玄ノ乱). Yeah. You read right, people. It finally happened.
The video above is a short extract of the broadcast where it is possible to hear a short extract of this Namco Original tune, being infamously notable for being scrapped from Codename Katsu-Don's songlist for some reason. Now it's proven to be a legit song, which will be distributed only to the finalists of the tournament. It will also be unlockable by simply playing it with someone who already has it, like Joubutsu 2000 before it (the song being so limited also raises the question of whether it will be a godtier-level song). It has been also mentioned that Tohoku A and Tokyo B arcades of the Area Elimination phase will use Purple Rose Fusion as the final song.
Other tourney-related unlocks are also scheduled, as the outfit with the white wig in the picture above (the Super Zeami-don costume) will be available only for finalists, and shared with everyone else by playing with whoever is currently wearing the costume. The other outfit on the left (the regular Zeami-don costume) will be awarded in another tournament instead. (credit to tetsutaro for the image!)
Shortly after this segment, 17-masu joins the broadcast to promote Taiko products once again. This time it's a reminder of the Taiko-themed Ichiban KUJI lottery (already mentioned in another live broadcast) and -you guessed it- Taiko Wii U details!
Some of the features we already know like the Off-screen TV play (available even with button imputs!) and the partial songlist shown in the second image, but the real shocker has been the new batch of Namco Original songs, which aquabluu/pikaby managed to post in the blog yesterday. Eight new awesome songs to the roster is always nice to see but admit it: this is one of the few instances you wouldn't be happy to see the Standing Don-Chan, hanging around and covering other six Namco Original tracks for the game!
The covered up songs, based on their kanji, could be Ao no Senritsu, Shunyuu ~happy excursion~ and Lisdoonvarna no Tasogare, but anything can happen so we're not confirming those yet!
And that's all for today! As usual, reruns of the broadcast are available both on UStream and on Nicovideo, under Namco Bandai's accounts.
The next 10 minutes of the broadcast are about exclusive stuff of the Taiko Tournament's finalists and... Yuugen no Ran (幽玄ノ乱). Yeah. You read right, people. It finally happened.
The video above is a short extract of the broadcast where it is possible to hear a short extract of this Namco Original tune, being infamously notable for being scrapped from Codename Katsu-Don's songlist for some reason. Now it's proven to be a legit song, which will be distributed only to the finalists of the tournament. It will also be unlockable by simply playing it with someone who already has it, like Joubutsu 2000 before it (the song being so limited also raises the question of whether it will be a godtier-level song). It has been also mentioned that Tohoku A and Tokyo B arcades of the Area Elimination phase will use Purple Rose Fusion as the final song.
Other tourney-related unlocks are also scheduled, as the outfit with the white wig in the picture above (the Super Zeami-don costume) will be available only for finalists, and shared with everyone else by playing with whoever is currently wearing the costume. The other outfit on the left (the regular Zeami-don costume) will be awarded in another tournament instead. (credit to tetsutaro for the image!)
Shortly after this segment, 17-masu joins the broadcast to promote Taiko products once again. This time it's a reminder of the Taiko-themed Ichiban KUJI lottery (already mentioned in another live broadcast) and -you guessed it- Taiko Wii U details!
Some of the features we already know like the Off-screen TV play (available even with button imputs!) and the partial songlist shown in the second image, but the real shocker has been the new batch of Namco Original songs, which aquabluu/pikaby managed to post in the blog yesterday. Eight new awesome songs to the roster is always nice to see but admit it: this is one of the few instances you wouldn't be happy to see the Standing Don-Chan, hanging around and covering other six Namco Original tracks for the game!
The covered up songs, based on their kanji, could be Ao no Senritsu, Shunyuu ~happy excursion~ and Lisdoonvarna no Tasogare, but anything can happen so we're not confirming those yet!
And that's all for today! As usual, reruns of the broadcast are available both on UStream and on Nicovideo, under Namco Bandai's accounts.
