Seven days left to the next big console Taiko installment, yet the Taiko Team is still reluctant to cover it on the blog! (though the usual ads and promotional videos are all in place) Today, three blog posts were published, all about the Sorairo firmware's last events and some of Momoiro's changes.
The first blog post of today's trio is about a fancy arcade lottery for every Donder Hiroba player! From today until December 9th, 2 am (Japan time), Banapassport users who have created a Donder Hiroba profile will earn a digital ticket for each play on Sorairo arcades. These tickets can be used to join four different lotteries, each of them offering an exclusive Taiko item! You can enter with as many tickets as you want, but you can only win one prize.
Being a Namco contest, there will be 765 prizes available, with each of them being sent to the winners on January next year. The first of these awards is a Good-Night Don-chan set for the youngest fans, including a double-sided cushion, a wall clock and a blanket with Don-chan and Kat-chan! 5 sets up for grabs, with 10 tickets required for a draw.
The next one is a big prize: a limited-edition Sorairo Version soundtrack CD! This beauty includes album-quality recordings of the Namco Original songs , together with the karaoke versions of the songs and even some demos and unreleased tracks! Its lottery needs 5 tickets to join, for a total of 100 copies. Hope to hear more about this one soon!
Next up is a custom Happy-New-Year card from the Taiko Team, complete with a custom sketch from Etou as well. Below there's an example of how the drawing might look like, but the rest is top- secret. Maybe there will be a character returning from the sketches on the Taiko Team's Ustreams? Three tickets are required to join this lottery, for a total of 10 cards.
Last but not least, another promotional Banapassport card will be set as a prize, featuring an image from the Sorairo Version firmware's artwork. As usual, it can be used either for storing player data or just kept as a collectible item! This is the cheapest lottery (1 ticket required to join) for the biggest prize lot, with 650 Sorairo-themed Banapassport cards available as prizes.
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Moving on, today's second blog entry is about the Dojo Ranking mode and its future in the new Momoiro Version firmware. Like in the past, the Dojo Ranking will be discontinued, but only after Momoiro is released; players can continue to challenge Sorairo's trials until the very end.
Unlockables for the Dojo Ranking are handled differently on Momoiro: more new unlock methods will be created for Joubutsu 2000 to give it access beyond only the elite players, while the current Dojo Ranking titles and costume upgrades will be either reset or removed in the new arcade version (your highest rank achieved will remain until the new firmware is released). In order to cover the loss, the Taiko Team is working on "something that can be used" to reward the players for their efforts.
Other aspects about the Dojo Ranking mode are being discussed in the blog post, such as whether to keep the medley-style gameplay or to try something completely different, but as for now this is a giant work-in-progress project for the Taiko Team which will be discussed in the next few blog updates sometime soon.
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Finally, the last blog update for today is about Taiko's arcade tournaments. Etou is still apologizing for the delay of this year's arcade tourney finals, as an official date hasn't been announced yet. However, in order to make the wait more bearable both for the finalists and the other players in general, the Sorairo Version firmware will hold one last online tournament before its departure!
From November 16 to 24, players can join the 'Donder's Festival - Sorairo Team' (ドンだー祭り ソライロの陣) online tournament, featuring new outfits and titles to be won. Three different divisions are available this time (Futsuu, Muzukashii and Oni), with each of these including songs among the latest Taiko-related CreoFuga contest: Eternal bond, Aisowarai and Bakemono Tsukiyo for the Futsuu division, Oozora to Taiko no Odori, Tsundere Cafe e Youkoso☆ and Yozakura Braiders for the Muzukashii division and the three Finals songs for the Oni one (Karamari no Hana, Calculator and Hurtling Boys). It's basically the 'best of' the Taiko Tournament challenges!
Everyone can join these three different divisions, as long as the players' Donder Hiroba account is linked with the Banapassport one. The best 100 combined scores for each division (not using the Shin-Uchi scoring rule) will be awarded with new fancy titles! Every participart to this tourney will also be awarded with the Zeami-Don outfit (世阿弥どん), which has been previously announced during the past Taiko Team live-streaming session
... whew, that's it for today. See you next week! The links for each blog post are right below this line.
