Momoiro Clover Z collab strikes back!

The Momoiro Clover Z collaboration gets an encore on mobile devices, with a slew of free goodies for everyone!

Namco Taiko Blog (30 January 2014) - February's fiend-ish DonChare

After all the commotion caused by Taiko HD's inaugural step outside Japan, we go back to business. It's the last Thursday of the month, which means Don Challenge time!

Twitter Snippets: Namco has heard!

According to Woolala from the Taiko HD campaign group, Namco received the petition to release Taiko Momoiro outside Japan in May last year, and began the project to export in winter. So they HAVE heard us! The campaign ended a success!

Though there's still a lot to iron out, Namco are continuing work on the Taiwanese release of Momoiro to make sure they have as many songs as possible. Takemoto is Namco's representative in Taiwan and he has delivered many, many tweets and replies to eager donders outside Japan who also want a chance at playing the latest Taiko.

ちなみに、稼働報告のリプで、台湾以外の国への設置要望もたくさんいただきました。 香港、シンガポール、韓国、中国、、、色々な国に設置されて、ゆくゆくは「ドンだー!アジア一決定戦」とか開催できれば良いですね。 言葉の壁はあるかもですが、一緒にセッションしたらかなり埋まるのではと(タケ
— 太鼓チーム (@taiko_team) January 27, 2014

They acknowledge that they have received tons of requests to release Taiko Momoiro outside Japan. From Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, China (and others), and that it would be a grand ambition to have a Donder Asia Tournament, instead of just in Japan. Though there's an obvious language barrier, it doesn't really matter when we're all playing together!

また、収録曲についても、日本国内版に対して一部異なる部分がございます。(タケモト)
— 太鼓チーム (@taiko_team) January 27, 2014

They also acknowledge that the international songlist will be somewhat different from that in Japan.

それから、現在、「ドンだーひろば」は国内版のみを対象としており、台湾稼働バージョンに対しては、ドンだーひろばがありません。 したがって、現在国内版で「ドンだーひろば」で提供しているサービス、お買いものや称号組み合わせ等は、利用できない状況となっております。(タケモト)
— 太鼓チーム (@taiko_team) January 27, 2014

The Donder Hiroba service is still unavailable for those outside Japan, which means unlockables that require the site to unlock aren't available yet (Don Point songs and standard unlockables such as Soroban 2000 are available). They should be working on it soon.

ただし日本国内でのプレイデータは、そのまま台湾で使うことができません。 台湾の筐体でカードをかざすと、新規カードとして認識されます。 逆もまた然りです。(タケモト)
— 太鼓チーム (@taiko_team) January 27, 2014

The international Momoiro is a different machine, and requires new card data to be created. Don't worry if you have Japanese data on it; these two do not overlap and can coexist on one card!

ちなみに、難易度構成比率は88%が「おに」でした。 この偏りもあるためか、ナムコオリジナルやボーカロイド曲に人気が集中していますが、、、人気曲は日本とあまり変わらない印象を受けました。(タケモト)
— 太鼓チーム (@taiko_team) January 28, 2014

Namco Originals and Vocaloid were the most popular songs, with 88% of all plays being on Oni difficulty. Taiko has lots of skilled players overseas as well!

And that's a wrap! For other miscellaneous tweets about Takemoto being in Taiwan, just head over to their Twitter page, which is abuzz with activity right now.

As for us, we will be making a separate page for the international Taiko Momoiro songlist seeing as it's going to be developed differently from the Japanese one. Stay tuned!

Taiwanese Taiko Momoiro cuts out songs

Today's the official launching of Taiko Momoiro in its first location outside Japan, and its neighboring country, Taiwan, gets it first! The team even flew a rep over to one of the arcades to commemorate the launch with a photo!

However, not all is sunshine and roses just yet. Remember that arcade Taiko was never officially released outside of Japan before (with the exception of the two 'Asian Version' machines which performed well, but lacked popularity tracking), and thus Namco has a slew of licensing and copyright issues to settle, which explains the complete lack of Taiko HD outside of Japan up till now. As such, many songs, especially licensed, have been cut out.

The songlist for Taiwan's Momoiro is significantly smaller at 212 songs. Below are images by crystal and information by tetsu, reposted from the Taiwanese community at Plurk.

22 J-Pop songs compared to 67 in the Japanese version. Kurenai, Telecastic fake show, all AKB48 songs, all 9mm Parabellum Bullet songs and maximum the hormone are among the cut songs, which is regrettable; a lot of them are high Oni challenges!

Anime is down to 31 from 68.

Only 3 songs in Variety.

Even the originals aren't safe, down to 99 from 125 (though this number doesn't include unlockables so it should go up more). All the CreoFUGA songs, which have the highest potential for licensing issues, made it though.

Game Music is down to 28 out of 39 total, not counting unlockables. Music Revolver and Extreme MGG are among the unfortunate victims. Pokemon XY is here though.

Only the Classic genre's 14 songs managed to survive wholly.

Namco have stated that they are continuously working to solve the remaining licensing issues and slowly adding them to the Taiwanese Momoiro songlist. Hopefully if those are fully sorted out it would mean a much easier effort of exporting Taiko no Tatsujin officially to the other countries!

Namco Bandai changes their company name

Slow news day eh? Aside from Taiwan officially getting Taiko no Tatsujin Momoiro today (albeit with a few licensed songs cut out due to copyright difficulties; we'll cover more on that as we get more information), we learned a few days ago that Namco Bandai Games Incorporated (NBGI) has flipped their company name around, turning it into Bandai Namco Games Incorporated.

Not much of a big deal; the two names are used interchangeably pretty often because Bandai comes first in Japan, whereas for the rest of the world, it's the other way around. They're just formalizing the company name throughout the world so now no one can argue whether Namco or Bandai comes first in the name.

Source: Gematsu

Song of the Week! 25 January 2014

It's been a while since I featured a song with an Ura chart here, or anything from the Vocaloid genre. This time I'm doing both in one!

Namco Taiko Blog 2 (23 January 2014): Want to Know More? Notecharters #5

No giant portfolio of notecharts to go through this time, because all the lead staff are busy. So the team makes the rounds to the regular employees to cook up a story. And cook it up they did; today's notechart story is about surume (スルメ) and kusaya (くさや), which mean 'dried cuttlefish' and 'dried salted horse mackerel' respectively.

Wait, how does snack food tie in to chart-making?

Charts that are addictive and enjoyable no matter how many times you play them are 'surume' charts, like a piece of dried cuttlefish; no matter how much you bite in it's still lovely sweet-salty goodness. And those that are harder to do? They would be the 'kusaya' charts.

The fish charts differ from their sugary counterparts by their first impression they make; understanding the rhythm takes time and may differ depending on each individual person who makes the chart, and when you get used to it, it turns out to be a unique experience and the resulting chart they make turns out to be good. Just like the dried horse mackerel; its pungent flavor and smell puts people off at first, but it's an acquired taste.

And like any acquired taste, it's difficult to get people to play the song twice even after the creator of the chart enjoys it. The concept of the kusaya chart then, is to make it more enjoyable the more times you 'eat' (play) it.

Charts with repetitive, generic patterns you've all seen before? Those are what they call the 'sweets' charts. They're easy to make and are great at first, but despite being fun initially, repeating it over and over makes them boring.

The ultimate trick is then, to find a balance between the three aspects. The light and easy 'sweets', combined with the great addictive 'cuttlefish' flavor, and the unexpected, unique 'fish' taste.

The charting staff try their best to rate their creations among themselves, to make them ultimately enjoyable to the players! (though I doubt all these metaphors are used in daily work conversation....or are they?)

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Namco Taiko Blog (23 January 2014): Huge update for Taiko Momoiro!

...Well, if you count a large increase in an arbitrary number as huge.

From Game Version 2.05, the number jumps straight away to 10.02 on the next update, which brings....nothing of note. Yet.

10.02 is actually a preparation update, so they can add even more content in the future. In other words, expect something big coming for it soon! For now though, Momoiro stays the way it is.

Game Version 10.02 hits the arcade on January 30th, 2014.

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pikaby asks: How much is too much?

Throughout our experiences playing Taiko, almost every time the first thing we compare in a Taiko game is the total number of songs that are in it. With each passing generation of Taiko games the storage capacity of discs has increased, and so has the number of songs. Before, 30+ songs was the norm in the PS2 era, and in the past five years the average number of songs has doubled. And with more consoles supporting downloadable content, it increased even further.

The situation is the same on the arcade, and the song count has increased greatly after the networked machine was introduced. Now in its 3rd year, Taiko HD has over 300 songs to choose from.

It sounds great, but would we ever reach a point where there are too many songs? How much time would we need to scroll through them all, and not to mention how long would it take for a new player to start getting accustomed to all the original songs if they're not familiar with them?

Increasing the number of songs on a console Taiko also means increased repetition of songs. It's perfectly fine for newcomers to the series or if you don't feel like switching consoles just to play a couple of classics. However, the team can only produce a certain number of songs at a time. What would happen if console Taikos had 100 songs per game, every game? How many of those would be repeats and how many more new songs would Namco need to churn out every time?

"How much is too much?", basically. Share your thoughts!

Taiko no Tatsujin 3DS Script (5-12): Lou Ya Restaurant: VIP Suite

Warning: may contain plot spoilers.

Taiko no Tatsujin 3DS Script (5-11): Lou Ya Restaurant: Nose-Curling Zone

Warning: may contain plot spoilers.

Taiko no Tatsujin 3DS Script (5-10): Lou Ya Restaurant: S Suite

Warning: may contain plot spoilers.

Chiriyuku Ran no Tsuduru Uta lyrics

Vocals: Tomokazu Sano

New Puzzle & Dragons stuff for Taiko games!

Just like the Taiko Team, some of the staff members at GungHo love to promote their products online through multiple live streams on the Internet, mostly focused around their mobile hit game Puzzle & Dragons. Now, what happens if usual hosts from both streams met...?

Song of the Week! 18 January 2014

Well folks, today is my birthday (yay!) and as such, I'm taking this little corner for myself to feature something I wanted to cover since its release.

Now sit back and enjoy some facts about my NEW absolute favorite tune in Taiko games!

First video of Monster Hunter 4 Medley

At last, we have some decent video footage of the latest medley's Oni mode in Taiko! With 733 notes, the Monster Hunter 4 Medley manages to have 8* material thanks to long arrays of small clusters along the way, without relying on multiple and different time signatures along the way. Rest assured, though: once a HQ recording is available, we'll add this song to the Medley series!

Namco Taiko Blog (16 January 2014): Taiko Wii U DLC and World Hobby Fair Winter 2014

The official blog finally catches up to the rest of the Taiko community, announcing the six songs for Taiko Wii U's DLC, plus the Monster Hunter 4 costume and backdrop. We've been through them twice and don't want to sound like a broken record, so let's move on to the new bit.

The World Hobby Fair Winter '14 is coming up very soon, and Bandai Namco are setting up their booth as usual. One large portion of the booth will be dedicated to their latest Taiko products, Momoiro and Taiko Wii U. It starts on January 19th 2014 at the Nagoya Dome and will move to three other locations in Japan over the next few weeks. Wonder if we'll hear anything new?

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Namco Taiko Blog (15 January 2014) - Momoiro Version 2.05 release day!

Version 2.05's launch was shortly followed by an extra Taiko Team blog post, in which some minor details about the new content were mentioned. Basically, this is just a reminder about an update for the Taiko arcade website, with the addition of the new licensed songs in the songlist as well as two new collaboration full outfits, with one of these being the Brave Cat Series (ブレイブネコシリーズ), awarded by clearing Monster Hunter 4 Medley on any difficulty.

So, that's it for today. Keep an eye tomorrow for another blog entry!

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Momoiro Version 2.05 live update

Since this update is adding almost ten more songs to the arcade build, we're reporting the newest additions during the day through an update post. Be sure to come back here to see what's new!

10 updates and counting.

Taiko no Tatsujin Wii U January 2014 DLC: More details

We wrote in our previous post that another batch of free songs are headed towards the latest console Taiko and this post on senpaigamer.com confirms them for January 22, 2014. Just to recap, the six songs are:

• Koisuru Fortune Cookie
• Kurenai
• JUST LIVE MORE
• Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru (Shite Yan Yo)
• Monster Hunter 4 Medley
• Ryougen no Mai

That's not all though! More costumes will be available for it as well, including this sweet new Felyne costume from Monster Hunter 4 and related backdrop! No word whether you have to pay for these yet.

Thanks to tetsutaro for the information!

Song of the Week! 11 January 2014

Another videogame double feature is upon us! This time, we are diving into the world of the "Dream Traveler" Klonoa, Namco's side-scrolling platform series from the first Playstation generation.

[RUMOR] Taiko Wii U's January DLC songs

While no updates for Taiko Wii U's website occured since last month, many anonymous voices from the Web are reporting the supposed free content of January's DLC lot. Take this info with a pinch of salt!

Namco Taiko Blog (9 January 2014): Greeting for the New Year!

After the long blog post for Taiko Momoiro on Tuesday (and we'll be hearing some surprises for Taiko Wii U tomorrow as well!), the team's members all send their warm regards for the new year. Let's see them in brief, one by one!

The visual lead, Sasaoka sends his regards and hopes to make more interesting and fun notecharts for Taiko players this year!

The graphics lead Ono and the entire graphics team made a drawing for the occasion.

Three of the game's programmers share their thoughts too. Takemoto, the  programmer lead for Taiko Wii U sends a photo of a Don-chan decoration he put up at his house.

Okabe, another programmer for the Wii U version, has been playing the game with his family and having great fun, and hopes everyone else does too! (Well, if you're lucky enough to own one)

Nishimura, the programmer for the arcade version, hopes everyone has lots of fun this year and sends his regards to his family, his child and the rest of the programming team. He seems to hide a certain word from view...if you piece it together it says "ココナッツサブレ". Cookies...um, okay.

Sound director Masubuchi hopes to be able to explore even more new themes from different worlds for his next music creations.

Expert notechart ninja Kuboken's greetings are filled with lots of stars (shurikens?) and hopes to make more charts this year.

Kijima from the Taiko Wii U team continues telling everyone to play the game and enjoy the monthly free downloadable content (which will continue with even more goodies).

And lastly from the smartphone Taiko Plus team is Nocchi, who has planned a lot of new downloads for the game and asks everyone if they enjoyed the event that is currently ongoing.

That's from the entire team, so Happy New Year from us at Taiko Time as well and we hope everyone continues to enjoy Taiko no Tatsujin for years to come!

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Namco Taiko Blog (7 January 2014) - Taiko no Tatsujin Momoiro Version 2.05

The Taiko Team ends the winter holiday break with an early blog entry about Momoiro Version's first content software update, featuring new songs for (almost) every genre and much more!

Third Taiko x P&D collab details

There's nothing much to say this time: after an update on Taiko Plus' website, we know that this returning collaboration with GungHo's mobile hit will result only with the return of Game Music Walking Through The Towers as a free song, playable from today until January 12th. For some weird reason, the song will be duplicated on the songlist for users who have already bought the Pazudora Pack, as the picture above testifies.

On a side note, Taiko Plus' Winter Holidays promo period will be extended, allowing the download of the two extra Namco Original tracks until January 12th.

Song of the Week! 4 January 2014

Let's start off 2014 with two Namco Originals coming from a couple of freelance composers, both of which have been ported to the latest console Taiko.

Behind the Drums: Takafumi Sato

Takafumi Sato (佐藤たかふみ) is a member of the Namco Sound Team originating from Hokkaido. His name has cropped up several times in recent years as he has been involved in creating several major songs in Taiko no Tatsujin, most of them very well-received, and includes console theme songs and even boss songs! Not much information could be found about his backstory, however.

Outside of Taiko is also actively involved in making songs for IdolM@ster, though none of his works there have been included in Taiko no Tatsujin yet. He composes songs and is also responsible for creating some sound effects for Namco-made games.

Twitter

Vocaloid

• Wanya World (わんにゃーワールド)
• EDY -Electric Dance Yoga- (EDY -エレクトリカルダンシングヨガ-)

Game Music

• Machuike Prince (待ち受けプリンス)
• Thank You!
• Majide...!? (マジで…！？)
• Anzu no Uta (あんずのうた)

Namco Original

• Wanya World (わんにゃーワールド)
• Cycle of Rebirth (サイクル・オブ・リバース)
• Meena no Oyashiki (ミーナのおやしき)
• Hayabusa (隼)
• Kimi to Hibiku Harmony (キミと響くハーモニー)
• Maou no Showtime (マオウのショウタイム) - composer, vocals
• Audio de Ka! (オーディオ de カッ！) (1*)

Other Music Games Songs

Idolm@ster

• DOKIDOKI Rhythm (DOKIDOKIリズム)
• Onedari Shall We～?(おねだり Shall We～?)
• Chiisana Koi no Misshitsu Jiken (小さな恋の密室事件)
• Welcome!!
• Triple Angel (トリプルAngel)
• Houkago Jump (放課後ジャンプ)

(1*) - co-created with Yano Yoshito (矢野義人), Junichi Nakatsuru (中鶴潤一) and Koji Nakagawa (中川浩二).

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First video of Houou Tenbu Mugen Kuzure

Taiko Momoiro's first DonChare song starts with a bang! A typical Japanese-style high energy song, its speed may be middling, but it is a brutal 9* Oni chart that is very difficult to Full Combo if you're not used to 1/24 clusters and having those mixed in with a regular 1/16 stream. The rest of the chart is full of 1/16 clusters that is challenging even for charts of this level.

Total number of notes is 689 on Oni. The star rating for the other difficulty levels remain unknown as of this writing, but will be updated soon.

Don Challenge List (Momoiro Version)

Don Challenge (shortened to 'DonChare' (ドンチャレ)) was introduced in the July 2012 update of Taiko no Tatsujin (HD) for Banapassport-equipped arcade players, which is a set of 11 goals that has to be cleared by playing the game and meeting certain criteria. The challenges change on a monthly basis, and once a certain number of them are cleared, the player can unlock new songs and titles for themselves too! 10 of the goals can be cleared by individual players, and the 11th one is a group effort, contributed by all players with Banapassports.

The songs unlocked through Don Challenge will be available to all other players in the following month when the goals are renewed, so it is an incentive for regular arcade-goers to clear goals so that they may be able to play new songs earlier than everyone else and unlock more new content.

Below is the list of Don Challenge goals made for the Taiko Momoiro Version firmware and the content they unlock. These will also be listed in the related unlock article.

Random: Zaiko no Tatsujin

Yes, another Taiko no Tatsujin spoof game, for Android phones! Unlike the previous ones, this was made specifically to acknowledge Taiko, made by a Japanese person. The Engrish makes the description of the game hard to read, but it has something to do with inventory control, the economy and recession ('zaiko' meaning 'in stock'). Funny how changing just one Japanese letter changes the entire context of the sentence!

Instead of two inputs, you have to deal with four, red, blue, yellow, and green, and hit the correct color boxes as they come up to the marker. The creator mentions sync issues between the music and notes though (those are tough to solve) so if you want to try it out for laughs, do take note.