Valentine's Day is over for this year, but its love-inspiring spirit lives on with our weekly feature!
Donko's First Date (どん子のファーストデート)| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All console | x4 (186) | x4 (236) | x3 (307) | x5 (427) |
| Taiko 0 R | x4 (186) | x4 (236) | x3 (307) | x4 (427) |
| All (2P) | x4 (186/186) | x4 (236/236) | x3 (307/307) | x5 (427/427) (video) |
Taiko 0 R, Taiko PS2 4, Taiko PSP 1, Taiko Wii 1, CD 2008
190
none
bko2In the Taiko no Tatsujin universe, one of the most passion-driven characters is, without any doubt, Donko, a red girl tambourine who often tries to get attention from her beloved Taiko fellow Don-chan. On console Taiko games, we sometimes see attempts at romantic banter between the two, especially on PS2 and Wii (most of them ending with Don-chan being smacked by Donko), but we still don't know how the two of them met or how their first date would be like.
While Taiko's various storylines never explored this scenario, Taiko PS2 Yondaime featured a Namco Original song about Donko's inner feelings and thoughts about her very first date (in a way, it's her song; kinda like Lantern Eel, Wada Inu and Mekadon have their own songs). For this song, Donko's voice is provided by Kaori Kurosawa (黒澤かおり), a voice actress who also contributed to some Enix and NBGI games, like Katamari Damacy. The composer and the lyricist for Donko's First Date are respectively Keiichi Okabe (岡部啓一) and Yasugawa Shogo (ヤスカワショウゴ), the same couple behind other popular Namco Originals such as Unagi no Tamashii Rock and DON'T CUT. As one of the NO songs composed by Keiichi Okabe, its ID is bko2, where 'bko' is the reversed abbreviation of MONACA no Okabedesu, the duo responsible for the Angel Dream songs of which Okabe is a member.
The song has a fast tempo, but the chart is really easy to play with zero 1/16 clusters. It's like a more relaxing version of Linda Linda, another fast 5* Oni. As one of the "PS2-generation" NO songs, 2 player charts were included on all difficulty settings, and despite the chart differences, the notecounts for P1 and P2 are equal for all four of them!
Donko's First Date (どん子のファーストデート)| Version | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x8 (808) | |||
| All (2P) | x8 (715/715) (video) |
Taiko 0 R 190 none ???Donko's First Date had to wait a considerable amount of time for its arcade debut, although it wasn't the only newcoming element with it! In one of Red Version's final software updates, an enhanced version of the song's Oni mode featuring a more aggressive combination of chained note patterns made its debut as an exclusive feature to one of the newly-introduced Dojo Ranking Gaiden trials.
Two days later, everyone could start unlocking the actual song through Red Version's final Don Challenge round of mission, unveiling altogether the fact that the Ura Oni of Donko's First Date also holds a 2P-exclusive re-mapped challenge with the name note count for both players (like the regular notechart set) and some minor differences within 2P-exclusive elements and notechart portions that have been changed for the 4-armed play, such as the final sped-up cluster now turning into a shared big Don note!
