At long last, here's a handy recap of the Taiko Team's July livestream session, where almost every recently-released game from our drumming franchise got its chance to shine, together with pre-release announcements about Kimidori Version's first new features and limited events. Let's begin!
(screenshots and stream coverage courtesy of tetsutaro, crystalsuicune and Lokamp!)
The first of the Taiko games on the spotlight has been the Taiko no Tatsujin RPG Da-Don, the recently-released dungeon crawler a-la Puzzle & Dragons from BNSI and Criware.
A demonstrator came in to try the time-limited dungeon with Taiko 3DS1 character Levaa as its boss battle, resulting into a surprisingly-luck monster drop upon the Leviathan-like creature's defeat. After a few unlucky rolls with the premium monster gacha of the game, the demonstrator left with the announcements of a small collaboration within the iOs game Wani Wani Panic (also by BNSI) and Taiko 3DS1 mascot dragon Raruko as the next boss for the next limited dungeon. Said dungeon is still on, so try dropping the raging dragon before it's gone for good!
Shortly after, a reminder about the latest Taiko arcade costume contest has been displayed. As of today, there still are two days left for any submission!
Like for the last night-long stream, Part 2 has been more for chit-chatting with the stream spectators and doing other things such as dining and watching the video recordings taken through the arcade tounament phases by Etou himself.
During this part of the stream, Momoiro's Dojo Ranking got mentioned again, also featuring the usual charts about people's performance on the many courses. The first one shows the overall performance percentage on each course with blue bars for fail, red for pass and green for gold pass (congratulations to the only Tatsujin Gold Pass player!), while the second one is for the highest course being cleared by players, with the fearsome Tatsujin course being cleared by the 0,06 % of all players!
Last but not least, some information about Yuugen no Ran. Etou stated several times through Part 2 that Zeami's latest song will be unlockable in the future with alternative methods, for those who can't find any other player who already got unlocked to play with. From now, we have just to wait and see.
With that said, that's all. See you in the next stream!
A demonstrator came in to try the time-limited dungeon with Taiko 3DS1 character Levaa as its boss battle, resulting into a surprisingly-luck monster drop upon the Leviathan-like creature's defeat. After a few unlucky rolls with the premium monster gacha of the game, the demonstrator left with the announcements of a small collaboration within the iOs game Wani Wani Panic (also by BNSI) and Taiko 3DS1 mascot dragon Raruko as the next boss for the next limited dungeon. Said dungeon is still on, so try dropping the raging dragon before it's gone for good!
Shortly after, a reminder about the latest Taiko arcade costume contest has been displayed. As of today, there still are two days left for any submission!
The segments continues with several sheets full of text for the detailed rules of the contest. We have covered these facts in greater detail within the related blog entries about Kimidori Version, which you can check out here!
At the mention of the new arcade models, a weird dude on a lemon-shaped suit (the one on the top picture of this post) rams in to try playing one of the Kimidori cabinets. What's up with that, you ask?
The weird guy is named Curry Meshi, the mascot for Nissin's eponymous line of instant curry rice, and very fitting for the new catchphrase "Otsu Curry Rice". He announced on his Twitter that he will be visiting, and did among the puzzlement n of the hosts. After some confusing minutes of gesturing and cheat sheet rambling, it is arranged to let Curry Meshi have a go on Kimidori. Images alone can't do justice to the goofiness of the moment!
Curry Meshi went on and played an exceptionally great run (for a mascot suit) on the DonPoint unlockable Sacred Ruin, ending with the signature Justice pose from his eccentric CM with the hosts. Look behind Etou for his 90K-plus score and more than 700 perfect hits!
Running with the food theme, the Team moves to a small 3DS2 special section, all about the collaboration with the Gurt! snack. While everyone is treated to tubes of yogurt snacks, Sasaoka joins the stream to tell us about the QR codes available on new Gurt! packages, which give 3DS2 players monsters, items or outfits.
And on the topic of QR code grants, as the QR code for the unlock of Tatsu-Don as support member for the Story mode has been revealed, as promised in the previous stream. Ram through the game's Story mode with this unusual companion!
Tatsu-Don is not the only fanbase character to be featured in the game! The living arcade mecha Taittatsu is also planned to become an assist character achievable through a QR code being distributed on Kimidori arcades.
However, that's not all support characters for Don and Katsu's Space-Time Adventure! A new paid DLC song pack has been announced to release this week on July 25th, coming with the first additional chapter for the Story mode. This one will feature a familiar face: it's Ponko, from the third DS game! An alternative color sheme for the Ashihara Kid, one of the main Story Mode's boss characters.
Even the DLC pack's songs have been revealed, but...
... *sigh* they are all songs which already appeared in other console games beforehand. From the top to the bottom, we can spot Kurenai, Ninjary Bang Bang, Yoshimune Hyouban-ki Abaren Bou Shogun BGM, Hanaoto Ura Hyoushi and Tenyou no Mai. Let's hope the DLC lot holds some surprises under its sleeves!
Last but not least, through a quick poll it has been decided that the twin robots Arumi and Teruru from Taiko Wii 2 will become support characters in the future! The QR code will be revealed sometimes soon, probably with the next live stream session.
After a short break, Etou comes back with the supporting Taiko Team members and their mascot Daifuku in order to digress further into Kimidori Version's new features. The most notable of which is... new folders!
Banapassport users can benefit of more song folders in order to further sort out the songs in base of both user preferences and limited-time arcade events. The one above is for the five songs chosen for the Donder Hiroba profile as favorites, so that players can quickly pick them up without scrolling the whole genre.
The one above is the Taiko School, planned to appear then the Dojo Ranking mode will be available on Kimidori. Stuck on a certain Dojo Ranking course? This folder holds the songs being featured in, with the addition of other songs around the same difficulty tier in order to practice the most difficult Dojo Ranking courses.
Some folders also contain specific sets of songs for a clearer navigation through the others of the genre under specific criteria. From the top to the bottom, we have a folder with all the new songs on Kimidori Version, a folder with all the songs which grant costume unlocks upon completion and a folder with all the Touhou Arrange songs being released so far on public arcades. An additional folder for all the Rewards Shop unlocks is also in the works.
After the in-game presentation of these folders, Etou played the new Namco Original Denshi-Drum no Tatsujin after a quick poll through the viewers, resulting victorious with over 80% of the votes! The fact that it has the highest Oni star rating among the new original surely helped.
Next Etou turned to play Ura Phantom Rider to showcase the new color change of the difficulty icon for Ura Oni notecharts.
Next Etou turned to play Ura Phantom Rider to showcase the new color change of the difficulty icon for Ura Oni notecharts.
After a quick play, the first time-limited set of folders has been revealed, whose focus is on the songs which made their debut on Taiko 3DS 2, available from July 19th to September 12th. The folder is available for a limited time because it's tied in with a special Kimidori Version event, which grants special unlocks in 7 different time periods upon the completion of one of the songs being featured in the folder.
For the time being, arcade users have confirmed the unlock of a Ninja outfit upon completing Lightning Passion once on any difficulty during the first period. Of course this info comes after Kimidori Version's release, not from the stream!
Anyway, two promotional unlocks were announced in the stream, featuring Taiko 3DS 2 characters Tikkun and Takkun as Kigurumi costume parts after clearing songs from the 3DS 2 arcade promo folder. Neat!
Afterwards, portable Taiko games stole the spotlight once more, in order to advertise Taiko Plus's latest arcade tournament-based songpack.
As usual, Part 1 of the stream ended with a small tribute to the first skilled players who managed to break through Momoiro Version's hardest Dojo Ranking courses. Check the video below to see which players made the cut!
Like for the last night-long stream, Part 2 has been more for chit-chatting with the stream spectators and doing other things such as dining and watching the video recordings taken through the arcade tounament phases by Etou himself.
During this part of the stream, Momoiro's Dojo Ranking got mentioned again, also featuring the usual charts about people's performance on the many courses. The first one shows the overall performance percentage on each course with blue bars for fail, red for pass and green for gold pass (congratulations to the only Tatsujin Gold Pass player!), while the second one is for the highest course being cleared by players, with the fearsome Tatsujin course being cleared by the 0,06 % of all players!
Last but not least, some information about Yuugen no Ran. Etou stated several times through Part 2 that Zeami's latest song will be unlockable in the future with alternative methods, for those who can't find any other player who already got unlocked to play with. From now, we have just to wait and see.
With that said, that's all. See you in the next stream!
