Bringing the year 2015 to a close (on the live appearances side of events), the Taiko Team is back for the yearly, all-night-long livestream marathon for the next big arcade firmware release, this time around being pleased by more console games talk and a big load of guest stars!
Before the broadcast's actual beginning, Eto has hosted a small pre-livestream portion to talk with the early viewers, together with the returning Daifuku and Takemoto.
After some fun chatting (complete with newcomer chalkboard decoration talk, no less!), we already are greeted with the usual Comments Challenge card for the livestream. Needless to say, all comments goals were broken long before the 'all-night-long' portion!
In a nutshell, though, the pre-livestream portion has mostly been the occasion to look a little bit into the preparation of the broadcast itself.
For this one, that meant preparing the musical instruments for the live performances (with Linda AI-Cue supervising the operations) and testing out the green screen effects for the live music video performances. It's also the best occasion to goof up a little bit with those special effects!
At the livestream's official beginning, we are greeted with the return of Masubutchi and the presentation of the anticipated Idolm@ster autograph reward for one random viewer of the show, in occasion of the Must Songs games' imminent release.
Right after that, we're in for a treat! The Taiko no Tatsujin series's overall producer, Ken Nakadate (中館賢), appears out of nowhere to see with the Team which name will be chosen for the mouse drummer of the Taiko Studio Ghibli short.
And the results are in! With over 37% of the votes, Mouchu (まうちゅー) is the Taiko mouse's name. I wonder if we'll ever see this guy in future Taiko titles as a proper character...
With Nakadate leaving, it's finally time for the Namco Stage segment, in which the highly anticipated artist guests have performed live some of their Taiko songs, after some signatures and a brief interview with Kawagen Collagen.
First in line were the Tanqun Democracy girls, which this time around made it in person to be attending the livestream, together with their producer. For the occasion, the girls have also brought some drawings made beforehand the broadcast, depicting the singers in different kind of fictional situations. Be it with seals of yokai creatures, it's always time to be cheerful!
Unfortunately, no Youtube footage can be found of Tanquun Democracy performing live the extended version of Natsumono☆, their latest Taiko song. For those who are interested, however, the Nicovideo livestream's rerun is always here for Premium users to enjoy for the remainder of this year.
Unfortunately, no Youtube footage can be found of Tanquun Democracy performing live the extended version of Natsumono☆, their latest Taiko song. For those who are interested, however, the Nicovideo livestream's rerun is always here for Premium users to enjoy for the remainder of this year.
Up next is the turn of newcomer HONOKA, who performed her Taiko debut track Love Fantasy one day prior its White Version release. Just like for Tanqun, the performance was held with the help of green screen video magic and -again- is not to be found on Youtube...
Recurring singer Sariya-jin was next in line for the corner, also being the first one to perform two songs (Marble Heart and Zero no Nocturne) with the help of the in-house musicians, starring Masubutchi on the drums and Taku Inoue (pictured behind HONOKA in the previous snapshot) at the guitar.
After fiddling with her cellphone for a while, Haruko Momoi's performance was the last in line for the female side of the corner, performing live her STAY GOLD song I my moko and her signature Game Music contribution Wonder Momoi. Luckily for us, we have a video link for the performance in question, for those who are interested in seeing it!
Last but not least, Taku Inoue stepped in from his musical assist role to perform live Ten Bin-za Kyuko Yoru o Iku, his debut Taiko track which is scheduled to be appearing next year. Unfortunately, there are no audio/video recordings of the live performance, but we at least know that Taku Inoue is both playing the guitar and singing for the song!
Going into break time once again, a parade of Murasaki Version's Dojo Ranking raiders was shown to celebrate the mode's best players on each of the final ranks. Below is the full list, in video form!
After the break, the next hour-and-a-quarter of time was all about the Official MyBachi drumsticks for personal play-style and (optional) tool for custom -but still fair- competitive tourney action on the arcade side of things.
Since Eto was already nice to sum up everything about the MyBachi in last Thursday's Taiko blog entry (thank God), the only thing left for us to show you is how the portable drumsticks should look like!
As shown in the picture below, the definitive length of the portable bachis should be between 40 and 60 centimeters.
Coming up next is a brief talk about the Taiko 2016 World Tourney, with the first two phases' dates being fixed for both the Middle-School-And-Up and Elementary-And-Under divisions, with the Preliminary phase taking place respectively on March and April while the 2nd phase begins on May and in Early Summer for the two divisions.
An updated infographic shows us the two aforementioned divisions and one extra space to the bottom, dedicated to overseas players! But, as this teaser states, we have to wait the next Niconico Tokaigi event to learn more about this big Taiko arcade tourney.
In a quick flurry of info overload, a lot of new content announcements about the newcomer arcade firmware were made in a really short time! At launch, White Version promises new unlockable outfits (like the ones pictured below) and the issuing of a new multi-part Title Parts Gacha, with Part 1 already live alongside White Version's launch.
White Version's first software update was also announced for a December 24th release date, planning to bring back the four songs below from the most recent console releases and -for the case of Doraemon no Uta- from Taiko gaming's most ancient past!
Another beloved feature will come back next year, as White Version's first DonChare monthly unlocks is returning next January. The rewards are Namco Original revival Kurofune Raikou and the 2-part Kabuki outfit, with the body piece awarded by playing once and the head gear available as a limited Rewards Shop item.
Another new arcade feature that is coming on December 24th is the Taiko x Love Live! collaboration event, bringing custom dancers to the Love Live! songs as well as Petit Chara figurines of the Anime series' girls. Check out the event's official website for bigger pictures! (Our brief post about the event helps too).
White Version's launch window also appears to be busier than expected, as a smaller tournament event will take place next February, right before the big 2016 tourney!
Working much like the previous month-long tournaments, this one will only feature the Oni division, starring three 8-star challenges to compete with for the highest score.
What's different from the previous mini-tourneys is that this one will feature new songs on January in order to gear up the skills! Three new songs will be made available only in the stores/arcade rooms holding the tournament matches: Taku Inoue's Ten Bin-za Kyuko Yoru o Iku, Heaven's Rider (...a sequel to Phantom Rider?) and All In My Heart, by Somei Yoshino.
There's something to enjoy for everyone, even for those who aren't participating in the competition! Banapassport users who play on White Version arcades in the tourney stores will earn Don Stamps and Katsu Tickets to unlock some of the tourney's songs to every arcade!
More specifically, Ten Bin-za Kyuko Yoru o Iku will be available in the week beginning on January 8th, while Heaven's Rider is up on the week after that. There's no word on the third song's public release, but it might be right behind the corner. Don Challenge, perhaps?
Outside players can also earn Taiko goodies by spectating the tourney's matches! Up to 15 Petit Charas will make their debut as freebies for the Banapassport spectators, including popular Taiko character like Fuuga and Mirai from the 4th Wii title.
Last but not least, the tournament-holding stores will sell a limited-edition Banapassport card starring Tatsu-Don, everyone's favorite anthropomorphic prank drum came true!
The participating stores will be easy to recognize, as they'll display promotional posters/material about the event and their White Version arcades will display the tourney's logo on the top left corner!
Now that all the arcade business for the day was done, Oosawa and Dark Attribute (TOMOKI) step in to talk with the team about V Version and Atsumete Tomodachi Daisakusen.
This time around, the V Version corner wasn't about future content previews, but rather for having a look back at all the songs that have been made available for the game, between the base songs and DLC content.
Among these, Dark Attribute was particularly eager to try clearing Silent Jealousy Ura with the Kanpeki modifier (=no misses allowed), ... only to be failing at the 37th-or-so note. Well, it's a 10-star Oni after all!
If there's a console game who got future content announced, that's the third Wii U installment for sure! The songs and outfit parts below will be made available on December 24th (as Tatsu-Don reminds), with the songs being free of charge.
Another event being mentioned for the console corner is the Taiko x EXILE collaboration lottery (of which we also talked about here), featuring Taiko goods from Atsumete Tomodachi Daisakusen's Tatacon bundle edition, EXILE goods and the Taiko x Studio Ghibli blanket below.
The last thing mentioned in the console corner is Taiko Plus' new trio of songs for the Gakkyoku Tori Houdai service, listed below.
With TOMOKI and Oosawa leaving, notecharter sentai Kuboken appears in the guise of Donchan (in the title name card, at least) to talk about the Idolm@ster Must Song games with the rest of the Team. Also, light sticks!
Essentially, this corner was more about the Idolm@ster franchise lore in general rather than the twin Taiko games, as the presentation begins with a slide about the 10th Anniversary year's content who touched Taiko gaming in 2015.
And after speaking a while about some of Kuboken's charted songs, it's time for the fated return of an old acquaintance!
Aah, that mountain. It's good to see you again, old friend.
...okay, aside from the fact that the Team hasn't changed their PC's wallpaper since the last livestreams, they had some technical issues for when they tried to open up a video for the Im@s segment. What has been aired, though, it's nothing new-just another trailer for the games, explaining stuff that was already digressed in the past mini-series of videos from Bandai Namco's Youtube channel.
For this segment, however, Linda AI-Cue pops back to talk about the songs in the games he composed, aside of adding an extra layer of challenge for the livestream's mini contest for the Must Songs idol autographs shown at the stream's beginning.
Some time during the talk, everyone has hid their light stick, and the viewers had to guess which color was Kuboken's. Among all the people who guessed right, one lucky viewer was picked at random for the prize
At this point I'd tell you guys to try guessing which was the correct answer but come on, I've already posted at least two screenshots with the light sticks in full display!
The last portion before the midnight wake segment is about the Synchronica team, talking about the much anticipated 2nd Taiko collaboration event.
On the Synchronica side, the arcades will receive the Winter-themed song Toryu from Taiko games, complete with a rather sublime album art!
This time around, even Taiko players will get something fancy to play around with! Described by some cuddly drawings, if Banapassport users will play Synchronica and Taiko arcades right after the Synchronica play, some pleasant surprises may arrive... in form of 2 new songs!
If you feel the urge to remember the passages in song, the Team has also worked out a small jingle for the campaign. How nice of them!
From the info-graphic sheet below, we come to know that the two Synchronica songs unlocked on Taiko are Taku Inoue's theme song for the game, Synchronicity, and the Classic arrangement New World from LAGITAGIDA. Three cross plays between Synchronica and Taiko no Tatsujin are required in order to unlock both songs (only 1 cycle for Synchronicity).
In more Synchronica-related news, the unlocks of the previous "Synchronica in Summer" limited event will come back for next year's beginning, with the added unlockable contents of New Year avatar pieces and Bandai Original song Snow Light, from AJURIKA.
After one quick poll for deciding a free title part for Synchronica games, the all-night-long portion finally came, and with that the long wait for the Must Songs/White Version games' release.
During this time, Kuboken has had the opportunity to talk a bit about his notecharting works on Taiko songs in general, Etou has offered a nice close-up to the background chalkboard's decorations (complete with the guests' autographs) and Masubutchi has had the opportunity to grant the drumming requests of the still-awake viewers. One of which -involving the man playing Namco Original Canadea on drums- has also been published on Youtube for posterity's sake!
This concludes our trip to what has been the Taiko Team's last livestream broadcast for the year 2015. We hope you had fun reading (or re-living) this experience as much as we enjoyed seeing it live!
