Thursday, March 31, 2016

Namco Taiko Blog (31 March 2016): Want to hear more? Notecharter Interview 7

Wow, it's been a while since we've run one of these juicy interviews! This time the focus is on a newer member of the team, Marimo (まりも)!

Profile
Joined Taiko Team: 2015 (since Taiko Murasaki)
Number of charts made: Around 15
Skill level: Able to clear most 10*s with ease and enjoys the thrill

Notechart specialty
-Handles mostly Oni 8* and 9*
-Does a ton of two and four-note clusters (hello backbeat heaven!)
-Likes to follow the pitch of the song for placing don and kat notes (higher pitch means kat; I'm sure custom mappers would have had that experience before!)
-Mimes arm movement when creating notecharts, and tries to make charts that don't require any deep guides or breakdowns. Principle being 'make the first stage of a game'.

Sample notecharts created
For all notecharts, Marimo is in charge of creating the full set from Kantan to Ura Oni!

-) Iro wa Nioedo Chirinuru o (色は匂へど 散りぬるを)
-) Gensou no Satellite (幻想のサテライト)
-) Endless Seeker
Marimo got the gig for these three songs even before she joined the notecharting team, creating a base for them and later getting touchups from the more senior members. The first two were finished by Etou, and the last one by Shika@Ni~ (しか@に~)

-) Kokihi no Shinzou -SCARLET HEART (深緋の心臓 ‐SCARLET HEART‐)
Marimo's first solo project upon joining the notechart team for real, this chart has a max combo of the devil's number (666) and is full of red notes...appropriate for a remix of Remilia's theme; Touhou's own Scarlet Devil!

-) Ultraman X (ウルトラマンX)
First time challenging to design a Ura Oni chart, this was made with the mindset that Ultraman was a ubiquitous hero, and thus the song needed to be accessible to players of all levels (1, 3, 5, 7, 10 from Kantan up to Ura Oni). Marimo worked very hard for the Ura Oni under a tight schedule to make a super-technical chart that isn't easily cracked, that on first sight looks impossible and needs a loooot of analysis and practice.

Outside of the Ura Oni, the high speed final note on the regular Oni invokes the image of Ultraman flying off into the sky after a victorious battle.

-) Lapis Lazuli (ラピスラズリ)
The song's title has a 'blue' theme, so naturally lots of blue notes would fit into this, but instead of spamming them, they are put into strategic places in the chart.

-) DAYxDAY
One of those rare times where Marimo maps the notes closely to the vocals of the song, especially from the chorus towards the end. Loads of thinking about placements of the 1/16 and 1/24 clusters too.

-) Netsujou no Spectrum (熱情のスペクトラム)
The beat patterns are pretty simple, and the emphasis is on handswitching (if you don't just hit everything with your dominant hand, of course) with odd-numbered clusters.

-) Ashita no Hikari (アシタノヒカリ)
Another Wii U 3 debut, and one of Marimo's most favorite projects to work on, in terms of tempo and ability to fit many odd-number clusters. There's a nice systematic beat to it; Marimo says if you put it on Auto and closely inspect the patterns you can see it too.

-) Hello, world!
Another of Marimo's favoured charts. Easy to understand and reasonably chalenging, with a satisfying (basic) stream at the chorus. A decision was made to change the drumroll section at the end before finalizing the chart, from big drumroll to regular, and from a balloon note to a short drumroll.

-) Akeboshi Rocket (明星ロケット)
Nice simple song overall, with an easy chart that doesn't take much effort to analyze and play properly.

-) Scream out! -Tatsujin Edit.- (「Scream out! ‐ 達人Edit. ‐)
Borrows inspiration from the chart of its original song, Kero (9) destiny, for all of its difficulties, and it's the easiest to pick out in its Ura Oni with all the intro streams.

-) ANTI-HERO
A song and chart with very complex timing, it's also very slow and meandering, making for a tough time trying to get accurate hits. Those aiming for Donder-Full Combos will get a kick out of this!

Hm? Baizoku (x2 speed)? What's that?

Aside from all that, Marimo also worked on charts for New World, XY&Z and Shiritsu Takama-ga-hara Gakuen Koukou Kouka (私立高天原学園高校・校歌), which they'll talk about in a future interview given the chance!

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