Sunday, April 2, 2017

Sonority Scouts - Prankfully Yours, 2017 Edition


...yes, once again we've been on the fools' chariot to treat our audience for some of that delicious April Fools fondue, but we've not been the only music game-related tricksters of the town!

Meet us after the jump for a collection of the most amusing AF stunts of this year, together with what the Taiko franchise has cooked up for this year in particular...


We start, once again, with the pop'n music series, with its latest, Japanese-titled iteration: Usagi to Neko to Shounen no Yume (うさぎと猫と少年の夢). This installment's main unlock modes revolve around the little robot Navi (ナビ), whose real form has been sealed from countless ages.

While a human-styled Navi appeared somehow during the arcade's lifespan, the April Fools' celebrations would have pointed you instead to its true form and, as you may imagine, it was glorious. So glorious, in fact, that some of the recurring internal bemani composers also reflected the shock with different Twitter avatars as well!


From bemani we also had a newcoming jokester among the rhythm-addicted crew, as the MÚSECA Twitter account scared up the fun by announcing the very first 3D Grafica skins to enhance your play with the power of macho! Only 1 out of the 3 supposed prototypes managed to be featured in MÚSECA's main page, though...


SOUND VOLTEX was back as well but rather than introducing new jokes, its latest installment (SDVX IV HEAVENLY HAVEN) has added a 1-day-lasting Skill Analyzer course, featuring songs starring navigator Grace, two song titles full of lies (literally, with the word 'lie' in there somehow) and -of course- the Great Teacher GRACE's Ultimate Devastate!! GRAVITY Tutorial w joke song that appeared last year. A title was waiting to be unlocked for the most daring of players, no less!

*credit to the SOUND VOLTEX Malaysia group on Facebook for the picture!*



This year's motto for Sega's maimai MURASAKi version arcades on April 1st was one and resounding: Extra modes... Extra trolls everywhere! For the less-advertised prank, we have the 1-day only Utage mode of Dogs. (犬日和。) by Ryohei Konhi (from Sega) and Ayaka Mori (森綾香), where all the star-marked drag notes have to be played in the reversed direction of how they're actually displayed on screen at first!

The saucier stuff, however, was reserved for a proper news announcement on their website (link) of maimai series director deciding to leave upon hearing what the latest (totally legit) popularity poll has brought up in the topic of making new permanent Utage. A jury of 5 personalities between Sega staffers, animals and pro players has the whole committee voting for the very same song: t+pazolite's Garakuta Doll Play.

Together with the maimai director supposedly leaving, this lead to not one... not two... not three... not four... but FIVE Utage modes for the very same track, all of them being made playable on April 1st only. You know what they say... Quintuple the pleasure, quintuple the fun!



The CHUNITHM scenario, on the other hand, is basically building upon the joke that was introduced in 2016 with the April Fools chart of Help me, A-rin!, the Touhou arrangement song made by in-game unit Irorimidori (イロドリミドリ) that was based on yet another popular Touhou arrangement. After years of teasing, the CHUNITHM crew has (supposedly) spilled the beans on how WORLD'S END charts are made through another news announcement, by unveiling the fabled device that is even able to print out hard-to-clear Japanese kanji letters on the playing mat... a penguin-maneuvered remote controller!

The mystical item's powers have been unleashed once more this year, as a week-long event that started from March 31st has seen the release of a new hard-to-clear WORLD'S END challenge with another Irorimidori rendition of a Touhou Project track falling under the name of Anepettan (あねぺったん), based on the popular Tsurupettan (つるぺったん) by Silver Forest. With extra-bendy drag notes, auto-clearing markers and the scrolling pad itself going reverse for selected note markers, you don't have to be as drunk as an oni to spot the anomalies on such a limited track! The WORLD'S END mode for Help me, A-rin! is also coming back under the same time span.

For the Groove Coaster series, the independent composer Cranky has returned to the drawing boards once again to give the most dignified makeover for the (also totally-legit) first minor update of the current arcade version (GC 3EX Dream Party). There's a new navigator in town that goes by the name of Yume... so here we are, getting served with the most dreamy art for the debuting assistant in both in-menu and NESiCA forms!

Continuing the former yearly traditions worth of inside jokes, the Spooky Story: "Car GPS" song has been made available to play on both arcade and mobile platforms for one day and one day only, with the arcade goers now getting a renewed selection of audio skins to make your Groove Coaster plays somehow scary and awesome... With both the main GC3-era navigators, no less!

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We've had quite the funny showcase concerning other music game series, sure... but what about Taiko no Tatsujin? What did we get?!?...

... Kidaruma 2000 and Yokuderu 15300 coming back for one day. No official announcement about these additions or anything else from the Team in message (or any other) form.

Yaaaaay...
Posted by Nintendo 5-Star at 1:41 AM
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