The game is mainly set in Priyo City, an uprising urbanized town of the fictional United States of FALCONIA where the steady growth of its population goes hand-to-hand with the rise of the street crime rate. Due to the lack of cops in the city's police department, the institution is hiring professional drivers who hunt down criminals for a living, known in-game as "Stormers". Critical Velocity's story puts the players in the shoes of Sole, a freshly-hired Stormer who fights the street crime of Priyo City with his partner Gordon, up to clear commissioned jobs that may or may not lead to a bigger conspiracy that tangles the whole continent.
Unlike the Ridge Racer titles, Critical Velocity is a mission-based game where the player has to explore Priyo City in order to progress the main story line and to join the game's missions, ranging from simple street/time races to alternative kinds of objectives like bumping into the criminals' cars to violently end their ride. That being said, the game doesn't shy away from referencing the longer-running Namco racing series in a number of ways, between familiar locations to race in and some cars directly coming from the Ridge Racer world. Despite Critical Velocity not ending up to be a success, its jazz-inspired soundtrack stands up to the test of time, being released on May 29th, 2012 as an iTunes digital album. It's also possible to hear bits of the game's music as background music for the episodic Audio Deka, the Taiko Team-produced comic audio drama series that started with the former official livestream broadcasts.
Despite some of these songs' arcade forays, the Critical Velocity legacy in Taiko is mainly a home console-oriented one, as all the tracks thus far have made their debut in such titles.
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Sunset Runaway Critical Velocity
「クリティカルベロシティ」より
「クリティカルベロシティ」より
| Game | Genre |
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| AC0 Mu Wii U2 |
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★4 (105) |
★6 (189) |
★8 (416) |
★9 (610) |
- |
148-152
crtsun (Critical Velocity - Sunset Runaway)Previously featured in Song of the Week: March 26 2016
The first track of the PS2 game to become a playable Taiko track is Sunset Runaway, composed by Ryuichi Takada (高田龍一) from the MONACA unit and one of 7 tracks of his making for the game.
Being launched by Taiko Tokumori as the "New Game Music Last Unlock" contender for the aforementioned Wii U game, this percussion-happy and sax-friendly track later made its arcade debut under Taiko Murasaki, where it was also featured in one of its Dojo Ranking trials. Its Oni mode sports in different combinations of 1/16 cluster charting, with the usual 1/24 spikes ramping up the tension in many occasions.
BLAZING VORTEX Critical Velocity
「クリティカルベロシティ」より
| Game | Genre |
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| AC0 W Ps Vita |
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★4 (275) |
★6 (389) |
★8 (694) |
★9 (797) |
★10 (1208) |
173 blzvtx (BLAZING VORTEX)Previously featured in Song of the Week: March 26 2016
Ten years after Critical Velocity's launch, another track from Critical Velocity comes through as one of the many many Game Music track debuts on Taiko V Version, with its arcade debut a few months later as White Version's final Don Points unlock. BLAZING VORTEX was one of the songs made for Critical Velocity by George Nishigomi (西込乗二) from the adamant inc. label, a niche artist whose only other game-related works (to date) are dated to the early 2010s, with the creation of music for Ridge Racer 6, Ace Combat Assault Horizon and the final title in the Katamari Damacy series (Touch My Katamari).
Despite the Taiko cut of the song actually being a shorter version of the original track, BLAZING VORTEX's Oni mode still managed to become one of the 7* not-Ura songs with the highest note count and density among the other similarly-rated tracks, counting an average value of 5,52 hits per second. Much like for other long-running songs of the 6-7* Oni ballpark, this one mainly features mono-color clusters, building up to the last Go-Go Time's cluster portion whose note formation can be very reminiscent to the ones of faster songs in Taiko gaming like Koibumi 2000.
Not happy with Oni mode's chart alone, notecharter Matsumoto (マツモト) also crafted an extra layer of difficulty to BLAZING VORTEX while also being careful on adding a subtle reference to the original racing game: the sum of the regular and Ura Oni modes' notecount gives out 2005, Critical Velocity's year of release!
Aside from this bit of arithmetical trivia, BLAZING VORTEX's Ura Oni already has some merit going for it, being one of V Version's many songs with over 1000-notes Oni modes; if the far more aggressive 1/24 cluster spikes and the more challenging 1/16 cluster formations aren't enough to throw you off from the Full Combo road, there's always the last killer Go-Go Time section with an iconic 32-note cluster that gets repeated over and over in order to form a huge note stream.
Urban Striker Critical Velocity
「クリティカルベロシティ」より
| Game | Genre |
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| PS4 |
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★3 (122) |
★4 (161) |
★6 (427) |
★8 (648) |
- |
147 crturb (Critical Velocity - Urban Striker)Another track by George (also referenceable to as 'Jouji') Nishigomi (西込乗二), Urban Striker was one of the Game Music debuts in Session de Dodon ga Don, the debut Taiko game for the PS4.
For this song's Oni chart, irregular cluster formations have taken the backseat in favor of manageable 1/24 clusters of 4 notes each, made more approachable with a lower average BPM value. There's always little to no room to rest during the song's playtime, so that one random error may still lurk behind the corner!
Racing the Storm Critical Velocity
「クリティカルベロシティ」より
| Game | Genre |
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| AC Nijiiro (Y3) NS1 |
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★4 (193) |
★5 (267) |
★7 (533) |
★8 (787) |
- |
148 crtrcs (Critical Velocity - Racing the Storm)The next track from the game by George/Jouji Nishigomi made its debut in the Nintendo Switch debut Taiko game, shining through as one of its hidden unlockable tunes.
Racing the Storm's Oni blend takes the opposite approach to Urban Striker: bearing more notes than the aforementioned track's Oni setting, handswitch-based clusters are by far the most relevant difficulty factor of this piece, while still retaining the same base BPM value and a dash of 1/24 cluster trickery to spruce things up.
ESCAPE FROM CRISIS Critical Velocity
「クリティカルベロシティ」より
| Game | Genre |
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| NS2 |
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★5 (193) |
★6 (267) |
★6 (533) |
★8 (765) |
★10 (1167) |
180 crtesc (Critical Velocity - ESCAPE FROM CRISIS)Also from George Nishigomi comes this one quirky tune as one of Donderful/Rhythm Festival's launch day debuts, as well as the only one of those coming geared with an Ura Oni from the get-go!
If the mostly-monocolor-clustered Oni challenge sporting a new Nam-Combo note tally for what feels like ages in the more recent Taiko charting generations, its extra difficulty layer is sure to step up the pedal onto those pressure points, with shorter but more frequent and intricate cluster formatins than those from BLAZING VORTEX, all at a slightly-faster BPM pace too! Accuracy chasers must be even more mindful of those more irregular tempo shifts mid-clusters, including some pesky shifts to hit at a slightly-slower manner such as at the end of the final Go-Go Time portion.
THE FIXER Critical Velocity
「クリティカルベロシティ」より
| Game | Genre |
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| NS2 (MP) |
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★4 (119) |
★7 (247) |
★7 (568) |
★10 (1075) |
- |
272 crtfix (Critical Velocity - THE FIXER)The Priyo City incursions double up for one game with the magic of modern additional content delivery systems, as the second Switch game got an additional CV song via its Music Pass service since 2013's beginning! Like Sunset City, this one track was composed by MONACA's Ryuichi Takada (高田龍一).
Someone might have started noticing a peculiar pattern of sorts for Critical Velocity tracks, with 10-star Oni/Ura shenanigans happening if the song's title happens to be worded in full-caps. THE FIXER is here to sustain such a theory, while also being the first of these tracks going straight for the 10th-star's head with its regular Oni mode! In the same fashion of the recent Namco Original Agent Hustle & Dr. Hassle, here we have a compound-based charting challenge whose natural BPM is doubled up with a x0.5 scrolling speed modifier going all throughout the song. It has way more tricky slow-down portions mid-cluster than ESCAPE FROM CRISIS, but it's still the same breed of 1/12-1/16-1/24 charting at heart, so a good read on the situation might make the first sessions easier to digest with drumsticks/controller at hand.
