Our final CreoFUGA contest retrospective rages on, with the last two Vocaloid-powered compositions among past winners we have yet to cover under these lines. Buckle up!
Coffee no Aji to (珈琲の味と) Harunaba feat. GUMI| Version |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x4 (166) | x5 (248) | x6 (430) | x9 (926) |
Taiko 0 W, Taiko 3DS 3, Taiko Switch, Taiko +, CD CC-3
185
none
gumicoTranslatable in English as 'Coffee Hideout', this is the last song from the GUMI-centric contestwe had yet to spotlight as a SotW feature, as well as the 2nd overall contribution to the series from recurring contest winner Harunaba (はるなば). With the image of Don-chan in mind (and the one of Taiko drums in general) while making this song, he made this song as percussion-heavy as possible, while properly weighting in the piano/violin backing and the Megpoid 'POWER' vocals for what the anonimous contest judge penned as a 'Powerful Vocaloid Expression'. Like for the other three contest winners, it premiered as a promo-event-first addition at the second Niconico Chokaigi event and later onn it was added on White Version arcades on June 26th, Megpoid GUMI's birthday.
After Children Record, this is the second Vocaloid song in Taiko gaming whose Oni mode features no special notes whatsoever; it's just you -the player- and notecharter Kan (カーン)'s increasingly-aggravating barrage of mostly-1/16-charting cluster parade that made it for quite a while the stamina endurance test for those daring players into the 10-star leagues, Even if newer additions have diminished its difficulty infamy over time, it's still easy for unexperienced players to make many a mistake with this song's Oni mode!
Tooriyo (トオリヨ) Tezuka feat. Kagamine Rin/Kagamine Len| Version | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All | x3 (171) | x5 (255) | x6 (455) | x8 (664) |
Taiko 0 S, Taiko 3DS 2, Taiko Switch, CD CC-3 185 none toori4From one artist we've already had plenty to talk about, here's a relatively-new name under our lines! Also known by the Tezuka (テヅカ) art name and the... well, more colorful extension used for his CreoFUGA winning entry's username of Tezuka@Thank You Very Much for the Taiko! (テヅカ@太鼓ありがとうございます！), Yuta Tezuka (手塚祐太; Twitter; website; SoundCloud) nabbed one of the third CreoFUGA contest's winning seats with the twin-Vocaloid-lead Tooriyo, dubbed by its creator as a 'Japanese-style squid-like four-strike Norinori Rock'.
Coming from Japan's Aichi prefecture, this is an artist who has been active in the indie music scene since mid-2012, with his more known professional works not only revolving Vocaloid songs (mostly with the Kagamine twins and v flower), but also instrumental BGMs and even professional cosplay performances, for which he holds a dedicated separate Twitter profile (link). In music gaming, Tezuka has been quite the wiz kid with his original works crossing boundaries multiple times in the past four years, aside from Taiko gaming: four songs for bemani's SOUND VOLTEX (including Watashi no Koiiro. and Sheep Dreaming), two for jubeat (Suisou no Kujira and Bokura no Jikan, both actually being transplanted from SDVX) and several one-offs for multiple series, including Rayark's VOEZ (Engrave Summer) and Cytus 2 (Ra), Noxy Games's Lanota (Yukianesa), C4Cat's Dynamix (The Clockwork Doll) and SEVEN's CODE by Naoki Maeda, with Tenshi-byo no Shounen. Later on, Tezuka would find his fortune on Taiko once more, with the Kagamine-powered Moshi-moshi Kamisama debuting as a a Namco Original on Green Version!
Back on Tooriyo ('Night of Passing'), Tezuka penned in his song comments for the CreoFUGA entry how with his entry he wanted to make a fun and festival-like tune that would fit into a tournament's first competitive rounds, leaving the task of making 'serious boss-like songs' to someone else. Contest judge and Taiko Team veteran Yuji Masubuchi praised Tooriyo to no ends as a refreshing piece of rock with a Shibuya taste, complimenting the contrast between the instrumental performance and the vocal contribution, both graduallyrising in increments and in such an harmonic way while also leaving some memorable impression by the seasoned NAMCO SOUNDS veteran, such as an impression of 'crying' that matched the tone of certain bits of lyrics and a passage that called him to mind the familiar 'Dokodon' Taiko promise phase. Tezuka also posted his song on Nicovideo complete with its own dedicated MV, breaking into the Hall of Fame with over 170k views!
The second Vocaloid song charted by Yamaguchi (ヤマグチ) flows at the same base BPM speed of former songs in the like of Blue Rose Ruin and... well, the very same Coffe no Aji to we've already talked about today, only leaning on the easier side of the Oni difficulty by comparison with another note barrage-heavy chart whose clusters are less lengthy and semi-interlocked into repeating portions. Still, mastering it on the first try is not necessarily a small feat!
