With today's pick, we're about to go astray to our usual trivia-scouting modus operandi, so a little disclaimer on my part is in order.
Here on Taiko Time, we'd usually come by to list song/artist-related notions that can be scouted with enough Internet browsing on sorts, whether these are diretcly re-linked by us on the related posts or heading into its generic direction, such as with artist-related web spaces or even archived Internet links for the most ancient "lost media" salvageable content. When it comes to social media, however, if something gets deleted -by either the very same platform or any of the other involved parties- it's most likely gone, unless screenshots to each of such moments were snapped before being taken down. Hell, for one of these instances, I myself was part of trivia-worthy content scouting that I couldn't save/recollect apart from just typing it here, which is lost to time as the original SM post was deleted and went unarchived!
For clarity's sake, I'll be pre-emptively talking about all of these on a paragraph on its own, so that documented facts with the flimsiest of "you have to take my word for it" evidence to 'em can be taken apart, leaving whatever you want to believe about 'em. For the trivia-enriching story involving me, I can tell you it DID happen but wasn't hasty enough into getting back into snapping/checking out the related documents before they were gone! At the same time, however, I realize how, again, the "take one's word for it" angle isn't as professional as how we usually do things around here, hence this decision and these walls of text explaining it.
At this point, you might wonder just what kind of song deserves such a lengthy prologue!
OH BOY, you wouldn't believe me...
Brain Power NOMA
| Game | Genre |
|
|
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AC Nijiiro (Y4) |
 |
★4 (162) |
★5 (229) |
★6 (441) |
★9 (708) |
- |
170-173
???It still feels like a pipe dream, doesn't it? The one famous music game song who famously became disowned from bemani-related field finally managed to pop into Taiko existence, and as a Weekend Warrior of all specifications! It's also from one composer who's been eager into getting its toe into Namco Original-worthy territory as of late, but we'll get to that later. After all, who doesn't want to hear more about the origins and lineage of one of the most listened-to music game songs on Youtube of all time?!
Composed by the full-caps-nicknamed NOMA (Twxtter; official website), what we came to know and love as Brain Power has come to be thanks to the "Fab Acapella" audio sample pools from Techno Trance Essentials, a royalty-free vocal samples collection from which all of the song's vocal soundbytes were drawn. The song was one of the winners of the SOUND VOLTEX II -infinite infection- Production Confirmation Commemorative Original Song Contest and as such, it was added to the series' second main iteration from 2013 (link), alongside a port for the short-lived MÚSECA series, later on (link). All of Brain Power's sound samples that were used for its making have been compiled by the same author into a CD release called Stems of Brain Power while the song itself got its respective commercial game cut and extended-version releases in NOMA's first single (aptly named NOMA's 1st Single) and NOMA's first album, titled... you guessed it, NOMA's 1st Album.
After witnessing Brain Power's popularity online, NOMA decided not to renew the licensing contract that tied the song to Konami's music game branch, in order to acquire for himself the full rights of his own creation. He also went on record by stating online how he's open to re-license the song for bemani gaming afterwards, something that to this day has not happened (and, given some of that company's precedents, may never happen). All three of these declarations were posted by NOMA himself on Twitter/X and also quote-mentioned by bemani gaming wiki Remywiki (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3), although all three tweets were deleted ever since and Remywiki's Brain Power page became one of the only places of traces of said exchange ever happening that is still available to browse. Whatever the story is, this ultimately resulted into the Brain Power removal from both SOUND VOLTEX and MÚSECA on March 28th, 2017. By some kind of accident, BP was still somehow playable for the former series as one of the tracks in the game's SKILL ANALYZER mode (as part of Level.09-course 1A), but it was finally deleted the day after.
Now we come to what happened to the song next, in the paragraph I promised you about myself being (somehow) part of, so with no more official links of sorts to hold onto factual accountability, take of this what you will. This has happened sometime after the Brain Power bemani purge and our story is set in the digital confines of the official Groove Coaster Facebook page for English-speaking players, one where announcements and teasers of the Taito music series were also held at some point. Among such teasers, coming from one of the page's very own admins, was a reveal of Brain Power getting ported soon into Groove Coaster, to everyone's amusement. Among the reveal posts' comment, however, has emerged an individual who claimed to be NOMA's agent, sustaining how this couldn't actually happen at the time due to NOMA subscribing a deal with Unit-e's Neon FM arcade/mobile music game, stating how the song is contractually bound to become a 6-months exclusive to Neon FM alone. Out of curiosity, I myself have asked in that comment section (with my real name and all, mind you!) if it could have been possible to learn more about it, in the offchance this wasn't a closed-doors sort of deal... and he actually obliged, by also sharing some more insights about it, in officially-signed paper form, no less! Unfortunately, I couldn't go back into fully reading what he had to say in the same comment chain at the time due to my former university classes taking quite the toll of my time back then, and when I got back to the Facebook post hosting that comment chain... I couldn't find it, as the original post from the Groove Coaster English community was deleted. I had considered getting in touch with NOMA's manager about getting to hear more (if it wasn't enough of a hassle on his part, of course), but after seeing how Brain Power was actually ported into another rhythm game within the aforementioned "6-months Neon FM exclusivity" window (Rayark's Cytus II, as one of the launch-day unlocks), I just assumed some parts of their deal got altered along the way and decided not to press on further. As an epilogue of sorts to this story, though, let it be known that Brain Power eventually made its way onto Groove Coaster as well, later on!
In fact, it'd be quite a disservice if we didn't go with a comprehensive list of where adrenaline has been pumped across the years, outside those aforementioned actors! Here's a list for how many official music game series could shout vowels to no end with NOMA's hit, beforehand:
- Neon FM, featuring a remastered version of the original song;
- Cytus II;
- Groove Coaster, with a custom-fit port to consoles that censors out the cocaine line;
- CHRONO CIRCLE;
- EZ2ON;
- maimai, with quite the peculiar referencing action to its SDVX roots (see more on the BP Remywiki page!);
- CHUNITHM;
- Ongeki;
- Lanota, where is also playable a remix of the same song by Cranky;
- Muse Dash;
- MUSYNX, as a slightly-extended cut of the SDVX original;
- PUMP IT UP;
- SEVEN's CODE;
- TAPSONIC;
- WACCA;
- RAVON;
- Sixtar Gate, another title where Cranky's remix is also playable;
- Yoshun Shirayuki;
- Robeats (no, really.);
- RESONARK;
- Starri;
- MUSIC DIVER.
In recent times, we've also seen many an attempted trek into Taiko stardom from the Brain Power composer with original songs for it, as NOMA has been a recurring competitor in the yearly Nijiiro-era music contest! He has already tried in the past few years with one tune for each of the FaiCre/Nippon Columbia music contests (in order of release, Miko ni, Reichizu., Itadaki Shuyu Issen ni Ari ku. and Banger Bomber) and once again, he's back at it again with the victors-soon-to-be-announced edition of this year, with the song Neko no Uta. Even if Taiko games don't feature music jacket art for the longest time (at least until RHYTHM CONNECT's advent), NOMA has celebrated Brain Power's Taiko port with custom album jacket art of his own over Twxtter (link), so you can tell how he has been very welcoming about his contribution into Taiko lore and is eager for more!
What we got thus far, however, already is quite the mid-range call for 9* Oni players, blurring the line of whether repeating stanzas and stamina pressure can actually be manageable by many players or not. Top it off with a compound-cluster-handswitch finisher a-la Turquoise Tachometer and you can be sure how plain-sight charting can still claim some careless mistakes at the very end!
