Game Music Showcase: Puzzle & Dragons

Developed by GungHo Online Entertainement, the original Puzzle & Dragons game is an hybrid RPG/match-three puzzle game for both iOS and Android, originally released in Japan on February 20th, 2012 as an Android exclusive with ports for multiple devices and geographical areas in the subsequent years. In this game, the action is divided into the two vertical halves of the screen, with the lower half being made up of colored jewels; players drag one of them around to form same-color rows or columns to defeat the monsters in the upper screen by using the elemental attacks of the player's very own team of creatures. You get to recruit the monsters encountered by either receiving their eggs as dungeon drops or as prizes of the game's gacha machine system, and can be raised/evolved through different material-collection tasks, as a staple to the mobile gacha game genre.

The game is currently among the highest-grossing iOS and Android applications in the world, with 16 million downloads in Japan only and a monthly revenue between 62 and 84 million dollars, making GungHo quite the financial juggernaut to be reckoned with! As for any other gaming success story, many alternate titles and spin-offs have been paired with the (still running) original app, including 2014's arcade puzzle title Puzzle & Dragons Battle Tournament (パズドラ バトルトーナメント), a 2015 trading card game and three different titles for the Nintendo 3DS.

One of the defining traits of this long-lasting mobile sensation is the franchise's open-minded set to host a number of cross-over events and collaboration with many different franchises and brands embracing both Japanese culture and the West! The Taiko no Tatsujin series has been one of the very first supporters of the collaboration fanfare, leading to a number of special occasions in which titlkes from both series could enjoy some promotional content. For the Taiko series' case, this more than often resulted in the sharing of many of the fan-dubbed 'Pazudora' series's collective soundtrack.