The Momoiro Clover Z collaboration gets an encore on mobile devices, with a slew of free goodies for everyone!
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Namco Taiko Blog (30 January 2014) - February's fiend-ish DonChare
After all the commotion caused by Taiko HD's inaugural step outside Japan, we go back to business. It's the last Thursday of the month, which means Don Challenge time!
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Twitter Snippets: Namco has heard!
According to Woolala from the Taiko HD campaign group, Namco received the petition to release Taiko Momoiro outside Japan in May last year, and began the project to export in winter. So they HAVE heard us! The campaign ended a success!
Though there's still a lot to iron out, Namco are continuing work on the Taiwanese release of Momoiro to make sure they have as many songs as possible. Takemoto is Namco's representative in Taiwan and he has delivered many, many tweets and replies to eager donders outside Japan who also want a chance at playing the latest Taiko.
ちなみに、稼働報告のリプで、台湾以外の国への設置要望もたくさんいただきました。
香港、シンガポール、韓国、中国、、、色々な国に設置されて、ゆくゆくは「ドンだー!アジア一決定戦」とか開催できれば良いですね。
言葉の壁はあるかもですが、一緒にセッションしたらかなり埋まるのではと(タケ
— 太鼓チーム (@taiko_team) January 27, 2014
They acknowledge that they have received tons of requests to release Taiko Momoiro outside Japan. From Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, China (and others), and that it would be a grand ambition to have a Donder Asia Tournament, instead of just in Japan. Though there's an obvious language barrier, it doesn't really matter when we're all playing together!
また、収録曲についても、日本国内版に対して一部異なる部分がございます。(タケモト)
— 太鼓チーム (@taiko_team) January 27, 2014
They also acknowledge that the international songlist will be somewhat different from that in Japan.
それから、現在、「ドンだーひろば」は国内版のみを対象としており、台湾稼働バージョンに対しては、ドンだーひろばがありません。
したがって、現在国内版で「ドンだーひろば」で提供しているサービス、お買いものや称号組み合わせ等は、利用できない状況となっております。(タケモト)
— 太鼓チーム (@taiko_team) January 27, 2014
The Donder Hiroba service is still unavailable for those outside Japan, which means unlockables that require the site to unlock aren't available yet (Don Point songs and standard unlockables such as Soroban 2000 are available). They should be working on it soon.
ただし日本国内でのプレイデータは、そのまま台湾で使うことができません。
台湾の筐体でカードをかざすと、新規カードとして認識されます。
逆もまた然りです。(タケモト)
— 太鼓チーム (@taiko_team) January 27, 2014
The international Momoiro is a different machine, and requires new card data to be created. Don't worry if you have Japanese data on it; these two do not overlap and can coexist on one card!
ちなみに、難易度構成比率は88%が「おに」でした。
この偏りもあるためか、ナムコオリジナルやボーカロイド曲に人気が集中していますが、、、人気曲は日本とあまり変わらない印象を受けました。(タケモト)
— 太鼓チーム (@taiko_team) January 28, 2014
Namco Originals and Vocaloid were the most popular songs, with 88% of all plays being on Oni difficulty. Taiko has lots of skilled players overseas as well!And that's a wrap! For other miscellaneous tweets about Takemoto being in Taiwan, just head over to their Twitter page, which is abuzz with activity right now.
As for us, we will be making a separate page for the international Taiko Momoiro songlist seeing as it's going to be developed differently from the Japanese one. Stay tuned!
Monday, January 27, 2014
Taiwanese Taiko Momoiro cuts out songs
Today's the official launching of Taiko Momoiro in its first location outside Japan, and its neighboring country, Taiwan, gets it first! The team even flew a rep over to one of the arcades to commemorate the launch with a photo!
However, not all is sunshine and roses just yet. Remember that arcade Taiko was never officially released outside of Japan before (with the exception of the two 'Asian Version' machines which performed well, but lacked popularity tracking), and thus Namco has a slew of licensing and copyright issues to settle, which explains the complete lack of Taiko HD outside of Japan up till now. As such, many songs, especially licensed, have been cut out.
The songlist for Taiwan's Momoiro is significantly smaller at 212 songs. Below are images by crystal and information by tetsu, reposted from the Taiwanese community at Plurk.
22 J-Pop songs compared to 67 in the Japanese version. Kurenai, Telecastic fake show, all AKB48 songs, all 9mm Parabellum Bullet songs and maximum the hormone are among the cut songs, which is regrettable; a lot of them are high Oni challenges!
Anime is down to 31 from 68.
Only 3 songs in Variety.
Even the originals aren't safe, down to 99 from 125 (though this number doesn't include unlockables so it should go up more). All the CreoFUGA songs, which have the highest potential for licensing issues, made it though.
Game Music is down to 28 out of 39 total, not counting unlockables. Music Revolver and Extreme MGG are among the unfortunate victims. Pokemon XY is here though.
Only the Classic genre's 14 songs managed to survive wholly.
Namco have stated that they are continuously working to solve the remaining licensing issues and slowly adding them to the Taiwanese Momoiro songlist. Hopefully if those are fully sorted out it would mean a much easier effort of exporting Taiko no Tatsujin officially to the other countries!
Namco Bandai changes their company name
Slow news day eh? Aside from Taiwan officially getting Taiko no Tatsujin Momoiro today (albeit with a few licensed songs cut out due to copyright difficulties; we'll cover more on that as we get more information), we learned a few days ago that Namco Bandai Games Incorporated (NBGI) has flipped their company name around, turning it into Bandai Namco Games Incorporated.
Not much of a big deal; the two names are used interchangeably pretty often because Bandai comes first in Japan, whereas for the rest of the world, it's the other way around. They're just formalizing the company name throughout the world so now no one can argue whether Namco or Bandai comes first in the name.
Source: Gematsu
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Song of the Week! 25 January 2014
It's been a while since I featured a song with an Ura chart here, or anything from the Vocaloid genre. This time I'm doing both in one!
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Namco Taiko Blog 2 (23 January 2014): Want to Know More? Notecharters #5
No giant portfolio of notecharts to go through this time, because all the lead staff are busy. So the team makes the rounds to the regular employees to cook up a story. And cook it up they did; today's notechart story is about surume (スルメ) and kusaya (くさや), which mean 'dried cuttlefish' and 'dried salted horse mackerel' respectively.
Wait, how does snack food tie in to chart-making?
Charts that are addictive and enjoyable no matter how many times you play them are 'surume' charts, like a piece of dried cuttlefish; no matter how much you bite in it's still lovely sweet-salty goodness. And those that are harder to do? They would be the 'kusaya' charts.
The fish charts differ from their sugary counterparts by their first impression they make; understanding the rhythm takes time and may differ depending on each individual person who makes the chart, and when you get used to it, it turns out to be a unique experience and the resulting chart they make turns out to be good. Just like the dried horse mackerel; its pungent flavor and smell puts people off at first, but it's an acquired taste.
And like any acquired taste, it's difficult to get people to play the song twice even after the creator of the chart enjoys it. The concept of the kusaya chart then, is to make it more enjoyable the more times you 'eat' (play) it.
Charts with repetitive, generic patterns you've all seen before? Those are what they call the 'sweets' charts. They're easy to make and are great at first, but despite being fun initially, repeating it over and over makes them boring.
The ultimate trick is then, to find a balance between the three aspects. The light and easy 'sweets', combined with the great addictive 'cuttlefish' flavor, and the unexpected, unique 'fish' taste.
The charting staff try their best to rate their creations among themselves, to make them ultimately enjoyable to the players! (though I doubt all these metaphors are used in daily work conversation....or are they?)
Link to original post
Wait, how does snack food tie in to chart-making?
Charts that are addictive and enjoyable no matter how many times you play them are 'surume' charts, like a piece of dried cuttlefish; no matter how much you bite in it's still lovely sweet-salty goodness. And those that are harder to do? They would be the 'kusaya' charts.
The fish charts differ from their sugary counterparts by their first impression they make; understanding the rhythm takes time and may differ depending on each individual person who makes the chart, and when you get used to it, it turns out to be a unique experience and the resulting chart they make turns out to be good. Just like the dried horse mackerel; its pungent flavor and smell puts people off at first, but it's an acquired taste.
And like any acquired taste, it's difficult to get people to play the song twice even after the creator of the chart enjoys it. The concept of the kusaya chart then, is to make it more enjoyable the more times you 'eat' (play) it.
Charts with repetitive, generic patterns you've all seen before? Those are what they call the 'sweets' charts. They're easy to make and are great at first, but despite being fun initially, repeating it over and over makes them boring.
The ultimate trick is then, to find a balance between the three aspects. The light and easy 'sweets', combined with the great addictive 'cuttlefish' flavor, and the unexpected, unique 'fish' taste.
The charting staff try their best to rate their creations among themselves, to make them ultimately enjoyable to the players! (though I doubt all these metaphors are used in daily work conversation....or are they?)
Link to original post
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