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Saturday, December 31, 2011

Feature: 2011- This year in hindsight

I won't lie here, 2011 as a whole, was epic. Both for the blog and for the videogame franchise we cover, every Taiko gamer would wish that every year is 2011. Too bad there can only be one 10th Anniversary celebration in forever.... inb42012willbeboring

But anyway, with so much awesome behind us, let's review what we've all been through these past 365 days of Taiko!

Thursday, December 29, 2011

"First" audio recording of AWAKE


The quotation marks on the title aren't pointless: indeed, the final 2012 preview song is part of Muscle March's soundtrack. Like the other tunes from that wacky game, AWAKE is sung by Kani Prince, who also made this shortened version for the future Taiko games.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Saitama 2000 lyrics



Artist: LindaAI-CUE
Vocal: Fushigi Yamada (山田ふしぎ) (as Don-chan)

Sunday, December 25, 2011

First audio recording of Sweet Sweet Magic


After the appearance of Kimi no Planet with PSP's December songs, we have with the Donderful soundtrack the other Namco Original preview song for 2012, singed by the duo Hatsuki Yura/Tsukiko. What do you think about it?

pikaby asks: How was Christmas for you?


It's Christmas Day! (a little late for me to be posting this but anyway) How was your day today? Did you guys get lots of presents? Go out for a nice meal, celebrating with family, that kind of stuff?

Me? I don't celebrate the holiday, but I do join in if I'm being invited or something...not this year though. Just spent a quiet day with my family....and Taiko-ing in my local arcade! And if you're wondering that plush up there is not mine lol.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Song of the Week! 24 December 2011


Hi there! It's Christmas week, and because of that we're doing a special this year. Since we've run out of good Christmas songs (geez there really should be more of them), we're doing three songs for this week's feature! One by pikaby, one by me, and one by the readers. Have fun!

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Mata Saitama 2000 revisited


With the launching of the Donderful soundtrack CD yesterday, we've been busy at work rearranging the unofficial lyrics (and some of them have really bad mistakes, like Cycle of Rebirth and Love Ikusa....those two are going to take a while). One of the lyric sheets to be revised was Mata Saitama 2000. And it's very complete. So complete that the phone codes were thrown in by Namco too! Of course, they wouldn't do this without a clue on deciphering the numbers for the uninitiated, so there was one page on the back dedicated to the phone code.

Both screenshots are provided by the awesome crystalsuicune, who managed to buy the soundtrack right on time!

Namco Taiko Blog (22 December 2011)- Wrapping the year up


Yep, this week is the last official blog update for the year. What a big bang 2010 has been eh? Oh yeah, the news for today.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

First audio recording of Shimedore 2000 +


Expecting something big from Shimedore+ in the soundtrack? You're not going to get much out of it... Extracts of Joubutsu and Mata Saitama aren't included as previously speculated (nor was any entirely new 2000), and the only major change is in Kidaruma's part, which basically pulls out the entire radio interview plus the final melody from Taiko 13. Oh well.

Happy de Rippa! lyrics


Vocal: Narahashi Miki (楢橋 美紀)

Monday, December 19, 2011

Bandai x CreoFUGA songlist update

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Yesterday was the last day of the Bandai x CreoFUGA musical contest, in which freelance composers publish their musical creations to vie for spots in PSP DX download packs (and earn some money doing it) Now that the contest is closed, we have the full list of the submitted songs!

Sunday, December 18, 2011

User World War signups start now!


The biggest inter-forum game of Hurt n' Heal is now on! Taiko Time members versus Nintendo 5 Star members! (another forum which I manage). It's basically like this; everyone who joins get 2 lives, some HP and a whole arsenal of weapons and special abilities to choose from and attack other users with. There's a cash system and terrain system and other cool stuff. All organized by the wonderfully mad CRAZ1ah of Nintendo 5-Star!

Sound fun? We need team players for the Taiko Time army, 10 of them. 5 spots have already been filled and the remaining five are open. If you're a Taiko Time forum member, just sign up at the Event Hall and you're in! If you're not a forum member, just register yourself there, get a username and go to this topic to place your name. Hurry, signups close on December 23rd!

For more information about User World War, you can either contact CRAZ1ah on the forum or read this topic. Have fun!

Oh, me? Depending on the circumstances I could be on either side, but I'm probably going to be on Nintendo 5-Star. Everyone can attack everybody anyway, it's not a strict team battle, lol.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Song of the Week! 17 December 2011


Another week, another song! And just one more week before our Christmas feature....get ready to be surprised then!

Friday, December 16, 2011

Taiko 0 unlock list


The full order in which everything is unlocked cannot be confirmed yet as a full set of notes weren't made and different players seemed to get different results, however these are, so far, all the unlockables to be found in Taiko 0.

All unlockables are limited to Banapassport users only.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Twitter Snippets (15 December 2011) - Other Taiko Team performances

It looks like Taiko Team is gaining interest to show their skills on Twitter these days. From the start of December onvards, they have posted some snaps about their gaming scores.

Namco Taiko Blog (15 December 2011) - November's Namco Original packs


Another exciting Thursday with... well... other old news. Today's blog entry is all about Taiko iPhone's latest songpacks, released last month with all Namco Originals.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Random: How things are unlocked in Taiko 0



Before the game ends (and so before the overall performance is displayed), the Don Point counter is filled up based on how much you fill the Tamashii Gauge in a song, the maximum is 500 per song. You level up after every 3000 points you get (equivalent to clearing 6 songs if you can fill all the Tamashii Gauges to the max), and each time you do so something will be unlocked, and they can be either  a new Taiko sound, a costume or a secret song! You can also wear the costumes the moment you unlock them instead of having to wait for the next play.


What happens after the player has unlocked everything there is to offer then? Yes, there is an upper limit, which is why we haven't seen any other new songs on Taiko 0 after Marble Heart.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Dadakko Monster lyrics



Vocal: Chata (茶太)
Composer: mirawi (みらゐ)

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Song of the Week! 10 December 2011


Time to offer something different... Today I'm going to review one of the C-Pop exclusives from the Asian arcades!

Danba Danba Din Dan lyrics



Artist: YMCK
Vocal: Midori Kurihara

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Namco Taiko Blog (8 December 2011) - Donderful soundtrack details


We've already covered the details of the soundtrack 2 weeks before this, so today's official blog is just a recap. The source of the songlist is from columbia.jp, which is 2 discs totaling 70 songs...No sign of the other album though, the one called 'Full Combo'. Donderful! includes popular songs like Yuujou Pop, Uchuu Samurai, Pastel Dream and Ao no Senritsu, Wii 4 exclusives dance storm, Lightning Passion and Momoiro Taiko Paradise, the 10th anniversary gift songs Danba Danba Din Dan and Hatsune Miku no Shoushitsu -Gekijouban-, and even some unreleased songs! Watch out for Shimedore 2000+ (plus!)

The first printing of the album, if you get it, will be included together with a small sticker sheet as shown below:


The release date remains the same, December 21. Get ready for it!

Link to original post

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Taiko PSP DX's IDs, take 5

http://i.imgur.com/Zm9zT.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/fYFYU.png

Waited by Taiko hackers as much as PSP's monthly songs, December's 6-song pack hides another trio of IDs for the future song packs! For the joy of Miku fans, World is Mine (ID: worldi) will jump on PSP next year, together with Uso (ID: siduso), a J-Pop tune used as one of the Full Metal Alchemist EDs. The third ID, stgo, is completely unknown. We'll update this page as soon as we know more about it!

UPDATE: Errata corrige for the third mysterious ID; it's stg0, and not stgo as wrote above. And so the third song is another well known tune from the past: STAGE 0.ac11, one of the most rare ac. songs up to date!

First video of Kimi no Planet



Anongos, one of our readers, supplied us with an Autoplay video of December's new Namco Original sung by Shimotsuki Haruka (her last song in Taiko was Yumeiro Coaster). 450 notes for its mild, 8-star Oni.

Background glitch returns in Taiko Wii Ketteiban



If anyone remembers this small glitch from Taiko Wii 3, the background change lags slightly when you move from genre to genre, resulting sometimes in the Namco Original genre getting the rainbow-colored BG from the Random Song select pane. That has been fixed in Taiko Wii 4, but with the addition of the + and - buttons to quickly swap between genres, it inadvertently caused the bug to reappear; there are several times where the background lags sufficiently to show a different color on different genres (orange background for Game Music, green background for Anime etc) if you spam the +/- buttons fast enough.

This is shown in the first few seconds of the video until....what. A pink background (Children/Folk genre)? That's not even in the game! Looks like the background is stuck between two different hues and froze in the middle!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Monday, December 5, 2011

Game Music Showcase: Katamari Damacy

This series is made up of music from the saga of Katamari Damacy (塊魂 Katamari Damashii, two very similar kanji roughly translated to English as clump soul), one of Namco's flagship game series and full of typical Japanese wackiness. It was first released in 2004 for the Play Station 2 and became one of Namco's mainstay franchises. In this 3rd person puzzle-action hybrid, players roll a magical ball known as a Katamari around, picking up items and people to create material for planets, stars and the moon. Once enough objects have been collected, the goal is beaten and the player is rewarded with the star or planet created by that Katamari.

The Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory came up with this bizarre idea at first for Sony's then-latest home console, developed for less than $1 million. And what a plot it had! Due to some binge drinking, the King of All Cosmos accidentally destroyed the Milky Way's stars and constellations (with the Moon as well). In order to set things back to normal, he sends to Earth his 5-cm-tall son, the Prince, asking him to recreate all the stars by sticking as many things as he can with Katamari balls.

The series is almost universally praised for its unique gameplay and quirky story telling, and received many videogame-related awards in its lifetime. It gained enough popularity to earn a small place on Taiko too, even if each song's tenure is criminally short.

The Tale of Fuuga and Mirai's Taiko Classroom


The story mode in Taiko no Tatsujin Wii: Ketteiban resembles what is seen in the first two Wii Taiko games, in that the progression of the story is non-interactive and scenes are unlocked just based on how much time the player spends in regular Play mode. This article is a simple digest of everything that goes on in the scenes of the Play mode.

Spoiler alert, read at your own risk!

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Ego Ego Atakushi lyrics



Artist: Koji Nakagawa (中川浩二)
Vocals: Eriko Nakamura #1 (中村繪里子#1)

pikaby asks: Which console next?

Ketteiban, if the name is implying the correct meaning, is the final Wii Taiko game. That means there won't be any more games made for the current SD consoles as Taiko is moving to HD screens. The franchise could potentially go anywhere from here. Namco did not ask which console players want the next Taiko to be on in their Wii4 survey, meaning they are either 1) being forgetful or 2) already have something in mind. Which console do you think it will land on next?

PS3? PSVita? 3DS? Wii U?

Of the four, the first and the third are the more probable ones in the immediate horizon, as both are already released. For the first HD Taiko however, it would have to be the PS3 that is most likely, even though the console has never had a Taiko game before. After the waning popularity and market saturation of Wii, PS3 now has the more dedicated userbase of gamers and with a large audience comes potential buyers. The HD-ready console would be perfect to debut the 3rd graphic interface on a console, and not to mention the potential for downloadable songs too. And the disc itself; there's a huge chunk of storage for songs. How high do you think the number will go?

At the same time the Nintendo 3DS is slowly, but surely, gaining ground in Japan, and what better way to continue the DS legacy by putting a Taiko game here? It won't be HD, but a portable Taiko always sells like gangbusters. Always. Need proof? Portable DX, DS3, even DS2 all outsold the larger song volumes of the Wii Taikos in their first week on sale. Japan loves portables and touchscreens. It's region locked, but that's none of their concern, sadly, the overseas market for Taiko is negligible to them.

Of course, PS Vita also looks like an interesting prospect, and by the looks of it the number of people who will buy into a HD portable console is larger than the ones going for glasses-free 3D. Who knows? Maybe there will be a PSP DX sequel launched here. And as for the Wii U, it's not even close to being released yet, but like I said in the E3 article a few months ago, the potential here is huge, the flexibility in choosing control methods is massive, and it's also HD. It remains to be seen how large the potential userbase will get, but if a HD Taiko were to be released next year it won't be on Wii U, it would be on PS3 because of the late release. I still think Wii U will get a Taiko in some form or other though. Where else would Namco put their Nintendo related songs? (Pokemon OPs, Mario etc)

Now, enough about me, let's hear your opinion!

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Song of the Week! 3 December 2011


December's first pick takes us back to the Anime scene once again, due to an old user request. One of the more interesting revived songs in the genre!

Friday, December 2, 2011

Hello! Don-chan lyrics


Composition, Lyrics, Vocal: Yuri Misumi (みすみゆり)

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Taiko no Tatsujin Wii Ketteiban first week sales

01./00. [WII] The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword # (Nintendo) {2011.11.23} (¥6.800) - 194.978 / NEW
02./00. [PSP] 7th Dragon 2020 # (Sega) {2011.11.23} (¥6.279) - 122.498 / NEW
03./00. [PS3] Saint Seiya: Sanctuary Battle # (D3 Publisher) {2011.11.23} (¥7.140) - 66.557 / NEW
04./04. [3DS] Super Mario 3D Land (Nintendo) {2011.11.03} (¥4.800) - 61.710 / 560.960 (-1%)
05./00. [PS3] Metal Gear Solid HD Edition # (Konami) {2011.11.23} (¥5.480) - 61.192 / NEW
06./00. [PSP] Little Battlers eXperience: Boost (Level 5) {2011.11.23} (¥4.980) - 60.727 / NEW
07./00. [PSP] Weiss Schwarz Portable: Boost Weiss / Boost Schwarz # (Bandai Namco Games) {2011.11.23} (¥6.800) - 47.586 / NEW
08./00. [PSP] Uta no Prince-Sama: Music # (Broccoli) {2011.11.24} (¥3.990) - 38.918 / NEW
09./00. [WII] Taiko Drum Master Wii: Definitive Edition! # (Bandai Namco Games) {2011.11.23} (¥5.040) - 32.098 / NEW
10./01. [PS3] Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - Subtitled Edition (Square Enix) {2011.11.17} (¥7.980) - 29.726 / 210.098 (-84%)

For stats on sales of Taiko games from PSP DX all the way back to DS2, click here to see a simple analysis.

Wii 4 sells 32k in 5 days so on average it's still around the same level as Wii 3 last year. I guess people have other games in mind for their Wiis this month *looks at Skyward Sword*. It's rare for a Zelda game to sell so well in Japan though.

Famitsu's score for Ketteiban is 8/8/7/8 = 31/40

Namco Taiko Blog (1 December 2011) - Taiko PSP DX December 2011 download songs

The title says it all, so what are you waiting? Click 'Read More'!