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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Song of the Week! 23 February 2013


Many Game Music songs have the tendency to be exclusive on one arcade version and playable nowhere else (like the Dragon Quest Heroes song on Taiko 8 we featured two years back). In particular, the 13th arcade has three different GM exclusives, and the final one of the three is being featured today.


Star Trigon Theme (スタートリゴンのテーマ)
Version
Allx4 (137)x5 (204)x6 (333)x7 (452)
 Taiko 13, CD Full Combo
160
none
 trigon


Together with the Taito song PENETRATION and the unlockable Katamari on the Wings, the Star Trigon Theme rounds out the trio of Taiko 13's exclusive game songs, and is the only one of the three to be placed in a soundtrack CD. The song today is a slowed-down vocalized version of the theme song of the 2002 arcade game Star Trigon, released only in Japan. It uses Namco System 10, the same motherboard for the first six Taiko arcades.

The gameplay in Star Trigon is extremely simple and only involves one button. Yes, only one! In the game, the player has to rescue aliens (uchujin) stranded in outer space by jumping from planet to planet. The aliens are saved if the player manages to contain them within a triangle, set by the path the player makes by hopping between planets. There's obstacles and a limited air supply to stop it from being a total cakewalk though. The game allows the use of three different characters with different stats, all coming from the Mr. Driller universe. Later on, Namco republished Star Trigon in North America both for iPod/iPhone (2008) and PC (2009), whose versions also included the main character from Dig Dug (Mr. Driller's father)

Star Trigon's rearranged theme for Taiko is sung by Ayumi Baigo (梅郷あゆみ), with the lyrics made by yura, a well-known lyricist for iDOLM@STER songs. The song is rearranged by Jesahm (自営山), known on Taiko for his rendition of Chopin's Nocturne Op.9-2. Alongside Taiko 13's other new Game Music songs, this one is the easiest of the bunch; despite some unusual 7-note clusters along the play, Star Trigon Theme's average BPM and bearable patterns might be treated as a modern 6* Oni.