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Saturday, November 15, 2014

Song of the Week! 15 November 2014


The next big Taiko console game's release date is approaching fast, and with that the speculation around the unlockable songs. On Wii/Wii U games, however, a pattern seems to be detected in recent titles: one of the final song unlocks is a brand new Game Music track which acts as the game's new boss-song (or semi-boss) for the genre.

The reason I'm talking about this curious habit is that today we're having a look at the most recent 'Last-GM New Boss' tracks!

 Pastel Sealane Blazer
Version
Allx5 (212)x7 (279)x8 (557)x9 (850)
 Taiko 0 M, Taiko Wii U 1
 142
 none
 blazer


After the last-world Galaga Legions BGM Doom Noiz and Rio Hamamoto's second brand-rew track for the 3DS Ridge Racer remake (Angel Halo), the third Wii-introduced track comes from Blazer (ブレイザー), a Japan-exclusive Namco arcade that predates both the aforementioned titles.

Released on July 1987, Blazer is a shooter game where the players have to destroy the enemy forces by controlling three different vehicles that are being constantly alternated throughout the play: the tank "Vanguard", the helicopter "Maiherico" and the boat "Maiboto". As Namco's first isometric shooters, Blazer is one of the first titles from Namco to run under the Namco System Board 1, the company's first 16-bit arcade board, after the release of Yōkai Dōchūki and Dragon Spirit earlier in 1987. Unlike those two titles, Blazer hasn't been re-released nowhere in any Namco game compilation titles or stand-alone games so far, even in Japan!

Most of the game's music and sound effects are being composed by Seiichi Sakurai (桜井誠一), and so is the exotic-sounding Pastel Sealane! In the 1987 arcade, this is the track who usually runs when the player controls the Maiherico helicopter.

Despite not being a Oni top-star challenge like Doom Noiz and Angel Halo before it, Paster Sealane still holds some tricks under its sleeves, as the Taiko cut's length easily makes room for a wide number of notes. Veteran Taiko Team notecharter Kijikiji (キジキジ) has packed the song with a wide variety of cluster in both 1/16 and 1/32 beat signatures, making every single note stanza error-worthy to the players if faced in a carelessness mood.