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Saturday, May 27, 2017

Song of the Week! 27 May 2017


...Let battle commence.

 conflict siromaru+cranky
Version
All x4 (183)x5 (265)x7 (513)x9 (736)
 Taiko 0 R
 160
 none
 ???


It's another of those features, folks. One of the major Song of the Week candidates which loves to travel around the general music game scenario has landed in our focus this time around, with the surprising twist of bearing a music-sharing history that touches way more music game-related software houses than bemani lore's evergreen FLOWER! This is also the Taiko no Tatsujin series' first foray into the licensing process of tracks born from song-making competitions of Be-Music Simulator files (BMS for short).

The independent music-making couple of Hiroshi 'cranky' Watanabe (渡辺宏) and Ryoko 'Pico' Watanabe (渡辺良子) have respectively taken the roles of conflict's co-composer and main singer, but as we already talked about them in our God Collection song series showcase page (click here), we'll be focusing on the other co-composer of the popular song in these lines: Ryo 'siromaru' Sakata (酒田遼). This is an independent artist whose works are usually classed under the Techno-rooted Schranz musical genre, including both original creations and track arrangements (including the Touhou Project lore). Owner of the HEKATONCHEIR BEATS label, siromaru's activity range also includes other music-related commissioned tasks, such as DJ for night clubs/private parties. For more informations about siromaru, this simple redirect page of his making can lead anyone to the HEKATONCHEIR BEATS label's website as well as the artist himself's official Soundcloud/Otoyapage/Twitter profiles.

Siromaru's original creations have appeared under different aliases in several music games along the years, including both other collaboration-related pieces (eg. BLACK or WHITE?, from SOUND VOLTEX) and one-man songs, including Jungle Rumble (from maimai) and 14th Clock (from crossbeats REV.). By far, however, conflict has been the most popular in the general music game scenario, being backed up by its major musical accolade scored in the independent music scene, as it was the winner of the 2011 edition of the BMS-making yearly tournament series known as THE BMS OF FIGHTERS. For the contest, the nick-named iimo created a custom background video for the song as well as the jacket art for the song's entry in both the tournament and the many, many other music games who caught up the BMS-winning track in the later years. The popularity of conflict also sprung out in form of extended versions, with the first one appearing in both siromaru's compilation album Individual Shred-Core as well as the freely-available Groundbreaking -BOF2011 COMPILATION ALBUM-, coined for the 2011 BMS tourney's aftermath. Later on, an updated long version of conflict -dubbed as the Rave Taisen 2016 ver.- appears on the RAVETAISEN COMPILATION ALBUM 5th, alongside a remixed version made by the nick-named lapix.

With the general trivia out of our way, we finally come to talk about conflict's most interesting aspect that has been accounted across the years: the (still growing!) list of music games featuring the popular song. In no particular order, here's a raw call of the non-Taiko music series that found themselves in a desperate conflict along the years, coupled with video links:
One of the latest series to adopt this BMS-renowned song was Taiko no Tatsujin, whose hardest difficulty mode is mostly played as an old-school 9* Oni challenge with tons of repeating 3-note clusters and generally-busy cluster sections, courtesy of Taiko Team leader Etou (エトウ). The playable Taiko cut of conflict is slightly shorter than the original BMS song entry, much like for its appearance in most of the other music games mentioned earlier.