Experience with Taiko

[flyboy87]

I came a long way with Taiko no Tatsujin. I have already played about a year and the enjoyment of playing has not whithered one bit.

I first started with Taiko 4, back in my country, Malaysia. I was just like so-so back then. I was okay, because I played O2Jam before Taiko, so I know how to play basically. I just played one game in the arcade and that's it, because my friends challenged me to a game.

Then one year after that...

I found Taiko Drum Master for PS2. Immediately, I played it and got HOOKED onto it. I kept playing Normal and Hard difficulty. The Oni difficulty for Drum Master is kind of like same as Hard... I tried to do Oni, but songs like The Genji and the Heike Clans" and Ridge Racer was too difficult.

Then I saw Taiko 6 in one of the arcades in my country. Immediately, I put in some tokens and played Beethoven's 5th Smphony. It was then I realized Japanese is so much better. I saw this guy passing KAGEKIYO (couldn't pass it last time) and I was so fascinated and trained hard to be like him.

I then managed to find Taiko Rokudaime for PS2, my interest sky rocketed and I bought a Tatakon to play. It was very fun. I remembered playing for hours, trying to pass Yokuderu2000.

Then I went to the internet and bought all the Taiko games till Taiko Rokudaime. I played and trained on each one of them, using the PS2 controller.

It was then I found Taiko 7 in a Jusco in my country. That's my pinnacle of training. I trained on songs like Saitama2000 and Scroll Mika. I felt great when I played Taiko 7 because it was my first time seeing Rokudaime's interface in an arcade.

Then came Taiko 8 in another Jusco in my country, I played Toccata to Fugue to Rock there. It was INTENSELY tiring as the song was so long. I managed to barely pass it.

I then came to realize that my stamina is important in order to get good scores for songs. I trained my arms to last on really long songs like Dragon Sprit on Taiko 7. I kept training on a variety of songs in Taiko 7. I rarely played the same songs over and over again in each of visits to the arcade there. (except of Saitama2000) When I play Saitama2000, I hit exceptionally hard when it goes "SA-I-TA-MA" as it really sounds nice with a loud bang. My arms that time usually got tired after "Tatsujin Fumen" came.

Not until recently, I went to Hong Kong. I was so happy to see Taiko 10 there. I played it and I was very surprised that my arms were not tired at all, even after continuous hard hits on Mechadeath and Gekkabijin. I had the top 10 overall high score on my first try. (Taiko no Dai Tatsujin rank of more than 2.5 million points)

My Oni best scores include... (arcade)

William Tell Overture 940k
Scroll Mika 1.2m
Mechadeath 1.0m
Saitama2000 1.1m
and so many more

Whatever it is, I love Taiko. I will always support it.

Thank you, Bandai Namco, for making such an awesome music game.

What's your Taiko experience?

[Benjo]

I think I have always been acutely aware of the Taiko games since Donkey Konga 1 on GameCube. It was one of my first imports so I read up a bit on it before/after I bought it and most people compared it to Taiko and said it was based off of Taiko, but I didn't really look much further into it than that.

I kept at the Donkey Konga games and thoroughly enjoyed them but eventually lost interest in them for single player, but I still bust out the Kongas (I ended up with 3 or 4 of them) for some multiplayer every so often.

Um, then I think last year sometime, on a forum I visit I saw someone selling a copy of Taiko no Tatsujin Portable, and I remembered about the comparisons to Donkey Konga etc and thought I'd pick it up and give it a go. Initially I was a little hesitant as usually the peripheral based games aren't that much fun without the peripheral, but the reviews were very glowing and I gave it a go and loved it! I was extremely impressed with the download songs that Namco consistently were releasing, and for free too.

As much as I enjoyed Taiko no Tatsujin Portable, I was a little hesitant initially about picking up Taiko no Tatsujin 2, as I was at the time still playing through the first one trying to beat oni songs etc, and I thought that it mightn't be worth it, or it would be too samey, but when I did finally grab it I was very impressed again... awesome song list, amazing download song support again and just so much fun to play.

The additions and changes to the interface were more than welcome too, stuff like having a combo counter for the number of hits you get in a drum-roll, how much each note is worth score wise when it gets added to your total score, L/R to scroll further in the song list, and being able to hear what the download songs are like when you hover over them !


Anyway, our video-game arcade situation here in Australia is pretty poor, and in the state I live in especially poor, so if you can find an arcade it tends to be filled with a really limited selection of stuff, Daytona you'll typically find in every arcade, a light gun game or two, and then the rest tend to be ticket machines so I'd never seen a Taiko arcade machine up until last year in November when I visited Tokyo, it was awesome fun playing, and a real shock to see such massive Taikos that you drummed away on.. I had a ball wandering from arcade to arcade and seeing it and many other music games all over the place! I wasted many yen in Taiko machines!!

I wondered initially how my skills woudl translate across from being on the portable version with my thumbs, to being on an arcade machine with sticks and a drum! Surprisingly I fared pretty well! At first I was a little scared, I didn't want to hit the machine too hard, but after seeing some Japanese players going at it I had a better idea.. and gave them a pleasant surprise when they saw me play... I guess it's fair to have expected a westerner to be not so good !

After I returned from Tokyo I kept playing my portable Taikos and thoroughly impressed with the arcade units made a point to order a home version, and not too much later grabbed Taiko 7 & drum, which I have been playing avidly since then!

I'm still yet to buy some additional Taiko discs but I think I'll pick up the Taiko double pack soon, and find out which Taiko has DADDY MULK as I thoroughly enjoy that song, and from memory that disc has quite a good song list on it..

[flyboy87]

Taiko 5 - Go! Go! Godaime has DADDY MULK in it. It's one of the series I constantly play. Great classical songs and Namco Originals!

If I ever had $10000, I'll get myself a Taiko 10 machine. T_T