95
Yet again another game that has flashy backgrounds, hype music, wierd things dancing and fun for all ages. Here it is for those who want a game to exercise your fingers or just to stay active while sitting on the bus. The purpose of this game is basically the same purpose any Dance Dance Revolution game has, you're just suppose to match colors.
Before even starting the game you can tell that this game is a kind of game that is going to be cute. Just by inserting it in your PSP and waiting for the intro will show you even more how this game is going to be cute. The intro starts off randomly with drums running and praying then dogs sweeping the floor and fireworks and everything.
After the title screen, it asks you to create a user account. After making one the game takes you to the main menu. Here there are seven different sections to choose from. The menus will be listed below:
• Single Player
• Mini Games
• Survival Mode - Choose amount of songs and play and play
• Practice
• Multiplayer - 2-4players,Connect to other players, Game Sharing, Stats/Record
• Misc. - User Accounts, History of Awards, Songs for Survival Mode, Intro video, Back
• Options - Sound, Save/Load, Controls, Back
After choosing Single Player, the player gets to choose a wide variety of songs from different difficulties. The first list/color is yellow/orange which is beginner level. Pressing the down button on the D-Pad it will bring you to a aqua/blue list of the same songs but with more stars which means more harder. Pressing down once again and you get green colored songs. These songs are the hardest have have a lot of stars per song.
Controlling is very basic. Every button is for red circles, Except the L and R-triggers which are for blue circles. The analog is to ring a bell. The controlls can be changed in the menu under Options shown above. When pressing a button that corresponds to Red, it will make a low toned thump. When pressing a button that corresponds to Blue, it will makie a higher pitched tink.
Sounds and songs are incredibly amazing. The song variety vaires from Jpop to Jrock to Techno to american songs aswell. Looking through the songs, "We Will Rock You" was found in the list. Just by looking through the list and highlighting a song you can preview the songs before actually playing them.
Graphics are as stated above, cute. Perfect for all ages. There is nothing in here that is 3D. Everything is 2D and basic programming needed. In the background colors change while you play. On the bottom are different animated Characters that dance. If you're doing well more characters will jump up and dance. There is a maximum of four dancing. After you've accomplished all four dancing and still doing well, a crowd of wierd characters will begin to jump up and down as you do continue to acheive a great score, mess up and your crowds and dancers will go away gradually.
The GamePlay is incredibly fun. The first thing you do is listen to the music. Of course the music will go with the circles. Listen to the beat and figure out the rythem in order to play successfully.
• There are two different colors, Red and Blue. When a Red circle appears you must press the buttons that will hit the red spots on the drum and vice versa for Blue circles. There is a Clear circle at the left of the screen, when a colored circle goes to that spot you press the button corresponding to it's circle color.
• The second shape is a Balloon type. It comes just like regular circles come except it has a little uninflated balloon attached to the end of it. Once this reaches the clear circle and you press the corresponding color, you then have to inflate the balloon by pressing buttons rapidly. Different balloons have different numbers you must blow to totally inflate it.
• The third shape is Bigger circles. All you have to do I press more buttons. For example, If there were to be a big Blue Circle, you would press the R-Trigger aswell as the L-Trigger to correctly hit this note.
• The last is a Traveling-Yellow type. It comes along as a yellow line and you must press any button rapidly to get as many points as your can during the line's duration.
Pros
• Cute and fun for all ages
• Never boring, keeps player addicted
• Ability to gain more songs
Cons
• No add-on for drums
• Only two colors therefore only needs two buttons
• "still looking for one more con"
97
The name Bemani is given to the Japanese "Music/Rhythm" genre of games. Taiko no Tatsujin, Guitar Freaks, BeatMania and of course Dance Dance Revolution. All of these games have very unique control-methods. BeatMania has a DJ mixer, Guitar Freaks has a guitar/controller, DDR has a pair of dance pads and Taiko no Tatsukin (Drum Master) has a large replica of a traditional Japanese drum.
It goes without saying that any other Bemani game except Taiko no Tatsujin could not plausably be attempted on the PSP, but it's quite suprising just how naturally it works. You'll find that it will take you less that 5 minutes to become comfortable with the control scheme and not only are the controls ridiculously simple, but the game comes with an insert in the instruction booklet in both Chinese and English that has clear instructions for almost all of the game's basic features and controls. Don't read or speak Japanese? Not a big deal! You'll have all four of your PSP's actions buttons (Square, Triangle, O, X) used for normal drum strikes, your D-Pad used for Stronger drum-strikes, your triggers used for rim-hits and the brand-new addition of a bell using your analog stick.
You may or may not be familiar with Taiko no Tatsujin's unique presentation. Highly-stylized characters (Bipedal Disco-Dancing dogs, Cute robotic drums, etc) abound and from the instant you turn the game on and hear "Taaaaaaaaaaaiko no Tatsujiiiiiiiiin POOOOOOOTABURU!" announced in a young Japanese girl's shrill voice, you'll know that this is one of the most -almost obscenely- Japanese games you could possible find. If you've ever played Katamari Damacy then you may have an idea of how charming end engrossing that can make a game, and in fact Taiko no Tatsukin just happend to feature Katamari Damacy's theme-song in playable form! King of all Cosmos cameo and all.
You have about 30 songs initially available. These vary in genre and quality, but you will be able to unlock a few more great songs. It's needless to say that many people will complain about not having enough songs, but you must keep in mind that that complaint has been made about every Bemani game ever released for a console. Ever. More songs WOULD be fantastic, but what they give you is pretty good as well (Excluding Britney Spears' "I'm A Slave 4 U" and the obligatory "We Will Rock You" . Mini-Games are also included ranging from sumo-fights to helping the aforementioned bipedal dog disco-dance. These are pretty fun for a while but don't have a whole lot of depth to them. One of these games is -however- very interesting because of the control-scheme they used. You will need to hold your PSP vertically and use the analog stick at the bottom to direct falling parts into empty drum-robots to make working ones. Not an incredibly deep mini-game but the control-scheme is really cool.
Multiplayer has been implemented in a few ways, as well. You can either play Ad Hoc, share a PSP or use Game Sharing. Yes! Taiko np Tatsujin is one of the all-too-few games that feature this fantastic PSP ability. You can send another PSP a song that it loads into memory and you can play multiplayer with one UMD. Wonderful.
Altogether I would say that Taiko no Tatsujin is an amazing entry into the Bemani series of games, and the fact that it is portable makes it that much better. It is a suprisingly import-friendly game (even though it's strogly ethnic) and is wonderfully addictive. Import at once.
96
Taiko no Tatsujin is a colorful rhythm game with quick load times and fun minigames. Although I don't read or speak Japanese, it has a tutorial mode that demonstrates the mechanics of the game.
The music is interesting (especially to my Western ear), the gameplay is challenging (especially on the fourth difficulty level) and the visuals are somewhat akin to "Simpsons" episode where the family visits Japan and keeps getting seizures from watching TV.
Overall, two complaints: one, the high-pitched child-on-amphetamines voice really grates on you after awhile; two, the visuals may be a little too trippy -- prolonged play (an hour or so) gave me a headache.
For help navigating the Japanese menus, try here.
98
If you really liked the original games or the PS2 game, you'll love this one!
You can play through about 40 different songs and three different difficulty levels. Songs are mostly Japenese songs by different artists like J-Pop, and there are songs from games by Namco too. You can also play an endless game where you specify the number of minutes and it randomly picks songs to play.
Controls are simple, you use the D-pad to hit the drum on the left and the buttons for a right hit. Use L and are shoulder buttons for the side hits on the drum. If you press select before a game, there is also an automatic mode, where you just watch the computer play. Pretty neat when the game starts to get hard!
There are also three different mini games.
• A disco dancing party with a character dance in the middle, you have to hold down the bottons shown on the screen. As it progresses, you have less time to enter them in.
• In the second one, you fight against other people with little sumo wrestlers. You have to rapidly press etheir the D-pad and the bottons, or L and R. If you press the wrong one, you will pause for a few seconds and that gives your opponent an advantage to push you off the platform.
• The third one is very cool. You hold the PSP vertically and use the anolog stick to control platforms. Electric Taiko drum parts fall from the top on to the platforms and you tilt it side to side to let them fall down into barrels. Put in enough and you form a drum. Goal is to make as many drums as possible in the time limit.
There are multiple player modes that include the game sharing option. So overall, the game is very fun and entertaining. Just note that it's in Japanese and I don't know if they are going to release an English version.
95
I was skeptical at first when I read this game was being ported to the PSP. I was a huge fan of the original Japanese series and just didn't see how much fun this game would be without the Tatakon. But I was wrong.
The game works remarkably well on the PSP. D-Pad is used as left face hit, buttons for right face hit, L and are for left and right rim hits respectively. There are 35 tracks normally, 3 that are also unlockable (although I've only unlocked two). Most are Japanese pop-songs, with some Namco game tunes, random anime songs, and believe it or not Queen's We Will Rock You and Brittany Spears' I'm a Slave 4 U. The game shines with headphones (speakerwise it's okay but you don't get the same sensation, there is even an option to change what audio method you're playing). It sounds great and is faithful to the other versions.
Visually the series retains its quirky graphical presentation. It's nice and looks just as it does on the other versions.
There are three minigames. The first being a disco dancing game that prompts you to hit simulataneous button presses reflexively as soon as possible. The longer you play, the more complex the combinations and the shorter time you have to input it. The second is Japanese paper sumo wrestling, but all you really do is play against someone else (on the same PSP!) or CPU, and you have to hit a sequence of Face or Rim hits as fast as you can. The last is a mecha drum game where you use the analog stick and play the game vertically. Mechanical parts drop from the top and you have to use these tilts to make them fall into robot parts. You get points when you complete a robot. All the minigames are pretty fun.
There's single song mode, and a mode where you pick how many minutes you want to play for and it'll pick random songs that will match those number of minutes. There's also some multiplayer modes although I haven't had a chance to test them out, although game sharing seems to be supported as well.
There are some other options I can't seem to make out as my Japanese isn't great. That being said, the game is completely in Japanese, mostly hiragana but a lot of kanji. Still even if you don't know Japanese it's totally playable, and if it makes it stateside I'm pretty sure Namco is going to change the song list again.
There's also a game sharing mode as well as other adhoc multiplayer options.
If you're at all a fan of the series, highly consider purchasing it. Great fun on the go. My only complaints are that my hand cramps up during the more difficult songs and that there aren't enough songs!
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5