Taiko Drum Master DS Impressions

I've recently picked up the new music/rhythm game for the DS, Taiko Drum Master, based off the many arcade releases in Japan and US. Head inside to see what I thought of it!

Being a big fan of rhythm and music games, I was ecstatic to hear that Taiko Drum Master (as it's known over here) was being released on the Nintendo DS. However, I was very skeptic over the fact that the game would be controlled via the stylus, though with the recent release of Elite Beat Agents and other music games such as Band Brothers on the DS, I really shouldn't have been. Having opened up the game merely hours ago, I've already delved into a number of songs and customized my personalized drum to look like a weird mutant fish-dog (more on this later). I can say I am pleasantly surprised with the games turn out, and the transition from physical drums to virtual drums has been very intuitive.

I am almost always cautious when importing a game from Japan, due to the language barrier in a lot of games I play. I do not speak Japanese and sometimes this affects my enjoyment of a title depending on the degree of Japanese knowledge needed. Thankfully and, as expected, Taiko Drum Master has a very low language barrier. All the menus and songs are in Japanese, though there is not that many menus to navigate throughout the game. Naturally, unless your a big fan of J-Pop or live in Japan you'll probably not know what many of the songs are, but of course this doesn't affect enjoyment of the game at all, especially when you've been playing Ouendan for weeks before hand. The language barrier is almost non-existant.

The game is very happy and bouncy, with chirpy and cute Japanese voices being shouted out at almost every menu screen. What did bug me a bit is that you sometimes have to wait for the Japanese voices to stop speaking before you can progress through the menus, but thats few and far between. It actually reminds me of Super Monkey Ball for the DS, though far less annoying with its overly cute style. Your mascot throughout the game is a drum with a face, not that unusual if you've played Taiko Drum Master before. What is really cool though, is throughout the game, by completing songs at a varying level of difficulty, you unlock little costumes for your drum, which is present in almost every menu and the main drumming game itself. These include many weird and wonderful accessories such as a very cute sheep outfit, a cute dog outfit, a cute fish outfit and... a bowl of bananas to balance on his head. Okay, it probably isn't a bowl of bananas, some weird Japanese delicacy probably, but it sure as hell looks like it. The coolest thing is you can mix and match any of these together, as well as altering the colours of his face, his stripe and his body. Of course I'm assuming this drum is a male and a homosapian. Every time you select a little accessories, cute little words are screamed out to you like 'Å“Waaai'?, 'Å“Uh'?, 'Å“Yoosh'? and my favourite, 'Å“Y-Pooww'?. There is tonnes and tonnes of styles to get out of it, and although it doesn't really affect the gameplay, it is a cute and fun addition. Back to the actual game part of the game, Taiko Drum Master boasts an impressive array of 29 full songs. Each song is a few minutes long, and although shorter than Elite Beat Agents songs, there is still a lot of bang for your buck. Each song has a different theme as a backdrop, with bizarre elephant-panda creatures dancing along to the music. The game records your overall score, how well you hit the notes, and your overall percentage like every music game should have.

If you've ever played a Taiko Drum Master (or Donkey Konga) game before, then you will know what to expect gameplay wise. If not then I'll explain. Basically there is a thick area on the top screen where a static white circle sits on the left. Red and Blue circles fly in from the right, and go to the sound of the music. Once the Red or Blue circles fly over the static white circle, then you must hit the drum to go with the music. The physical drums become a virtual single drum. How do you hit a second note you ask? Well, the red symbol indicates you must hit the drum itself, where as a blue drum indicates you must hit the outside of the drum. It is quite strange on paper, but does work well once you put this theory into practice. Something that is added to this is the large Red and Blue drums. They are like usual notes, however, for a large red note you must hit a small center circle inside the drum, and for the blue you hit the outside of the drum. These are not mandatory, and you can just hit anywhere inside/outside the drum respectively, though you gain more points. There are four difficulty levels (3 initially, you must unlock the last), Easy, Medium, Hard and Expert. What did get me a bit was the fact that most of the Hard levels could be completed very easily, and only using 1 stylus (you are suppose to use two, for easier play and a more traditional method I suppose). However, the Expert difficulty settings does ramp things up quite considerably. This is when you might abandon the stylus methods and use the button controls optional. Since my 'L' button on my DS is completely gimped, I can't really complete Expert levels that easily, since the shoulder buttons act as your Blue note. Regardless, I'm still having a blast of a time.

Alright, I'm going to get back to playing this, try and master those Expert levels. One thing that I would have proffered were two drums, instead of the one, since the position of your hands is awkward as your 2nd hand would be at the top left/right of the screen and your first in the center. I recommend picking this up if you like your J-Pop, enjoy music/rhythm games, or love the Taiko Drum Master series. The language barrier is virtually non existent and most definitely wont alter your enjoyment of the game at all.

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Comments

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  Awesome. Is there no chance of a US release? Because the one for ps2 did fairly well.

  trainftw, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  I tried it also, it has a good song list.

  ctkxtreme, 30-11--0001 at 00:00
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  Nothing mentioned about a US release so far. I really hope so as a localized Taiko game is as good as a brand new Taiko game.

  skarma, 30-11--0001 at 00:00