Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival Review

Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival: Drum 'n Fun has got a sequel. Bandai Namco drums up a festival of funks and modes that turn up the cymbals! For those unfamiliar with the concept, Taiko no Tatsujin (Drum Master roughly translated) is Guitar Hero, just modeled after Japanese wadaiko drums. These drums are used at parties and festivals, and have a deep, unique sound that really rattles the room!

They are used with large drumsticks called bachi and can produce up to 130 decibels at the most. The arcade edition of Taiko no Tatsujin has large replica drums of these where you can really get beat. This is a bit harder to get at home - problems with logistics and such. Fortunately, Bandai Namco has a mini-edition of these drums, which yours truly has acquired and extensively used during the review. The drums have four sounds. To i midten, en halvsirkel hver, og to på ytterkantene til høyre og venstre. Totalt har man dermed betydelig mindre å holde styr på sammenlignet med f. eks. gitarheltene. Men likevel er det mer enn nok. Har du ikke penger eller ork til å bestille en plasttromme, sier du? Fortvil ei! Fortunately, you can play more than well enough with hand controllers too! Whether you share a Joy-Con with a friend, use the touch screen, or emulate the drum sticks with the motion controls, you'll find a way to play that suits you. (Regular button controls are also available in both docked and handheld modes. (Thankfully, motion controllers aren't exactly something you associate with pressure.)

As with the predecessor, there is a big focus on the drumming itself. But this time there's considerably more meat on the bone. Where Drum 'n Fun went more "straight to the point", this time it has an extended story behind why it drums. Not a big deal, thankfully. I don't need a heartbreaking tale of trauma and grief to motivate me to hit the beat. It would have been hilarious to see the developers try to combine this hilarious crab with an edgy drag mystery a là The Punisher:

However, we have a companion! Kumo-kyun, who will guide us through Omiko City. Kumo-kyun is a cute little cloud, and together with Kumo we'll try to become a real drum master! But I must be honest. I skip through most of the dialogue, because it's the drumming itself that's more entertaining. The story was something something we are friends and everything is lovely with sugar on. A bit of a Saturday morning cartoon only with a glucose overdose. Anyway, the story is mostly just background entertainment for the main mode: Taiko Mode.

Taiko Mode is relatively simple. Pick a song, choose the difficulty level, audition to join Rush, see the score and get points for unlocking stuff and stuff in the drum shop. Once you've drummed up enough experience you'll get to the next chapter and be shown a bit more entertaining (I must grudgingly admit) sugarcoating. There are 76 songs to choose from straight out of the box, with some unlockable subwounds. In addition comes the standard DLC songs. But what makes Rhythm Festival stand out is the festival ticket. With the "Festival Pass" (a scant 100 Norwegian crowns for 3 months) you get access to (at the time of writing) 623(!) extra songs. And more and more are being added! We're talking value for money here. Usually when rytmespill tries such stunts there are a handful, maybe thirty-five extra songs to choose from at launch. But here, I got a bit of a backlash when I looked through the song list.

Fortunately, the sorting and filtering system is robust! Many categories with varying snow depth, as well as redefined playlists that make it possible to get one level of overview anyway. Since there are so many songs in the festival pass, they must be downloaded before you want to play the individual songs. Fortunately, it is possible to download songs in advance if you are going to take the switch to a place without sufficient internet. Many of you will probably be familiar with it now that it's Christmas time! (P.S. Remember to turn off the motion smoothing on the TV for their relatives when you're visiting. If only you can prevent the soap opera effect!) Not surprisingly, many of the categories are Japanocentric. An abrupt anime song, Vocaloid covers, and game music dominate the lists to my delight. The first song I played (which was not the learning mode song) was Hiroaki Tommy Tominaga's iconic superhit Sono Chi no Sadame. Yes, it was a mommy flipping Jojo reference!

Outside of Taiko Mode, there are a lot of gadgets to choose from. If you want to play around the world, you can use Online Mode. Here you can change your ranking, and you'll be paired up against those at the same skill level as you. The rules can be customised and adjusted to give you exactly the fighting experience you want. Do you have friends over? First of all, how dare you put that in my face? Then you can bid on Party Mode with different twists. In "Don-chan Band", for example, up to four players can play together, each with their own note, which is mixed... unique performance. Or "Great Drum Toy War" which is a bit like card-based games where you have to build up a deck of cards and fight each other.

Are you struggling to reach those high scores? Or do you want to move up a rung on the difficulty ladder? Then Taiko Play Mode is for you. Here you can play six songs that are particularly challenging for you. Even better, the game keeps count of these to make it simpler to identify pain points. Once you've become a nice guy and collected a lot of points, you can cash them in to customise your avatar with a pretty decent selection of clothes and catchphrases. You have to stand out when you're going online and drumming, you know.

All in all, this is a very enjoyable sequel to an already fun game. There's a plethora of those out there, so Namco Bandai has had time to tweak the formula. Still, it must be pointed out that with the ferocious song selection and hilarious extra modes, Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival stands out - for the positive!