Official Website

Platform: Playstation 2

Genre: Simulation / drumming

Number of Players: 1 - 2

Known in Japan as: Taiko no Tatsujin

I remember when my wife was getting to officially move over to the United States from Japan, the one thing that she wanted to know is if the game Taiko no Tatsujin was out in the United States. I might be up on my Japanese games and anime, but to be honest, this one was a bit of a mystery to me. After getting some explanation, I told her that I’d never seen anything like that, and I really doubted that it would come out in America either, after all, we might enjoy our Japanese games, but this was a little different. Dance Dance Revolution was one thing, but I remember talk of Beatmania, coming out in the United States and it never happened, probably because of the high tag price that would have gone along with it. Anyway, my wife had even talked about somehow getting a Japanese PS2 and bringing over here just for the game, but those are still very expensive in Japan, at least at that time, and so the only memories she had of her precious Taiko no Tatsujin was a few pictures from the arcade.

I was probably as shocked as anyone when Namco officially announced that Taiko no Tatsujin, now renamed Taiko Drum Master, was coming out in the United States. You can take a pretty good guess at who was the most excited about it. To further illustrate, the game showed up while I was at work (I do have a real job, reviewing doesn’t pay my bills) and the package was immediately opened, the taiko drum hooked up, and the gaming began.

I can guess what some of you might be thinking: Nintendo already released a drumming game, Donkey Konga, and Namco is just ripping the idea off. That’s the farthest thing from the truth that anyone could ever come up with. In the home market, Taiko no Tatsujin came out on the Japanese PS2 way back in early 2003, the arcade version of course appearing even before that while Donkey Konga was released (in Japan) at the end of ’03. Let’s not forget that Taiko has around five different games in Japan while there’s but one Donkey Konga, so you gamers that swear by Nintendo (and I’m not saying it’s a bad system . . . I own one myself) can just take a step back before trying to shout the gospel of the Big N.

As you might have already guessed by now, Taiko Drum Master is a drumming game, but with a taiko drum. Quite a few of us have probably seem some sort of taiko drumming and marveled at the performance, maybe even wanted our own before discovering just how much one would cost. Well, now Namco brings taiko drumming home, but on a much-scaled down version. The game comes with it’s own version of a taiko, though plastic and not leather, as well as mallets to strike it with and easily hooks up to any controller port (no USB required.) That’s just the beginning though. 

The game plays much like what Dance Dance Revolution does. First, you’ll need to select a song and you will find a variety from Madonna’s “Material Girl”, The Knack’s “My Shorona” and even some tracks from Soul Caliber II, Ridge Racer, and another highly addictive Namco title Katamari Damacy. Once you have that in order, then you’ll need to select you’re level of difficulty and initially you’ll have easy, medium, and hard and then later, after unlocking it, Oni mode. Then, it’s time to start drumming.

The game play is simple, or at least that’s the way that it seems. Across you’re screen you will see scroll spheres. The red ones, called boom, indicate that you need to hit the drum itself; if you see blue (tap) on the other hand you need to strike the sides of the drum. Larger spheres of either color mean that you need to hit the drum hard while longer, yellow lines are drum rolls. You need to be one time of course, so if you’ve got no rhythm, then you’ve got no game. At the top of the screen you’ll see an indicator that measures how well you’ve done. Unlike DDR, even if the level is at zero, that doesn’t mean game over. You can still keep drumming until the end of the song and at that point you’ll be graded on your performance giving you rewards that will, what else, unlock hidden songs and a few others things as well.

It sounds very easy, but let me tell you, it’s not. My first time through, I did horrible and gained laughter from the one who had played it before in Japan and then again at home. Yeah, how about we break out a little Soul Caliber II and see who’s laughing at the end of that? Like DDR timing isn’t just everything, it IS everything. It take a bit to get used to hitting the sides of the drum and I had a tendency to blame that drum for not picking up on where I was hitting (I have found that it’s the best method when things don’t go as they should when you’re gaming.) The more difficult the level, the harder the game will be of course, and don’t let those tracks with only two stars in Oni mode fool you: they are still difficult. Needless to say, Taiko Drum Master can be quite a workout.

But there’s still more. Taiko contains some mini-games as well if trying to keep the beat with the music isn’t your thing (or if you “just suck at it” as I was so politely told.) The watermelon-eating contest has you doing drum rolls in order to win (though I’m surprised that watermelon smashing wasn’t included since it’s such a big deal in Japan during the summer.) There’s also a fireworks festival that has you launching them as quickly as you can, be there are bombs to be wary of as well. There is also a mini-game that has you trying to meet up with a helicopter.

The graphics for the game are a little different. It’s very colorful and has a very Japanese feel about it complete with cartoon-type graphics that are eye catching, if you’re watching and not playing. If you’re the one striking the mallets, it’s a bit difficult to really see characters dancing on screen and things popping up from time to time as keeping in mind when you need to hit the drums is the real issue. Although the game looks simplistic as far as the graphics go, the fact is that it works very well for the type of game it is. You really don’t need some high-resolution visuals to make the game work.

Though it may not be something that is a party hit (someone will be jealous they don't have a drum and have to use the controller instead) that doesn’t make Taiko Drum Master any less entertaining than some other PS2 games that are a big party drawn like, again, DDR, Karaoke Revolution or even the Eye Toy games. Taiko Drum Master is a blast to play, though tiring after a while. The one thing about this game though that I will mention is that it’s noisy, so it’s not the type of thing that you can just turn the volume down and enjoy. In fact, I’m fairly certain that at this point, our neighbors probably completely hate us and are grabbing torches and pitchforks even as I’m writing this. Noisy or not though, Taiko Drum Master has a very high fun factor, and with a good deal of replay associated with it as well, and there really isn’t too much more that you can ask for from any game. Hopefully Namco is planning on releasing more of these in the future (you know guys, Japan has one that’s anime theme songs . . . hint) and I’m betting well all be getting as much, if not more, use out of our new taiko drums as we are the dance pads.

-mike-