Developer
Namco

Released: October 26, 2004
Genre: Music
Players: 2
ESRB: Everyone

9
7
9
10
9.4

Supported Features

TAIKO: Drum Master is a new rhythm game from Namco, but rather than a dance mat this game comes with your very own drum and drumsticks. How cool is that? Very cool actually. The first night I sat down with this game nearly six hours literally flew by. That is the sign of a great game.

TAIKO is VERY Japanese from the LSD-inspired opening movie to the high-pitched voices in the menus that will have you trying to jam the drumsticks into your ears. What isn’t Japanese is the totally inspired selection of more than 30 songs that span current pop hits combined with classical and even a few Namco game-related favorites. No matter what your musical preference, there is something here for you and frankly, I couldn’t find a bad song in the bunch. I am definitely not a fan of classical, but banging away to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony was a total blast.

Small red circles indicate either half of the surface area while a large red circle indicates you have to hit both halves simultaneously. Small and large blue circles indicate when you need to hit either or both sides of the rim. Other symbols indicate drum rolls, either for points or to build up enough beats to burst a balloon.

Don’t hold back. TAIKO expects you to “hit” the drum fairly hard, and if you wimp out it might not register the hit. It might take you awhile to figure out the best position to play. The drum doesn’t work in your lap, which means you will be sitting on the floor or putting the drum on a table. Additionally, one small problem I encountered was with the spine that runs down the middle of the drum surface. This is essentially a half-inch-wide strip down the middle of the drum that doesn’t register when hit.

Believe me, all this makes much more sense when you play it, and that is the best part of TAIKO. Whether you are six or sixty you can pick up the sticks and select just about any song on the list and figure out the basics within 15 minutes. Within a few hours you will be skimming the song list and trying the harder difficulty levels.

Perhaps the single best aspect of this game is that the cues for hitting the drum actually fall on the beats of the music, most of the time. It seems the game is designed to be played best at the Normal skill setting. If you play on Easy, beats are missing and if you play on Hard or Oni (super hard), extra cues are added so you almost have to double-tap some of the sequences. I actually found the game easier on Normal than Easy for this reason.

You can play the game alone or with a friend. I haven’t seen the drum being sold separately so this means somebody else will need to buy the complete package, but once they try yours it’s only a matter of hours before they are headed to the store. The two-player game is fantastic. Not only do the drum cues stream by simultaneously on the same screen they are designed so that each drummer complements the other. Player one will bang out a sequence then player two will mimic that sequence or perhaps fill in with something new. It’s almost like dueling banjos with drums.

Eventually you might get tired of the main game, or more likely you will play it until you master it. Either way, TAIKO offers several mini-games for one or two players that are almost as much fun as the main game. One game has you beating out a drum roll with each beat taking a bite out of a watermelon. Then you bang on the rim to spit the seeds, all the while dodging the guy who randomly beats on you with a bat. The first person to “eat” four watermelons wins, or in single-player, you just have to beat the time limit.

Another mini-game has you lighting fireworks by striking the fuse with a drumbeat. At random intervals the guy loading the cannon will slip you a bomb, which you must defuse with a rim shot. The cannon reload time is always decreasing so it gets real easy to slip up, and the fireworks display is also quite nice and distracting.

The final mini-game is probably the most difficult. You create a tower of dogs standing on each other’s shoulders. This tower will start to sway and you will need to counteract with periodic taps of the left and right rim as well as compensate for the blowing wind. When the tower of dogs gets high enough you need to position them under the rescue chopper and hit the main drum to make them jump and grab the skid. It’s much harder than it sounds.

All of the important stuff is handled nicely. The drum cues are all color and size specific and there is so much animation going on the entire game you won’t be able to watch it all, even if you are a spectator. The animation increases in intensity the better you do, so at the end of a high-scoring session the entire bottom of the screen will be packed with a pulsating mosh pit of cheering fans.

The menus are all colorful and easy to read and surprisingly simple to navigate with the various portions of the drum.

Licensed Rock/Pop: ABC; American Girls; Are You Gonna Be My Girl; Bowling for Soup - Jimmy Neutron Theme; Girls & Boys; I’m A Believer; Killer Queen; Lady Marmalade; Love Shack; Material Girl; My Sharona; Rock the Dragon (Dragonball Z Theme); Slide; That’s The Way (I Like It); The Impression That I Get; Toxic; Tubthumping; Walking On Sunshine

Classical: Beethoven's Symphony No. 5; Carmen Prelude; Foster's Medley; Hungarian Dances No. 5; Symphony No. 25 in G Minor; William Tell Overture

Namco Original: Don Rangers; Dragon Spirit; Katamari on the Rocks; Ridge Racer; Soul Calibur II Brave Sword, Braver Soul; TAIKO March; The Genji and the Heike Clans

This is some of the best music you can find in a music game and while the sound effects are limited to a synthesized drum hit and rim tap, it’s still a nice backup for the actual sounds the drum will produce. You might hear a real tap…tap…tap when you strike the rim in Lady Marmalade, but you’ll hear a synthesized cymbal just like the song.

The only reason I’m not giving this game a perfect sound score if for the totally annoying menu announcer that SCREAMS every selection and confirmation. The music is so good you’ll want to crank the volume but the menus will kill you at the same volume.

And once your friends take a turn with your game they’ll certainly be getting their own copy and then you can go head-to-head with dual drums. The game can be played with a DUALSHOCK, and you might even score better, but that would be like playing a dancing game without the mat, why bother?

The entire package is only $50 at most stores, a great value considering you are getting a very durable TAIKO controller that isn’t even starting to show wear after all my relentless poundings.

This is the perfect family game that is as much fun to play as it is to watch (and listen). TAIKO: Drum Master will keep kids and adults entertained for hours and I, for one, will be anxiously looking forward to a sequel with lots more cool music.