Song of the Week! 7 January 2012

It's already time for the monthly Ura song! Curious enough to know what is it?

dance storm

Version
All arcade, Taiko 3DS 2, Taiko Wii 2	x4 (212)	x6 (325)	x6 (474)	x7 (644)
Taiko Wii 4	x4 (212)	x6 (325)	x6 (474)	x8 (644)

Taiko 0.5, Taiko Wii 4, Taiko 3DS 2, Taiko Wii 2, CD Donderful
190
none
 fgod


2012's first Ura pick comes directly from the latest Wii game's new entries! The fast-paced dance storm is one of Wii 4's twin songs, so called by fans because it shares more than one similarity to another song which we'll cover later, and both are tied intricately to Wii 4's series of events.

The main theme surrounding Wii4's story is a Taiko performance by two characters derived from the wind god and lightning god of Japanese mythology (Fuujin and Raijin). The song's ID - fgod - is a reference to Fuujin and the main theme song of Fuuga, the wind god of the Taiko World (hence the name 'storm') and older brother to Mirai, the lightning god. Without divulging too many story details (I'll let the special article sort that out), Fuuga and Mirai are polar opposites both in appearance and behavior. Unlike his hot-tempered sister, Fuuga is calm and composed and more inclined to use his mind to work things out, even for playing the Taiko.

Even the composers of both songs in the duo have a sort of kinship, like Fuuga and Mirai; while Lightning Passion is composed by sampling masters AYA (aka Ayako Saso (佐宗綾子)), dance storm's creator is her "brother", sampling masters Mega (aka Shinji Hosoe (細江慎治)). Both Saso and Hosoe were the main sound team members for the soundtracks of Ridge Racer and many other ancient Namco coin-op games.

Taiko players may remember sampling masters Mega for the creation of Rotter Tarmination, one of the hardest Ura songs up to date, but truth is his music career extends beyond a single publisher. After composing for Namco's retro arcades, Shinji Hosoe was responsible for composing music for many other videogames spanning many different genres. Before his debut in Taiko, Hosoe composed a lots of songs for Konami's rhythm games, from Beatmania IIDX (route 80s, VOX UP) to Pop'n Music (rottel-da-sun, Chat! Chat! Chat!) among others.

Back to dance storm, MEGA's latest creation offers a pattern similar to Venomous's regular Oni: speedy BPM with flowing sequences of beats (and the howling sound of the wind to go along with it). It's slightly slower than Venomous and thus has quite a few more long streams. On every mode there is an x8 scrolling stanza with a short hit balloon.

dance storm

Version
All arcade, Taiko 3DS 2				x9 (765)
Taiko Wii 4	x5 (255)	x7 (390)	x8 (564)	x9 (765)

Taiko 0.5, Taiko Wii 4, Taiko 3DS 2
190
none
 exfgod


This Ura difficulty is the only one used in Fuuga and Mirai's Taiko Classroom, as a way to symbolize Arashi, a fiery character in the game related to Fuuga. dance storm's Ura mode challenges the players with more dense note clusters and a subtle trick or two, by using a fast-scrolling giant drumroll as a curtain to the following note clusters, instead of a hit balloon. The Go-Go Time's tricky cluster successions and the return of big notes alternating with small ones near the end contribute to some major frustrations to any player trying to FC this Ura difficulty.