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Thursday, August 22, 2013

Namco Taiko Blog (22 August 2013): Want to hear more? Notecharter Interview 1

Well this is something unique. Instead of announcing anything particular, the blog entry this week is an interview with one of the notecharting team of Taiko no Tatsujin. For the first round, it's Kuboken (くぼけん).

The notecharting team gave themselves a very interesting name too, "譜面ジャー" (fumen-ja), which in English is "Notechart Ranger". You know, like in the Sentai kids shows (think Power Rangers). Following that is a description of the job. Since it's a relatively lightweight task, most anyone in NBGI can become a Notechart Ranger: producers (like Etou), designers, planners, programmers, visual team, sound team and so on. The charts they make are reviewed by fellow Notechart Rangers before being finalized and released.

And with that, Kuboken's introduction!

Profile
Joined Taiko Team: 2006 (during Taiko no Tatsujin 8)
Number of charts made: About 90
Skill level: 9* Oni on buttons, not so good at sticks

Notechart specialty
-Handles Oni 6* to 8*
-Loves making charts which allow players to nearly Full Combo with at least one troublesome part.
-Different permutations of repeating patterns
-Loves all difficulties equally

Sample notecharts created (has a 'progessive' style on charts, picking up as time goes by)
Rouge no Dengon (ルージュの伝言): Moderate and good for practice, but if given the chance, would have subtracted some more notes.

Densetsu no Matsuri (伝説の祭り): Made the lyrics together with Oogami Masako, and had the best memories working on this chart, which as the ending theme of Taiko PS2 7, had 777 notes.

Chou Tokyuu (超特急): Quite a balanced chart with 1/12 notes

Spleunker (スペランカー): The repeating ------ patterns in this song were meant to be imitating the sound of a minecart. Clever stuff. He also wonders if he should have made the two balloon notes in the middle unbreakable instead.

Star Soldier Medley (スターソルジャーメドレー): Projects a brilliant, bright scenery for the song, with a final rush of tough patterns. Other notecharts made by Kuboken such as L.O.B.M utilize this concept too.

Arumujika ac14.0V (アルムジカac14.0V): All difficulties use backbeats and skipped beats to confuse and make the player 'nearly' FC the song. He managed to slip in the unbreakable balloon note this time!

LOVE Zukkyun (LOVEずっきゅん): Kuboken likes the rhythm pattern of the intro and Melody A of the song. The alternating, repeating --- portion in the chorus was Etou's idea.

Fly away: A very heated, energetic song! Continuous large notes in the chorus punctuate this energy.

Mulberry: A refreshing and loose song with notes to match, trying to make an unremarkable chart match the music to leave a good impression.

Onara Hasukashikunai Yo (Onaraはずかしくないよ): Kuboken's most favorite chart project, period. High-speed, simple and makes you want to dance along, with patterns that won't frustrate improving players.

365-Nichi no Love Story (「365日のラブストーリー。): Kuboken: Now why didn't I make this have 365 notes...? *laughs*

Maou no Showtime (マオウのショウタイム): As the 3DS boss song, the chart must also be full of pranks and tricks (like all those mean scroll changes in the middle). The combo total '888' was used because it sounded like laughter (8 is 'ha' in Japanese).

Knitting High (ニッティング・ハイ): The repetitive nature of the song was sometimes hard to keep track. Kuboken remarks at how many of his charts are for Oogami Masako's songs.

Jojo ~Sono Chi no Sadame~ (ジョジョ ~その血の運命~): The 'do-do-do-don' four-note clusters was contributed by another member in the team (Kan, 'カーン'), to create energy.

  Hanaoto Ura Hyoushi (花オト裏拍子): Kuboken thanks the CreoFUGA winner for a lovely song, and fills it with lots and lots of notes.

Phoenix: A mellow, slow-paced song, so he created a simple, unhindering chart to match.

Sayonara Crawl (さよならクロール): The original Melody A for this chart had only blue notes, so red ones were added in and it actually sounded good. Evokes a fresh summer feeling.

And that's all Kuboken writes for today! He hopes to continue making charts everyone can enjoy playing on Taiko no Tatsujin.

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