More than twenty years after its initial inception, chances are you know by now whether or not the Taiko no Tatsujin franchise is for you. Featuring rhythmic gameplay via four methods of control (buttons, touch screen, motion controls, or the drum accessory itself), the new entry from Bandai Namco — Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival — does little to freshen up the tried-and-tested formula, but instead focuses on providing more of the same for existing fans.
It’s a largely successful approach, but those hoping for a more in-depth gameplay experience similar to something like Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure Pack may find Rhythm Festival a tad lacking.
Rhythm Festival takes place in the fictional city of Omiko, where you’ll be working to become the very best Taiko Master. Characters like Don-Chan and Kumo-kyun will be with you every step of the way and often provide cute and amusing anecdotes as you improve your skills. Within Omiko City, you’ll find five key areas of interest that act as the game’s various game modes. The main one, ‘Thunderclap Shrine’, where you’ll find the franchise’s staple ‘Taiko Mode’, offers up 76 songs for you to take on in whichever order you see fit.
The available songs are grouped into distinct categories, including game music, anime music, classical, and more. There are all sorts on offer regardless of your personal preferences, such as music from Super Mario Bros., Frozen II, Pirates of the Caribbean, One Piece, and classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Each track can be played on one of four difficulty settings ranging from 'easy' to 'extreme'; trust us when we say you'll need the reflexes of a cat to nail the highest difficulty level.
Of course, 76 songs is a pretty generous amount and certainly nothing to sniff at, but Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival sets itself apart from previous entries in the franchise by introducing a new in-game subscription service called the ‘Taiko Music Pass’. This season pass model shoves another 500+ songs into the mix, offering up an insane amount of content if you're willing to put down the required moolah.
At the time of writing, the Taiko Music Pass isn’t actually available yet, so we can’t say for definite whether its inclusion will be worth your money or not, but judging from the preview list available in-game, there is at least a strong variety available should you choose to subscribe. Otherwise, the game offers up extra DLC packs if you’re looking for specific song packs, such as the Studio Ghibli pack, the Hatsune Miku pack, and the Dragon Ball pack.
As for the gameplay itself, it remains as strong and accessible as ever. If you opt for the button control method, you’ve got the two distinct music beats — ‘don’ and ‘ka’ — mapped to ‘A’, ‘B’, ‘X’, and ‘Y’. You can play with one Joy-Con if you wish, but we found that alternating between two makes for a more intuitive experience, particularly when you ramp up the difficulty.
Alternatively, you can go for motion controls, which are okay for the most part, but ultimately prove to be slightly unreliable when you’re trying to nail songs that are a bit more fast-paced. Touch screen controls, meanwhile, work great if you're okay leaving a whole bunch of fingerprints on your Switch's screen (we're not okay with this, by the way). Ultimately, the drum accessory is the way to go if you’re after the most authentic control method available, but keep in mind that the Rhythm Festival bundle that includes the drum itself won’t be available for another couple of weeks at the time of writing.
Aside from the main 'Taiko Mode', Rhythm Festival offers up a slight variation on the standard gameplay with Taiko Land's party games. These are split into two options: 'Great Toy Drum War' and 'Don-chan Band'. The former sees you and up to one additional player take on missions to earn rewards, which normally consists of going up against a CPU opponent and sending distractions their way by hitting certain notes. The latter is a loose take on the Rock Band formula, in which you and up to three additional players take on a particular role in the band, whether it be backing vocals or guitar, and you'll each need to follow your own corresponding rhythm to keep the song going.
Finally, there are a ton of customisation options available, including outfits for Don-chan (such as a rather fetching Mario costume), name tags, and online greetings. These are housed in the 'My Room' option from the main menu, but it's honestly a shame this wasn't expanded on beyond a set of text-based options; like, there's no actual room to get decked out and procrastinate in. Oh well. Still, with so much to unlock, there's plenty of incentive to stick with the game for the long haul, regardless of whether you're interested in the subscription model or not.
Ultimately, Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is just more of the same, albeit with a boatload of songs locked behind a subscription service. It's not a good look for a game that near enough costs full whack, but with 76 songs available right from the off, there's at least plenty to be getting on with for a good while. The Taiko Land party games offer up nice variety and make for some fun multiplayer sessions, while the online mode is genuinely quite thrilling when you're matched up with someone of similar skill. For those new to the series however, you might be better of opting for the more comprehensive package available with Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure Pack.
Conclusion
Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is another solid entry in the franchise, but it's also a very safe one. The core gameplay is still a lot of fun and that might well be enough for some players. For others, the distinct lack of modes on offer may result in a rather short-lived experience, particularly if you're not looking to dive into the Taiko Music Pass subscription service. Still, with a chunky amount of songs available from the start, Rhythm Festival is a no-brainer for fans of the series; you know what you're getting into, and we think you're going to like it.
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Comments 19
forgot about this.... still not interested.
Played a few of these at parties! Very fun!
Since I have a copy of TnT: Drum 'n' Fun I don't see a reason to get a copy of this game. And the inclusion of a subscription model is no bueno.
Part of me wonders if there'll eventually be a F2P version of TnT that's just for the subscription itself?
So long as the price was right (it's alright, but could be better), fans like me were likely already attracted to the idea of accessing 500+ songs with monthly updates without the $50 entry fee.
This is not available on the eshop here in Ireland. I have the first game anyway with all DLC and drum so I likely wouldn't be buying this anyway.
I’m waiting on the sub to list the songs before I buy. Sub is only 3 months at a time so they are gonna have to open up the back catalog. Getting the game either way though.
It comes out on October 14th here in Europe to anyone wondering.
I love the subscription 500+ songs.
And i pay for Ubisoft Just Dance unlimited 600+ songs.
That´s why i don´t need to buy any new game.
I´ll buy Just Dance 2023 (and sell Just Dance 2021) because finally you can create a private room to play online against friends. I don´t need to find my sister in a 200+ people room in a huge score list during the 3-music tournament!
I’m just glad that this franchise has finally gone global, warts and all.
And I’d much rather have samey annual releases with a bunch of new songs in them than paying for DLC and/or subscriptions where you’ll never really own the content. I really hated how Drum ‘n’ Fun had $100s worth of DLC (though I did cave in and buy a few songs here and there), but I’d personally prefer that over a subscription model which I absolutely won’t support under any circumstance, though, if I am not mistaken, the option to buy songs a la carte is still an option in Rhythm Festival too.
And this reminds me that I really need to get a proper start on the Rhythmic Adventure duology.
Glad to see this series still drumming along and I do hope it goes on for another decade, but everything I've seen in both info and demo regarding the game made it too similar to the Drum 'n Fun, in my opinion, the same way I felt with the Splatoon series after the first on Wii U.
I'll definitely be waiting out on a big discount on this game and even then, that's only IF I ever have an interest in buying this.
Still have to get the gold on all songs for Drum n' fun, Adventure 1 & 2, so still have a long way to go... Paid a total of £24 for these 3 games combined in sales, so there is no way that I would spend £35-40 for a single sequel with literally no new real feature or improvement on the existing formula. The "festival" theme is like just a wallpaper hiding 5 usual menus that already are present in all previous games. Tried the demo, and almost everything is identical to Drum n' fun (menus, animations, voiced quotes, etc...). And I am also pretty sure that some songs on the new playlist will be songs already present in one of these 3 previous games. So this is an easy pass for me until it get on sale for less than £10. And the subscriprion, well, they will never ever get any penny from me for that. I would have been fine paying even £60-70 for a full package with 500 songs, but not a subscription.
I can’t keep up with the series anymore. Hope they keep to the same version for a while, and just expand the songs.
Is the Drum controller still the same as the “old” one? Wasted money on that piece of garbage, so many missed notes I hate it
I like the series, but not a fan of American music. My favorite part on the old ones like on Wii were how they had all these songs that I never heard of before all in Japanese. If they had some Tatsuro Yamashita, ANRI, Taeko Ohnuki or Toshiki Kadomatsu on here I'd pick it up right away but I'll bet they don't have anything like that.
@Nintendo_Thumb American music? This game has lamost only Japanese songs
@DashKappei I love this franchise, but the fact that they keep bundling these ***** controllers with the game is a scam
@mweee The article says "game music, anime music, classical, and more." and it says "Super Mario Bros., Frozen II, Pirates of the Caribbean, One Piece, and classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven"
That's not what I'm looking for at all, I don't care about anime or video game music, I was hoping for actual Japanese city pop songs like Junko Yagami, Momoko Kikuchi, etc. or even some modern stuff I guess though I much prefer 70s and 80s.
Hello, I purchased this game and I do NOT hear any music AT ALL. Am I the only one who is having this problem? I ordered another one to see if I had the defective one, but the new one still does not play any music at all!! Whatever song I choose, I only hear the drum sounds that I play but no songs playing. I am not sure what I am doing wrong. Does anyone know what I have to do?? Do I have to purchase the pass??
Having played this a fair bit it's quite enjoyable, particularly when playing with a friend.
But give the online ranked mode a miss, this is probably the only game I've run into where playing with different controls gives a distinct advantage, it's impossible to get out of the lower rankings online when playing with a drum controller, at low rankings the game forces you to play on easy, which means both players are going to get a full combo of goods pretty easily, so the only deciding factor is how many drum rolls you can get in.
That would be fine if you were both playing on the drum controller, but people playing on regular controllers can just spam all the buttons to get an obscene drum roll up, just hitting 2 or 3 buttons decently quickly can get you 16 hits per second, and really spamming can get you a lot more, so in instances where even decent play on the drum can only get you 20 or so drum rolls, controller players will get over 90. And since as mentioned you're forced on easy drum rolls are the deciding factor, if you could at least choose to play on higher difficulties actual skill would be relevant.
So until bandai namco adds in a filter for control type don't bother with the online ranked mode, it's a waste of time.
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