TAIKO NO TATSUJIN: RHYTHMIC ADVENTURE PACK Review: Drumming For A Cause

Switch Review Code Provided by Bandai Namco

Finally bringing their drum-based music game to the Western world, Bandai Namco has bundled the two rhythmic adventure games into a single title. Launched exclusively on the Nintendo Switch, Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure Pack has already begun challenging player’s timing and skill while sending them on two separate adventures. But has the wait for this title been worth the anticipation? With or without the special drum controller, I have to say that it was worth looking forward to.

Story

In Rhythmic Adventure 1, Don and Katsu stumble upon Tocky, who has the important job of protecting time. He soon tells them that his friend, Ticky, has been kidnapped by Professor Timedyne who is trying to use Ticky to meddle with time. It’s up to Don and Katsu now to travel to many different time periods and take down the evil destroying history!

In Rhythmic Adventure 2, Don and Katsu find themselves being the only ones to save the world. The OOParts, treasures that protect the world, have been stolen by the suspicious group, The Evil Fraternity of Hexagaria. Now they must travel all over the world to get the stolen OOParts back!

Gameplay

While I didn’t have the special drum controller to experience this game as full-fledged as possible, I was able to play using both the button version and joy-con move control version of the gameplay. Thus my review will be based on these control options solely.

In the story modes, you will be guided through plenty of dialogue before getting the chance to play, but once you are in-game it feels like a basic RPG adventure. The maps are pretty small and split into chunks, but unless you are in a safe area, such as a town, then there is a chance that at any moment you will have an encounter with an enemy. At the end of your fight, your party’s health will remain the same until you reach the checkpoint that lets you heal. Keep this in mind when coming up to a boss area.

Along the way you can find chests to open that will hold an item you can use to improve your party members, but don’t expect to find things to help you mid-fight. The fights don’t have a way for you to enter a menu to use an item and will require your attention in full. In order to win a fight, you have to land as large of a combo and as many combos as possible. The more you combo, the more you hit, but the more you miss, the longer your party remains idle and takes damage.

Outside of the story mode, you can enjoy the Taiko mode. This is the mode you use to simply pick a song from the list available. Both adventure titles feature a different set of 60 songs, so you get to enjoy 120 songs altogether! While the story mode only goes up to the Hard difficulty, the Taiko mode goes up to the Oni difficulty and can sometimes include a bit of manipulation on the note time scale. If you really want to test your skills, this is where you would do it.

Since there is no actual tutorial in the game, here’s a quick how-to-play with the two control options:

Either control options you use, the time scale of the notes reads the same. If the note is small then it is one hand, if the note is large then it is both hands. If the note is red then it is a drum hit, if the note is blue then it is a rim hit. This will always be true regardless of the control style you prefer. If it is a long note or a balloon-looking note, they require a drum roll.

If you’re using the joy-cons as a pair of wireless drum sticks, you simply need to swing on each note. The game will auto-adjust the swing to be a hit on the drum or the rim according to the note and doesn’t require you to do anything different to make that happen. I personally didn’t care for that fact and ended up sticking to the button-based controls because of it.

If you’re using the button-based controls, then you will find that the down button and the B button are both drum hits and the left button and the A button are both rim hits. They are interchangeable when it comes to the single-hand note hits and must both be pushed simultaneously to count as a two-hand hit.

Visual

During the actual Story mode of the game, it has an overall very cartoonish style. This art style fits well with the anime-style narratives that are told and manage to make enemies look less threatening, which makes it more family-friendly. However, when playing a song either in the story or Taiko mode, there will be a lot of color animations going on around the time scale of notes that can easily be distracting. You can learn to ignore it, but they definitely made sure a lot was going on during the songs.

Sounds

All the voice acting and songs were in Japanese or Chinese, but the dialogue was translated to be written in English. This is not an issue, but the game definitely maintains a high energy level with the voice acting used on the menu and in the game, not to mention all the songs have a level of energy to them and none of them seemed to be of a slower pace from what I saw. Overall, very fitting and energetic for a drum-based adventure game.

Replayability

While the story modes may not be too exciting to go through more than once, the Taiko mode is what really makes this game replayable. There is plenty of room to get better and better, improving your skill level with each song available and high difficulties to reach. Plus, with both of these games bundled into one title, there are more songs than anyone will have time to master without some patience and practice.

What Could Be Better

There needs to be a proper tutorial option on the main menu for new players to be shown how to play the game. Having to just figure it out would have been fine if you have the actual drum controller because that is self-explanatory, but with just the controllers and button control options available, it was a guessing game until I got it figured out. At least it isn’t too hard to learn, but I shouldn’t have had to guess my way into it.

It would be nice if there was an option in the settings to tone down some of the activity that goes on all over the screen when playing a song. Sometimes it gets a bit too distracting from the actual notes coming at me and can make me lose my place.

Conclusion

Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure Pack is a really fun rhythm-based game that blends the musical element of drumming with an RPG. I love that there is a Taiko mode for when I just want to play a song or few, allowing me to get better at the songs themselves at my own pace without forcing me to survive against enemies. Definitely a great addition to the Western world’s Switch library!