really feel like i'm going to destroy my touch screen with these DS rhythm games lmao. since i live in canada i've never been able to play a taiko game, looked it up and the only cabinets available in this country are in british columbia which is very much not where i live, but i've always wanted to try it. has a similar basic structure to something like guitar hero, beatmania, or ddr with notes to hit scrolling down a track for you to play in time with the music, but the actual taiko drum mechanics of having to hit the middle or side of the drum makes this feel so much more unique than a lot of those other games, but also makes it make sense why so few of these games have ever been localized and how little cabinets there are outside of japan. with that said, i feel as though this DS port is maybe the best way to play this game at home without dropping money on an actual drum peripheral. i did not get the full boxed release of this so unfortunately i do not have the specially made dual drumstick styluses, but even with just one it still is able to emulate the feeling of actually hitting a drum so much better than any of the button presses could, and actually allowed me to get into a better rhythm than i could otherwise.

the game itself is super cute, don-chan is adorable and charming and is given so many customization options here that i have only been able to start scratching the surface of. seeing his animations when on a run of hit notes just feels so good and makes the player want to try to keep up this intensity. as others have said though, there's definitely a bit of a lack in song selection, as there's a ton of fun stuff to play (especially liked the mario and namco medlys, the doraemon theme, and all the classical stuff) but it feels like there should be way more tracks here. this version has 35 tracks while (and this may be a bit of an unfair comparison) the arcade version released two years earlier, taiko no tatsujin 7, has 80 songs including tracks from chibi-maruko chan, lucky star, urusei yatsura, and fist of the north star as well as linda linda by the blue hearts and toxic by brittany spears (!?!?!?!). even the psp version that came out the year before this has 62 songs in the base game + dlc.

in any case, fr me i think this is a really good introduction to the series and i'm excited to try some more of these!!

~ 3DS Homebrew Journey - Game 10🎉 ~

Of the few Taiko games I’ve played, this one goes the hardest in every department — meaning banger music, duh. A thing about Taiko no Tatsujin is that it has a lot of reoccurring tracks throughout the franchise. Although it works as filler to easily make more out of the game, it also makes it feel more Taiko, and familiar if that makes sense(?). This Taiko takes one step back in bringing less classic Taiko tracks, but instead two steps forward in bringing a bunch of new tracks, each bopping harder than the other. Remember, I haven't played that many Taiko games, but to me a lot of the songs were new.

As one would expect, the ds touch-screen work like a physical Taiko drum would, and that's really cool. Really unfortunate that this gem never officially set sail outside of Japan. This is a game no Taiko enjoyer should miss out on.