Rhythmic drumming makes for strange RPG battles

Released for Nintendo Switch last week, Taiko No Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure Package is a bundle of two Japanese role-playing games in which players beat a drum to get through random encounters and boss fights. It is strange.

Taiko No Tatsujin: Rhythmic Adventure Package is two games that make their first trip to the west, Taiko no Tatsujin Rhythmic Adventure 1 and 2.

In both games, Bandai Namco’s drumming character Don and his friends play through time and spread the power of taiko drumming. Players battle cartoony characters by beating their drum in time with music ranging from classic melodies to modern anime themes. Hitting the notes causes damage. Missing notes give the enemy a chance to cause damage. To make things extra dangerous, the note tracks in fights are littered with bombs that players don’t have to hit.

The second game allows 9v9 fights, while the first is only up to 4v4.

While there are a total of more than 130 songs between the two RPGs that can also be played in the package’s standard rhythm game mode, each area of the games only contains three or four songs for chance encounters. That means there are many song repetitions that could get old for some. I love seeing how fast I can defeat enemies. When my party starts up, the same songs keep getting shorter and shorter My adventurers gain more strength and do more damage.

The games are really cute and I have a lot of fun playing them. My only regret is that I don’t have Hori’s taiko drum accessory and have to use my boring old joy-cons instead.