Taiko: Drum Master
2004 video game
Taiko: Drum Master, also known as Taiko no Tatsujin: Taiko Drum Master (太鼓の達人 TAIKO DRUM MASTER) in Japan, is a 2004 rhythm game developed and published by Namco for the Sony PlayStation 2 as part of the popular Japanese video game franchise Taiko no Tatsujin. It was released in North America in 2004, and Japan in 2005.
The game was notable for being the only Taiko no Tatsujin title to release in North America, until the releases of Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun! and Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum Session! in 2018. The songs featured in Taiko: Drum Master were all in English and mostly taken from various Western artists, even in the Japanese release.
Gameplay
Notes that move horizontally along a timeline show what to hit and when; a red note indicates hitting the center of the drum, while a blue note indicates hitting the rim. A drum simulating the taiko is played in time with music.
Successful play builds up a "spirit gauge", which indicates how many notes have been hit. If the meter is past a certain point by the end of the song, the song is passed.
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This entry incorporates text from “Taiko: Drum Master” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.