Among other things, I am now in love.
There's this arcade game in the City Mall that has recently acquired the number one spot for my attention. It's the taiko drumming game. He's how it works, and why I love it.
Imagine that before you is a medium-sized taiko drum, in your hands, two rubber drumsticks. You look up at the screen, and a menu appears. You select song #17 from over 50 possible choices. #17 is getting hard, because the difficulty level increases as the numbers get higher. The song choices vary from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood-type kiddy jingles to space rock to quasi-metal. Your song sounds like the disco version of Beethoven's Ode to Joy. After selecting the song, you get a little four measure intro, while you try to catch the beat and poom!-- here it goes!! You follow the smiley faces that appear on the screen, and when they get to a certain point on the screen, you hit the drum. Four red smiley faces appear. Bam bam bam bam! You hit the center of the drum each time. A blue face goes by and you hit the rim, klack!, but you were a beat late, so no points. A yellow face is stretched out on the screen, and you bend your knees and, bada bada bada bada, you roll as fast as possible. Your roll was really fast, so you doubled your score! Then, a big, red, mean face appears, and you wham the drum with both sticks at once, POW!!; then your song is over. After a second, the game tells you that your accuracy was 94%, you hit 46 smileys, you missed three, and you completely missed only five times. Your score is 26,639.
Now your friend Shiho wants to play, so you switch to two-player mode. She gets on the other drum and plays with you at the same time. Sometimes the game lets you fill in the beat for your friend, sometimes she hits and fills in your beats, making a whole new complex, brilliant rhythm. In this run, the beats get super fast and complicated, and your whole body gets into the rhythm. You lose to her by only 478 points, but your accuracy was better this time!
I think playing this game should be manditory for all people studying music in school, and should be part of the requirement to finish any university degree, just because it's so awesome. This game is hot, and I'm in love with it on many levels. It's too bad it's 200 yen($2!!) a pop; I'm trying not to go broke!!
I tell of my day-to-day experiences in a funky Japanese town from my American viewpoint. This blog could also be called 'Bizarro World', 'Notes From Kyushu, a Smaller Island', or 'Teaching English in Japan: Smash Your Ego in 10 Easy Lessons."
Sunday, October 24, 2004
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2 comments:
The drumming game sounds awesome. When you return, why
don't you set up the business here and become a
millionaire?
-Linda
That game sounds sooo japanese. When I lived in San Francisco, there was this dancing game where there are squares under your feet that light up and you have to hit them with your feet when they do. They get faster and harder as you get better. There were always all these Asian teenagers in line to play!
A little addiction to a video game never hurt anyone :) trust me, I know. You do need to set aside like $10 or $20 just for it once in a while, though. That is purely an entertainment expense.
Love, Jay
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