the cutting room mirror

Taiko no Tatsujin 3

Taiko no Tatsujin 3 is the third installment of the rhythm game series.

Notably, it introduces several types of notes which would become mainstays in the series, such as Big Drumroll areas and Balloons, as well as a flashy intro sequence which would also be used in the series' first console outing.

NOTE: All of the offsets take in consideration an unscrambled version of the game's data (excluding bootloader) unless stated otherwise.

Sub-Pages#

Unused Graphics#

Player Entry Screen#

Found at offset 0x6F5238 is an alternate fan graphic meant to be displayed for Player 2 in the Player entry screen, and that has a different font for the text (参加). Rather than displaying this graphic, the game simply displays a palette swap of Player 1's (0x6ED1F8).

Used

Unused

(Source: tikal.)

Taiko no Tatsujin 2 Leftovers#

The following graphics are leftovers from Taiko no Tatsujin 2; they are taken from that game's credits. Several song title graphics can be found here as well.

Offset: 0x59A504
taiko4-2credits1.png

Offset: 0x5A2544
taiko4-2credits2.png

Offset: 0x5AA584
taiko4-2credits3.png

(Source: tikal.)

Taiko no Tatsujin Leftovers#

Found at offset 0x965EE8 is a texture for a Namco logo. This is a leftover from the original Taiko no Tatsujin, where it was seen in the intro sequence.

(Source: tikal.)

Early Taiko no Tatsujin Leftovers#

It seems some of the early Taiko no Tatsujin leftovers from Taiko 2 haven't been fully scrubbed out yet. Some graphics, which were likely meant to be seen during gameplay, can still be found:

Offset: 0x749C98
taiko2-earlygameplay1.png

Offset: 0x74DCD8
taiko2-earlygameplay2.png

Offset: 0x753D18
taiko2-earlygameplay3.png

Offset: 0x757F38
taiko2-earlygameplay4.png

Offset: 0x758D78
taiko2-earlygameplay5.png

Unused Audio#

Unused Jingle#

A rather sad jingle. Its melody is shared with a portion of the song Heisei taiko kaidou ~bachi no onna~, which would only appear in the series the following year. It could have been used as part of the Game Over screen, as future games would later have small jingles in there.

(Source: Nocturne)

Voice Clips#

Stored alongside Don-chan/Kat-chan's voice clips are several unused voice clips of them announcing individual song, battle round and total battle results, respectively. It's worth noting that while they do announce individual song results starting from Taiko no Tatsujin 7, they never announce battle round and total battle results outside of the console games.

Song Results

Battle Round Results

Total Battle Results

(Source: tikal.)

Taiko no Tatsujin and Taiko 2 Leftovers#

Numerous music tracks from both the original Taiko no Tatsujin and Taiko no Tatsujin 2 can still be found:

Intro (Taiko 1)

Intro (Taiko 2)

How to Play (Taiko 1)

Menus (Taiko 1)

Results (Taiko 1)

Name Entry

Ranking Screen

This actually sounds similar to the ranking screen track used by this game, though some of the sounds are louder in the old version.

Build Dates#

Loaded in memory are two build date strings:

0x10188

14:49:04
Mar 11 2002

0x14774

14:43:55
Mar 11 2002

(Source: tikal.)