Daigasso! Band Brothers DX, OUT NOW! Time to Rawk Out to some Pavarotti!

Release Date: 6/26/2008
Official Web site, Q&A
Initial Song List (Included and Downloadable) - From kungdavid of the GamesWeLike and loading.se forums - 6/14/2008
[size=+1]Weekly Download Rankings[/size] (Songs ranked by number of downloads for the week)
Japanese DBBDX Wiki - Has a list of user-submitted songs.
Gameplay videos
Play-Asia - $48.90 + $3.40 shipping
YesAsia

It's Daigasso! Band Brothers DX, the sequel to the popular import launch rhythm game Daigasso! Band Brothers! For those who missed the boat for the first game, the core rhythm portion involves DJMax-style button pressing to a collection of MIDI versions of songs, rather than actual recordings or remakes of the songs. While there are those who may not like the idea of MIDI songs, it works for this game due to the fact that you and your friends play the role of your chosen instruments; if you press the wrong button, then your instrument's sound will reflect that mistake. But what set this game apart from the rest is that after working through the game to the "Pro" mode, you unlocked the "Pro Edit mode," which allowed you to use the assets of the game and the DS touchscreen to create your own songs! Rather than providing minimal feature updates and an annual song list update like so many other rhythm game sequels, Nintendo decided to go all-out with the new songs and new features for this sequel, while fixing the problems and keeping the loved features of the first game. It might be appropriate to start off with the game's starting song list:

Included Songs
J-Pop - 5 songs
未来予想図２ - Mirai Yousozu II - Dreams Come True
粉雪 - Koyuki (Snow Powder) - Remioromen
ロビンソン - Robinson - SPITZ
世界に一つだけの花 - Sekai ni hitatsu dake no hana (The only flower in the world) - smap
涙そうそう - Nada Sousou - Rimi Natsukawa

Classical music - 26 songs (List copied from kungdavid's post at the GamesWeLike board, linked to above)
Symphony No. 5 'Fate' [運命交響曲] - Beethoven
Pomp and Circumstance March [威風堂々] - Sir Edward Elgar
Swan Lake (Rock ver.) [白鳥の湖　ロックver]
Symphony No. 40, 1st Movement (Tango ver.) [交響曲第40番　第1楽章　タンゴver] - Mozart
Pictures at an Exhibition (Pop ver.) [展覧会の絵　ポップスver] - Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky
From the New World, 4th Movement (Rock ver.) [新世界より　第4楽章　ロックver]- Dvorak
The Nutcracker: Dance of the Reed Flutes (Salsa ver.) [くるみ割り人形より葦笛の踊り　サルサver] - Tchaikovsky
Für Elise [エリーゼのために] - Beethoven
Siciliano (Big Band ver.) [シチリアーノ　ビッグバンドver] - Gabriel Urbain Faure
Etude in E Major - Op. 10, No. 3 (Bossnova ver.) [別れの曲　ボサノバver] - Frederic Chopin
Dreams of Love, No. 3 (Samba ver.) [愛の夢　第3番　サンバver] - Franz Liszt
Humoresque (Folk ver.) [ユーモレスク　フォークver] - Dvorak
The Blue Danube (R&B ver.) [美しく青きドナウ　R&Bver] - Johann Strauss II
Grand March (Pop ver.) [凱旋行進曲　ポップスver] - Giuseppe Verdi
Funiculì, Funiculà (Rock ver.) [フニクリ・フニクラ　ロックver] - Luigi Denza
Aura Lee (Orgel ver.) [オーラ・リー　オルゴールver] - George R. Poulton
Spring Ocean [春の海] - Michio Miyagi
Moldau (Jazz ver.) [モルダウ　ジャズver] - Bedrich Smetana
Bach Minuet [メヌエット(バッハ)] - Johann Sebastian Bach
The Trout (Famicom ver.) [ます　ファミコンver] - Franz Schubert
Nocturne No. 2 (Ballad ver.) [夜想曲 第2番　バラードver] - Frederic Chopin
Air on the G String (Pop ver.) [G線上のアリア　ポップスver] - Johann Sebastian Bach
Piano Sonata No. 11, Turkish March (Tango ver.) [トルコ行進曲(モーツァルト)　タンゴver] - Mozart
Minuet from Suite 2 of L’Arlesienne (Eurobeat ver.) [アルルの女　ユーロビートver]- Georges Bizet
Pathetique Sonata, 2nd Piece (Reggae ver.) [悲愴　第2楽章　レゲエver] - Beethoven
To a Wild Rose (Bossanova ver.) [野ばらに寄す　ボサノバver] - Edward MacDowell

Now I know what you're thinking, "WTSF Cao Cao, only 31 songs!? Many of them classical music remixes!? I thought you said they improved this game!?" Well this segways perfectly into the first major new feature of this sequel.

Downloadable Songs
Yes, downloadable songs will be available from the day of the game's launch (6/26/2008). In fact, Nintendo has promised that over 200 songs will be available over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, with more on the way. You can see a comprehensive list at that "Current Song List" link listed at the top of this topic. The songs revealed so far span a wide variety of genres, with many coming from J-Pop (With some songs also featured in the Ouendan/EBA series), some from anime music (Cha la head cha la from DBZ, Ai wo Torimodoze from Hokuto no Ken, Lupin III theme, three opening themes from Gundam Seed Destiny, Get Wild from City Hunter etc.), "Variety" music (Jounetsu Tairiku, Eccentric Shounen Boy Theme, etc.), and even some songs from outside of Japan (Highway Star, Ghostbusters theme, The Final Countdown, Enter the Dragon theme, etc.)!

HOWEVER, THERE IS A CATCH... You only get 100 download slots on your cartridge, and due to copyright issues, once you download a song, you can never delete it. Even if you cleared the save data, each cart has an unique ID embedded into it, so Nintendo would likely still know how many songs your cart has downloaded. You will be allowed to listen to the song online, along with viewing the lyrics and instruments used, before you commit to downloading it. So choose carefully.
(Instructional video)

Composer mode
While you had to work through some difficult tasks the first game to unlock the song creation mode, it seems that Nintendo finally wised up with this game. Now it looks like this mode will be available from the outset of the game. As the title implies, this is the mode where you can create your own music scores that can be played in the core game. Of course, they made some GUI improvements, which can be used better reflect the instruments you're creating the song with. Thus you can use the touchscreen piano keys for a piano w/metronome segment to channel Uncle Jessie from Full House, or a touchscreen guitar for some guitar segments (More on that later).

Plus, you can even upload your compositions to Nintendo's servers, where others can download it! Unfortunately, due to copyright issues, only songs that are protected by JASRAC (Japanese Copyright protection organization) or are Public Domain will be accepted into Nintendo's servers. Nintendo will not accept the submissions of original songs or songs that are not protected by JASRAC. Nintendo enforces this by requiring users to enter the unique JASRAC code for the song, which can be obtained from JASRAC's J-WID song database.
(Piano GUI video, Normal GUI video)

Guitar mode
Now with a few guitar instruments, you have the option of forgoing the normal button-centric rhythm gameplay in exchange for a different gameplay style centered on strumming the strings on the touchscreen while pressing/holding the appropriate d-pad button. It looks sort of like that Jam Sessions game released by Ubisoft some time ago, only it has some interesting quirks like having multiple strings on the touch-screen, allowing you to pluck one or more strings for different sound effects!
(Video)

Karaoke mode
With the Karaoke mode, you can now use the DS's microphone to sing the lyrics to the song yourself as the words appear on the screen, just like an actual karaoke machine! It seems to be pretty simple stuff, as it just measures your voice's pitch and how well you keep to the rhythm. In one mode, this info is used to measure your "voice type," which is how compatible you are with the song you just sang, along with determining which music type/genre your voice is best suited for (Idol, Pop, R&B, Ballad, etc.).
(Video)

Reworked Difficulty Levels
Many people who played through the first game realized that there is a big jump in difficulty when increasing the difficulty levels. Thus, Nintendo has reworked the difficulty settings, and they now play like:
1. Beginner - A general one-button (A) mode, also a little lenient on the timing.
2. Amateur - Uses four-buttons (Left, Y, B, A, or the opposite if you're a lefty) .
3. Pro - The eight-button Amateur mode from the first game. All d-pad and face buttons are used.
4. Master - The ten-button Pro mode from the first game. The L/R triggers are added to the mix.
(Videos - Top DS video is the levels for the regular game, bottom DS video shows the levels for guitar mode)

Multiplayer
The famous multiplayer mode from the first game returns in full force! 8-players, any song, any instruments (Or use the karaoke mode); only one cartridge is required! It's even compatible with the next feature...

Wii Connectivity - Speaker Channel (Likely not for importers; Japanese Wiis only)
Daigasso! Band Brothers DX will have its own Wii channel that allows you and any other players to play songs through your TV speakers! In every copy of Daigasso! Band Brothers DX, Nintendo has included a piece of paper with a unique code that is entered in the Wii Shop channel. When entered, this code allows you to download the Speaker Channel. When activated, you and your friends still play the game like normal on your individual DSes, but the sound will output through your TV speakers, the karaoke lyrics will be displayed on your TV screen, and your individual scores, along with the average score, will be displayed on the TV screen after the song is over!

However, since it requires the Wii Shop channel, it is very likely that this code will not work on US Wiis, making this method of install only available to those with access to the Japanese Wii Shop channel.
(Video)

Misc. Improvements
It looks like some annoyances from the first game have been eliminated, namely the annoying forced touch-screen usage. First, the menus can be navigated entirely with the d-pad and face buttons, as shown in some of the gameplay videos, and they removed those annoying touch segments from the first game.
(The touch segments in the first game popped up every once in a while, and had you tap the touch screen once instead of pressing buttons when a difficult part of the song came up. It was annoying to interrupt your button-pressing pace and quickly tap the screen)

Nice! I'm a huge fan of the original and I'll definitely be picking this up.

excited!

Just started playing this again, excitement!

Oh crap, more musak! Going to have to import this. I never even got around to using the composer in the current one.

The DS will have DLC and yet, the Wii doesn't. HOW DUMB.

I still need to buy the first one. :/

[quote name='lilboo']The DS will have DLC and yet, the Wii doesn't. HOW DUMB.[/QUOTE]

That's because you can directly write/save data to cartridges, which is what the DS uses.

A similar (and similarly flawed) argument would be "the Wii can have firmware updates, but the DS can't."

That doesn't mean I wouldn't like DLC in obvious applications on the Wii where it would make sense (music games, potentially new Brawl characters, etc).

i'm on this like white on rice

[quote name='Strell']That's because you can directly write/save data to cartridges, which is what the DS uses.[/QUOTE]

I don't get that argument. The Wii has SD card support which would be fine for downloadable content, would it not?

[quote name='crunchewy']I don't get that argument. The Wii has SD card support which would be fine for downloadable content, would it not?[/QUOTE]

You're missing the point.

Can you write directly to SD cards? Yes. But is it being utilized by many games? No. Nintendo is adamant about not using the SD card slot except for very specialized situations, and absolutely refuses to acknowledge it as a viable use for data access. Third parties aren't willing to do it either.

It would be fine for DLC, but apparently no one is smart enough to realize this.

Meanwhile, with cartridges that allow for read/write capability from the get-go, Nintendo is much more likely to support it. This is most likely because if you were to download a song to this new Band Brothers game, you've already bought it, meaning Nintendo has created a situation where they control all the angles from start to finish. They can be almost entirely sure that anyone downloading the content is doing so only because they have the game itself to save it to.

This also eliminates the "have vs have not" headache, which basically means that if DLC is support by something but it requires additional technology, then it's dividing the market, which gives less incentive for a company to cater to a smaller fraction of the entire whole.

So it's not that the SD card slot couldn't do it. It's that Nintendo and everyone else is too lazy to assume it could be used. Part of me wonders if it honestly isn't technologically viable to use it, but I doubt it (since homebrew guys can do it in their spare time).

Meanwhile, on the DS, these "problems" don't exist, and Nintendo is basically 100% in control. So it makes "more" sense to them to do it on the DS.

Scans off the port side, Cap'n!
http://gonintendo.com/?p=39893

do want....

I'm really tempted to buy the first one now. How exactly does the gameplay work?

You have to hit buttons as you scroll across them. It can vary from a beat as simple as holding B for a few seconds, then holding A for a few seconds to as complicated (well, on 3/5 star difficult on Pro) as alternating rapidly from L+B to R+A to L+Up over a fraction of a second.

Each song has 8 different instrument tracks for each game level. Of those 8, they vary from 1 to 5 star difficulty.

[media]http://youtube.com/watch?v=1JfARBwIzjY[/media]

Guy isn't playing this, unfortunately, but you can see how the button presses come up.

That looks hard as !

But if I read your post right there's a lot of charts. If there's 30 songs and 8 instrument tracks each, that's 240 charts per difficulty.

Looks very fun, but I'm sort of iffy dropping $50 on it when this new one is coming out. I wish the first one was a bit cheaper, since it looks awesome, but I'm picking up Taiko DS 2 for $50 at the end of this month and I just can't drop another $50 on this.

Argh!

Edit: I'm also curious as to how the DLC will work with this game, as far as paying for it for importers.

[quote name='Rocko']That looks hard as !

But if I read your post right there's a lot of charts. If there's 30 songs and 8 instrument tracks each, that's 240 charts per difficulty.

Looks very fun, but I'm sort of iffy dropping $50 on it when this new one is coming out. I wish the first one was a bit cheaper, since it looks awesome, but I'm picking up Taiko DS 2 for $50 at the end of this month and I just can't drop another $50 on this.

Argh!

Edit: I'm also curious as to how the DLC will work with this game, as far as paying for it for importers.[/quote]I honestly can't imagine it will be pay DLC. There's no payment system through the DS, and everything (well, you know, Layton) is free.

And yeah, there's a ton of charts. 35 songs x 8 tracks for the first game. Not sure how many are in the expansion (GBA cart), I haven't even gotten to that yet. And I'm also not sure if there will be another difficulty beyond Pro in this one (and the new one).

And RE: the difficulty, don't worry... I'm guessing that track is a 5-star for a fast song on a higher difficulty. Many of the songs on the initial difficulty (particularly 1-star) are really, really easy.

Oh, really? I just figured it'd have to be purchased online somehow through a website.

But if it's probably going to be free I should really hold out for the sequel since that's 100 more songs of goodness.

I'll keep my eye out for the first during sales. I actually wanted it during their Easter sale but it was OOS. :[

Thanks for the help, botticus. :]

There's also three difficulty modes, with the L+B, R+A etc, one where the Ls and Rs are stripped out, and then one really easy mode with basically only two commands: D-pad and [any button].

The real greatness of the game is the multiplayer, and the fact that when you screw up, your instruments actually play the wrong notes and/or rhythm and sound awful.

This would be nice... if they could get some "real" music. I tried a bit of the first one, but it just didn't click. I'm not into the JMusic as much. And pressing buttons to the beat just feels like playing something like Stepmania on the computer keyboard. I know people hail the part of the game where you can create your own music, but I sure as hell didn't want to play through the whole library of crappy JMusic just to get there.

I remembered most of it being Nintendo music, like Fire Emblem, Zelda, F-Zero, etc. Maybe that's just what I played all the time.

http://blog.yam.com/bandbro/article/14648075
On an interesting note, I found the above Chinese Daigasso! Band Brothers fan website that copied the list of songs that were revealed in the Famitsu scan. The list of classical songs is in full view, but the list of J-Pop songs were hidden by the scan's glare. I added who I think the artist is (Though as compiling Ouendan 2's preliminary song list taught me, some artists have songs that share a similar or the same name), along with a Youtube video link. I only did this for the five J-Pop songs, as there are too many classical songs for me to put in the time to search for individually.

J-Pop - 5 songs
未来予想図２ - Mirai Yousozu II - Dreams Come True
粉雪 - Koyuki (Snow Powder) - Remioromen
ロビンソン - Robinson - SPITZ
世界に一つだけの花 - Sekai ni hitatsu dake no hana (The only flower in the world) - smap
涙そうそう - Nada Sousou - Rimi Natsukawa

クラシック(古典) (Classical) - 26 songs

EDIT: Doubly interesting is this store page that was linked to from that Chinese web site:
http://www.neowing.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=NTR-P-AXBJ

I ran it through a Google Translate and this came up:

Thus from what I can glean from this translation, assuming that this store site is telling the truth:
- Can download songs from a Japanese DS Download Station or from Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection
- Can upload your own songs to Nintendo WFC
- Downloaded songs cannot be edited
- 200 songs will be available for download; you can hold up to 100 songs on your cart.
- Wii connectivity! You can upload songs to your Wii and listen to them through your television speakers.

Oh, hooray!

The original is my favorite DS game. There's no question I'll be buying this. I'm also glad to see more classical tracks, as I thought the game is well suited for them and they were underrepresented in the original.

[quote name='botticus']
And yeah, there's a ton of charts. 35 songs x 8 tracks for the first game. Not sure how many are in the expansion (GBA cart), I haven't even gotten to that yet. [/quote]

There's not quite 35 x 8 tracks, as some of the songs don't use all 8. However, there are a ton of tracks and the tracks on Amateur and Pro are different.

The expansion cart has 31 songs, about 2/3 J-Pop and 1/3 video games.

And RE: the difficulty, don't worry... I'm guessing that track is a 5-star for a fast song on a higher difficulty. Many of the songs on the initial difficulty (particularly 1-star) are really, really easy.

Click to expand...

The difficulty curve on this game is terrific. You also get better with it as you play. The difficulty ramps up nicely, and the next step up seems like it will be too hard, but you grow with it.

God damn this sounds fantastic. I'll definitely have to preorder sometime.

So the DLC is free? (I know it's a stupid question, but still)
That's pretty awesome. Especially since there's 200 songs to be DL'd.

Do you think you can hold 100 additional DLC songs on your cart, or 100 total (So 100 minus however many stock songs there are available for DLc at any time)?

Either way, it's really awesome and I've got this on my watch list for Playasia. I have two months, so I might be able to get the first one between now and the release date of this game, maybe even the expansion cart too. I definitely want to pick up all three eventually.

Sigh. Damn you all. Just bought the first one.

I went back to play Ouendan yesterday and realized that Ouendan 1 just isn't quite as fun after playing Ouendan 2, and figured I should keep that from happening with this game.

[quote name='Rocko']Sigh. Damn you all. Just bought the first one.

I went back to play Ouendan yesterday and realized that Ouendan 1 just isn't quite as fun after playing Ouendan 2, and figured I should keep that from happening with this game.[/quote]

That's probably a good idea. The sticker price hurts, but it's an amazing piece of software and a real shame it never left Japan.

I would hold off on the expansion cart for now, maybe even until after the sequel is released. The drawback to the expansion cart is that it doesn't save scores. That doesn't sound like much, but it impacts the usability and enjoyment in a big way and will make sense to you once you get the game.

Oh, I totally understand the drawback of not saving scores. That's a shame. I don't really think I'll be able to afford it between now and Daigasso 2's release if I plan on buying Daigasso 2 anyway.

Thanks for the heads up.

I looked through the NeoGAF topic again and found this post that shows the scans of the game's advertising pamphlet sent to merchants. It pretty much confirms all the information on the Neowing store. While I'm not 100% sure due to the quality of the scan, it also looks like they're adding another difficulty level between Amateur and Beginner.

Sorry for the double post, I just realized that I was wrong about the position of the fourth difficulty level. The chart in the ad pamphlet screenshot goes like this:
- Beginner (2-Button)
- Ama(teur) (8-Button)
- Pro (10-button)
- Master

This begs the question: How could they make the game more difficult than Pro Mode?

[quote name='Cao Cao']
This begs the question: How could they make the game more difficult than Pro Mode?[/QUOTE]

Bees.

Lots and lots of bees.

Pro Mode is crazy, so I don't know that I want to find out. I have a feeling 4-star difficulty there is going to be the end of me, as I was dropping into barely passing on 3-star.

I have a quick question about the first game, but didn't want to bump a super-old topic or make a new one.

Are you scores saved at all? I go into single play, choose a song, then choose what I assume are instrument, but when I'm done it shows no evidence of me ever completing that track.

Sort of discouraging.

[quote name='Rocko']I have a quick question about the first game, but didn't want to bump a super-old topic or make a new one.

Are you scores saved at all? I go into single play, choose a song, then choose what I assume are instrument, but when I'm done it shows no evidence of me ever completing that track.

Sort of discouraging.[/quote]

Assuming you're not in Beginner mode (which I don't really remember), it should save your score.

Make sure that you're playing the game (as opposed to practicing the track). If you're playing the game, at the end of the track, there will be a drumroll and you'll get your score, which will be saved.

Once you've selected the track, you'll have three buttons. The red one on the left is for practice. The red one on the right is for playing the game. The green one underneath it is a cancel button.

Also, while you're here, here are the pause menu options:
1. Continue (a.k.a. unpause)
2. Restart (from the beginning of the track)
3. Score Select ( return to the score select screen )
4. Main Menu

When you finish the song, you get the same menu minus the first option.
Usually, I choose Score Select (the middle one). If you choose Restart
(the first one), you not only have to do the track again, but I don't think
it gives you your best score, only the latest one. I might not be remembering
that correctly, but it never hurts to go to Score Select and you can verify
your score that way.

...I still can't see old scores. Where does it display past scores? I beat the first studio thing (three songs in a row) and got some higher difficulty tracks, and I did the first option on the first song, completed it, went to score select, and I see nothing that indicates I've ever played the song before.

Went to GameFAQs and saw that the new Famitsu has an article for this game. It confirms a lot of things from the ad pamphlet, but they have revealed even more downloadable songs. The scan is kind of blurry, so I could only make out the list of anime songs and a few of the J-Pop songs that I recognized from Ouendan.

Anime Themes:
Cutey Honey
ラムのラブソング (Lum's Love Song) - Urusei Yatsura
Tobe! Gundam (Fly! Gundam) - Mobile Suit Gundam
Get Wild! - City Hunter
Doraemon no Uta - Doraemon
愛をとりもどせ!! (Ai wo Torimodoze) - Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star)
Lupin III Theme
Galaxy Express 999
CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA - DragonBall Z

Other Songs I noticed:
One Night Carnival - Kishidan
Kibun Joujou - mihimaru GT

A bit of unfortunate news on NeoGAF regarding the Wii connectivity. Apparently, the channel for the game is obtained from the Wii Shop channel, which effectively shuts out importers, unless there's a way to unlock it in the shop using the game.

[quote name='Jonnyram']Band Brothers DX:
When it launches, you'll be able to download a "Speaker Channel" on your Wii, from the Shopping Channel (no mention of price, should be free I guess, but you never know) which will allow your Band Brothers music to come through the TV. You can also upload your original compositions to a server for others to download. Lots of Wi-Fi Connection support, apparently.
[/quote]

A few pieces of news:
1. First, a correction. They're apparently playing "musical chairs" with the difficulty level. As you know, there will be a new difficulty level. However, the "Master" difficulty is not it. Instead, Master is the new name for the first game's Pro (10-Button) level. As such, Amateur (8-button) is now Pro, and Beginner (2-button) is now Amateur. Thus, the new difficulty level will be referred to as "Beginner," and is likely just a one-button mode.
EDIT: It turns out that they have dropped the concept of the first game's Beginner mode (2 buttons, general d-pad or face buttons used). The top video on this page of the official website shows the new amateur mode. The exact details about it are unknown, but the video shows three exact buttons being used (D-Pad Left, Y, B).

2. Some bad news. Apparently, when you download a Nintendo-created song from WFC, you will be unable to delete it. 200 songs available, and you will only have 100 slots, so choose wisely.

3. A Daigasso! Band Brothers DX web site is up! Check it out, they recently updated the downloadable song list:
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/axbj/index.html
Download song list

4. A trailer has been made! It shows off some of the improvements and new features, like the new instruments, the Karaoke Mode (Voice training), the Guitar Mode (Similar to Jam Sessions, it looks like), and the Wii Channel (Which importers won't be able to use due to it being a Wii Shop download).
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntC_DqHcrN8[/media]

-------------------

Phew! As you can see from the web site and the trailer, a whole bunch of songs have been added to the download song list. I'm not going to name them all, but I can see a bunch of anime songs that I recognize, a few songs that were in the Ouendan games, along with a shocker, quite a few English songs.

Global songs (Copied from the web site):
Ghostbusters
Ali Bombaye（炎のファイター）
LAST CHRISTMAS
Daydream Believer
stand by me
SATURDAY NIGHT
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
Gonna Fly Now (Theme From Rocky)
The Loco-Motion
Highway Star
Y.M.C.A.
When You Wish Upon A Star
ABC

Other new songs I noticed, mostly from anime or featured in the Ouendan games:
そばかす (Freckles) - Rurouni Kenshin OP
ムーンライト伝説 (Moonlight Destiny) - Sailor Moon OP
ペガサス幻想 (Pegasus Fantasy) - Saint Seiya OP
ignited - Gundam Seed Destiny 1st OP
Wings of Words - Gundam Seed Destiny 4th OP
となりのトトロ - My Neighbor Totoro OP
世界はそれを愛と呼ぶんだぜ (Sekai wa Sore wo Ai to Yobundaze) - Ouendan 2
贈る言葉 (Okuru Kotoba) - Ouendan 2
メロディー (Melody) - Ouendan
大切なもの (Taisetsu na Mono) - Ouendan
ガッツだぜ！！ (Guts Da Ze) - Ouendan

EDIT: Removed Break Out! from the list. I'm not sure if it's the Super Robot Wars OG theme, or the Aikawa Nanase J-Pop song.

How about some damn Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts instead of these other jerks!

Gundam Seed? Mo' like...Gundumb Seed, ya feel me?

I'm glad these are the downloadable songs.

While I love the music in Ouendan/Ouendan 2, I don't think those songs work very well in Daigasso. The two from Ouendan that were in the original Daigasso were my least favorite tracks.

I can't believe you can't delete the songs once they're in there. That's ridiculous.

1. For those who haven't noticed, I have added a link to kungdavid's topics on the gameswelike and loading.se boards. He has compiled the complete downloadable song list revealed thus far, and has even added links to the songs' respective Youtube videos (Though some videos have been taken down). I highly suggest checking it out.

2. Nintendo has put up a bunch of gameplay video ads on their touch-ds website. Some of them are pretty interesting, of note is the instructional video for the DLC, a video of two girls downloading and playing Kibun Joujou, a middle-aged guy playing through the guitar mode, three people playing the game through the Wii channel, and creating the Super Mario Bros. Overworld theme in Composer mode.

3. Also on the touch-ds website is an Iwata interview with some of the developers, it's interesting stuff, and it has been translated by warbird of the DS-scene forums (Link to post).

[quote name='blandstalker']I'm glad these are the downloadable songs.

While I love the music in Ouendan/Ouendan 2, I don't think those songs work very well in Daigasso. The two from Ouendan that were in the original Daigasso were my least favorite tracks.

I can't believe you can't delete the songs once they're in there. That's ridiculous.[/QUOTE]

Thank JASRAC for that idiotic rule. What's JASRAC, you ask? Some time ago, kungdavid asked the prolific DBB song creator FalseMaximus, (Youtube) who explained:
[quote name='kungdavid']I contacted False Maximus and quickly received a nice reply!

He/she is working on english translation for a list of songs on his/her site! I've only tried some of them yet, but there are some really good ones. "Linda Linda" (search for The Blue Hearts) and "You're My inspiration" are obvious goodies. I also recommend "Pepper Keibu" by 70s J-Pop duo Pink Lady: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoyPugzz9zE

Unfortunately, False Maximus didn't have any Nintendo Dream magazines or knew someone who could have them.

I also got the deal about JASRAC well explained by False Maximus, thank you!:

*JASRAC manages the rights to a lot of the music compositions made in Japan.
*If you want to put any of this music available on a homepage, you must pay money to JASRAC (For 1 song/1 year, more than 1000 yen). This applies also to arrangements of songs, MIDIs, sheet music, and ringtones of songs with rights managed by JASRAC. Because of this, a lot of Japan's MIDI homepages have been closed down.

*But there are sites that acts as proxies, like the abovementioned "Player's Oukoku" where you can put songs for free, even those with rights controlled by JASRAC. Because the songs on Player's Oukoku are "listen-only", the fees to JASRAC (which I assume then is paid by Player's Oukoku) are small.

*There are a lot of videogame music which are not controlled by JASRAC, but there are of course exceptions. And there are also songs that the game companies have forbidden to make remixes of. Maybe this is the reason to some songs being hard to publish in the "Banbura Yarouze" section.

So there are reasons for Band Brothers remixers to put MP3:s of their songs on the free site Player's Oukoku. Maybe JASRAC will request the fee even for BBS files in the future if they find them (for the same reasons as MIDI:s)

So, the japanese homepages with BBS files are kind of underground. I suppose the US one is too Smile

Japanese music companies are really quite serious with rights-protection. Some japanese music videos I found on youtube for example, disappeared within a week.


Good luck with the Pro-editing, Bruce! Smile
Oh, and NDSArt ... it was a great site.... really great! Sad it's gone.[/quote]
Basically, JASRAC is a IP rights protection organization for music and videos. Think RIAA, only more bureaucratic and with more douchebaggery involved (Going after Japanese MIDI download sites). Speaking of JASRAC, they are also involved in the submission process for user-created songs (You folks'll just love this). I'll detail this process in a later post.

:Yawn: One Day left!
Just finished re-vamping the OP, since much like my Ouendan 2 topic a while back, I wanted better organization to showcase the game's new features, since it's so close to the release date.

Also of note, the demo for this game was recently released in DS stations in Japan. Kungdavid of the loading.se forum and billyclark of GameFAQs each posted their initial impressions of the demo, which features demos of all three of the rhythm game modes (Normal, Guitar, Karaoke).

I ordered Daigasso! Band Brothers DX and a pack of Lion Cola Candy from play- asia. I used the $10 off coupon and it has shipped.

I'm really disappointed that you can't delete any songs you download- that's really lame.

Still looks fun, though.

One way around this problem, although it isn't ideal, is to corrupt the flash memory, which would then result in a new save file being created, within which you could then download the other 100 songs. At least I think that would work. Of course you'd lose all your stats and unlocks (if it has those), but there you go. I imagine that an effective way to corrupt the save would be power off while it it in the middle of saving. I.e. when it says not to power off! It's worth a shot, anyway.

EDIT: downloads might be separate from saves, so this might not work. Try downloading a few songs, corrupt the save as above, and see if the songs are now gone.

Looks like it's out in Japan, as evidenced by this classic 2ch picture:
http://up2.viploader.net/pic/src/viploader679990.jpg

Looks like the game's out now!

About the submission process for songs made in the composition mode...
Nintendo has put the important information on three pages of the official web site:
Q&A page
Legalese description of the process
J-WID Info page

First off, Nintendo clearly states two rules: No songs with profanity in the title, and No original songs. All songs submitted will only be accepted if they are protected by JASRAC.

How do they, or we for that matter, know if a song is protected? The answer lies in JASRAC's online database, or the J-WID web site. More specifically, it is the unique alpha-numeric code that is assigned to every song in the database. You enter the code when submitting the song, Nintendo matches this code with the info in the database and sees if the song can be submitted to their servers.

1. The J-WID database begins with a search page (After accepting some terms page). The three main searching areas are JASRAC Code, Title, and Artist (There's also Rights Holder, but artist may be easier to remember. The search engine isn't that bad; you can search for words in romaji, hiragana/katakana, or kanji.

Anyway, lets try an example: Say I want to search for the song used in Gintama's fifth ending, "Shura" by DOES. I forgot the Kanji at the moment, so I start off by entering Shura into the Title field (作品タイトル). Unfortunately, there are too many songs with Shura in the title, thus I enter DOES into the Artist field (アーティスト名) to narrow the results to one. I click on the hyperlink below the タイトル column header, which opens up a page that details various aspects of the song with JASRAC, like whether it is protected by JASRAC or not, who owns the rights, what the JASRAC code (作品コード) is, and which media types can reproduce the song.

2. Now that I'm at the detail page, I can get two key pieces of information: The JASRAC code and whether or not it can be submitted to Nintendo. The JASRAC code is at the top of the detail page (In the case of Shura, it's 140-1075-5), but the other piece requires a bit more detail. As I stated before, a song must either be protected by JASRAC or in the public domain.

Nintendo has the criteria for what represents an acceptable song on their J-WID Info page. As you can see, Nintendo wants us to concentrate on one specific column when determining whether a song can be submitted, the 配信 column (Distribution column). In the first row, there must be a (JASRAC Protected) symbol, and the lower rows in the 配信 column must be blank. If it's a public domain song, the top row icon will be a icon (Protection Terminated), and the lower rows will have icons (Public Domain).

For Shura, it meets the "JASRAC Protected" criteria, therefore, it can be created by players and submitted to Nintendo's servers. The same applies to other Japanese songs, like Yoko Kanno's (菅野　よう子) TANK! (057-7767-4) or RISE (113-7120-0).

Of course, the JASRAC protected criteria only applies towards Japanese songs. Nintendo states that foreign songs can only meet the Public Domain criteria. At the moment, the only one I can find as an example is Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" (0E0-4146-5)

NOTE About Searching: As stated before, the JASRAC database stores song titles as Kanji, Hiragana/Katakana, and Romaji. Therefore, if I'm looking for BGM from the Super Robot Wars OG: Divine Wars TV series, inputting "Super Robot Wars" in the title field will turn up very little results. Far more results can be obtained by entering the romaji "Suupaa Robotto Taisen" into the title field. Just something to keep in mind when entering song titles.

3. With the JASRAC code and an acceptable song in hand, you now have what you need to submit the song, as the JASRAC code field is the only required field for submission. The other two fields, song title and artist, are optional.

For more information I highly suggest checking out billyclark's topic over at GameFAQs. billyclark explains the system rather nicely, and Kimbles45 made a nice translation picture of the J-WID search page.

I guess in honor of the game's release, Nintendo added a new page to the game's website, the "Weekly Download Rankings" (Or most downloaded songs). What is most interesting about this list is that there are already songs on there that are not from Nintendo, that is, user-created songs. At the top 100 positions on this list are:
Ranking - Song Title - Submitter
1 - ざんこくなてんしのテーゼ (Cruel Angel's Thesis) - ゲーマガ♪ウメ
8 - ハレはレユカイ (Hare Hare Yukai) - サクラザキ
42 - にじ (Rurouni Kenshin Movie OP) - しょうた
97 - なみのりジョニー - ゲーマガ♪ウメ

EDIT: There's also a Japanese DBBDX wiki site that shows the user-created songs submitted, along with their statistics. Two more songs
心絵 (Major OP) - なおすけ
虹 - しょうた
アナタボシ (Kirarin Revolution Stage 3 OP) - すごろー