Vanquish The Ghost

Vanquish The Ghost

Song Information

Vanquish The Ghost's jacket.

Artist: BEMANI Sound Team "TAG"
Composition/Arrangement: Konami Amusement (TAG)
BPM: 78-155
Length: 1:42
First Music Game Appearance: DanceDanceRevolution A
Other Music Game Appearances: None.

Lyrics

None.

Song Connections / Remixes

None.

Trivia

• Vanquish The Ghost is DanceDanceRevolution A's EXTRA EXCLUSIVE LEVEL 14 song. It was added on August 16th, 2018, and can only be played on EXTRA STAGE LEVEL 2.
  • As of DanceDanceRevolution A20, it is available by default.
  • It is the final EXTRA EXCLUSIVE song added to DanceDanceRevolution A.
• Vanquish The Ghost reuses BOOM WHITE, HAPPY☆LUCKY☆YEAPPY's background dance stage.
• Vanquish The Ghost's difficulty changes from DanceDanceRevolution A20 were applied to DanceDanceRevolution A on March 27th, 2019.
• Despite having a displayed BPM of 78-155, Vanquish The Ghost actually hits 310 BPM as its highest, during the stops.
• Song comments for Vanquish The Ghost were posted on TAG's blog.
  • According to TAG, Vanquish The Ghost is named after Vanquish Jr. (バンキッシュJr.) and Big Bang Ghost (ビッグ・バン・ゴースト), which are two models of Mini 4WD cars.

Song Production Information

TAG

The theme is "EDM".
The sound concept of DanceDanceRevolution A, which contains this song, if I'm not mistaken, was EDM, so it follows that.
DDR A was my personal favorite title, and I really enjoyed the variety of EDMs included, with each composer's unique interpretation of it.

Well, I decided to put a song in it, but I had never done an EDM song before, so I started by doing some research. I listened to a wide range of music, from the world-famous ones to the so-called "gamenized" ones in IIDX and DDR, and then I realized something.

EDM is the same thing repeated over and over again...!

It's rather obvious considering what EDM is used for in the first place, but it was originally intended for dancing at clubs and festivals. So the rhythm is constant, the same phrases are repeated, and it's rather easy to imagine what the next progression will be. If an unexpected progression suddenly happens, the dancer will become confused. I was careful to prevent this from happening.

However, this was difficult for me. It may be something like an occupational disease, but if there's no continuous development, this disease will kill you. It may be called variation-phobia. Music game songs are required to develop differently every 8 measures (or at least, I personally think so). So I can't stand the same progression going from beginning to end.

I wondered what to do, but the answers are always cut open by my predecessors.
The EDM that circulates the world seems to be the same thing repeating over and over again, but the tones and rhythm are subtly changed to keep people from getting bored. If you listen carefully, you will never hear the exact same progression twice. I think this is already a craftsman's skill.
I still don't have this level of technique, so I made up for it with music game-like gimmick elements.

This song is EDM that was composed in my own way. I tried to repeat the same chord progression and melody as much as possible, and yet I was conscious of making it work in the game.

In the middle, I almost put a completely different melody in the chorus because I couldn't stand the exact same progression, but I decided to let it as it was since it wouldn't be EDM anymore. It was cool to compose, but I couldn't get into it at all because the melody completely ignored the flow of the song up until then.

If you think about it, POSSESSION was also a repetition of the same phrases except for the intro. Maybe there's no such thing as an illness that would kill you if there was no development.

The name of the song came from the Mini 4WDs that I was crazy about at the time. There was a third Mini 4WD boom in the world, and I was attending the Japan Cup, and it was named after both "Vanquish Jr." and "Big Bang Ghost", which are considered famous cars among many other machines.

Difficulty & Notecounts

DanceDanceRevolution difficulty rated from 1 to 20 from X onwards. (Ratings and notecounts obtained from BEMANIWiki 2nd.)

Game	Single					Double
	Beginner	Basic	Difficult	Expert	Challenge	Basic	Difficult	Expert	Challenge
Notecounts / Freeze Arrows / Shock Arrows	108 / 6	246 / 24	360 / 32	525 / 25	- / - / -	243 / 21	360 / 17	516 / 18	- / - / -
DanceDanceRevolution A (original ratings)	3	8	12	15	-	8	12	15	-
DanceDanceRevolution A→Present	3	8	12	↑16	-	8	12	15	-
DanceDanceRevolution ULTIMATE MOBILE	3	8	12	16	-	-	-	-	-