Rhythm Games for PC

[gwathdring]

Sorry to double-post, but I wanted to express something:

The more I play other rhythm games the more I realize what I like so much about Bit.Trip, Sequence and Rock Band.

Not only do they sync to the music well, but I was always able to pick out what I'm supposed to be listening for. In Rock Band it's partially because you only play one instrument at a time. But there's more to it then that. In the best Rock Band songs and in the entirety of Sequence and Bit.Trip.Beat I felt like the mapping of music to mechanics was done with a great deal of intelligence. In a lot of otherwise fine rhythm games, I find that the choice of which notes to make mechanically enforced and which notes to add with higher difficulties ends up feeling off to the point that sometimes groking the song can hinder as much as help.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing--the game can still be an interesting challenge when this happens. I have to puzzle out what line these notes are. What rhythm IS that? What subdivision is that supposed to be? What instrument do I follow here? Have we switched to drum lines? Ah, yes we have ... but somehow the three games I mentioned above get rid of most of the guess work. In the case of Sequence and Bit.Trip, it's all about flow because the rest feels so natural.

To use a specific game: fairly frequently in Osu! I'll feel punished not only for being awful at the game (I'm really awful at it) but also for reading the music differently than the beatmap does and expecting different things--and some of the time I think the beatmap is not just different but at fault. That's an experience I never have with Bit.Trip or Sequence and both games seem to achieve this in different ways. In Rock Band it was far less common--probably because it's a high enough budget game that there was a lot of editing of the songs and even of the automated tools. The difficulty scaling felt really weird and awful in older Rock Band World Tour (the only other one I've palyed) but really solid in Rock Band III.

Just what I'm thinking as I go through a bunch of these.

[pakoito]

Huh. Good to know. I don't mind as much, now that I understand it (thanks), but I'm not sure I like it. There's always no fail mode if I'm not good enough or I just don't like the system (most likely the former). :)

To use a specific game: fairly frequently in Osu! I'll feel punished not only for being awful at the game (I'm really awful at it) but also for reading the music differently than the beatmap does and expecting different things--and some of the time I think the beatmap is not just different but at fault.

If you can try the DS games, they're a bit better designed than community-driven OSU!, latest levels are difficult but never unfair. Except Ready, Steady, Go!! fuck that song. It was the final level of the first game so there was no balance and they blew it off the roof.

[gwathdring]

If you can try the DS games, they're a bit better designed than community-driven OSU!, latest levels are difficult but never unfair. Except Ready, Steady, Go!! fuck that song. It was the final level of the first game so there was no balance and they blew it off the roof.

Sadly I don't have a DS. As for the level, damn that looked pretty nasty. But it's not worse than some of the Hard (or even a few Normal) difficulty maps I've encountered so far in Osu!, even ignoring the added difficulty of using a mouse.

Maybe I can bum a DS off a friend. I'll see if anyone has a copy. :)

[pakoito]

The OSU maps have overlapping circle patterns Nintendo actively avoided, and also artificially increased difficulty due to your own fat fingers are covering new circlestrings because the creator didn't take into account finger position while playing.