Talking about a rhythm game once every day of April

As of the time of writing this introduction, today is my birthday. If you see this, you have to send me a birthday wish. It’s a requirement.

Despite the pretty shit start, I’d say it’s been an incredible week so far. I feel incredibly comfortable about my identity, my rhythm game skill has drastically improved seemingly out of nowhere, and [cymancyan] drew my sona (one of them, anyways). Take a look at him.

Life is good.

It’s my birthday and I feel incredible. I’m taking the day slow so far, but it’s just nice to feel this way for once, as well as to actually have an excuse to come back to this blog, as I haven’t in a while except for music reviews that I haven’t done all month. (I’ve got a friend begging me to listen to the new Jane Remover album, so I’m absolutely going to be accelerating that one in my shortlist.) Not much more to say. It’s 10 AM in the morning. The day hasn’t even started for my lazy, unemployed ass. This gives me the opportunity to do something interesting and new.

I had this idea about four months ago when a friend was doing something similar for its birthday by playing through and reviewing RPGMaker games, as it has a reputation that closely ties it with the genre. Especially since my recent, seemingly random, and incredibly potent skill-up in rhythm games in the last week, as well as my already high association in the mashup tourney community with rhythm games as a high level player, I jokingly refer to myself as the “undisputed best rhythm game player in the community” with a “/looking for trouble” tone tag. I’ve been playing rhythm games for twelve years at this point, starting with osu!standard (regrettably) and now focusing my efforts into Quaver and BMS, and I feel like that’s qualification enough to try to wrap my head around as many rhythm games as I possibly can.

Will I make the 30 games mark? No clue. Will I try? Hopefully. I’m already starting late, so this might be a bit hard, but I’ve got the motivation. I’ve got the strength. No one else I know has the credentials I do. I’m gonna make them listen.

Each review will begin as a short paragraphed review of the game with some background context about my experience playing the game, but will end with a brief blurb on a few consistent points for those who want my quick opinions:

• Beginner friendliness
• Enjoyment as a casual player
• Enjoyment in skill progression/grinding
• An overall tl;dr of my feelings about the game Reviews are made with an audience far less experienced than me in mind, but I come from a background of experience; as such, the second and third bullet points especially will look at high level charts in particular and talk about difficulties involving those.

EDIT: I’ve given up on the dates system, because I spent most of the month forgetting to do this. I’m still aiming for 30 rhythm games if I decide I want to catch up on my deficit one day, but I’m just going to label entries by numbers, since they’re not gonna line up with the date.

#5: Project Pentjet#

In all honesty, I only picked this one because I was looking through my screenshot folter and found this one.

[I need to finish this review]

#4: Arcaea#

I have immense beef with how this game monetizes. Perhaps this is me being mad at something I have no right to be mad about as a free-to-play player, but I want to speak my mind on it regardless.

I’m lucky enough to have booted up the game around the 5th anniversary and gotten a free song pack, with which I chose Absolute Reason. The game itself is very interesting and very challenging, which is refreshing; when I first played this, I immensely appreciated the fresh outlook on difficulty in mobile rhythm games coming from Cytus and VOEZ, and even the charts in the 9+ to 10+ range are very challenging; it took me as long as it did to get that play above me, for one.

It’s the little trickle of free content I get that’s the only reason I even play this game at all, though. The game requires an absurd time investment for a bit of content that will never be up to par with what’s being paid for, both in the departments of chart quality and difficulty. Don’t expect to get anything above a 9+ without money or a lot of time, and don’t expect to get anything above a 10 without shilling out some money. I chose the hardest side story with that 5th anniversary ticket, and there’s still two full difficulty numbers I will never have access to without paying. Of course, I shouldn’t be worried about this if I can’t clear the 10+ I have, but at the same time, it’s sad knowing what I’m missing. The two games I’ve reviewed before makes some of their hardest charts available to new players, so it feels unfair that this doesn’t do the same.

What I’m more upset about, admittedly from a distance, is how much shit I’d have to pay for just to get the full experience. There’s a pack you have to pay for that you only can pay for after finishing an entirely different pack. The entire main story costs something upwards of $30 just for the first part and at least $40 for both, plus new packs coming out regularly that you have to pay for to keep up. There are just as many side stories, including a lot of content you have to pass through multiple paywalls to unlock. As I’m aware, there is content that requires you to pay for a limited time pass just to try to grind a limited time world mode. There’s so much monetization and it’s very off-putting.

• Beginner friendliness: There’s a lot of content for newer players and they don’t need to worry about Beyond difficulty, but they will progress through World mode slower. If they’re fine with spending some time grinding and using the default partners, it won’t be that bad.
• Enjoyment as a casual player: So much monetization. A story that is paywalled by itself. I don’t know much about it, but I wouldn’t suggest it, personally.
• Enjoyment as a competitive player: Very grindable with its many score layers and challenging gameplay. Best played on a tablet by far, as sky and arc notes force you to obscure your own vision of the screen.
• Overall feelings: I salute you if you invest in this, but I’m not going to be doing it myself. This game never goes on sale, either, so avoid it if you don’t like what you can get with what you’re willing to spend.

#3: DJMAX RESPECT V#

I’ve reviewed this one before, so I don’t have much to say, but I feel like I need to say something about it.

Too much expensive DLC I’m never going to buy. Too many bots in ranked. You’ll never feel good about your DJ rating without buying packs. Cosmetics are limited outside of the base game notes and gears without buying passes. It’s like a free-to-play rhythm game, except it costs 60 dollars up front. I have so many valid complaints about this game and it’s easy to get upset at it, it really is. I will agree with anyone on any of these points. That’s not why I’m here.

This game is very quaint, aesthetically. It radiates the energy of a time long gone, despite still being updated with new music to fit the style. Many of the music videos in the base game feel crusty and old, like they don’t belong in a game with such high fidelity gear and modern gameplay, and yet they very much do belong objectively. I tend to struggle to get into older gaming content, and while I do like this game’s newer songs more, the Portable 1 and Portable 2 collection in this game has so much charm to it that I can’t help but be enraptured by some of the songs. The free-to-play song roster already has enough fun entries to keep me busy, plus the extra key modes I don’t normally play are very fun. I get a good excuse to take a look at some of the lower difficulty songs just by playing 8B.

I think there’s good reason to hate this game. I do hate this game, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop playing it. It’s just that good at pulling me back in.

• Beginner friendliness: It feels a lot better than a VSRG with standard timing windows, that’s for sure. The side track might throw off new players, especially on controller, but the game is played best on keyboard anyways.
• Enjoyment as a casual player: Incredibly restricted song selection that doesn’t expand on its own and gets boring when you play it all. If you’re a fan of the starter songs, somehow, do not expect anything else in the entire game that you will like ever. If you’re here for DJMAX, you will get it everywhere.
• Enjoyment as a competitive player: Ranked is incredibly challenging due to the accuracy demands of the game, but it’s satisfying to play an intense accuracy battle and still wallop someone who probably isn’t a bot. Max Combo isn’t hard, but All Perfect is.
• Overall feelings: Not worth your money straight up unless you’re Korean, and even then dubious in my eyes. Get in on a super sale with a DLC pack or something. Don’t be like me and just buy the base game.

#2: Deemo II#

I don’t have much experience with Deemo II, save spamming its events whenever I have the tickets. That’s because there’s a lot to hate about it as as high of a level of player as I was when it came out that left a very bad first impression.

I loved the original Deemo; yes, I understand that it wasn’t a free-to-play game like this one, but you got so much free content so easily. That is, admittedly, a part of why I doubt my negativity for this game, as it’s not that much slower than the original was, and there’s enough interesting content in the game to where I can appreciate the cutscenes of this game without hating it. There’s a lot of very nice work put into the game and it’s a shame to discard all of it in the name of it being a tad slow for someone as good as me, so I’m not going to, and admittedly, coming back into this game with a fresher outlook has been very nice for me.

The game was never intended to be competitive; at least, not competitive enough to where anything but an FC or AC matters. Half of the game is an exploration game; I remember at launch feeling like the navigation was slow and the station unmemorable, but it’s definitely picking up a lot nicer. I’m still in chapter 1, though, so my take on this could drastically change.

The events are a nice touch. I appreciate being able to play charts that I don’t own yet, especially because this game has so much content in it, but I’m really disappointed by how limited the free-to-play selection is in that mode. In general, it always feels like you’re not getting enough worth out of the game because of how shoddy the song selection is for the amount of time you’ve put into the game at any moment, and this is a critique I have of pretty much every free-to-play rhythm game that isn’t a gacha game. I get how much effort it takes to make one of these songs, but given how much BMS work is hidden away from the free-to-play view, I guarantee it’s not as hard as it sounds to bring a bit more into the forefront. There are so many expensive paid packs; why, then, is it so hard to make things accessible to a free-to-play player?

• Beginner friendliness: About the most intuitive it gets. This is a perfect place to start playing rhythm games if you’re just looking for an additional point of interest to a nice, cute story.
• Enjoyment as a casual player: The tiny song collection has really hampered my enjoyment of the game. It took me so long to get the chart I played for that screenshot just because crystals are a drip feed; at any rate, you need to play 20 days to get one song. It’s painful at times.
• Enjoyment as a competitive player: The charming window is deceptively tight and some charts are built in a way where getting an FC or an AC is tough work, but a lot of easy FCs are present below the 10 level for me. You’ll find your groove, and the game supports your progression with a somewhat free-to-play friendly skill system.
• Overall feelings: Worth it for a Deemo fan (me) or anyone who finds the story interesting. Not worth it for most players as opposed to something that would spend your time better for more work. Perhaps I’m greedy, but I’m being honest here.

#1: osu!mania#

(Yes, I’m reviewing each of osu!’s modes seperately. I have experience in all of them, yes, even if my skill level highly varies. I have things to say about each of them.)

Fitting not only of an April Fool’s Day now past, but also a decent way to start the thread. Here’s my honest opinions of the dominant force in my favorite rhythm game space.

I have mixed feelings that are mostly negative due to how I view osu! as a platform in comparison to other rhythm games. It’s a wonder I’m able to get so many of my friends into Quaver over this, whether that’s a good or bad thing.

Is osu!mania an inherent evil? Not entirely. I appreciate its emphasis on key count flexibility, making for a lot of interesting niches that aren’t normally visible. Having a great community means a lot of good content, the engine is flexible to work with that, and a lot of the neat rhythm game shit that you see elsewhere comes from this circle. osu!lazer chips away at some of the issues I have with the client, such as the error bar being locked in place and both 300s and 320s awarding 100% accuracy, which minimizes the role of the 320 judgement, a habit I don’t like about a lot of 4K clients. I also love how lenient LN endings feel in this client as opposed to something like Quaver, where I feel like they can be incredibly harsh at times, but that’s likely due to how much less stress I seem to put on my accuracy being consistent in this client; here, a 91% can feel really good on a hard enough chart, but that’s just a personal mindset thing.

osu!mania, however, has a lot of pretty glaring flaws. The community, unfortunately, is pumping out TV size anime OP after TV size anime OP and it is very difficult to sort through, and, arguably the most important flaw of the engine, is that the leaderboards for all of those key modes are combined, meaning that 7K players heavily dominate the osu!mania meta. After a certain point, it’s just not worth investing your time into playing 4K if you want to rank up, if even ranking up is a priority at all. I’ve talked about high level osu!standard play on this blog before; I don’t love all of osu!’s other modes’ emphasis on combo, which is something I massively appreciate about osu!mania being a purely accuracy focused hunt when hunting rank.

What I think osu!mania as a whole would thrive from is a lot of versatility that is never coming. An independent hitsounds volume slider, for one, but also more focused leaderboards and skillset emphasis, more effort in differentiating the extra judgements the mode gets, and more love for my main mode, 4K. You have a 4K and a 7K World Cup every year, for crying out loud. The fact that the leaderboards aren’t split is going to be upsetting for a while. I’m still tired and I can’t name out all of the issues, but I think it’s something the platform could slowly crack down on, but won’t for parity with the other modes.

• Beginner friendliness: Feel free to start here. You’ll find your music and you’ll find your groove. Many of my qualms don’t matter at the beginner level, so a lot of your reservations need not apply.
• Enjoyment as a casual player: Infinite anime songs. Not oriented at casual play in the slightest with how purist it is for a mass market game.
• Enjoyment as a competitive player: Many players like the osu! stable branch better. I hate it and feel like it’s a trap, plus I’m already on Linux as is. A lot less intense of a grind than osu!’s other modes.
• Overall feelings: As a player at my skill level, I come to play osu!mania every once in a while; sure, it feels good, but when I warm up to Quaver or any other engine again, I feel far more at home.