Music and/or Rhythm Games Catch All

I did search for a music game catch-all (to no avail!) so I’m throwing something out here to either be redirected to the right thread, or to hopefully call up some more music games to check out. I don't tend to see people clamoring for these and I need some like minds to help me search and review.

Here are the ones that I have played so far (with short notes and links to some example gameplay):

Amplitude (PS2): Sequel to Frequency, you would complete music tracks by hitting trigger buttons on the controller, I didn’t think it was an neat as the tube constructions you navigate in Frequency but it had a lot of charm on its own

Audiosurf 2 (PC): So far as I can tell you flail around and try to collect globs of color while avoiding spikes (I’m not fantastic at this game). Someone can enlighten me to how you “win” this, but it’s been a fine chill out game when I’m looking for a no brainer. Reminds me of Amplitude with less structure.

Beatmania (PC, Arcade, & PS2): I knew I was in trouble when the game came with a keyboard. I was much more successful at playing this on an emulator prior to its US release. The turn table portions of songs were always the hardest to work in naturally.

Bit. Trip Core (PC): Not the first rhythm shooter I've played, but also not my favorite.

Bit. Trip Runner (PC): I like platforming and I like music games so this was a natural win for me, however the fact that a single error in the level will return you to the start makes this an exercise in patience as well. The Bit. Trip games in general have been ok, but I still like this one the best of their offerings. I haven’t played the sequel, yet.

Crypt of the Necrodancer (PC): Music driven roguelike, it has its own thread so I don’t need to say more than that I think. Super fun!

Dance Dance Revolution (PS2 & Arcade): Original, 2nd Mix, 3rd Mix, Extreme, Supernova, etc., I have always had a better time playing this in an arcade than on dance pads at home. When playing at home I would frequently use a controller instead of the pads because I liked just tapping out the patterns and it was still a good time. This game introduced me to Eurodance music as a genre, for good or ill.

Donkey Konga (GameCube): Didn’t play a lot of this, the bongo controllers were very awkward.

Electronic Super Joy (PC): 1 and 2, Another music driven platformer, very much geared towards people who liked Super Meat Boy or I Wanna be the Guy kinds of platforming and happen to also like awesome techno. The beat sometimes drives certain mechanics so I think it belongs in this list

Elite Beat Agents (DS): I basically bought a DS to play this. Was amused by a tapping rhythm game but it didn’t entice me to play it more than once after I beat it. Didn’t end up keeping the DS.

Frequency (PS2): I bought this for $3 at a Kmart and played it more hours than any single Final Fantasy game I owned. You complete tracks by pressing trigger buttons while navigating a tube. Playing this game was meditation for me, and I would enter a trance-like state when completing levels. I have never been so relaxed playing a game since this one. I’m convinced this game actually got me through the stress of college thesis writing more than anything else in my life.

Gitaroo Man (PS2): Weird combination of button pressing and analog stick navigation, but the music was catchy and the crazy plot made me smile. Mostly lives on in my memory for giving you badges in a section called your Collection. When I get badges in other games I still think “Collect get!” to myself.

Guitar Hero (PS2): Original, II, III, Also known as “How I hurt my wrist that one summer.” This was how I learned to love Through Fire and Flames. A significant portion of my joy from this game ended up coming from people posting YouTube videos of perfect runs of ridiculous expert mode songs. I prefer Rock Band, but this is still a fun game.

In the Groove (Arcade): 1 and 2, DDR clone but with catchier music. Seems to be friendlier to people hooking their computers into arcade machines to play their own content and share scores with the community. First game where I had to use my hands on the dance pad to complete songs (clever mechanics!).

Micron (PC): Beat based puzzle game. Completing puzzles corresponds with holding to the beat the puzzle is based on, so I think it still makes the cut as a music game.

PaRappa the Rapper (PS1 & PS2): 1 and 2, Press buttons to the beat to make a dog rap. Less insane than it sounds, and I have friends who still can do the raps in their entirety we played this so much in the early days. The sequel was not on par with the original.

Para Para Paradise (Arcade): If anything defines my arcade music game experience, I’d say this did. I played a Para Para Paradise 2nd Mix so many times I had many of the dances flat out memorized and can complete them a decade later. The fact that I will probably never see one of these machines in person again makes me sad to this day. I have considered buying a machine but I have nowhere to put it, and that would be ridiculous to spend thousands for something that would have to go in a storage locker.

Pump It Up (Arcade): Korean version of DDR but the pad is configured differently (look at a DDR dance pad, imagine everything that is an arrow is solid and everything that is solid has become a viable button, including the center). Had a good time with this until it disappeared from the local arcade.

Rez (PS2): I know this game is infamous for its, ah, special accessory… but I only owned the game itself. A first person rhythm shooter, I mostly remember it being super fun until the last boss, (which forced you to face all the previous bosses with no break and no intermediate power ups). I never beat this one.

Rock Band (Xbox): 1, 2, 3, Some of the best times I have with friends involves Rock Band 3 and I know there are threads out there for these games, so I don’t think I need to add much. I play this about once a week for hours on end. Gold stars!

Samba de Amigo (Dreamcast): Fun I guess, but a game featuring maracas is about on par with a game featuring bongos in that the controllers themselves got in the way of the gameplay.

Space Channel 5 (PS2): 1 and 2, Simon says to a beat, I was obsessed with these games in college. My housemates wanted to kill me for playing it as much as I did. Between this game (up down right left chu chu chu!) and Eternal Darkness (pargon pargon pargon!) I was chasing them out of the living room through pure repetitive annoyance. But completing challenges gives out outfits… OUTFITS. They had me at Space Michael.

Super Hexagon (PC): Navigate a fast moving puzzle driven by a techno beat. This plays out more like a reflex test than most music games and while I like the concept, I’m not usually up to the challenge of this one. My fast twitch is not fast enough.

Symphonica (iPhone): A Squeenix game where you tap out beats as if you were conducting an orchestra, (very enjoyable!) this reminded me you can have a great music game without any techno present.

Taiko no Tatsujin (Arcade): I only played this in arcades, but pretending to be a taiko drummer is very entertaining. Blew a heap of yen on this when I lived in Japan. Even more entertaining while drunk.

UmJammer Lammy (PS1): Parappa done better, very catchy music and great replay value. This was the only game where I reached that psychedelic freestyle bonus you get from jamming out and it felt like an achievement before achievements were a thing.

Unison: Rebels of Rhythm & Dance (PS2): This was a “dance” game before motion capture and required you to memorize whole songs before “performing” them with no memory aid after a practice round using the analog sticks. This is one of the few rhythm games that actively pissed me off from bad conceptualizing, and lives on as “worst music game to date” when I tell people about it.

Music games I want to play:
Bust a Groove
Reflec Beat
Cytus

Please let me know if there’s any super great music games you can recommend to me that I might have missed out on in this list! I can keep them on my radar to pick up for the future. (^___^)

If you don’t agree with something I said above or you would like to further recommend something that I didn’t do justice to, by all means let’s discuss! I love talking about what mechanics work in these sorts of games and what don’t. This is my game genre obsession and I’m hoping there’s others out there like me.
It feels like music games had a golden age in the early 2000s and now I’m just chasing the dream…

A City Sleeps.

It's a sh'mup.

By Harmonix.

You should play it. It's a good sh'mup on it's own merits, but the way the music is tied into the bullet-hell is exactly as smart as you'd expect an outfit like Harmonix to make it.

You also missed Child of Eden, the successor to Rez. Take a crack at my high scores on XBL if you're brave enough

Also, DJ Hero, which is brilliant in it's own weird way.

Spoiler:

Yeah, this is my fanboy genre too

Holy shiz, took a look at Child of Eden and it totes is Rez. Looks like the game they wanted to make without all the limitations of the PS2 graphics. Cooooooool. Man the vid I saw looked busy though. Hard to tell what was background and what was bullets, kinda. I bet you get used to it after a while.

I'm about the worst at shmups but I'll think about that one. I really love Harmonix :3

Duchess wrote:

Holy shiz, took a look at Child of Eden and it totes is Rez. Looks like the game they wanted to make without all the limitations of the PS2 graphics. Cooooooool. Man the vid I saw looked busy though. Hard to tell what was background and what was bullets, kinda. I bet you get used to it after a while.

I'm about the worst at shmups but I'll think about that one. I really love Harmonix :3

I can't praise Child of Eden highly enough. It's broken and stupid in all the same ways as Rez is, and wonderful in all the same ways too, just turned up to 11.

DJ Hero is fantastic, the second one is even better. I don't even like dance music.

Child of Eden is trippy as hell, gorgeous, and when you play it with Kinect, you kinda feel like a Jedi.

I haven't broken out any of the Rock Band games in forever. In fact, I don't even know if my wife's seen my picture in any of them. I should show her, cuz that's probably about the most famous I'm ever going to get.

Here are some of my recommendations for rhythm games that I think are pretty amazing:

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call (3DS): Play through nearly all of the Final Fantasy soundtracks. In addition to the rhythm game, there's an RPG element that allows you to level up characters in order to defeat stronger bosses or travel farther depending on the stage. Naturally a love of the Final Fantasy music will go a long way to increasing the enjoyment of this one.

Rhythm Heaven Fever (Wii): Take Warioware and put a rhythm game in it and you've got Rhythm Heaven. The original game was released on the DS, but I think that Heaven is the better version, if only for the "Ringside" stage. Basically the game plays out in small, bite-sized stages, and then a final Remix stage that combines all of the previous stages into one song. Super addicting and super fun.

Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Series (PS3/Vita/3DS): This one is one of those "Love It or Hate It" games. Personally I love the series because of the challenge of not only having multiple inputs to worry about (regular buttons, using the sticks, or a combo of the D-Pad and buttons), but also because there isn't a set area where the notes appear. As you progress through the game you can unlock items that can adjust the difficulty of the levels in any number of ways. Of course, the caveat here is that the songs are all J-Pop, and that definitely can set some people off.

Chaz wrote:

Child of Eden is trippy as hell,

Actual quote from one of my friends, said to his fiance when they walked into my house as I was playing Child of Eden...

"Did you f*cking dose my coffee on the way over, or is that actually happening?"

Ever tried it in the mode where you connect three more controllers, then sit with one behind your shoulders, one at your mid-back and one at your lower back, then play? That takes it to a whole other level of weird. Then there's girlfriend mode...not that I ever tried it that one time.

Chaz wrote:

Ever tried it in the mode where you connect three more controllers, then sit with one behind your shoulders, one at your mid-back and one at your lower back, then play? That takes it to a whole other level of weird. Then there's girlfriend mode...not that I ever tried it that one time.

Yeah, I used to tuck a second controller between the side of my butt and the chair - I was doing some serious score-chasing at the time, and the extra tactile feedback genuinely helped me stay on the beat.

NSFW anecdote...

Spoiler:

Back in the day, I owned a Trance Vibrator (with removable, washable neoprene sleeve!) for the PS2 version of Rez. My wife, no stranger to buzzing pieces of plastic, gave it a college try and declared it an underwhelming masturbatory experience. "Not powerful enough, and really distracting when it keeps changing rhythm."

Chaz wrote:

Ever tried it in the mode where you connect three more controllers, then sit with one behind your shoulders, one at your mid-back and one at your lower back, then play? That takes it to a whole other level of weird. Then there's girlfriend mode...not that I ever tried it that one time.

That's a thing? That seems very complicated. People have done crazier things to play games better I guess...

CptDomano wrote:

Here are some of my recommendations for rhythm games that I think are pretty amazing:

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call

Of the three I feel like that one I could probably pick up and do. Seems like lots of the new music games have a definite motion component that I need to practice before I can just pick one up. DJ Hero had it too with the switches, or something, based on what the gameplay looked like. Moving things left and right in addition to pressing buttons and scratching? I see learning curves in my future. What was it like learning to track the motion? Did the difficulties scale well?

It's all part of the greater attempt to get us ready to take on those space battles, a la Last Starfighter isn't it? If Jonman beats Child of Eden with a high enough score we'll never hear from him again!

Duchess wrote:
Chaz wrote:

Ever tried it in the mode where you connect three more controllers, then sit with one behind your shoulders, one at your mid-back and one at your lower back, then play? That takes it to a whole other level of weird. Then there's girlfriend mode...not that I ever tried it that one time.

That's a thing? That seems very complicated. People have done crazier things to play games better I guess...

Having done it the one time, I don't think it's a thing I'd do again. It does do kind of neat stuff like having vibrations running up and down your back from one controller to another.

Duchess wrote:
CptDomano wrote:

Here are some of my recommendations for rhythm games that I think are pretty amazing:

Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call

Of the three I feel like that one I could probably pick up and do. Seems like lots of the new music games have a definite motion component that I need to practice before I can just pick one up. DJ Hero had it too with the switches, or something, based on what the gameplay looked like. Moving things left and right in addition to pressing buttons and scratching? I see learning curves in my future. What was it like learning to track the motion? Did the difficulties scale well?

In the case of Theatrhythm, the arrow notes are triggered just by swiping the stylus in the direction indicated. With Curtain Call, you have the option of using either the stylus or the buttons to trigger notes. Worth noting is that there is no need to hit a specific button for each note, any one will do just fine. You will, however, have to push a direction and button together on the arrow notes. Again though, it's much more simplified than your typical rhythm game.

Personally I'd say that the difficulty scales similar to any other rhythm game. One difference in this one is that there are different stage types. The Battle stages are the most traditional stage in that you're just hitting notes when they reach a certain point. Early on you'll just be focusing on tapping notes that are on the beat. As you play more difficult songs you'll be doing more holding and swiping and notes that'll try to throw off your rhythm. Eventually you'll get into stages that will change the characteristics of the notes themselves. You'll see spinning arrows where you have to anticipate where the arrow is pointing by the time it gets to you. Additionally notes can speed up/slow down, disappear, require near-perfect timing, etc. There are items you will receive throughout the game that can counter this and make difficult songs easier.

I could keep rambling on, but suffice it to say that while there appears to be a lot going on in Theatrhythm, everything is introduced slowly enough that it's easy to digest. Also, the simplified controls (tap, hold, swipe) make handling the game very easy as well.

Duchess wrote:

Of the three I feel like that one I could probably pick up and do. Seems like lots of the new music games have a definite motion component that I need to practice before I can just pick one up. DJ Hero had it too with the switches, or something, based on what the gameplay looked like. Moving things left and right in addition to pressing buttons and scratching? I see learning curves in my future. What was it like learning to track the motion? Did the difficulties scale well?

Yeah, the learning curve on DJ Hero was excellent. Mind you, I came into that game hard off the back of multiple Rock Bands, so I was already a dab hand at wiggling my hands about in novel ways. But it leads you in very gently, and oh so gradually ramps up the difficulty until you're not even thinking about what your hands are doing, you're just doing it, and your fingers are a blur.

Duchess wrote:

It's all part of the greater attempt to get us ready to take on those space battles, a la Last Starfighter isn't it? If Jonman beats Child of Eden with a high enough score we'll never hear from him again!

I suspect that the amount of time and practive I'd need to put in would mean that you'd never hear from me again anyway.

Hey, thanks for starting this even if I didn't find it until after starting one myself. The past few months have had a couple of new developments on the music game front that I was hoping others would also be excited about.

First: the team that built DJ Hero released Guitar Hero Live with a new guitar design. Not only is the gameplay still good, they turned the iTunes model of song ownership into a Spotify model of unlimited streaming Guitar Hero songs that could carry the pop music games into the future. (But hey, if you're done with plastic instruments at this point I can't blame you.)

More importantly: the new Amplitude is releasing tomorrow! As a kickstarter backer I've been playing it a bit over the past two days and it feels like they really knocked it out of the park. The campaign mode is composed and structured as a concept album, and it's one of those "duh" moments that I wish other games had tried before. The gameplay still feels as good as the series ever had, with a great mix between satisfying pattern tapping and challenging leaderboard score chase. My only gripe is I had a hard time finding a control layout that worked for me. It took half an hour of fiddling around, but I finally got something that meshed with my existing rhythm game muscle memory thanks to the PS4 system button re-map feature. On the PS4 tomorrow. Get it! (PS3 version maybe/probably coming later?)

I actually had no idea about the PS4 Amplitude (I sold my PS3 and TV a while ago and have been PC gaming it up), but this makes me want to purchase both a PS4 and a TV...

The review I read said the only real downsides were the difficulty spike (always present in music games) and the fact that the soundtrack was all electronica (the best songs from Frequency and Amplitude were electronica). Everything's coming up Millhouse!

I still miss the tube, since to navigate all the way from one side to the other in Amplitude when a little hyperbolic shift would get me there faster does make me wish for a Frequency reboot instead. But that feels like splitting hairs when there's more Amplitude to play now! Thanks for the update!

There's supposedly a tube mode for Amplitude reboot. Not sure how you enable it since Demyx and I haven't given it a go yet. But I swear I saw something recently which said that's a thing.

Duchess wrote:

I still miss the tube, since to navigate all the way from one side to the other in Amplitude when a little hyperbolic shift would get me there faster does make me wish for a Frequency reboot instead. But that feels like splitting hairs when there's more Amplitude to play now! Thanks for the update!

Good news: new Amplitude has a FreQ (tube) mode that unlocks to after completing the campaign once! It's my preferred way to play since it's the only way to enable wrapping around from one edge to the other.

Duchess wrote:

The review I read said the only real downsides were the difficulty spike

Cathadan, from the other thread wrote:
CptDomano wrote:
Songbird wrote:

Amplitude looks pretty tough from the gameplay footage on youtube. I hope it gets a good reception upon release

I also hope it gets a good reception because the game is really great. The tracks seem more difficult at first glance in addition to most of the tracks being original Harmonix songs. However, I initially got the feeling the window for hitting notes was pretty large.

I got the same feeling out of it. The focus of Amplitude is less on tight timing in favor of you learning how to smoothly transition between lanes without dropping your combo. The tightest timing anywhere in the game is when you have to start hitting notes in a new lane before the transition animation is complete.

I haven't read any reviews to see if they discuss this, but the main difficulty comes from the boss levels which require you to have a specific multiplier in order to pass through a gate. If you don't hit the multiplier, you'll take damage instead of gaining energy. This was by far the hardest thing for me to get around during the campaign. Especially when you're required to get a 4x multiplier and there are only 4 sections before the gate.

Other than that, if you're already experienced with Amplitude/Frequency I think the difficulty isn't quite that bad. At least on Advanced--Expert is a whole different beast for me.

Also, Cathadan--I'm throwing the gauntlet down right here. I'm coming after your scores, sir. Be prepared.

Curse my lack of next (current?) gen console!

CptDomano wrote:

I haven't read any reviews to see if they discuss this, but the main difficulty comes from the boss levels which require you to have a specific multiplier in order to pass through a gate. If you don't hit the multiplier, you'll take damage instead of gaining energy. This was by far the hardest thing for me to get around during the campaign. Especially when you're required to get a 4x multiplier and there are only 4 sections before the gate.

These only appear when you're playing the campaign mode. All you really need to do is play though on an easy difficulty to unlock them in free-play mode. Then you can play the same songs there on any difficulty without any of the extra visual distortion or combo gate nonsense and go for high scores the way you're supposed to.

Now that you know that trick I guess I had better go bolster up my sloppy performances.

Duchess wrote:

Please let me know if there’s any super great music games you can recommend to me that I might have missed out on in this list! I can keep them on my radar to pick up for the future. (^___^)

Here's a rundown of some under-appreciated stuff I've enjoyed in the past few years:

Everyday Shooter (Steam, PS3) - Twin stick shooter where the gameplay is all driven by music. Difficulty in later stages ramps up very quickly and I don't think I ever managed to unlock all 8 stages as a result.

Soundodger+ (Steam) - Sort of a musical bullet hell, except you don't shoot anything. Just mesmerizing patterns synced to the music that you weave between as you slowly slip into a flow state.

140 (Steam) - A short and simple platformer in the style of Electronic Super Joy, but focused more on a minimalistic geometric style rather than raw challenge. I really loved the 1.6 hours that it took me to finish this.

Sound Shapes (PS3, PS4, Vita) - An unusual platformer even less focused on challenge than 140 from the same developer as Everyday Shooter. Music is licensed from a handful of recognizable artists including Jim Guthrie, Beck, and deadmau5. Includes a level editor for you to design/compose your own stages.

DJMAX Portable 3 (PSP) - For a good long while the DJMAX series was to Beatmania what PIU was to DDR. (which is to say a somewhat lackluster bootleg korean version that still plays fairly well) This was one of the only music games available on a PSP at the time so I played the hell out of it in spite of all the jank. Many later entries in this franchise are available on other platforms, but they've strayed into a lot of other types of gameplay.

Rock Band Unplugged (PSP) - The other music game for the PSP! This one is actually really good and happens to just be Amplitude but with rock music and four buttons instead of three. Sadly, it doesn't seem to emulate well on my Vita and all the timing gets reported wrong.

muBlip (iOS) - An unfortunately discontinued game that was what I considered to be the only good version of the "2D" rhythm gameplay that Elite Beat Agents popularized. They fixed the design by putting all the targets for a section of the song on screen ahead of time and having them auto-play for one bar so you can play the next 2 or 3 bars on your own. A sort of musical "Simon Says".

jukebeat (iOS, Arcade) - Also known as jubeat in Japan, this is a newer arcade game from Konami that features a 4x4 grid of buttons with screens behind each that display an indicator to signal an upcoming press. Because it comes from the team developers behind DDR, a lot of the music will sound familiar. Available for free with a couple of songs on iOS, and more songs sold separately. iPad strongly recommended over an iPhone.

CptDomano wrote:

Also, Cathadan--I'm throwing the gauntlet down right here. I'm coming after your scores, sir. Be prepared. :D

Just spent a couple of hours propping up my weaker scores. You're only ahead of me on the first two tracks, and we both know those don't count. Come at me.

Cathadan wrote:
CptDomano wrote:

Also, Cathadan--I'm throwing the gauntlet down right here. I'm coming after your scores, sir. Be prepared. :D

Just spent a couple of hours propping up my weaker scores. You're only ahead of me on the first two tracks, and we both know those don't count. Come at me.

I saw that, and I tried to beat you on one of the songs (Decode? Perfect Brain?) and I got to within 40 points. After that I completely fell apart. Apparently I'm not as good as I previously thought I was It'll take some time, but I'll get there. Soon enough we'll be competing on the Expert level

Also, nice list of games there! I've only heard/tried a few of those so I'll be checking some of these out.

Came across another rare rhythm game the other day I had never heard of: Mad Maestro (PS2) is a game where you conduct classical music using the pressure sensitivity of the face buttons on the dualshock 2. You can tap any of the four face buttons that you like, as long as you match the required pressure. (red = hard press, green = medium press, blue = soft press, gauge on the right shows how hard you're pressing) You occasionally have to push the d-pad in a direction in addition to your regular tapping. (was interesting enough for me to grab a disc-only copy on amazon for a respectable $0.01 +3.99 S&H)

So, I just got my first 100% on a song in Amplitude, and hoooly crap it had some crazy parts in it:

I got on this evening to make sure all my scores were in the right place, and to my incredible surprise I had a lot of work to do. So I slowly worked my way down the list until I got to that. T_T

I'll beat that, but it won't be tonight.

Cathadan wrote:

I'll beat that, but it won't be tonight.

You should add Demyx to your friend list if you haven't already--she's got some pretty impressive scores, too

I did just that after seeing her in your leaderboard at the end of the video!

Coming from the Nintendo Direct video yesterday: Rhythm Heaven The Best+ will be localized at some point later this year as Rhythm Heaven Megamix!

IMAGE(http://images.nintendolife.com/news/2016/03/rhythm_heaven_megamix_dancing_onto_3ds/attachment/0/original.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/nVhUXVl.png)

Seriously cannot wait for this.

Pose for the fans!

Haven't seen it mentioned here yet, but Harmonix started crowdfunding for Rock Band 4 for PC. Cautiously optimistic.