Music/Rhythm Games

[SubrosianDimitri]

I'm surprised there isn't a thread for this yet, so I might as well start one.

List music/rhythm games you've played. What are your favorites and why you like them? And if they exist, what kinds of mods have you added?

I've played:
Several of the Guitar Hero games, along with Rock Band 3 (with lots of songs modded in)
In The Groove 2 at BronyCon in 2014 and 2015 on a wooden DDR pad
Audiosurf
Melody's Escape, kind of like Audiosurf, but 2D and much simpler to grasp
K-Shoot Mania, a really cool Japanese game that someone at Ponycon NYC had this year, it's what DJ Hero should have been, and lots of songs can be modded in (mostly touhou, with undertale being worked in by several people). I personally don't have this game, and a controller for it is freaking expensive!

Spoiler: And a pic of the controller

 

[Whitetail]

While I do love guitar hero and rock band they kinda destroyed a lot of the creativity in music games, I wish we'd still get unique titles like Amplitude for the PS2 - probably one of the neatest rhythm games I played like, the player has a lot of input on how the track was actually constructed based upon how they approached the level - it was pretty neat, especially for a game that only really worked using like.... 6 buttons

 

[Quid]

Rhythm games are great! The only one I've really played much of is Rhythm Thief however. I is lacking.

Played Amplitude at one of those VG exhibitions - I think it was Game On? It looked really interesting, but there wasn't enough time to get my head around how it worked. I'd love to have another go sometime.

 

[ILikeKirbys]

I kinda expected some kind of bullet hell-esque rhythm game thing (I don't know how that'd work, it's just what I was expecting) from something called K-Shoot Mania. Especially when you mentioned Touhou music being modded in. What it actually is... Looks kinda like Beatmania, except harder.

I only ever played Elite Beat Agents. It was rather enjoyable, though Jumping Jack Flash was quite the difficulty spike (I know it's the last level, but seriously).
And Beatmania, once. That was... kinda weird, back then.
Never really got into rhythm games... Well, never got into playing rhythm games.

I've looked up both Parappa the Rappers and Gitaroo Man on Youtube, and they look rather fun. I might've gotten into rhythm games if I'd played them.
Saved a playlist of Gitaroo Man's music so I can listen to it whenever. It's nice.

 

[Whitetail]

I kinda expected some kind of bullet hell-esque rhythm game thing (I don't know how that'd work, it's just what I was expecting) from something called K-Shoot Mania. Especially when you mentioned Touhou music being modded in. What it actually is... Looks kinda like Beatmania, except harder.

There actually is a bullet hell rhythm game if you've ever heard of Beat Hazard - it's like Audiosurf where you can play whatever songs you want but instead of riding the song it instead generates waves of enemies to kill in a big shootumup

Played Amplitude at one of those VG exhibitions - I think it was Game On? It looked really interesting, but there wasn't enough time to get my head around how it worked. I'd love to have another go sometime.

They recently kick started to make a new game like last year so yeah it was probably at some VG events lately

 

[Stars]

I love me some DDR and Guitar Hero, among others. I have the three DDR: Hottest Party games for Wii (still upset that I can't play them on Wii U) and have played them all to excess. I have almost every Guitar Hero game for Wii, though most of them were acquired fairly recently for super cheap and have barely been touched. I mostly played GH3 and World Tour. Also got both DJ Hero games since I found a good deal on the first one with a turntable, and the second game was about $2 at GameStop.

As for games that aren't in big franchises, I played a bit of Audiosurf when that was still a new thing. I held some records for the music from Strong Bad Sings for the longest time, probably because no one else was playing them. Every now and then I get an email informing me that someone passed one of my high scores on "The Cheat is Not Dead" or what have you. I have a game called Symphony that shares the idea of populating a level based on songs from your computer, but I never felt like my music had much to do with anything that was happening. It was fun enough; it just didn't feel like it lived up to its premise.

A standout series for me is BIT.TRIP. Most of them have fairly simplistic gameplay, but that music tho. I always buy the soundtrack along with each one.

 

[SubrosianDimitri]

A standout series for me is BIT.TRIP. Most of them have fairly simplistic gameplay, but that music tho. I always buy the soundtrack along with each one.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the BIT.TRIP games

 

[Discord Sparkle]

I like Elite Beat Agents, and its Japanese counterparts, though the one I played the most is Ouendan 2. I think I managed to S-rank every song on every difficulty in that one.

Edit: Okay no I didn't, all I did was manage to hit every beat. Oh well.

 

[Stars]

Somehow I neglected to mentioned Elite Beat Agents and Ouendan 2 (never played the original Ouendan). Those are great fun.
Also forgot to mention Guitar Hero: On Tour. Those are great wrist cramps.

Has anyone here tried Tadpole Treble? It was made by the guy who used to do Brawl in the Family, and I remembered it when I got a little advert for the game along with my BitF books. Should be out by now.

 

[TheTrainingDummy]

I have also played EBA and Quendan. I can only recall so many times where I thought I had gotten that perfect rank then that one 50...
I played a bit of Guitar Hero and Rockband with my friends, though I never really did very well. Still fun with other people though.

One of my favorite games is the Rhythm Heaven series. I'm still waiting patiently for an announcement of an English release of the Best Plus. I'm regretting not buying it while I was in Japan.

 

[Sir Wombat]

I used to be really into Guitar Hero, I even won a few tournaments at my school. Never did manage to beat "Through the Fire and Flames" but I'm still proud of getting past the intro, which makes me superior to 99% of the other players.

The Project Diva series helped me discover my love of Vocaloid.

I'm currently into a game called "Superbeat Xonic" which was made by some of the creators of DjMax. It has some really weird, yet cool, songs, such as a dubstep song played entirely by an orchestra.

 

[Super jorsour64]

The only Rhythm Game series that I really enjoy is Rhythm Heaven. They're fantastic. Definitely worth your time.

 

[Szkieletor]

I had hundreds of hours put into Patapon 2 on my old PSP. Great game.

For PC there's Audiosurf everyone knows, and Beat Hazard, mentioned here by Whitetail, which I recommend. Great game, shoot em up with cool visuals, powered by your songs. I really like the mechanic of actual song integration. Not only spawns are determined by music, which can involve a lot of hit-and-miss, but also the tempo of the gameplay. You get a lot of baddies on screen, music slows down, and so does everything else, including bullets and ships. And then it all suddenly speeds up with the music and chaos is unleashed. It's very satisfying and looks great.
Also there's custom ships with the Shadow Fleet DLC (or whatever it was called). Some stock ships have different handling and you can make your own cosmetic reskins.

 

[darahalian]

I also really love the BIT.TRIP games, but there's another music/rhythm game I found through HumbleBundle called 140 (website/steam), which is a minimalistic platformer where everything moves to the beat of the looping background music, requiring you to pay attention to what you hear in order to predict when you you can jump. At certain points the music gets another layer added as you encounter a new mechanic to go with the new sound. It's rather short, consisting of only three levels (also three mirrored versions of the levels with no checkpoints), but the gameplay is rather unique and enjoyable; a fun little game to spend an hour on every once in a while.

 

[LLHero25]

Love me some Rhythm Heaven, Elite Beat Agents, Final Fantasy Theaterhythm: Curtain Call and Persona 4: Dancing All Night.

 

[Shadow of Death]

I still play Beat Hazard Ultra occasionally. I'm decent at the game, and have every cheevo for it, actually.

Audiosurf is another one, though I don't like the sequel much TBH.

I occasionally play Flash Flash Revolution (It's DDR...For your Fingers!). I use the standalone velocity R^2 version with Flash Player 9 because in-browser it tends to have some issues.

I used to play Rock Band, back when it came out. I got the full set. Good stuff, that.

I want to try Rocksmith at some point, but seeing how you have to both have a guitar and an adapter....bit pricey, even if it can serve as a teaching tool.

 

[GreySky-GodoftheMachine]

I kinda expected some kind of bullet hell-esque rhythm game thing (I don't know how that'd work, it's just what I was expecting) from something called K-Shoot Mania. Especially when you mentioned Touhou music being modded in. What it actually is... Looks kinda like Beatmania, except harder.

I only ever played Elite Beat Agents. It was rather enjoyable, though Jumping Jack Flash was quite the difficulty spike (I know it's the last level, but seriously).
And Beatmania, once. That was... kinda weird, back then.
Never really got into rhythm games... Well, never got into playing rhythm games.

I've looked up both Parappa the Rappers and Gitaroo Man on Youtube, and they look rather fun. I might've gotten into rhythm games if I'd played them.
Saved a playlist of Gitaroo Man's music so I can listen to it whenever. It's nice.

Gitaroo-Man is great and I love all the music, also there is Gitaroo-Man Lives the PSP re-release with a few more songs to add to the story and some English versions of the songs. If you can't play it, for your sake listen to the music on youtube or something. Also technically DS3 is a rhythm game since the movement of the bosses are based off the beat of the music. But I digress Project Diva games keep getting better overall and the new songs are almost all good. Parrapa the Rappa is fun too. Also the early DDR games nuff said.

 

[Hirosashii]

I play... a ton of rhythm games, lol. I play mostly BEMANI games such as Sound Voltex, Pop'n Music, and Jubeat primarily. I've dabbled in IIDX, but I could stand to be a lot better at it. There are no arcade-style controllers currently on the market for Múseca (and no simulator to boot), but if there was one, I'd totally purchase one. I had the luxury of trying it on a vacation I just took, and it was a lot of fun. But my main game is Sound Voltex currently. I'd love to get into some SEGA games as well like Mai Mai and CHUNITHM, but unfortunately the SEGA network required to run those games doesn't extend outside of Japan. They look really fun though.

 

[neopokekun]

One of my favorites is the somewhat overlooked Technic Beat by Arika for the PS2. Great soundtrack (over 80 songs) that includes lots of remixes of classic Namco arcade games.

This should give you a good idea how it plays.
Tunes: Days Dreamer / Mappy / Libble Rabble / Burning Force

Some of the other characters (each have a different way of manipulating the circles on the stage).
Tunes: Dig Dug / Splatter House / Xevious / Crowded Town / Galaxian 3

 

[qspec]

Seconding Parappa the Rapper. Though I warn you, those songs will not be leaving your head anytime soon.

I was really impressed with Deemo on Android (probably iTunes too?). That's worth looking into also.

 

[Stars]

I got Dancing All Night a couple months ago while I was waiting for Persona 5 to come out. For some reason it took me a while to get the hang of the timing, but I enjoyed getting to see the P4 cast again, so I stuck with it for a good while.

 

[Vision Thing]

You should check Neon Drive


The music and visuals are very good. And the game as a whole is truly addictive.

 

[Zenopo]

Only game I can think that fits the bill is DDR for the PS2, haven't played any game of the genre since.

 

[thattagen]

I've been playing DDR for the last 17 years. Man, I can't believe it's been that long. I actually stream for a couple hours every weekend, using my hard pad at home. I also helped start a DDR club at my local college, which is still going today. I mainly play in Stepmania with ONLY THE BEST in pad-centric charts. Pulsen is also available on Steam for a few bucks. Plays like Stepmania but includes totally legal licensed music and very high quality charts.

I'm also pretty into Osu, since it's a game I can play while building on my graphics tablet hand-eye coordination. Osu is great because , despite being a "Stepmania" for Elite Beat Agents, Taiko, and Beatmania playstyles, the rankings, music curation, multiplayer, and community is handled excellently through a single site. Downloading and adding new songs is a snap, and improving on your overall global rank is pretty addictive!

Lately, I've fallen in love with Rayark's free iOS/Android Rhythm games: Cytus, Deemo, and Voez! All three are excellent games, and Voez and Deemo are available on the Switch with all paid songs unlocked and continuing updates every few months. I like Voez especially, due its creative dynamic playfield, which shifts and changes in a choreographed routine with the song!

Finally, we can't forget the indie gems of the past few years. Crypt of the Necrodancer puts a fun musical spin on the roguelike dungeon crawler by making everything move to the beat of the music! Danny Baranowski blows it away on the soundtrack, along with half a dozen other guest artists. The Metronomicon is a musical take on the party-based RPG, which has you switching between note tracks to attack, heal, inflict status effects, and more. You even level up your characters and earn new equipment and loot. The soundtrack in this one is a lot more indie, so be prepared to get a little silly if you pick it up.

(Yo send me a PM if you wanna talk more rhythm gaming.)