I played some DJMAX for the first time today. It brought me an unexpected amount of happiness to start a rhythm game in 2022 and be greeted by expressive UI and a setlist of songs I didn't first download off of some Google Drive account. Don't get me wrong, the post-copyright rhythm game landscape we live in where games like osu!, Clone Hero and, if we're really getting unambiguous, PPDXXX and TJAPlayer3 practically hand the keys to the already-invested audience is hard to argue against, especially from the perspective of said enthusiasts who couldn't possibly squeeze anything more out of the original property.
But there is something to be said of music games as a celebration of music first and foremost, which is something that I can't help but think enthusiasts lose sight of. The one I'm most familiar with is this very one - I've been an on/off member of the GH community since GH1, and it's obvious that Clone Hero is second only to the money-spewing titan GH3 in maintaining the lifespan of that game, and for good reason! It's what you could only hope in your wildest dreams would pop up if the computer-illiterate you from 15 years ago typed "guitar hero pc free" into a search bar. It comes with... like 3 songs to start, but with some resources which are SHOCKINGLY easy to find and use, you can fill this bad boy up quick with free, high-quality, community-handled charts. As a former child who begged my parents for money to buy 1-3 DLC songs at a time, it fucking rules. It feels like having all of your birthdays at the same time.
I... I don't know how to explain this next part quickly, but I'll try my best. At some point a few years ago, it was discovered that the GH guitars made for the Wii, coupled with an adapter which made them wired, were unmistakably superior as far as latency and poll rate went. This was seen as a great thing for Clone Hero considering how easy it was to find them at Goodwill for like, $20 or w/e. However, a slow but inevitable discovery crept over the horizon, which is that CH at 2ms lag and 1000hz poll rates is trivially easy at times and absolutely exploitable! You see, the game has a relatively large hit window for the notes and unlike, say, Rock Band, there's no punishment for players who press incorrect frets between notes. This, without you knowing it, has likely saved your ass several times while playing the game casually, as charts which would've been difficult in the console games are inherently easier due to these things in tandem making note inputs more lenient than ever.
I would love for the game to take some inspiration from the older games and tighten that hit window down to only the strikeline (and in their defense, there's an optional modifier that alleviates this a bit). As it is right now, it's an issue, I think. But it is only an extension of the true issue.
Put some vaseline on your fingers (note: some don't and literally injure their skin! AAAH!) and get ready to TAP BABY! We've all mashed the buttons in a rhythm game, trying to maintain a combo only for the game to likely spit out negative feedback instead for trying to one-up it. Well, Clone Hero is one of a scant few games which sees this and goes, "Woah! You're really good!"
This has obvious effects in the short-term. Section FCs of dense tapping patterns are no longer that impressive by themselves in a world where anyone with a wool glove can mash that shit out. And mash it they do, as some of the more recent community accomplishments in the game have been done while utilizing these techniques. High-level players left scorned by these exploits have to place trust in the discerning audience to understand that them playing "clean" is impressive for its own sake. But for me, as an observer and player, the true bumps have only been felt long-term.
When I watch someone play a song at 250% speed and the accompanying webcam SFX is just a blitz of plastic meeting skin, it induces an existential episode within me where I'm not even sure why this game is being played to begin with. Like, if rhythm games are on one side of the spectrum then, I dunno, Go is on the other. One asks you to press buttons precisely and in a strict order and the other is played in a partnership, within an unknowable context, as to know it would be to understand human consciousness on a person-to-person basis.
This comparison isn't to disparage rhythm games at a foundational level, but rather it's to highlight how deep tremors like this can be felt. What is the message that a rhythm game this exploitable is sending out to the universe? I'm not a Go expert, but I do understand it to be a pretty rigid strategy game that has withstood ONE HELL of a timespan. Frankly, where CH is at in its small life, I wouldn't be surprised if a problem of this scale means the heights of the game have already passed us by. Imagine if Go had to reckon with something like that. It probably wouldn't have left the damn Zhou dynasty.
When I played DJMAX today, I'll admit I found it pretty easy to play even the hardest stuff because I have experience in the genre. And hell, it might also be in the same boat as CH as far as engine-born problems go. I have no idea. But at least providing the warmth of curated, varietal multimedia has wooed me for a bit, and I'll likely be keeping it around for a while as a result.
P.S.: Clone Hero also has drum support and all the issues from above do not exist there. I love playing drums on CH and I do it often!
But there is something to be said of music games as a celebration of music first and foremost, which is something that I can't help but think enthusiasts lose sight of. The one I'm most familiar with is this very one - I've been an on/off member of the GH community since GH1, and it's obvious that Clone Hero is second only to the money-spewing titan GH3 in maintaining the lifespan of that game, and for good reason! It's what you could only hope in your wildest dreams would pop up if the computer-illiterate you from 15 years ago typed "guitar hero pc free" into a search bar. It comes with... like 3 songs to start, but with some resources which are SHOCKINGLY easy to find and use, you can fill this bad boy up quick with free, high-quality, community-handled charts. As a former child who begged my parents for money to buy 1-3 DLC songs at a time, it fucking rules. It feels like having all of your birthdays at the same time.
I... I don't know how to explain this next part quickly, but I'll try my best. At some point a few years ago, it was discovered that the GH guitars made for the Wii, coupled with an adapter which made them wired, were unmistakably superior as far as latency and poll rate went. This was seen as a great thing for Clone Hero considering how easy it was to find them at Goodwill for like, $20 or w/e. However, a slow but inevitable discovery crept over the horizon, which is that CH at 2ms lag and 1000hz poll rates is trivially easy at times and absolutely exploitable! You see, the game has a relatively large hit window for the notes and unlike, say, Rock Band, there's no punishment for players who press incorrect frets between notes. This, without you knowing it, has likely saved your ass several times while playing the game casually, as charts which would've been difficult in the console games are inherently easier due to these things in tandem making note inputs more lenient than ever.
I would love for the game to take some inspiration from the older games and tighten that hit window down to only the strikeline (and in their defense, there's an optional modifier that alleviates this a bit). As it is right now, it's an issue, I think. But it is only an extension of the true issue.
Put some vaseline on your fingers (note: some don't and literally injure their skin! AAAH!) and get ready to TAP BABY! We've all mashed the buttons in a rhythm game, trying to maintain a combo only for the game to likely spit out negative feedback instead for trying to one-up it. Well, Clone Hero is one of a scant few games which sees this and goes, "Woah! You're really good!"
This has obvious effects in the short-term. Section FCs of dense tapping patterns are no longer that impressive by themselves in a world where anyone with a wool glove can mash that shit out. And mash it they do, as some of the more recent community accomplishments in the game have been done while utilizing these techniques. High-level players left scorned by these exploits have to place trust in the discerning audience to understand that them playing "clean" is impressive for its own sake. But for me, as an observer and player, the true bumps have only been felt long-term.
When I watch someone play a song at 250% speed and the accompanying webcam SFX is just a blitz of plastic meeting skin, it induces an existential episode within me where I'm not even sure why this game is being played to begin with. Like, if rhythm games are on one side of the spectrum then, I dunno, Go is on the other. One asks you to press buttons precisely and in a strict order and the other is played in a partnership, within an unknowable context, as to know it would be to understand human consciousness on a person-to-person basis.
This comparison isn't to disparage rhythm games at a foundational level, but rather it's to highlight how deep tremors like this can be felt. What is the message that a rhythm game this exploitable is sending out to the universe? I'm not a Go expert, but I do understand it to be a pretty rigid strategy game that has withstood ONE HELL of a timespan. Frankly, where CH is at in its small life, I wouldn't be surprised if a problem of this scale means the heights of the game have already passed us by. Imagine if Go had to reckon with something like that. It probably wouldn't have left the damn Zhou dynasty.
When I played DJMAX today, I'll admit I found it pretty easy to play even the hardest stuff because I have experience in the genre. And hell, it might also be in the same boat as CH as far as engine-born problems go. I have no idea. But at least providing the warmth of curated, varietal multimedia has wooed me for a bit, and I'll likely be keeping it around for a while as a result.
P.S.: Clone Hero also has drum support and all the issues from above do not exist there. I love playing drums on CH and I do it often!