Okay. After watching the video, there are some points I agree and disagree as a (somewhat) veteranish of the genre 1) the Japanese arcade section made me smile, (some of them aren’t Japanese tho) even knowing what’s going on it still looks very impressive as an outside observer, and some of the cabinets are available outside of Japan as well. The arcade rhythm game community is pretty wild. For many of the games that involve a touch slider/screen. It’s very common practice to wear gloves (just standard cold weather gloves) to reduce friction when sliding your hand and (almost) all players use them. In games like Taiko no Tatsugen there are entire drum sticks that you can buy online that are designed to be more ergonomic to preserve stamina on harder difficulties. IIDX (or Beatmania depending on who you ask) has entire wiki guides on how to position your hands, yes there are multiple accepted ways due to how physically close the buttons are together and the fact that there are seven of them and a turntable. Even intermediate players all use these techniques to give themselves a bit of an edge to improve. In fact, it would be either impossible or very physically challenging to clear the very hardest charts without these, so yeah the RGArcade community can get intense, very worth getting into if you have a cabinet near you though. 2) You touched up on the arcade games and Adofai/RD, but you didn’t really mention the other games that fall under the rhythm umbrella. Games like Arcaea, Phigros, Rotaeno and many others are very well known rhythm games in the community that you can download on your phone, and Arcaea is freenium with paid songs Phigros I believe is completely free. With other PC games such as 4K (Four keys, covers stepmania eternia osu!mania) and Osu!standard. I get that they didn’t fit the video too well to include them as the arcade machines are more impressive, so I just wanted to name a few if anyone reading is interested in getting into the genre but doesn’t want to or can’t access an arcade with those specific games. 3) In the video, you mentioned how the classic game of guitar hero is dead, it’s not. There is an emulator known as clone hero where it is entirely based on the community. All the songs and charts are made by members of the community and are often shared around pretty freely. This has lead to many popular songs from other rhythm games being charted and due to the custom nature of the charts, have a very big limit on how difficult, long or stamina intensive they can be. If you want to be impressed by someone shredding a plastic guitar, search “Clone Hero Calamity Fortune FC” also as it is entirely community run, there are a lot of meme or ‘joke’ charts. Someone charted the entire 10 minutes of the ukulele apology, ‘The toxic gossip train’ video onto the game, the community is wild and if you have a spare GH or RB controller gathering dust then I highly recommend you check rock band out, you can even play some drum charts if you have an electronic drum you can hook it up to play rock band drums pro ver, and if you don’t have a controller than you can still play the game, as the default keybinds have you hold your keyboard like a guitar. 4) Adofai isn’t actually breaking new ground with the whole based on rhythm aspect. Nintendo’s Rhythm Heaven series that spanned the wii and the DS’ do focus heavily on the rhythm aspect of the rhythm games, many of their songs like lockstep focus on a particular part of rhythm (lockstep is offbeats) and many of the other games use audio and visual cues to determine the period in-between notes being hit. Saying Adofai revolutionised rhythm games would be like saying osu invented the point and click rhythm game (it was invented by elite beat agents on the ds) While yes it did bring it to popular attention and inspired many games like Melatonin to emerge, it was not the originator. 5) Many rhythm games do have self made songs made specifically for that title, as well as a lot of very well known artists that make music specifically for use in rhythm games (and get paid for it of course) so that RG developers don’t go bankrupt for the licensing of a pop song. Many of these artist include - Camellia, xi and ARForest. Some of their songs have escaped the rhythm game subculture as well, with xi being the artist of the well known featured in one of the most well known community geometry dash levels, “Ascension to heaven” and Camellia having a remix of ‘the worlds revolting’ that managed to reach millions of views. In fact, these songs created specifically for that game are often very popular with people who play these games, especially when that play multiple of them, often get very excited when a ‘colab’ is announced, basically two rhythm game companies trade songs to use in their own game. (Example game A has the songs q,w,e,r,t,y and game B has the songs z,y,x,w,v,u and so they do a song trade, game A gets the songs - z,y,x,w,u,v and game B gets the songs q,w,e,r,t,y.) So acquiring is not that big of an issue for rhythm games that don’t use pop culture songs. 6) The rhythm aspect of these games. Contrary to what it looks like, traditional rhythm games do have notes tied to the rhythm of the song, and aren’t just a mish mash of notes vomited on the screen. This is a point I see brought up by a lot of casuals and outside observers and it’s completely fair, to someone with limited knowledge of this particular genre the higher difficulties often look like a deluge of inputs that have no rhyme or reason. But even with traditional rhythm games there is a rhythm. Many of the notes in a small section of a song usually follow a consistent rhythm, in example, If you were able to tap on a table 24th notes, if you were to move to a rhythm game with a song that utilised 24th ‘streams’ of notes, as long as you could move your fingers to the specific points between each tap, as long as you kept tapping in 24th notes you would hit the entire pattern. Rhythm games do actually utilise rhythm, and if you go further some particular sadistic chartmakers may include polyrhythms and grace/swing into their charting. Learning how to spot and recognise these patterns and to consistently hit them is why I find rhythm games so fun for me To conclude, this is a pretty good video for someone’s first introduction to rhythm games, as the genre can be very intimidating. I understand why you would hide some of the more intense rhythm game experiences available at home to not scare people off as well. I disagree on the point of ‘revolutionising’ the genre, and more like filling a niche that Rhythm Heaven’s discontinuation left behind. Overall rhythm doctor and Adofai are both brilliant games, and can both have an deceptively high skill ceiling. Adofai has crazy custom charts that focus on hitting 24th and sometimes 32nd streams and bursts accurately and with rhythm doctor increasing the difficulty for hard narrows to timing window (the period you can hit notes and have it register as perfect) to 40ms, **milliseconds**. That’s extremely tight and requires surgical precision. This has just been an evil infodump by someone who is passionate about the genre and my general opinion on the video, and because I know it will come, please don’t say something like “blud wrote a whole essay 💀”, even though I know it’s coming just please don’t. To end it off, this was a really great video that appeals to both sides of the spectrum equally! Good job!

Many years back... like 20 or so, there was a game jam competition on a now defunct website called Coder's Workshop, and someone submitted a Super Mario game that was played with one button. Pressing it jumped, but holding it ran. You had to combine the two to get through the stages while you were automatically walking.

bro wants to excuse himself that he is bad at playing mania 🗣🗣🗣

I absolutely love Rhythm Doctor and adofai, but i think you could have mentioned the Rhythm Heaven series since 7th beat games took a lot of inspiration in these games to make RD and adofai. Also if you liked Rhythm Doctor, check out Melatonin and bits and bops (demo) besides Rhythm Heaven, I think you'll enjoy. Great video

really cool video but i wouldnt say they completely changed it forever, multiple key rhythm games as well as tons of notes will continue to exist, it just took an unique mechanic, maybe to be pulled off by others. but the main ones will continue on (also really great video i enjoyed it you deserve more)

Rhythm doctor is my favorite game of 2021. Act V was so beautiful and I adore this game so damn much.

To do the complete opposite of Rhythm Doctor and A Dance of Fire And Ice enters GD, a land of chaos where rhythm is optional. I do really love both games, though, and am planning to give them a try myself. They're actually rhythm games too. There's actual rhythm. It's not sight-reading or reaction time. All it is, is... rhythm. It's perfect!

A Dance of Fire and Ice is honestly one of thw greatest games I've ever played in general being completely honest. Not only because of how the game works, which is already a huge attraction by itself, but also because of the community we were able to develop in all these years, playing and creating custom levels. I've been creating levels and learning stuff on the level editor for a pretty good while now (even made a gitbook guide along with another experienced creator in the community and with the help of a lot of people, to aid the ones having a hard time learning how to properly use it), and that's honestly my favorite part of the game by far. It's really gratificating to create levels for other people to play and enjoy, and also help others that wish to become to create levels as well, and I'm really happy to see more and more people joining on this journey everyday.

As someone who plays project sekai Master difficulty and expert usually is so on the beat that i cant play hard difficulty because so many notes get ignored

It's not like more traditional rhythm games are forgetting the rhythm aspect. I think the main problem is the extreme overmapping in higher difficulties. But I guess that's just what happens when you try to push the boundaries of difficulty. If you look back on older very difficult osu maps you'll notice that they were just an overmapped mess that was difficult for the sake of being difficult. The better solution would be to make more complex patterns instead of absurdly fast streams or jacks. Though I guess in some cases like 4K beatmania style games there's only so much you can do. There are other games where more can be done however. Sound Voltex for example, while also having occaisonal overmapping problems once you go beyond level 18 or so, did manage to make very complicated patterns without making them absurdly fast. With some patterns there are multiple ways to physically execute them and you pretty much have to pick a method that works for you. Despite all that though, if they're not overmapped they still follow the rhythm of the song. At some point you might arrive at the point of hitting multiple keys for every hi hat that plays, but that is still following the rhythm of the song. Though more likely, you'll end up needing specific genres of songs to even make a really difficult map without overmapping. Or you end up with an overmapped barrage of 32nd notes that aren't even played in the song.

Nice video! I love that you covered my favorite game genre😊

What's your favorite rhythm game and why?

This video does not cover enough of the rhythm game “genre.” The “less mainstream games” you mentioned are more popular than ADOFAI and Rhythm Doctor will ever be. Konami has over 25+ years of creating arcade rhythm games and this video seems to just completely undermine that, it’s a little confusing to be honest. By the time Guitar Hero released, Beatmania IIDX, pop’n Music, DDR, EZ2DJ, BMS, O2Jam, and many other rhythm games already existed. ADOFAI and Rhythm Doctor are certainly breaking the mold of the current rhythm game market but it isn’t anything groundbreaking by any means. This video lacks way too much information on rhythm games as a whole to be honest. It certainly works for the western audiences because rhythm games barely existed, but this video is just really confusing to anyone that actually plays rhythm games. O2Jam released in 2002 and had it’s servers shut down over 10+ years ago, and to this day harbors some of the greatest 7K rhythm game players of all time. BMS is an umbrella term for Beatmania emulators, events like BOF (BMS of Fighters) gave rise to some of the most legendary songs in rhythm game history, like FREEDOM DiVE. As well as also creating some of the greatest 7K rhythm game players to ever exist. Jakads, undisputedly the greatest VSRG player of all time originated from these games. It’s a little unfortunate how much information was missed out in this video.

Rhythm doctor is legit my favorite game from my favorite genre. It’s just so unique and quirky, and has so much depth and cool mechanics!

You never heard of Rhythm Heaven did you?

also a neat thing with rhythm dr is how it’s well researched: press read more for what i mean because of spoilers in act 5 there’s a mini game where the baseball player is exercising his sprained shoulder by pulling a Bungie and it’s an actual recommended exercise for a sprained shoulder/elbow and like in the game it doesn’t actually hurt

Great vid! Always happy to see more attention put on this studio. I'd also like to add that rhythm doctor is actually 7th beat's 1st game with the flash demo existing since 2014 for the independent games festival. Granted it was made before 7th beat as a game studio existed but it's a neat piece of history of 7th beat games

I love that arcade game with the vertical hand movement lol (chunithm) great video tho, Nice to see 7BG appreciation, Adofai and Rhythm Doctor have been some of my most unique experiences playing this genre and RD even got an update recently, exciting!

this and adofai have ended up being my favourite rhythm games of the last few years, amazing video!

good concise video essay, well done with it

great video! i had a lot of fun watching, and im really happy many people are appreciating this kind of game design. i would appreciate it if more people could come up with game designs like this so regardless of where player skill is, they can have a similar experience. so far only the button or screen mashing games are successful, and as a fan of past rhythm heaven series, i really do miss the silly but fun game mechanics. so far taro's work being done on adofai was a blessing, and now rhythm doctor act 5 just came out yesterday and it was really good when i got my hands on it, please give it a shot! 😊 maybe i could see more games like this in the future, and i can't wait. p.s. did you know adofai community is going back to avalanche stage 💀 they play with 24 keys on the keyboard

I get the sentiment that the higher difficulty charts look like spam. But they are just merely advanced patterns of what you normally see in the easier levels. Granted the charters are doing their job properly. ADOFAI is a great example. Worlds 1 through 12 teach you the basic rhythms, then the custom levels are there if you want to push it further like LORELEI and Galaxy Collapse. And to the untrained eye, it definitly looks like spam but it isnt (most of the time). Hopefully this is your gateway to discover more of the genre and its many many games it offers.

When you said that older games have no correlation with rhythm and music, i think it's because the input is based on the music. Tapping into the music is easier once you know the music. If the music happens to be fast, and there appears to be lots of inputs, you are doomed 🌚. Music is the priority here. If you check out rhythm heaven from Nintendo, the music is based on the input, especially with the added cues in the game. That's why when you hear the music you can sometimes feel the input if you played the game. Rhythm is the priority here. It depends on what the game focus. Correct me if I'm wrong.

They really raised the difficulty at act 5. (Especially the boss and the night levels.) the new mechanics are also really fun.

i really enjoy adofai and what ive played of rhythm doctor, but acting like they saved a broken, dying genre kinda feels reductionist to me complaining about charts being too hard seems like a strange thing to do since you are the one who picks how hard of songs you play

Rhythm doctor is awesome, it hit an update to the story so y’all should DEFINITELY play it

Its odd that you didn't mention rhythm heaven despite it doing almost the same stuff as rhythm doctor while releasing much earlier. cool vid nonetheless

I'm so happy to see more appreciation of 7 Beat Games. They selling it really well especially with the new RD Act 5 update

Awesome video. Very high quality. Sorry i ruined the 420 subs but you deserved the subscription

I like my simple rhythm games from time to time but... Yeah they don't grab me as much as a traditional rhythm game

Isn't A sance of fire and Ice q multiple buttons/fingers game? I play with 2 or 3 and some levels require more. Even the game tells you to use more fingers in the 4th level tutorial of the DLC "Third sun" if I remember correctly

I'm not sure I agree with the statement that difficult is solely derived from note spam. Difficulty reading a chart can also be a factor, as in NotITG charts.

adofai mentioned

that's why i like osu a lot. i can check if the map is actually to the beat or not using the editor. and there's a lot of ranked maps where parts aren't to the beat. or uses sounds too quiet in the music, and i don't want to blast my ears just to hear the faintest of sounds in fast paced music.

A dance of fire and ice is probably my favorite game of this year

I feel like there's two kinds of rhythm games. Those that use a mania system, like Friday Night Funkin', Osu!Mania, Guitar Hero, etc. Then there's those that take rhythm games literally, by making you keep the rhythm as best you can, such as the aforementioned Rhythm Doctor and ADOFAI, as well as Rhythm Heaven, Melatonin, and a few others. Me personally, I prefer tempo games over mania games.

If too many notes being thrown at you is an issue with rhythm games... then play a lower difficulty. I've been playing rhythm games at a high level when lockdowns ended. And yes. These games can send like over 2000 notes are you in two minutes. Nobody is going to deny that. But like. Thats a Difficulty 26. You might get there one day, might not. Bump yourself down to an 8 and scale up and learn your skillset from there. This is coming from me who almost exclusively plays rhythm games at the arcade. Rhythm games don't suck. You might have a genuine skill issue that needs to be improved. Sidenote - companies but mostly KONAMI (under their BEMANI name) and ANDAMIRO have been composing original music for their rhythm games since the 90s. And the same is going true today wirh SEGA, TAITO, Bandai Namco as well today, and many other indie devs (lowiro, Noxy Games, PeroPeroGames, so-on and so-forth).

I feel like it doesn't need to be said but the higher difficulties are made for people to clear them if they reach the required skill, absolutely no one forces you to play those difficulties. The design of a game might be appealing at first to the normal player, but once you progress more in skill through a rhythm game, you start to notice those details less and less since the thing you'll be focusing on is difficulty. And to finish up this comment, I've recenetly seen adofai players play with 8, sometimes with even 10 buttons at once so idk how accurate the one button argument for ADOFAI is. I'm not trying to hate, I just wanna clear some things up. Hope you understand me.

I love rhythm games that make me press a lot of keys, but… a lot of them can be incredibly infuriating to play. Especially me who’s only a mid to above average at rhythm games. Having to hold down a note while playing other notes…. Gives me chills..

Deemo was chill and fun, but I wish mobile games tried something similar to Rhythm Doctor, it would make more sense

omg FINALLY 7TH BEAT ALSO HAD SOME RECOGNIZATION ABOUT THEIR GAMES! Not gonna lie, the songs on Rhythm Doctor were just so good

Chunithm is lit

I played Rhythm Doctor before Fraymakers added him as a assist and he was cool af

Rhythm heaven is the god of rhythm games and RD or Melatonin his sons

What about rhythm heaven?

If you liked Rhythm Doctor, you should consider Rhythm Heaven It has less sight-reading and focuses a lot more on audio cues, with plenty of visual distractions, forcing you to reply to the audio with your inputs to avoid messing up Tho the one limiting factor is that the franchise is Nintendo Exclusive

the problem with the majority of Rhythm games, is that in order to play them at the higher level, you have to completely kill your sense of Rhythm. it's not about the music anymore, it's just a competitive button mashing game.

Not to mention the great story.

lol okay

Skill issue