The Cold Intro
I've broken into a cold sweat, and my heart rate's the highest it's been all month. I sit stiffly at my desk, my hands the only part of me moving as I stare unblinking at my screen, watching the final outro notes of Mitsukiyo's Constant Moderato.
My muscles relax as the screen fades to black. It's a new personal best: the hardest chart I've ever cleared. 6-key. SC 6*. To translate the DJMAX jargon, the game has a base difficulty tier of 1-15 stars, plus a separate SC (apparently "Super Crazy") tier designed for keyboard players, also measured 1-15. I just cleared something a little past the halfway point of that upper scale. To think over a decade ago I had resigned myself to "I'm just not good at rhythm games."
The results screen appears. B-rank.
The high of the achievement is already wearing off. "I need to do better," comes the first thought. "I know I can do better," follows right after.
I let my heart rate settle a bit before hitting F5. The song restarts. Next stop, A-rank. And something tells me I won't be satisfied until I get an S.
Sidestep the Elephant with a (Hi)story
I've been itching to talk about game difficulty for a while but I want to do it here from a personal angle. Accessibility and authorial intent are gigantic topics that deserve a lot of time to discuss, so the little chat about rhythm games here is, by design, going to be more tightly focused.
I don't think I can make a blanket statement like "I'm bad at video games" or "I'm good at video games." I'm all over the map: sometimes gravitating towards the hardest difficulties and other time sticking with the easiest. So rather than talking at length about design and theory, I figured I'd share my thoughts in practice: showing you what my relationship with difficulty looks like and how it's changed over time.
Let's start with some context for that DJMAX story earlier.
"I'm just not good at rhythm games."
My first forays into rhythm games were Dance Dance Revolution and Beatmania IIDX: the former on PlayStation 2 and the latter through PC-based BMS players. I'd rarely venture past DDR's "Light" difficulty and would regularly rack up the E-ranks whenever I decided to play on normal.
But it was IIDX and BMS that really hooked me, solidifying my fascination with the traditional rhythm game niche. Seven keys. Fast scroll speeds. Merciless note formations. And an HP system I had to turn off to even make it to the end of most songs. "Vertically scrolling rhythm games" or VSRGs let me peer into a world of unbelievably high skill ceiling, and, from my perspective, unbelievably high skill floor too.
I practiced for hours; dozens, hundreds of hours. And I barely got any better. The "easiest" charts would still destroy me, and although my scores would improve, I'd rarely ever see anything above a D-rank.
I told myself: I just wasn't good at rhythm games.
DJMAX
But then DJMAX came along: a Korean-developed love letter to IIDX. It closely resembled its arcade inspiration, but it was different in a few key ways. It was on PSP and designed to be playable on the gamepad, it was slower, it was easier... it was approachable.
And that difference made me believe that I could and would improve. Simultaneously forgiving on entry yet brutal at the top, DJMAX offered that perfect mixture of ease and challenge that made me comfortable with pushing my limits, and have fun in the process.
In the years since my introduction to DJMAX many years ago, I've clocked countless hours in that series and other VSRGs as well. In the latest series entry DJMAX RESPECT V alone, I have over 200 hours. Because I finally found games easy enough to let me see my improvement, get some wins, and gradually ramp up my skill, I could dare to believe "I can totally improve, just watch me" and shift away from "I'm just not good."
My cumulative time with rhythm games has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my gaming life, despite it beginning with endless hours of failure, frustration, and the mistaken belief that I'd never be able to get good.
Safe and Dangerous
Everybody's play style is different. But for me, rhythm games give me the perfect environment to make my "practice" as aggressive, or conservative, as I need in the moment.
Some days I want to start a session with a cold-start on a difficult song, skipping the usual comfortable warm-up. Other times I'll boot up an old favorite that I've S-ranked and full-comboed dozens of times over, just to relax. These games give you the much welcome precise control over intensity, much like constantly fiddling with the dial on a treadmill every couple minutes.
My main takeaways through this whole process:
- It might be "just too hard" only for the moment. Some challenges are indeed too much for me, but that doesn't mean they'll be impossible forever. And it definitely doesn't mean I'll never be good at that type of game.
- Confidence from wins let me comfortably fail. DJMAX's approachable, lower-difficulty design let me have small wins with challenges much more manageable to me as a beginner. These gave me a foundation of confidence to push towards harder goals, then fall back on the basis of successes I knew I had prior no matter the outcome. Compare that to my start with IIDX clones where even trying to break into basic difficulty, I'd fail every time.
- I need plenty of time to recharge in between hard pushes. The song-by-song, chart-by-chart structure of rhythm games gives me a safe way to experiment with the ultra-difficult, then retreat to easier territory when I want a break. I can't run my rhythm game engine at overdrive all the time. In fact, I'd venture to say that it's a minority of the time I can do that, with the remainder of my play being comfortable, relaxing, and most importantly, fun.
Today?
For fun, here's a little epilogue to that opening story.
I did end up get that elusive A-rank on Constant Moderato 6B SC 6*. Now, I'm practicing for the S-rank and max combo. In the meantime, I've done that for several other SC charts and plenty of non-SC ones in the upper 11-15* range. From experience, I'll echo the sentiment you'll see online that some of those 14-15* charts are arguably harder than their lower-star SC counterparts.
I'll play DJMAX RESPECT V's ranked multiplayer on and off, with my peak position on the ladder being Silver. It's a relatively lower tier, but a huge personal achievement far above the level of competitive skill I've ever dreamed of attaining.
My love for rhythm games has continued to grow. Quirky and unique ones of all shapes and sizes, but especially those orthodox VSRGs. In the rare opportunities I get to visit a Japanese gesen, I always make time for my current favorites: Chunithm and Sound Voltex, the latter of which could be seen as a younger cousin to the still-strong Beatmania IIDX series.
The cynic in me points out that I'm still barely entry-level among true rhythm game experts. But the optimist in me, who saw how far I've come from a person who had given up on the idea of being even half-decent at this genre of game, reminds me that "barely entry level to an expert" is a hell of a long way to come. And, heaven willing, the journey is far from over yet.
