OSU! by Ellyiot

When it comes to rhythm games, people are more often than not familiar with names such as Stepmania, Guitar Hero or Taiko no Tatsujin. But for the PC world in recent years, a rhythm game has been really stepping up phenomenally as the community has gained so many members and with great loyalty towards the game. The game of which is none other than osu!, of course.

osu! is a rhythm game with four different game modes, standard mode, taiko mode, catch the beat mode, and mania mode. But more often than not a player will tend to try to master only one kind of game mode because mastering all 4 of them is rather difficult. There is a seperate ranking system for all of the game modes, but are all calculated in the form of what’s called as “pp” (performance points), and for all of the game modes you play songs off “beatmaps”. Beatmaps are essentially a form of assigning what kind of notes appear in the song, what kind of “circle” placement it has, basically it’s just creating what the community can play in osu!.

osu! standard is a game mode based off the old rhythm game Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, and it’s essentially just a circle clicking game, as even the devs describe it themselves. The gameplay itself requires mastery in yourself maneuvering your mouse as you tap your keyboard or mouse buttons and it’s a huge learning curve to learn as to gain pp to compete with the rest of the world.

Taiko is a mode literally identical to its arcade counterpart, it’s a game where you hit blue or red notes (which is decided via beatmapping) that have different keys assigned to them. Essentially taiko is like playing the drums, but instead of conventionally using drumsticks, you use your keyboard instead.

osu! Catch the Beat or “CTB” for short is a game where you have a character (called a Fruit Ryuuta) that moves around your screen to catch falling fruits (which are musical notes). It’s a game that requires pure focus and this is because there are some moments whereby notes are actually faster than your Fruit Ryuuta can normally move, and that is why there is a “dash” button, to essentially double your Fruit Ryuuta’s speed.

Last but not least, the last game mode is one similar to Stepmania, beatmania IIDX and O2Jam, it is osu! Mania. osu! mania is essentially a keyboard game, and you just tap your keyboard like you would with a piano .(Not with the same techniques of course, that wouldn’t ever work lmao) Notes will come to you either downwards, or upwards depending on how you setup your options, but there will be 1 line of notes (which means 1 key to press) up to a whopping 9 lines (which means 9 keys to press) depending on the beatmap you choose. The standard way of playing, and this is because many people only create beatmaps this way, is that people play 4k (4 keys/lines) or 7k (7keys/lines). (DISCLAIMER: When playing this, please do take a lot of breaks and know your limits, as injuries such as RSI or carpal tunnel may occur)

Overall, osu! is a fun game, with an interactive community, competitive ranking system (which means you can keep playing this for years and years to come) and it has so much versatility in gameplay. The game also constantly evolves as the game is entirely community driven, beatmaps are created by the community, updates are always created to cater to the community, and it just entirely creates a new experience every time.