In this thread we talk about rhythm gaming histories

[MrRubix]

I was posting in another thread and it got me into nostalgia mode, a bit. I've been playing since Dance With Intensity was released in early 2001 or so, although in terms of DDR, I've been playing since a couple years prior to that.

In terms of era, I associate a lot of the early DWI/SM days with BemaniRuler, who, at the time, was known for making the hardest simfiles around (does anyone remember the "Legend of ART" songs in the DDREI Tournamix files that made fun of BMR for this?). By today's standards, BMR's files are really easy and we wouldn't give them a second thought -- they're only marginally tougher than Max 300 was at the time. My very first DWI files were Nori Nori Nori, Bakkwo, Captain Jack, and B4U. B4U was the file I used in order to learn how to read better... and then I moved onto Paranoia Evolution until I could FC it on Heavy. Eventually I moved onto Max 300, and then BMR's files. One of the earliest DDR videos (from 1998, the year DDR came out) you'll find on the internet today: Butterfly. I'll always have a soft spot for this file, too. :P

The file that I'll always remember was "Angelfalls." When I first started playing, a friend of mine at the time gave it to me and said "Check this file out -- it's INSANE." Remind you, I was playing B4U at this time. Angelfalls looked incredibly crazy in comparison. But eventually I was able to play not only Angelfalls, but V (which taught me staircases), Afronoia (which I used to learn how to read runningmen), G2, and Gravity (basic jumpstream). Then there was the 3000+ step file "Pulse," which was supposed to be BMR's goodbye-file (it wound up not being his last, but I'll always associate it with the end of the BMR era, since everything he made after that was not as widely publicized/official). All of this took place at DDRManiaX, and the Pulse release was a pretty big deal at the time. TaQ stepfiles were also really popular during this period (many of which came from Dj Ren, who also enjoyed stepping Onoken files -- I used to playtest his files before he released them). His files also got me interested in competitive play and I was the first to AAA many of his files (of course, this gathered BS calls like no other).

[If anyone still has the old BMR BG videos please let me know (the ones for G2, V, Nemesis, etc)... these videos were on an old, old computer that broke down and I can't find these videos anywhere anymore. But anyway...]

Then there was the "Golden Era" of Stepmania, which was around... maybe 2003-2004 or so? The community was incredibly active and there were DDR/SM/DWI sites *everywhere*. DDR Extreme was making its rounds and Legend Road was considered insanely impossible until we saw guys like JSB and Yasu (of Aaron in Japan fame) dominate it -- also recall Kobayan's domination of Maxx Unlimited doubles. One of my favorite videos was one of JSB getting SDG on Legend of Max. Unfortunately, JSB was also a bit abrasive. We can't forget guys like Sketch, either. :P The video of some dude juggling pins while playing So Deep on Heavy is still pretty sick by today's standards.

But in terms of keyboard gaming, I associate this time with guys like Reach, Nima, and Arch0wl, who at the time were considered the megabeasts of the community (but not without a lot of drama). This is, in my opinion, where skill took off. We started seeing large skill gains and people were hammering out some relatively tough stepcharts (Payon, Cold Breath, Vanish Into Thin Air, Dignity, Ice Climbers, Club, Reality, etc).

In late-2004/early-2005, as I recall, we started getting a taste for things like ITG, which pushed the boundaries of pad-play. Stuff like Pandemonium would have usually been considered a keyboard file, but hoolllyyy ****. Anyone remember the old video of Foy playing Pure Hell before it was renamed to Breaking Point -- our first preview of ITG? ("3x sudden got me" lmfao)? That video blew a lot of people away. Also check out the first previews we ever got of stuff like Vertex, Hardcore of the North, and later Energizer. These files are still considered decently hard today, but at the time you have to understand just how much crazier they were compared to the stuff DDR was pumping out. We basically went from LoM and PSMO to Vertex and Pandemonium. And now we can see some pretty crazy stuff nowadays that was previously thought to be impossible.

And SOLO SUCKS ANYWAYS!

I joined FFR in 2004, but 2006 was when I remember playing in a more competitive capacity (namely once I saw that there were skill tokens to be had). The bluenote files were not all that fun, and so it wasn't until we saw stuff like NeoMax (one of the earlier colored/Note files) that I started finding FFR to be worth returning to. While I had needed to adjust my timing to account for framers, hammering out a Lawn Wake IV / Caprice AAA (first FGO AAA on the site) was really easy... but here on FFR, it generated the start of all the BS drama, especially since, at the time, my history was relatively unknown to newcomers. This was the thread where I basically came out of nowhere and got a great score on LW4 and eventually tied Shash for the only LW4 AAA on the site.

I had always wanted to make this kind of thread, and was upset that I never got the chance to make it before FFR initially went down -- so here we go. :P Discuss any memories you have or things you want to share about your history.

EDIT: Will be updating this post as I remember more.