Ace Of Hearts' Guide To Moving From DDR To ITG

[Ace Of Hearts]

First off, I gotta give mad props to RancidFish for coming up with the idea of posting the general idea in the first place (and most of the following content, in different words).

Since I've played ITG 2 a few times now and have asked around for a few things, I think I'm ready to post my guide on moving from DDR to ITG. (Those of you who've read my other guide(s) know I'm rather good at writing guides.)

Moving From DDR To ITG

Table Of Contents

Table Of Contents

The Red Button & The Mod Screen
--What The Red Button Does
--How To Get To The Mod Screen
--How To Use The Mod Screen
--Changes In Mod Names
--Changes In Default Mods

A Word On USB Cards

Differences In Arrows And An Introduction To The New Stuff
--Differences In Tap Arrows
--Differences In Freeze Arrows
--Rolls
--Mines
--Hands

Other Things You'll Need To Know
--Song Length
--No Extra Stage
--Song Information
--Difficulty Name Changes

Which Songs Should I Play First?
--Familiarity
--Similarity

Game Mode Similarities & Differences
--Dance
--Battle (Under Construction)
--Marathon
--Survival

Difficulty Comparison For 10s, 11s, 12s, and 13s

Credits

The Red Button & The Mod Screen

What The Red Button Does
This is likely the first question you'll ask yourself when you first lay eyes on an ITG machine. You've probably guessed the functions of the blue left and right buttons and the top green button, but what about the red one under the green?

It's your alternate function button. It does whatever pressing left + right simultaneously did on a DDR machine (in fact, if you're not playing on a dedicated ITG 2 cabinet, pressing the yellow left and right buttons is your red button). To wit:

*Song Sort: On the Song Selection Screen, you can hold [Red] and tap [Green] to bring up the Sort Menu. You can now sort the songs in any way imaginable: by title, by artist, based off its foot level on a given difficulty, highest score, just about anything.

*Difficulty Change: Also on the Song Selection Screen, you can hold [Red] and tap < to go down a difficulty, or > to go up a difficulty.

*Mod Menu: Tap [Red] to go back up one line.

*Screenshot: Screenshots can only be taken of a Results screen, and only if someone's got a USB Card inserted. If that's the case, tap [Red] to snap a screenshot.

How To Get To The Mod Screen
The "official" way to do it is to hit [Green] again after the first time you hit it to confirm your song choice.

However, DDR players will be happy to know that the Mod Screen will still trigger if you just hold it in after selecting your song.

How To Use The Mod Screen
Now that you're in there, you want to know how to use it, right?

Its operation is somewhat the same as a DDR machine, but is at the same time entirely different.

Any choice starts off on the little down arrow next to the line's category name (such as Arrow Speed, Perspective, or Turn) so you can immediately confirm the line if you like what you see.

If you go left or right and confirm an option, the highlighter thing does not go down to the next line yet. It will return to the down arrow of the category you just confirmed the mod for.

Why?

Some lines allow you to confirm multiple mods for that particular line, so if you've turned on something you dislike, you'll need to go highlight that same option and confirm it again to toggle it back off.

Either way, you can hit [Green] confirm something, or if you're on the down arrow for a line, you hit it to confirm that you like what you see on that line and move down a line.

You can also hit [Red] to back up a line in case you missed something or made a mistake.

Just like in DDR, any mods you choose will remain active as such until the end of your game (unless, of course, you change them again).

And, of course, also just like in DDR, once both players are highlighting "Exit" and someone hits confirm, the song begins.

Changes In Mod Names
Your favorite mods are still in ITG; they've just had their names changed. Here's the list of stuff that adopted a new alias:

DDR --> ITG
Boost --> Accel
Brake --> Decel (yes, it's available as a standard mod now)
Fuwa-Fuwa --> Expand (yeah, this one's available now, too)
Dark --> Hide Targets
Hidden --> Fade Out
Sudden --> Fade In
Stealth --> Invisible

Changes In Default Mods

Default "Perspective"
The default arrow perspective in ITG is [Hallway], which is different from DDR's [Overhead] view. The arrows look kinda like they're zooming in a bit as they make their way toward the top. This isn't a huge difference, but it is one of the first differences you'll notice. You can change the Perspective back to [Overhead] from the Options Menu. (Just remember that [Hallway] is the default, so you'll need to change it every time you start a new game.)

Default Arrow Speed & Other Arrow Speed Stuff
ITG's default arrow speed is [1.5x]. This is fine for most decent players, as that's what they use most of the time anyway (like me). But just remember for the really fast stuff that you'll need to manually change it back to [1x]. Also note that ITG sports the [2.5x] arrow speed mod.

Incidentally, you may have also noticed the C-mods. These things will make any song's arrows scroll at that many BPM throughout the song, eliminating arrow speed changes in songs that have tempo changes. Be careful, though, because using a C-mod on a song that has tempo changes will disqualify you from the high score list for that song.

A Word On USB Cards
If you've seen anyone use one, you probably noticed that their scores were saved to it, and their nickname appears every time you'd normally see "Player 1" or "Player 2" on the screen.

This is all thanks to a nifty little device that players like to call a USB Card (also known as a "Flash Drive").

Where do you get one, you ask? How much does it store? What can it do for you? I'm getting to that.

The best place to purchase a Flash Drive is at Staples (although Target may also have them, along with any other store with a decently sized electronics section). You won't need upwards of a gigabyte if all you're using it for is ITG - even a 128 MB card will save more than enough screenshots. And a 64 MB stick will suffice if you plan on taking very few screenshots or only want to track your name and scores.

Size - Average Price
64 MB - $25
128 MB - $30
256 MB - $40
512 MB - Range from $60 - $90 depending on the brand

As for the benefits and getting set up, here's how it works:

1. Go buy it. It's fine right out of the package and doesn't need formatted or anything fancy like that.

You can't put in a "long name" for yourself or anything like that yet because In The Groove 2 data must already exist on the drive. So you must play at least one game of ITG 2 with the card before you can really do anything with it on your computer. So:

2. Go play a game on your local ITG 2 machine. You can take screenshots of your first 3 songs; no problem. As for a name, it'll identify you as "NoName" for the time being; you'll just have to deal with it. After putting in your high score list name (of 4 or less characters) for any applicable high scores, it will save the data to your little card.

Once it's done, you can take it home and "set it up" if you want. It's not absolutely required; the only difference a computer really makes is the ability to give yourself a long name and delete stuff you don't need anymore.

Your card is already keeping track of the last initials you used for the high score tables, your scores, your total various steps, and also keeps track of the last mods you used (including the last difficulty you played on) and keeps them that way so you don't have to choose them again.

It also keeps track of your current combo, and will keep counting game after game after game until you get another Decent. That's right - if you play several games of easy songs in a row, you can end up with a combo well into the thousands. (Your combo will start flashing orange if it exceeds 2,500, incidentally.)

3. When you pop it into a USB port on your computer, it should recognize it as exactly what it is: "Removable Drive." Double-click that, and you'll see your folder for In The Groove 2. Double-click it. You'll see an .ini file called "Editable," which is where you're going now. Double-click.

If you've ever played StepMania and messed around with any of the files, this kind of setup should be rather familiar to you.

You'll notice a total of 3 things total in this file that it keeps track of. The first will be your long name, prompted by the term "DisplayName=", and at this point, the space to the right of that should be blank. That's where you type in your long name that you want to be identified as. So fill that in as you find appropriate. It does distinguish between capitals and lowercase, you can use numbers, and it allows for spaces instead of underscores if you'd like, so keep those things in mind. It's a 12-character maximum.

Next it'll tell you what it remembers as being the last initials you put in the high score list, and you can alter that if you want, too.

In case you want to keep track of the calories you've burned, the third item is your weight in pounds.

There you go - you're all set up! If you want, you can browse through and/or delete your screenshots from the appropriate folder. (Screenshots are saved in .jpg format.)

4. Now when you pop your card into an ITG 2 machine, it'll identify you by your long name, and it'll give you a personalized reminder not to forget your card at the end of the game, as well as telling you how many calories you burned that game (if you put in your weight).

All cards work fine on any ITG 2 cabinet, but for a list of which cards work and which cards don't if you're playing on an ITG 1 cabinet (and other info), you'll want to go to the USB Card Thread, which is located at http://www.ddrfreak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=103134.

Differences In Arrows And An Introduction To The New Stuff

Differences In Tap Arrows
In ITG 2, there are special colors for the stranger denominations of notes. Orange for 1/32 notes and cyan for 1/64 notes. Also, in both ITG and its sequel, the arrows are colored like to DDR's "Solo" mod. In other words, the arrows stay the same color at all times and are colored according to beat. (If you want the arrows to change colors on their way up the screen that bad, go into the Mod Screen and confirm [Vivid].)

Differences In Freeze Arrows
The freezes now display properly in [Reverse] scroll and display the color of the initial tap so you know when to hit the freeze, unlike DDR's solid green freezes.

Rolls
Rolls don't show up near as often as mines (we'll discuss mines in a bit), but it's important to know how to handle them in the few songs they show up in. Basically, a "roll" is a kind of freeze step that, instead of being pressed and held, must be hit at least once every 1/3 of a second. (Think of it like a drumroll, because that's usually where rolls show up - songs that have drumrolls or, in the case of songs like "Summer," Christmas-y bell-rolls.) There's no set rhythm to how fast you can tap a roll - you can go as fast as you want (in fact, the faster you tap, the better the chance you'll keep your roll).

As for what they look like, they're hard to miss - they are distinctly different from a normal freeze. They look like a freeze arrow with spikes on it, and have kind of a yellowish tone to them.

The song that best exemplifies rolls would have to be "Robotix" [Hard]. It's got a 20-second roll in it. (No, unfortunately, I am not kidding. I wish I was. I lost the roll about 10 seconds in on my first try.)

Another song that has tons of rolls is "Renaissance." It's got rolls on every difficulty Medium and above.

Rolls can be turned off on the Mod Screen. Just confirm [No Rolls] on the "Handicaps" line.

Mines
Mines are also clearly different from a normal tap note. They look like, well...a land mine.

As you've probably already guessed, if you hit a mine, a distinct explosion sound is heard, you see the thing explode, and your health gauge gets depleted a bit.

Mines will register an explosion whether you actually tap the step where they exist, or even if your foot just happens to already be on that particular arrow when the mine crosses the top.

Hitting a mine will not kill your current combo (you just lose a bit of life and keep going). As long as you're still hitting actual arrows where they appear, your combo is still safe.

Most of the time (on easier songs, at least), you won't need to worry about mines because they're typically in places where you won't be stepping at that moment anyway. However, a lot of songs (especially on higher difficulties) have mines in places where you will have to actively avoid them.

To do this, just make sure you're not on that/those panel(s) when the mine(s) come up. This is typically done either by actually stepping on the center metal plate, or by simply lifting up the foot in question long enough to allow the mine to pass by on its merry way, then setting your foot back down.

(Of course, lots of mine-intensive songs have multiple mines on the same beat. There's nothing one can do in this case except return both feet to the center plate as quickly as possible or jump high enough to "jump over" the mines.)

To get used to mines, I'd actually recommend the one song that is slow enough to teach you the timing involved, although it's a bit difficult - "One False Move." This will give you plenty of time to react to the numerous mines in the song, and will teach you exactly how long you have before a mine will actually react to your foot's presence and blow up.

Songs that exemplify mines rather well include "Lemmings On The Run" [Expert] and "One False Move" [any difficulty].

Mines can be turned off on the mods screen by confirming [No Mines] on the "Handicaps" line.

Hands
Thanks to modern innovations in the dance game world (Pump It Up and now In The Groove), we now have some amount of songs that require you to use your hands (unless you have really big feet?). Some songs sport taps of three (or even all four) arrows at once, or places where you must hold 2 freezes with your feet and hit other tap arrows with your hands.

Hands typically don't start showing up until you hit Hard difficulty, and even then, only on select songs. However, the song "Bend Your Mind" has hands on all difficulties, so play that on easier difficulties to get used to using your mitts before moving up to harder hand-intensive songs (like "Rom-eo & Juli8" [Expert] or "Queen Of Light" [Expert]). "Twilight" can also be a good choice for starters because there's some preparation time before each three-note tap and some wind-down time afterward.

Because you'll need to use your hands, Roxor made sure the pads are more pressure-sensitive than a DDR pad so you don't have to break your hand hitting a handplant. (The bolts are also constructed a bit smoother than those on a DDR machine, so you won't catch yourself/get hurt on them as easily.)

These mandatory handplants can be turned off in the mod menu by confirming [No Hands] on the "Handicaps" line.

Other Stuff You'll Need To Know

Song Length
Songs in ITG are 2 minutes (in other words, 120 seconds) on average, as opposed to the average length of a song in DDR (which was 90 seconds, or 1 1/2 minutes). The extra 30 seconds means that you'll require about 1/3 more stamina to pass a song of the same difficulty in ITG as you did in DDR.

No Extra Stage
Sorry. Unlike our good friend DDR, ITG does not sport an Extra Stage or an Encore Extra stage of any kind. (This is probably because the songs are 2 minutes long.)

Song Information
More info is available on the ITG song selection screen than is available on DDR's. You'll get the max combo and BPM for the song, and will be told how many jumps, freezes, rolls, hands, and mines there are.

Difficulty Name Changes
The difficulties have changed names and colors, but are still pretty much relative to each other. To wit:

DDR --> ITG
Beginner --> Novice (ITG 2 only)
Light --> Easy
Standard --> Normal
Heavy --> Hard
Oni --> Expert

Even though there are now 11, 12, and 13-foot songs (now displayed in Blocks rather than Feet), the actual difficulty is still also pretty much relative to DDR. In other words, if you can pass a DDR 8-footer, chances are pretty good that you can also pass an ITG 8-block song.

Also remember that just as in DDR, there are some songs in ITG that are kinda at the "easy end" of any given difficulty and certain songs are at the "more difficult end" of their rating.

As for the players who play Heavy and Oni and want to know if Expert should be a consideration, think about this. If you've passed at least one of the Maxes, and can pass stuff like Cartoon Heroes or Waka Laka with an A or AA most of the time, you can probably pass the wide majority of ITG 9's. If you can pass all the Maxes, you stand a chace at most of the ITG 10's. (A good place to start, 10's-wise, would probably be Agent Blatant, Spin Chicken, or My Favourite Game. Don't be fooled by stuff like Sweet World and Soapy Bubble - these 10s are considerably harder than the easy-end 10s.) Also, if you're that good at DDR and want to say you've got an 11 under your belt, try playing Charlene and turn the mines off. Without the mines, Charlene is a challenging yet very passable song.

Which Songs Should I Play First?

Familiarity
In the ways of familiarity, nothing from recent DDR is on ITG. However, if you're knowledgable in the old mixes of DDR or have played some old-school DDR songs on StepMania (we're talking 3rd and 4th mix, here), you will definitely recognize "Bumble Bee," "Typical Tropical," and "Sunshine." So if you know those, they're you're best bet for easing yourself into ITG. Here's what to expect from the ITG versions of the steps, aside from an extra 30 seconds tacked onto the end:

*Bumble Bee: Expect what you did back in the old days. Expert throws in some extra 16ths on ocassion, but you still get your good old "Doop-e-doop-e-doo-wa-wa" steps (now with jumps where appropriate).
*Typical Tropical: Behaves almost exactly as it did back in the day on the appropriate difficulties. Play Normal for lyrical steps and Hard to follow the background melody. The Expert steps aren't that much harder.
*Sunshine: This is the original version of "Follow The Sun: 90 In The Shade Mix." It still plays pretty much the same, though. For straightforward steps, play Hard and you'll follow the lyrics and main melody nearly to a T. Just so you know, Expert on this song is nothing like its original Oni steps in DDR - it's far harder now. It's become a 10-footer, and the steps are well-deserving of being called a 10. Like Cartoon Heroes [Heavy], the steps are modeled to be the fancy/finale type (it makes an excellent final song).

You'll also notice that though they haven't appeared in DDR, several artists who've done songs for DDR long ago have songs in ITG:

*Ni-Ni (known in DDR for 1, 2, 3, 4, 007 and Be Together) sings Little Kitty Mine, The Message, and Spacy Crazy Girl.

*E-rotic (known for their sexual songs in DDR) also makes some appearances, singing Lemmings On The Run and Touch Me.

*Papaya (known in DDR for Pink Dinosaur and Operator) goes by the name "Lynn" in ITG, and is the artist behind No Princess and Spaceman.

Similarity
As for approximate style references, nothing in ITG is exactly like DDR, but there are some style similarities, and here's some to get you started. (A note to people helping me with this guide: please think a moment before objecting, and note that we're comparing styles here and disregarding any potential difficulty differences.)

If You Liked --> You'll Probably Also Like
Waka Laka --> Mellow (okay, so Waka Laka didn't have rap in the verses, but you've got to admit that the zany chorus of Mellow qualifies to liken it to Waka Laka.)
Higher --> Flying High
Cow Girl --> Baby Baby (same artist, actually)
El Ritmo Tropical --> Little Kitty Mine (seriously; think about it a moment before you object to this one)
Cartoon Heroes --> Space Man / No Princess
Ska A Go-Go --> Go *60* Go
AM-3P --> Rom-eo & Juli8
Exotic Ethnic --> Anubis / Zodiac / Oasis
Holic / Insertion --> Infection
Jet World --> Hybrid / Bouff
Butterfly --> Birdie / Life Of A Butterfly
Super Star / Dynamite Rave --> No 1 Nation (Probably a bit of a strectch there though)
Healing Vision --> Hand Of Time
Max Series --> Energizer
Paranoia Series --> Disconnected Series, Pandemonium
Vanity Angel, L'amour Et La Liberte, other songs with tricky or complicated steps --> Clockwork Genesis
Xenon, other songs that make you follow electronic noises --> I Think I Like That Sound, Disconneced -Disco-, Robotix, While Tha Rekkid Spinz
Kakumei, V, other classical songs --> Tell, Driving Force Classical, Hardcore Of The North
Tears, Colors, other sad songs --> Torn, Charlene

Learning To Deal With The New Innovations
Learning How To Handle Hands: You could use Twilight, but also consider Bend Your Mind. The first Expert-difficulty song involving hands that you will pass will probably be Rom-eo & Juli8 (it's a 9-footer).
Learning How To Handle Rolls: Summer [Hard] or Renaissance.
Learning How To Handle Mines: One False Move (I know the song sounds ominous, but seriously, the song is not that bad, okay?).

What's The Default Song On An ITG 2 Machine?
ITG 2-Dedicated Cabinet: We Know What To Do, by Matiloe.
Refitted DDR Cabinet: Amore, by Uniq.

The default sort is by debut mix.

Scoring Differences

Timing Judgments
Once again, the judgments are also relative to DDR. Also note that Fantastics are scored on all game modes, and that the window for a Fantastic is indeed slightly larger than the window for a DDR Marvelous.

DDR --> ITG
Marvelous --> Fantastic
Perfect --> Excellent
Great --> Great
Good --> Decent
Boo --> Way Off
Miss --> Miss

And as for freeze judgments:
O.K.! --> Yeah!
N.G. --> Bad

Grade
You're graded just like in DDR based on your performance. But instead of score, you're graded by percent (just like in Oni Mode of DDR), and given your grade (rather similar to getting scored on a test at school) based off that. The cutoffs are as such:

Quadruple Star: 100%
Triple Star: 99%
Double Star: 98%
Star: 96%
S+: 94%
S: 92%
S-: 89%
A+: 86%
A: 83%
A-: 80%
B+: 76%
B: 72%
B-: 68%
C+: 64%
C: 60%
C-: 55%
D: Anything below 55% but you still passed the song
F: Fail the song (Yes, ITG actually gives you an F instead of an E.)

Game Mode Similarities & Differences

Dance
Just like DDR. You pick this, you pick and choose your songs and give yourself any mods you want. You play your 3 songs (provided you keep passing), and you're done.

Battle
There must be 2 players to play this mode.

The players agree on a song to play. They're forced to play on the same difficulty as each other (although they can pick any difficulty the song has).

Once it begins, the song starts off normally.

However, when a player has enough consecutive combo steps, a nasty mod gets sent to their opponent. The higher your combo, the worse the mods you send over.

Comboing is also the best way to get rid of mods that are sent to you - if you manage to keep a combo going for a certain amount of time under a mod, the mod's cancelled (and you send something to your opponent). Getting several bad judgments, like Way Offs and Misses, will also kill a mod on your side (because it's served its purpose - it made you screw up).

This continues through the 3-song game, and the winner is declared at the end of the set.

Marathon
Modeled after DDR's Nonstop Mode. You'll play a certain set of songs, obviously.

However, mods have been thrown in in some of the courses (you can tell whether a course has mods or not by looking at the lower-left corner of the banner. If the word "Mods" is down there flashing, they're present in that course.)

And these aren't your ordinary mods that enact for a whole song. These are mods that turn on and off almost constantly right in the middle of the song(s) you're doing.

Easier courses use easier mods, like [Drift], [Accelerate], and [Float].

Difficult courses do much worse. You'll see things like [Dizzy] or [Fade In] and ridiculous speed mods like [4x].

When you're checking out a seemingly easy course that has mods, don't let the songs on Easy fool you. If you see three 2-footers and a 9, that means you'll be facing mods on the first 3 songs that make it far more difficult to read the arrows.

How bad will the mods be? If you see mostly 5's and the course itself is rated a 6 or 7, the mods will be pretty tame. However, if you're seeing 4's for the songs, but the course is rated a 9 or 10, you're in for some incredibly difficult mods.

Survival
This is stricter than DDR's Oni Mode, first of all.

Second of all, this mode is only available on an In The Groove 2 machine.

Third, it works completely different from Oni Mode.

You start off with a timer. This is the amount of time you have to complete the course. If you run outta time, you fail. However, you start with less time on the timer than is required to play through even one song. How do you rectify this situation? Score attack.

Fantastics are worth an extra 1/5 of a second (+0.2) on the clock.

Excellents don't add or subtract from your time.

Greats will lose you a half second, and anything less or hitting a mine will start shaving entire seconds from your time (Decent, -1 second; Way Off, -2 seconds; Miss, -4 seconds). (Info on what hitting a mine does to your time would be appreciated.)

Completing a song with anything left on the timer will net you an 80-second bonus to assist you with completing the next song.

Every time a step that adds or subtracts from your time is judged, the time judgment appears right next to the targets in fractions of a second, adding whole numbers only where applicable (for example, if you get a Fantastic judgment, you'll see it briefly display "+.20", and if you get a Way Off, you'll see "-2.00".)

Mods are also present here, although they don't change during the song; only in-between songs. However, you can still tell how bad it will be by looking at the difference between the song's original ratings and the course's overall rating before starting.

Just like in DDR's Oni Mode, you don't get access to the Mod Menu, so you take what you get. Speed mods for each song are scripted along with anything else the course has to offer, so keep that in mind.

Difficulty Comparison For 10s, 11s, 12s, and 13s
Just to let you know, this section is subject to change and your own opinion may differ from that of the general populous (although as many opinions as I got, I have a feeling I'm at least pretty darn close).

Since we've discussed everything else, here's some comparison based a little bit on my own experience, but mostly on others' opinions. This section is for those who are real good at DDR and want to know in about what order they should probably go about trying to conquer an ITG 2 machine.

10 Block Songs

Easy 10s
D-Code, Agent Blatant (you'll follow the percussion a lot, as opposed to Hard, which follows the main melody), VerTex [Hard], Spin Chicken, Bend Your Mind (if you can handle hands), Tribal Style, Temple Of Boom, My Favourite Game, Hand Of Time, Remember December

Average 10s
Tension, One False Move, Anubis, Hillbilly Hardcore, Energizer [Hard], Hybrid, Queen Of Light (look out for the hands!), Walking On Fire, Disconnected -Hyper- (the end run is a bit difficult, but the majority of the song is a cakewalk as far as 10s go), Sunshine

Hard 10s
Bouff, Oasis (it doesn't have many steps, so instead, it's EXTREMELY freeze-heavy; be very careful), Know Your Enemy, Soapy Bubble (looks straightforward, but is actually rather tricky), Sweet World (mostly because of the "flams" strewn throughout most of the song)

11 Block Songs

Easy 11s
Utopia (you'll follow the piano), Charlene (especially if you kill the mines on the Mod Screen), Clockwork Genesis (if you can handle technical, complicated steps; think of it as a harder L'amour Et La Liberte)

Average 11s
Destiny, The Beginning, Infection, Xuxa (you'll follow every single note the keyboard plays), July (same here)

Hard 11s
Pandemonium [Hard], Hardcore Symphony, Mythology (there's a nearly 30-second PSMO-like run at the end, complete with the crossovers; if you can't do PSMO, you will never pass this song)

12 Block Songs

Easy 12s
VerTex, Energizer, Euphoria (just make sure you look out for the slowdown)

Average 12s
Go *60* Go, Delirium, Tell (there's a jump on every single cymbal clash in the song without fail; it makes it like the first 30 seconds of DDR's "Miracle," only twice as fast and ten times worse), Hardcore Of The North (again, you'll follow every single note of it), ! (you gotta be able to handle hands with little warning)

Hard 12s
Bloodrush, Determinator

13 Block Songs

Oh My God!
Summer (You will follow the bells throughout the entire song this time as opposed to Hard. Not so innocent anymore, is it?)

Holy Crap!
Pandemonium

Holy Peanut Butter And Jelly, Batman!
VerTex ^2

And there you have it.

Enjoy playing In The Groove, and remember to go back for a few games of DDR once in a while. It's good in its own right and deserves playing too!

Credits

Author
Ace Of Hearts

Co-Author
RancidFish (most of this stuff is reworded from his original thread)

Editors
PendaticOmbudsman for reminding me that Typical Tropical has Expert steps, pointing out Twilight as a song for learning hands, telling me you can use the red button to select a difficulty, and telling me which songs were defaults.

Please Note
I will accept any help that can be given and will correct any mistakes you find! Post in this thread or PM me to provide me with info and I will make any necessary changes to this guide and credit you in the Credits section!!

Have a great day!
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The Ace Of Hearts Guide Collection || My LiveJournal

[Ace Of Hearts]

I just realized what a moron I am.

I knew about RancidFish's post (as I made obvious), but I failed to remember that RancidFish's wondrous work has already been made a sticky.

RancidFish, I want to know what you want done with this (if anything?). Do you want to have me post this in your thread? Make it your own? Put it in your first post? Tell me to screw off?

Hopefully the mods will leave this open long enough to get this situation rectified, and they won't point me or tell me I know better.

What do you guys wanna do?
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The Ace Of Hearts Guide Collection || My LiveJournal

[yagsimit69]

well after reading both of these, to a person who is new to itg this guide is far more informative than the other one. you have included much more about song difficulty and passing songs that the other guide doesnt have.

[J. S. Mill]

I'd say it's up to Rancid, you could post it in his guide thread if you like.
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[PARANOiA -Respect-]

[Brick Tamland(LoveRevenG)]

Ace Of Hearts guide > Rancid's guide



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[Thomas Hobbes]

I'd just like to point out that not ALL marathons have mods in them. There are those that don't have mods. Whether or not a course has mods in it is shown in the banner. The text words MODS will flash in that area.
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"I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."

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[IamMe]

A few of your difficulty choices seem really.. weird. Like Tension being in midlevel and oasis being in highlevel. Overall it's very good though.

[Thomas Hobbes]

Tension is more straight forward sort of, but Oasis has the freeze spins and stuff.
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[Ryyudo -YHB-]

[IamMe]

[Reenee]

Novice is on ITG PS2.

[Boochypa]

[IamMe]

He probably meant July (Euromix), since he was talking about ITG2 machine exclusives and it's and easy 9.

[cj iwakura]

Hands aren't necessairily 'thanks to ITG', but I won't go there. ;)

I personally think Bouff's a low-end ten, and Hillbilly Hardcore's a particularly nasty high-end, but that's just me. I can't touch 11s personally, so I wind up having to decide which 10s are easily accessible and which aren't. (I went nuts trying to pass HH. Bouff's a cinch by comparison; it's just fast.)
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[lildrchris25]

[FujiFlame]

Here's what I think:

If it had all been new to me, Rancid's post would've been informative enough for me. I would've appreciated the few paragraphs with the general information I needed. I think many newcomers will find this to be an overly elaborate guide for them; they might would get lost and not be able to find something.

However, for people at least semi-familiar to the game, and even some newcomers who are...really interested, Ace's guide really hits the spot. I wanted to see a lot more in Rancid's post, with me being fairly familiar with the game in the first place.

I think that we should somehow manage to keep both distinctly separate so that people can find what they want.

[PedanticOmbudsman]

[Thomas Hobbes]

I think he used Bend Your Mind, as the author of the stepchart himself said that he made the modes to increase in difficulty from one to the other, using similar techniques so that you can work yourself up to each harder difficulty.
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"I am about to take my last voyage, a great leap in the dark."

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[Rancidfish]

Hm, I'd say that my guide is a better "quick FAQ," while yours is more in-depth on a lot of topics. For just a quick look, mine is a nice reference, but if you're in for a longer read yours might be better... correspondingly, I'd love to see them side-by-side, either in the same thread or two different stickies. (Is there some way a mod could make your guide the second post in my thread, or something like that? That would make them together and easy to read... and would be awesome.) Also, I could possibly link to your guide from my own... and for now I think I will.

Anyway, very nice work. It's definitely a solid guide, it's just a bit wordy at times, what with you asking rhetorical questions so much. :P

EDIT: Egads, I hadn't realized! I never really specified exactly what hands and mines were! o_0 I'm adding that RIGHT NOW.
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