How do you improve your rhythm in rhythm games?

[kingkaza13]

When i try rhythm games often i feel I'm on point yet somehow I'm too early or delayed when i feel is centre
(I don't blame the controllers as they are 1:1 with no noticeable delays)
So what advice would you give on some rhythm games you have played?

 

[OmegaPunch's icon OmegaPunch OmegaPunch]

Listen to music daily and repeat the rhythm of/sing the music.
Other than that, Practice Makes Perfect.

 

[kingkaza13]

Listen to music daily and repeat the rhythm of/sing the music.
Other than that, Practice Makes Perfect.

The one i struggle is parappa the rapper as is hard to tell with his head indicator where the centre

Like i tried the sequel and despite listening carefully even counting the beats I'm somehow always 1 beat late when i swear the head was dead centre

I have seen reviewers like caddiecarus say the game dose have a timing issue (ingame delay) but they were physical games but i played digital (emulate)

 

[OmegaPunch's icon OmegaPunch OmegaPunch]

The one i struggle is parappa the rapper as is hard to tell with his head indicator where the centre

Like i tried the sequel and despite listening carefully even counting the beats I'm somehow always 1 beat late when i swear the head was dead centre

I have seen reviewers like caddiecarus say the game dose have a timing issue (ingame delay) but they were physical games but i played digital (emulate)

Then it's probably a game issue.
Did you play any other rhythm game besides parappa the rapper?

 

[Duke_11037]

The one i struggle is parappa the rapper as is hard to tell with his head indicator where the centre

Parappa is very off with hit timing in all of the games, especially when you aren't on a crt(more input lag). The best advice I can give you is try to hit earlier than it looks.

In general as omega said, practice is perfect. You aren't going to get FCs the first time you play any rhythm game.

 

[ThirteeTooBeets]

A lot of rythmn games have visual cues, I'm sorry to say but a lot of them require quite a bit of grinding

 

[longestseason]

The less input lag you can get the better, but also calibrating the game (if possible) can help. You probably already know this, but you should avoid bluetooth headphones and controllers.
Other than that, it's just practice.

 

[kingkaza13]

Then it's probably a game issue.
Did you play any other rhythm game besides parappa the rapper?

ddr which is perfect so have no issues
warioware has some rythem microgames
but other i do struggle with is rhythm heaven series which is proven with the first bits rhythm tester thats at start of all their games where sometimes im good but suddenly i'm doing late spikes

Post automatically merged: Apr 2, 2025

The less input lag you can get the better, but also calibrating the game (if possible) can help. You probably already know this, but you should avoid bluetooth headphones and controllers.
Other than that, it's just practice.

thanks man

 

[antii antii]

Depends what rythem game are you playing. They all play different from each other from timing to being able to read the notes at higher diff. Like playing Osu to Etterna are both rythem games but different playstyles and teq

Post automatically merged: Apr 4, 2025

Parappa is very off with hit timing in all of the games, especially when you aren't on a crt(more input lag). The best advice I can give you is try to hit earlier than it looks.

In general as omega said, practice is perfect. You aren't going to get FCs the first time you play any rhythm game.

I feel like Parappa is just kinda dated espcially with the input lag

 

[happymasksalesman happymasksalesman]

When i try rhythm games often i feel I'm on point yet somehow I'm too early or delayed when i feel is centre
(I don't blame the controllers as they are 1:1 with no noticeable delays)
So what advice would you give on some rhythm games you have played?

Don't look to bottoms come, focus on place you should press the bottom.

 

[Duke_11037]

I feel like Parappa is just kinda dated espcially with the input lag

Oh yeah you have to play on a CRT or something with close to zero input lag for it to be consistent.

 

[antii antii]

Oh yeah you have to play on a CRT or something with close to zero input lag for it to be consistent.

yeah but its still a enjoyable experience

 

[Cu-Neo]

With this:

 

[Bakuma1997]

I pick a video of someone else playing, then grab the nearest joystick and pretend i am the one playing to see how i would react

 

[kingkaza13]

With this:

first time i heard of this franchise

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I actually watch dancing videos to see where motion is required... The Next Step (TV series) is great at showing you this.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

For Beat Saber, Clone Hero or Rocksmith 2014/ToneLib Jam, I set the normal difficulty and try to do full combos, and then work my way up. When I struggle, I set the songs to 85% tempo where I miss untill I get the part right and then up the tempo by 5% increments. I also sometimes split the song in three or more parts depending on the song structure (chorus, verse, etc), beginning with the end of the song. When I get the part right I set the start of the game so I work the two last thirds without missing, working backward untill I get the whole song back. I do the same with savestates in arcade games stages.

 

[Yankee]

The one i struggle is parappa the rapper

Parappa 1 isn't a very...good rhythm game mechanically. It's not like a DDR or Elite Beat Agents. It's more like Bust-A-Groove where you're not actually just hitting buttons to the beat.

Here I'll repost a reddit comment I've had saved for a while from Electronic-Aerie-305:

(This is pretty long, so get ready).

There’s actually a very complicated logic to the scoring system — it doesn’t care about whether or not you actually play the buttons shown, only if your button presses are timed to a dot (it needs to be like this to allow for freestyling).

In fact, that’s something to know for all 3 Parappa games — the buttons you actually play are largely irrelevant. What the games care about is whether you timed them correctly.

Some key points for Parappa:

1. Every button press timed to a dot is worth 3 points.
2. Every button press which is mistimed (ie. between a dot) will cost you points equal to the number of buttons on the original line (ie. if there are 3 buttons on the line, a mistimed press costs you 3 points).
3. Any button you press which isn’t on the original line and makes Parappa go ‘oops!’ is worth nothing. It gives and costs no points.
4. Any line which scores at least 1 point is Good. Any line which scores no points or loses points is Bad.
5. In order for any line to be worth any points at all, you must use and time every unique input at least once (ie. if Triangle, Circle and R appear in the line, you have to play and time all 3 buttons at least once correctly).
6. If the first button you played doesn’t match the first button the teacher has, the game will dock some points. Apart from that, the buttons you play are irrelevant. For instance, if the line goes LLR (9 points), and I play LRL, that’s still fine and I get 9 points. If I play RLL, I would only gain 6 points (9 points for 3 timed presses, minus 3) because my first button didn’t match the teacher’s.

Where things get more complicated is when the game tries to determine if your line has good rhythm or not. There’s 16 dots in a line, and once you’ve played a line, the game looks at all your timed presses (only your timed ones, mistimed ones aren’t used) and separates then into pairs (16 dots makes 8 pairs a line).

There’s 4 pairs: a dot and an input (.X), an input and a dot (X.), two dots (..) and two inputs (XX).

If you have at least two of the pairs that aren’t just two dots, the game gives you bonus points. Every .X is worth 15, every X. is worth 6, every XX is worth 9. Additionally, if all four pairs are used in a line, you get 18 more points.

For example: ‘RR.RR.R.........’ In pairs, that’s RR, .R, R., R., .., .., .., ..

That line is worth in total... 69 points (15 points for the 5 timed buttons presses + 9 for the RR + 15 for the .R + 12 for the two R. pairs + 0 for the 4 .. pairs + 18 for all pairs being present at least once).

By the way, if the first button you pressed isn’t the same as the teacher’s, you don’t get any of these bonus points at all. So... make sure you do that.

The long and short answer is that Parappa’s scoring system makes sense, but it’s pretty complicated and knowing it doesn’t make the game too much easier.

When it comes to simply beating a stage, the only requirement is that your rank is Good or above. Points don’t matter, and it doesn’t matter how well you were playing beforehand, if you fall rank in the last two lines, you fail. Conversely, if you play horribly, but manage to scrap a Good rank at the last two lines, the game is fine with it.

Fail conditions are ending a stage in Bad or Awful. Additionally, if you play two consecutive lines in Awful, the game fails you right then and there.

This information is more so useful if you’re trying to get Cool, but I hope this helps.

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

Probably useless advice... this relates most than anything to SDVX game, but can be applied to other rhythm games.

• listen more to the music than trying to press a button when 2 things match visually.
• practice and practice and practice. It takes a long time to improve. Even if you think you are not improving, you are improving. Just keep at it.
• Take breaks, forcing yourself to play will make you hate it. Ironically sometimes a hiatus will help more than actual practice, just make sure the hiatus isn't too long or you'll lose some accuracy (temporarily).
• Don't practice only the song you like/want to get better at, play all the songs, specially those who challenge you.
• Try songs that are way above your skill level just to see what's out there, even if you do 0%.
• Try the easiest possible songs and attempt to get a perfect score with perfect accuracy.
• If PC, watch out for latency, use cabled devices not BT, headphones at 44100hz worked much better for me than speakers at 48000hz for some reason.
• If the game involves 2 hands, and it's physically possible, try to play the easy songs one handed. This is helpful at higher levels when both hands have to know how to do what the other hand usually does.

 

[kingkaza13]

Probably useless advice... this relates most than anything to SDVX game, but can be applied to other rhythm games.

• listen more to the music than trying to press a button when 2 things match visually.
• practice and practice and practice. It takes a long time to improve. Even if you think you are not improving, you are improving. Just keep at it.
• Take breaks, forcing yourself to play will make you hate it. Ironically sometimes a hiatus will help more than actual practice, just make sure the hiatus isn't too long or you'll lose some accuracy (temporarily).
• Don't practice only the song you like/want to get better at, play all the songs, specially those who challenge you.
• Try songs that are way above your skill level just to see what's out there, even if you do 0%.
• Try the easiest possible songs and attempt to get a perfect score with perfect accuracy.
• If PC, watch out for latency, use cabled devices not BT, headphones at 44100hz worked much better for me than speakers at 48000hz for some reason.
• If the game involves 2 hands, and it's physically possible, try to play the easy songs one handed. This is helpful at higher levels when both hands have to know how to do what the other hand usually does.

Tbh that's why i said your rhythm as i want to hear how others get in beat with whatever rhythm game they play

 

[SLEDGE_DOG]

• listen more to the music than trying to press a button when 2 things match visually.

This is the best tip I could give. Never entirely rely on visuals. People react to audio faster than visuals and some games, like Parappa and Beatmania, intentionally offset the visuals a little to make it harder.

Rhythm, by definition, is a pattern. Most songs are predictable to a degree. You should not be reacting to a note on every kick, it should be just a part of your repeating pattern because you know it's going to be there almost every time, right on time.

Look into basic music theory. Things like time signatures, beats per minute, and types of notes. In DDR, the arrows are colored based on if they're 1/4 notes, 1/16 notes, etc.

If the game lets you, try turning up the speed the notes move. This may sound like a bad idea, but it actually increases the space between notes and can make it easier to read clustered sections. Kind of like zooming in on a picture to see the details better.

If you want to really practice listening carefully to rhythms and finding patterns, play Space Channel 5 Part 2, a rhythm game with no visual indicators of when to press a button. It's entirely you and the rhythm and the game absolutely tries to fuck with you by introducing unusual time signatures or going off beat. I've never seen anyone not get destroyed by the waltz sections their first time, myself included.

I feel like I could ramble all day about this stuff. Bottom line is, it's a rhythm game. The rhythm is the important part, not the visuals. And as always, keep practicing. Even if you're just casually listening to music, listen for the patterns.