In the Groove 2 unveiled at ASI '05

[Baka of the Orochi]

The thing is, there's also anti-non-DDR sentiment. People rip on PIU in PIU topics because it's there, people rip on ITG topics because it's there.

Some people just can't get over the fact that there's other games besides DDR that's actually successful. Granted, people have their opinions, but I don't see the point in just making it known to people that you don't like ITG for absolutely no valid reason at all.

"WELL DUR BECAUSE ROXOR IS HACKING A DDR MACHINE SO ROXOR SUX THEREFORE ITG SUX"

That's not even close to a reason.

There's people who're still stuck on just the pictures of the game, refuse to even touch the pad, yet are formulating opinions...on a game they haven't played. I can't see how the hell anyone can come up with that.
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[Cutriss]

Yeah, I knew I Can Boogie was going to suck, but I tried it anyway. At least I got the satisfaction of leaving my middle finger for the high score camera.

These people probably also hated spinach when they were growing up. Oh wait - most of them haven't grown up yet.
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Sentient Mode is capable...

[goodtimesddr]

So is there gonna be like a dancing game war. Similar to XBOX vs. PS2?
If so, this will be so DAMN entertaining.
I do like techno and trance, so ITG is good to me. However, it seems that the first ITG has nothing but techno and trance. I like some variety in the songs, in case I get bored playing to the same genre of music.
If ITG2 has more variety in the music, then that will be awesome for me!!
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I took the path least taken. Now where the hell am I?

[Rancidfish]

[Cutriss]

Yeah, I agree 100%. I haven't tried ITG yet because I live in the middle of nowhere, but I'm looking forward to getting to try it in May.
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Sentient Mode is capable...

[Arctic Wolves]

When I first heard of ItG, I thought it was a joke, and a poor one at that. I despised the idea, thought it a total rip on DDR, but was compelled to look into it further. Then I saw the Expert stepcharts. Oh hell, the Expert stepcharts. The first one I saw was Queen of Light Expert, and I maintained (and still do, to an extent) that mines and hands are idiotic. I thought they were grasping for steps where there weren't any and trying to artificially make the game hard. More stepcharts only confirmed my notions.

But the song, Queen of Light, was so damned good I had to cling to it and it went downhill from there. I love ItG songs so much, and now that I've discovered that the Hard charts are akin to DDR Heavy and look very fun, I've warmed up to ItG. True, it's overall ugly in the screenshots, especially to one so used to DDR, and some of the Expert charts are, in my opinion, absolute garbage, but some of them just rock and there are so many awesome songs on ItG that it's definitely worth a play. I also realized that, just like DDR, it has some terrible steps, though usually the opposite of DDR (DDR doesn't use a song's potential enough, ItG sometimes overuses a song's potential for steps). In the end, I conclude that it's nothing I hadn't dealt with in DDR before. And the songs...!!

Thus ends is my inane story on how I started from ItG-hater to ItG-lover. But seriously, I can't wait to get to a point where I can (hopefully) pass Pandemonium Expert now. And Summer, which looks to be another killer...

[VxJasonxV]

[Rancidfish]

[Arctic Wolves]

[Wolfman Jake]

[diddrstrait]

[salem]

[Arctic Wolves]

When I say potential, I mean the steps that could be. For example, like you said, SO DEEP uses the song potential well, since it follows the synth in the background exactly. However, I also think that SO DEEP is bland, and could use more variety. There's a fine balance between following every possible sound in a song, and making unique steps that go with the song even if they don't follow any specific portion of it (Lemmings on the Run). But DDR is often silly in the way it completely ignores the song and just pulls basic streams and freeze arrows. un deux trois, I think, has a disappointing stepchart that is uninspired and totally ignores the music. On the other end of the scale, ItG throws in sixteenth streams that drag on for measures just for the hell of it when there's no reason to sometimes. To get back to your example, Sandstorm's potential is completely ignored; the steps, for the most part, completely disregard the song and are just classic DDR streams that are boring and easy. Anyways, that's what I mean when I say potential.

ItG's Expert charts often push the limit of "step potential," but after reviewing a lot of them, I've decided that only a small portion of them are crap and the rest of them are all right, if not pretty good for being both unique, challening, and sensical given the song.

[Rancidfish]

Yeah, I have a similar definition of "potential" that he does.

A lot of interesting, varied rhythms (that are at an appropriate speed for the difficulty level) means that a song has a lot of potential. For example, in DDR, Cartoon Heroes has a lot of potential for standard difficulty steps, and takes advantage of that quite well by following the lyrics.

When a song doesn't use the potential, that's usually something like July Hard. There are a lot of complex rhythms being played which have a So Deep-ish quality to them. The nice thing about So Deep-type rhythms is that you can easily ignore the less dominant notes in the rhythm.

X-X-xX-xX-xX-xX-. The Expert steps follow all those steps. The hard steps could easily have followed just the capitalized notes, making for some interesting and tricky steps. Instead, however, it had bland 1/8th note runs not following much of anything. Dull steps when there are interesting rhythms I want to follow makes me sad. That is failing to use a song's Hard potential, by making the steps easier than the music suggests for Hard-level steps.

(As a sidenote here, I don't mean that every difficulty should follow everything, far from it. A good example of Hard steps that use their potential are Hardcore of the North (h). It has lots of 1/8th note runs, because that's what the music suggests for that difficulty, since the music itself has long 1/16th note runs.)

On the other hand, there's the Expert Steps. Occasionally the steps are quite nice, but occasionally they threw in steps that, IMO, weren't really following anything just to be hard. During the second "X-X-xX-xX-xX-xX-" portion, there were several sections with short 1/16th note runs that don't follow anything in the music. Stuff like that makes me fairly frustrated, especially when there are fast, difficult and interesting rhythms playing. This is using nonexistant Expert potential, by trying to make Expert-difficulty steps that are harder than the song actually suggests.

At least, that's how I see "potential." I'm sure a lot of people would disagree with me, heh.
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Check out my bad PA!
"They call me... Brother Mojo."

A newbie's guide to ITG. If you like dance games, check it out!

[AceJay]

Well...I played ItG for the first time, and I still hate the menu.

It fucking saved options and I was doing my first song on Hallway view.

And the whole 'press start AGAIN' instead of holding it to get to the menu.

But I gotta admit, Bouff, Xuna(?), and ESPECIALLY LotR are awesome songs.

AND ANUBIS! THAT'S SWEET AS HELL!

*downloads those songs*

STUPID MINES.
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[Cutriss]

[AceJay]

Bah, I think I'll just stick with SM...
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[Arctic Wolves]

... where you still have to double-tap to reach the Options screen. Oops.

[diddrstrait]

um, the game didn't "save" the option hallway...hallway is default. either you get a memory card and save your options to be default overhead or you just get accustomed to putting overhead on (for me it's usually second nature to go 3x, overhead, cell).

and cutriss is right about changing learned behavior. I already double-tapped start before my arcade got ITG because sometimes the button wouldn't hold and I couldn't get into the options for the extreme machine.

[AceJay]