Discovering Free-to-Play Online Rhythm Game OSU

Yesterday, I discovered a tragedy as I browsed through the iOS App Store. I was hoping to find the game Tap Tap since I haven’t played it in the longest time. It was one of my favorite games when the iPhone and the iPod Touch were still in its early generations. However, I was puzzled upon noticing that there was no trace of it. I even typed Tapulous, the developer, in the search bar to no avail. Alas, my worst fears came true when I finally sough to find the truth. The company shut down along with all of its titles years before. Guitar Hero was gone too!

My friend knew about my plight and introduced to me a similar game called OSU that he and his other group of friends were obsessing about. OSU is a free-to-play online rhythm game that’s primarily available on PC platforms. You use your mouse instead of tapping or stepping on a dance pad. It reminded me of the Dance Dance Revolution PC emulators my friends had. I found them similar because other players can create their own levels and upload them online for others to download.

Is this something you might want to check out? Read on for more about OSU and what I thought.

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Don’t be intimidated by this game if you checked out the video I linked above. That’s supposedly one of the hardest beatmaps (levels) created for the game. My friend made me do the tutorial first which is a lot of help. It becomes easy as you start to play more, but it’s pretty normal to suck during your first games. It’s a lot like Tap Tap but you move your hand in various directions. The music is a mix of popular and obscure tracks. One minute you’re playing to Ellie Goulding’s wildly popular hit, then the next you find yourself listening to songs that remind you of the Dance Dance Revolution Era. 

I’ve only played the game on my friend’s PC, but I’m assuming installation is as simple as downloading and installing the file. Most, if not all, of the beatmaps I saw my friend play had to be downloaded externally. He would join a room and if his username is red then that meant he didn’t have the map required to play. However, it’s a lot simpler to deal with it than you think. All you need to do is click on the link in-game and it’ll bring you to the beatmap’s page through one of your browsers. It’s as easy as downloading the file and placing it in the right folder. That’s the gist of the process, but you should check out their website if you want more detail than that. I checked the website and I found out that you can also play on iOS devices. There’s a catch though! Your device needs to be jailbroken in order to install it since I don’t think it’s available on the App store.

I was initially turned off by this game because I wasn’t used to playing a rhythm game with a mouse. My cousin had DDR on the PC, and it felt weird using a keypad instead of a dance pad whenever we played. Tap Tap was different because I could use two thumbs instead of just solely relying on my index finger. However, I tried the game and found it to be quite fun. I was pumped to try again whenever I made mistakes in a session. Like the other rhythm games I played, I had the need to get perfect scores or beat other players’ scores.

I feel like this game appeal to you if you’re part of the generation that grew up playing Dance Dance Revolution and other similar games. There were a lot of tracks that brought me back to my childhood. They were as wacky as Butterfly and Paranoia! I actually won’t be surprised if people made beatmaps for these songs.

If you’re interested, check them out here.

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