To the Beat

To the Beat is a series of rhythm games developed by Team Beats and published by ACS. The series began with the release of its first installment, To the Beat!, in 2001, and has since spawned a number of sequels. Originally for Arcades, the series has been released for various consoles, including the PlayStation 2, XBox, Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 3, XBox 360, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation Portable and PC.
==Gameplay==
To the Beat uses a four-way dance panel consisting entirely of diagonals: up-left, up-right, down-left and down-right. In the console versions, the arrows are mapped to the controller’s shoulder buttons by default, but the player also has the choice of using the face buttons and d-pad instead.
Just like its cohorts, Konami's Dance Dance Revolution and Andamiro's Pump It Up, the game's objective is to hit as many of the ascending arrows that are in time with the music using the aforementioned dance pad. Each arrow corresponds to a certain panel in the dance pad, and the player must hit the ascending arrows by stepping on the corresponding arrow as it reaches the arrow receptor on the top of the screen.
Step charts in To the Beat can sometimes contain three or four ascending arrows at the same time, which are meant to be achieved using the player’s hands (or alternatively, placing their foot in a position that allows them to hit more than two arrows simultaneously), as well as “hold arrows”, which are long arrows that must be stepped on until it ends. Several songs could sometime feature real-time BPM changes, where charts can slow down, speed up or even pause completely mid-song.
Each player has a Beat Meter, which increases as the player successfully hits each arrow in time, and decreases each time the player misses an arrow, breaking their combo in the process. Filling up the Beat Meter to its maximum level would increase the score the player gains with each successful step. However, when the player’s Beat Meter is depleted to zero, it will cause a “Stage Break”, which warrants an automatic game over.
Each step is judged depending on the timing of the step and the arrow. These judgments include, from highest to lowest, “Perfect”, “Great”, “Good”, “Bad” and “Miss” (“Oops” in most international releases). Perfects and Greats add up to the combo counter and fill up a portion of the Beat meter, Goods neither add to nor break up the current combo, do not increase the Beat meter, and do not make the arrows disappear upon hitting them, unlike Perfects and Greats, while Bads and Misses/Oopses break up the current combo and decrease the Beat meter. An "Excellent" judgment was eventually added in 4th Dance.
Upon completion of a song, the game quickly segues into the Ranking screen, where the player is given a rank depending on how well the player performed, with D being the lowest rank, and S+ being the highest. An F ranking exists, but is only given right after a Stage Break. 5th Dance introduces the S++ rating, which is only achievable by performing a full combo consisting entirely of Excellents.
Initially, songs in To the Beat each have three charts which also denote their difficulty: “Novice”, “Inter” and “Expert”. 2nd Dance adds the option for “Master” charts, which are harder than Expert charts and are meant for experienced players, while 4th Dance would introduce the even harder "Ultimate" charts. Players can select their chart difficulty in the Song Select screen in all modes except for Duet, which only features one chart per song.
The Japan-only arcade spinoff To the Beat x Karaoke Superstar: Sing Dance Paradise combines the gameplay of To the Beat with that of the Karaoke Superstar series of arcade karaoke games. The game uses a split-screen cabinet with a dance pad on one side and a microphone on the other, as one player dances to the beat while the other sings the lyrics.
===Modifiers===
To the Beat features "modifiers" that allow the player to tweak certain aspects of the game to their liking, in order to switch up the gameplay by making it easier or harder. The first two installments only featured speed and chart flipping/mirroring modifiers, with 3rd Dance being the first to introduce other modifiers, starting with the inclusion of hidden notes.
In earlier versions, modifiers can be accessed through entering specific stepcodes on the Song Select screen: stomping either up-left or up-right thrice would adjust chart speed, stomping down-left thrice would toggle chart flipping/mirroring, while stomping down-right thrice would toggle hidden arrows. Other advanced modifiers have other, more complicated stepcodes of their own.
αlpha streamlines all modifiers into a single menu, known to players as the "Mod Menu" accessed simply by stomping on either down-left or down-right thrice on the Song Select screen. Speed modifiers are the only modifiers that can be accessed using both their old stepcodes and through the Mod Menu.
*Speed: Adjusts the speed of the arrow flow. Options include: x0.5, x1, x1.5, x2, x2.5, x3, x3.5, x4, x6, x8, Random Boost.
*Flip: Turns the step arrows around. Options include: Mirror, Left, Right, Random.
*Hidden: Hides the step arrows. Options include: Vanish, Surprise, Stealth.
*Zone: Hides the arrow receivers. Options include: On, Off.
*Scroll: Adjusts the direction of the arrows. Options include: Rising, Falling.
*BGA: Toggles background animation display. Options include: On, Dark, Off.
*S. Death: Toggles "Sudden Death" mode. Options include: On, Off.
*Arrow: Changes the arrows' appearance. Options include Normal, Classic, Simple, Lovely, Fruit, Sword, Future, Button (exclusive to console), Small, Half, Large.
===Game Modes===
A typical game of To The Beat begins with a 10 second timer waiting for another player. Players who are alone can cancel out this timer and head straight to the game by rapidly pressing the Start button on the machine.
When the game is in one-player mode the game continues to the Style Select screen, players are given a choice to play Single, where the player uses one pad to play through the standard 4-arrow charts, or Double, where the player uses both pads simultaneously, giving them access to exclusive 8-arrow charts.
In a 2-player game, the choices are changed instead to Versus, where both players compete against each other for the highest score and Duet, where 2 or more players can team up and play through unique "Duet charts", which are charts specifically made for co-op play.
The game then segues to the Mode Select screen. In the first To the Beat game, players can choose to play “Easy” or “Normal” mode.
*Easy mode features three stages of play, has Stage Break turned off by default, but only allows players to play through a much more limited song list, with only their Novice charts available for play and without access to any gameplay modifiers or boss songs.
*Normal mode is the standard gameplay mode of To The Beat, featuring three stages of play, special “boss songs” that are exclusive to the final stage, and an “Extra Stage” that can only be accessed upon fulfilling certain requirements throughout the game.
In the first two To the Beat titles, a quick stepcode must be entered on the Song Select screen while in Normal mode to access “All Music”, which allows players to access the entire selection of songs (including the boss songs) across all modes. This was abandoned from 3rd Dance onwards in favor of having all the songs be available by default, though αlpha2 would bring the All Music cheat back for unlocking the Amaze.net exclusive songs without the use of an Amaze.net pass.
2nd Dance introduces Special Mix mode, which allows players to choose from a selection of several predetermined “mixes” (plus the Roulette Mix, which, as its name suggests, is completely randomized), each consisting of four songs, and dance nonstop until all four songs are finished. Unlike in most other modes, the combo counter is kept throughout the entire playthrough until all four songs are finished or when the player breaks the combo.
4th Dance introduces “Challenge mode” in which the player is given several challenges that play differently from typical To the Beat gameplay, like alternate noteskins, usage of unorthodox pad conditions, and unusual requirements. While Challenge mode didn't last long, being removed after 5th Dance, some of its innovations were retained as modifiers.
===Rating System===
The difficulty of a song chart in To the Beat is measured by its rating, the more stars a song has, the harder it is. The rating system in To the Beat tends to vary with each sub-series.
In the early To the Beat games, the charts’ ratings are measured via a star system. The rating for each song is shown as a number of stars alongside a short, descriptive word.
*Simplistic - ★
*Average - ★★
*Conventional - ★★★
*Tricky - ★★★★
*Ecstatic - ★★★★★
*Bewildering - ★★★★★★
*Maniacal - ★★★★★★★
*Disastrous - ★★★★★★★★
*Nightmarish - ★★★★★★★★★
*Insurmountable - ★★★★★★★★★★
3rd Dance uses the same star system, while also introducing three new star levels:
*Overwhelming - ★★★★★★★★★★★
*Unthinkable - ★★★★★★★★★★★★
*Pinnacle - ★★★★★★★★★★★★★
EXCEL features a reworked star system, with the idiosyncratic names removed. Each song is rated with a number of stars between 1 to 15, with 1 star being the easiest and 15 stars being the hardest. This was also the case with αlpha, which increased the maximum rating to 18.
NEO is noted for being the first To the Beat game to not use the iconic star system. Instead, it uses a more clear-cut number rating system. Each chart is rated with a number between 1 to 20 this time around, with 1 being the easiest and 20 being the hardest.
To the Beat R reworks the rating system into something more similar to the EXCEL rating system (1-15). Besides the rating number, a level meter system has also been added, which works similar to the old star system. All of the charts from previous games were re-rated entirely to fit the brand new rating system.
After several complaints from players, GEN-SYS would redefine the rating system yet again, this time returning to the 1-20 rating system from NEO. The same system was carried over to MAXX, with the latter game also introducing charts of up to Level 21.
==Soundtrack==
To the Beat's soundtrack is primarily focused around Japanese music, featuring a huge variety of J-pop, hip-hop, techno and rock music tracks from famous Japanese artists. While foreign pop music has appeared sporadically throughout the series ever since the original game, The Ultimate Dance marks the first and only To the Beat game to almost exclusively feature foreign artists, having been tailor-made specifically for Western audiences.
To the Beat uses both licensed songs, as well as exclusive songs created by Team Beats' in-house composers, usually under various pseudonyms. Over time, several famous guest composers have also made contributions to the soundtrack. As of this writing, the spinoff game To the Beat × Karaoke Superstar: Sing Dance Paradise is the only To the Beat game to exclusively feature licensed songs.
As with many arcade rhythm games before it, each song in the game is cut up to a standard length of 1-2 minutes for the sake of brevity. To the Beat αlpha would be the first game in the series to feature the option to play full-length, unedited songs, which are accessed from a separate Zone in the Song Select screen. Playing a full song would occupy two stages within a normal three-stage playthrough.
In its earlier years, To the Beat exclusively featured artists from the Avex Trax record label (this also includes foreign acts whose albums are distributed through Avex, like *NSYNC). The Ultimate Dance was the first game in the series to not feature the Avex Trax license, thus finally allowing them to feature songs from artists who are signed with other record labels.
Due to various government regulations regarding the usage of Japanese language in Korean products, Korean releases of To the Beat games are known for excluding songs with Japanese language by either replacing the song with a lyricless instrumental cover version, or excluding the song outright and replacing it with region-exclusive K-pop songs.
Starting with To the Beat αlpha, the game has also included crossover tracks from Team Beats' other rhythm games: Bongo-Loco!!, ritmica, and eventually, audiorush. To the Beat NEO would later expand from this, adding remixes of songs from other, non-rhythm ACS games, such as Kinta no Daibouken, MetaBurst, Shugo Tenshi, and Crisis Moon, to name a few. These crossover tracks are usually shared across all of Team Beats' rhythm game series.
In 2021, coinciding with the release of To the Beat MAXX, ACS had struck a deal with the virtual YouTuber (VTuber) agency Hololive to allow the use of songs performed by their wide variety of VTubers to be featured in both To the Beat and ritmica. In 2022, the Hololive Zone was added in an update for To the Beat MAXX, featuring over 25 Hololive songs such as "Shiny Smily Story", "NEXT COLOR PLANET", "Ahoy! Warera Houshou Kaizoku-dan☆", "Say! Fanfare!" and "SPARKS", among various others.
===Zones===
Starting with To the Beat EXCEL, each of the songs in-game are divided into special "zones" which all separate the in-game songs into various categories. As of To the Beat MAXX, these zones consist of the following:
====Music Zones====
*New Music: Choose from a selection of the latest tracks in this new mix!
*J-Pop Zone: Choose from a selection of the hottest J-Pop tunes!
*K-Pop Zone: Choose from a selection of the hottest K-Pop tunes! Korean releases only.
*World Zone: Choose from a selection of hits from all around the world!
*Originals Zone: Choose from a selection of Team Beats original tunes!
*X-Over Zone: Choose from a selection of crossover tunes from other titles!
*Hololive™ Zone: Choose from a selection of songs from Hololive™ Production!
*Full Trax: Choose from a selection of full-size music tracks! Costs two stages.
====Difficulty Zones====
*★1: Choose from a selection of 1-star rated songs!	
*★2: Choose from a selection of 2-star rated songs!	
*★3: Choose from a selection of 3-star rated songs!	
*★4: Choose from a selection of 4-star rated songs!	
*★5: Choose from a selection of 5-star rated songs!	
*★6: Choose from a selection of 6-star rated songs!	
*★7: Choose from a selection of 7-star rated songs!	
*★8: Choose from a selection of 8-star rated songs!	
*★9: Choose from a selection of 9-star rated songs!	
*★10: Choose from a selection of 10-star rated songs!	
*★11: Choose from a selection of 11-star rated songs!	
*★12: Choose from a selection of 12-star rated songs!	
*★13: Choose from a selection of 13-star rated songs! 
*★14: Choose from a selection of 14-star rated songs!	
*★15: Choose from a selection of 15-star rated songs!	
*★16: Choose from a selection of 16-star rated songs!	
*★17: Choose from a selection of 17-star rated songs!	
*★18: Choose from a selection of 18-star rated songs!	
*★19: Choose from a selection of 19-star rated songs!	
*★20: Choose from a selection of 20-star rated songs!
*★21: Choose from a selection of 21-star rated songs!
====Series Zones====
*1st to 5th: Choose from a selection of songs originating from To the Beat! to 5th Dance!
*EXCEL to EXCEL2: Choose from a selection of songs originating from To the Beat EXCEL to EXCEL2!
*αlpha to αlpha3: ''Choose from a selection of songs originating from To the Beat αlpha to αlpha3!
*NEO to NEO3: Choose from a selection of songs originating from To the Beat NEO to NEO3!
*R to R++: Choose from a selection of songs originating from To the Beat R to R++!
*GEN-SYS to GEN-SYS Λ: Choose from a slection of songs originating from To the Beat GEN-SYS to GEN-SYS Λ!
*MAXX to MAXX-II: Choose from a selection of songs originating from To the Beat MAXX to MAXX-II!
====User Zones====
*Favorites: Choose from a selection of your favorite songs! Accessible only via Amaze.net login.
*Custom Step: Choose from a selection of your custom step charts! Accessible only via Amaze.net login/USB stepchart loading.
==Titles==
*To the Beat! (2001; Arcade (NOVA System), PlayStation 2)
*To the Beat! 2nd Dance (2002; Arcade (NOVA System), PlayStation 2)
*To the Beat! 3rd Dance (2002; Arcade (NOVA System), PlayStation 2)
*To the Beat! 4th Dance (2003; Arcade (NOVA System), PlayStation 2)
*To the Beat! 5th Dance (2003; Arcade (NOVA System), PlayStation 2)
*To the Beat! The Ultimate Dance (2003; Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, PC)
*To the Beat EXCEL (2004; Arcade (NOVA-II System), PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube)
*To the Beat EXCEL2 (2005; Arcade (NOVA-II System), PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube)
*To the Beat × Karaoke Superstar: Sing Dance Paradise (2006; Arcade (NOVA-II System)
*To the Beat αlpha (2007; Arcade (System 201) PlayStation 2, Wii)
*To the Beat αlpha2 (2008; Arcade (System 201), PlayStation 2, Wii)
*To the Beat αlpha3 (2009; Arcade (System 201), PlayStation 2, Wii)
*To the Beat SP (2010; PlayStation Portable)
*To the Beat NEO (2011; Arcade (System 202: ENDYMION), PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360)
*To the Beat NEO2 (2012; Arcade (System 202: ENDYMION)
*To the Beat NEO3 (2013; Arcade (System 202: ENDYMION)
*To the Beat R (2015; Arcade (System 203: ATLANTIS)
*To the Beat R++ (2016; Arcade (System 203: ATLANTIS)
*To the Beat GEN-SYS (2018; Arcade (nex System)
*To the Beat GEN-SYS Λ (2019; Arcade (nex System)
*To the Beat JAM! (2020: iOS, Android)
*To the Beat MAXX (2021; Arcade (nex² System), PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC)
*To the Beat MAXX-II (2023; Arcade (nex² System)
==Trivia==
*For most of its life, the series has featured two prominent mascots that appear in nearly all To the Beat-related media: Ban Matsuda, a breakdancer, and Mi-U, an idol. First appearing in promotional material for 4th Dance, they have since cemented themselves as the faces of the entire franchise, with Ban eventually appearing in Cross Chaos as a selectable fighter.
*The step code for "All Music" (later known as "Full Access") in most To the Beat versions is: down-left, up-right, down-right, up-right, up-left, down-left, down-right, up-right, up-left, down-right and down-left. Writing it out in strokes would spell out the letters "ACS".
*Throughout the series' many installments, several songs and background videos were censored for overseas releases. In most cases, expletives would be muted or bleeped out from songs, and depictions of blood, violence and sexual themes would be removed or edited out from their background videos. Korean releases, in particular, would have all vocals in Japanese removed, and some songs would be outright removed and replaced, due to Korean law forbidding their usage in imported products at the time.
**One of the most infamous instances of censorship in the series can be found in the Korean release of the original To the Beat, where the background video for the song "Nobushi" by Uzumaki was removed altogether and replaced with an entirely different video due to its depiction of samurai, which was heavily outlawed by the Korean government at the time.
*In the PlayStation 2 ports of the earlier To the Beat games from 2nd Dance to 5th Dance, players can unlock songs from previous To the Beat iterations by loading the save file of an older installment from the memory card. Each save will unlock two songs from said version, which are different for each game, even when using the same save.
**For example, loading a save file of the original To the Beat! on the memory card would unlock the songs "Déjà Vu (Para-Para Mix)" by Dave Rodgers and "It's Gonna Be Me" by *NSYNC when loaded in 2nd Dance, but loading it in 3rd Dance would unlock the songs "Boys & Girls" by Ayumi Hamasaki and the ACS Original song "iNSOMNiA" by 4444 instead.
*Arcade cabinets of To the Beat, from the original to EXCEL2, all of which ran on the Sony PlayStation 2-based NOVA and NOVA-II arcade systems, feature a PlayStation 2 memory card slot for the purpose of loading user-made Custom Step chart edits created from their respective console ports.
**To the Beat αlpha, which ran on the PC-based System 201, would omit this feature, but To the Beat NEO would bring Custom Step chart loading back, this time using USB flash drives to load charts made from the official BeatMaker program for PCs.
**As of To the Beat R, Custom Step charts can now also be saved and loaded on the cloud via ACS' proprietary Amaze.net online service, though the option to load charts via USB flash drives still remain.
*The spinoff game To the Beat × Karaoke Superstar: Sing Dance Paradise was inspired by the Sing n' Dance mode from Karaoke Superstars, a console-only localization of the Karaoke Superstar arcade games tailor-made specifically for Western audiences.
*Ever since the home ports of To the Beat NEO in 2012, there have been no new console ports of To the Beat games, perhaps because of the decline of dance pad games in general.
**However, ACS has expressed interest in porting To the Beat GEN-SYS to modern consoles if fan demand is high enough.
**In 2022, To the Beat MAXX would receive ports for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC, making it the first To the Beat title to be released for a home console in 10 years, as well as the first To the Beat game released for PC since The Ultimate Dance.
*Buried within the data for To the Beat EXCEL2 are several unused licensed songs, most of which were taken directly from the North American release of The Ultimate Dance. Two such examples, "Tom's Diner" by DNA featuring Suzanne Vega and "I Am" by Static-X, can actually be loaded and even played in-game through a glitch, albeit without their music or background videos.
*In 2003, Konami filed a lawsuit against ACS for copyright infingement regarding its dance pad game patent. The full details of the lawsuit were never released to the public to this day, but various speculations suggest that the two parties settled out of court.
**Ironically, Team Beats, the development team behind To the Beat, were primarily composed of ex-Konami employees who had previously worked on earlier installments of Beatmania, Dance Dance Revolution and other BEMANI titles.
*To the Beat can be simulated using the open-source rhythm game engine StepMania. A fork of StepMania known as StepBeat, which features several tweaks and adjustments to more accurately simulate the gameplay of To the Beat, is currently in active development, with frequent updates.
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