What do you mean when you say

ugh. no. you dont like ITG, you like stepmania. it doesnt matter what skin you put on it or if you put it in an arcade machine, you couldn't give two shits about the ITG material. no one is posting in here talking about the ITG songs or courses, you're talking about stepmania, custom courses, and custom songs. you feel that stepmania is superior to DDR, not that ITG is superior. if you felt ITG was superior, you would be talking about ITG's content and not customs.

no, it doesnt make a difference which game you're playing, as long as the content is good, but for the love of fuck get the name of the game right. you dont play ITG for ITG, you play it because its stepmania. you would still play it if no ITG songs or courses were there, therefore you dont like ITG. its not a hard concept to grasp.

on the other hand, people play DDR for the DDR content. players wouldn't cease to care about DDR content if customs could be played on it, thats what sets DDR apart from ITG.

also, just to fuck with you some more and show you how horrible this comparison is getting...


stepmania also doesnt come with a computer. everyone that installs it is still playing stepmania.

on top of that, ITGPC and ITGPS2 didnt come with ANY of what you just mentioned. does that make them LESS ITG than arcade ITG in your eyes? do those count as SM because they dont have good pads, good hardware, a decent monitor, and a bar in every home?

furthermore, not all ITG2s are dedicabs. some of them have absolutely HORRIBLE monitors and pads.

on top of all that, not every dedicab is in perfect condition. i've played on some horrible ITG2 dedicabs. i guess those were SM because the pads werent good?

if you're going to distinguish SM from ITG based on the fact that ITG2 comes in a machine, you're using very flawed logic. it doesnt matter what you put it in, its still SM. it doesnt matter what theme people use, its still SM. it doesnt matter what song packs you install, its still SM. it doesnt matter if its mungyodance instead of ITG, if you dont use it for the "official" songs and courses it is STILL stepmania.

---

I enjoy stepping on panels in time to music.

The quality of the music and steps always varies from song to song.

imma just leave it at that.

---

you're about as sharp as a bag of marbles. i know that everyone knows ITG is SM. what i'm saying is that you don't play ITG. some people do, but they are a minority. what i'm saying is that if no one cares about ITG content and everyone plays customs, everything below R21 is considered garbage because opinions of ITG are that the game sucks.

now, as i said, you arent playing ITG, you are playing SM. you feel that SM is superior to DDR, you dont give a damn about ITG.

---

We know who won that argument. o.o

Watch as flamming ensues....

Uhh... the reason why nobody plays officials is because we are bored of them, not because the game sucks. The game itself hasn't improved at all in what, 3 years? Players have gotten a lot better. People can pass 17's now, and those certainly aren't included in officials. I certainly think that if ITG had the opportunity to release new mixes, they would start including harder difficulties, new charts, new mods, etc. and people would play them.

Comparing pre-R21 itg with DDR is kind of like racing a person in a wheelchair and one who isn't and saying "who will win?" ITG is outdated, and has been for a number of years. They are no longer allowed to release new mixes. We are stuck with what... 140ish songs to look at? DDR can constantly release new content, versions, songs, and stepcharts. If we wanted to look at a fair comparison, we would have to look at the players' stepcharts (or "stepmania charts") because they are the only ones allowed to do any improving to itg.

Then compare 'In The Groove' to 'DDRMAX'?

There are 2 completely seprate arguments :

* Is a specific standalone ITG game better than a specific standalone DDR game?

* Is the ITG experience as a whole (Quality of the game engine + The nature of the community + the ongoing availability and quality of user-created content) better than 'The DDR Experience'?

Yeah, it's called In The Groove REBIRTH. The thing about ITG is that it never really died. ITG wasn't just songs, it was the whole package. StepMania machines existed before In The Groove but that series was a massive enabler that got people to realize what kinds of awesome were possible with an old broken down DDR cabinet. And it was a legit product that wasn't going to get an arcade sued eight ways from Sunday for having it. Since Konami pissed in the pool, the more passionate members of the ITG team continue to support and release content for ITG and that's what sets it apart from a random simfile pack released for StepMania. The spirit of the project and what it stood for lives on; In The Groove is for the fans by the fans. That means a lot to players.

Not to mention that in the end of its run, ITG had the finest four-panel cabinet ever produced thanks to the enlightened people at Andamiro who didn't see ITG as a threat to their own Pump It Up series. Those machines are worth their weight in gold now too.

What I'm waiting for is the current post-ITG team (Fun In Motion) to settle in with their Pump Pro series (Learn to love five-panel, it is sexy) and come full circle with a reimagining of ITG under Andamiro's flag.

Seriously.

But to another point, if DDR was able to be easily "hacked," people probably would have taken advantage of it a long time ago. ITG machines simply have this capability, and people take advantage of it since there will be no more games in the series. What you call it is pretty much irrelevant now. Who the fuck cares if you call it ITG, Stepmania, or that dancing game that allows to play customs, people enjoying playing custom material and having fun. I don't know about you guys, but I love making my own material and having fun (if you have fun just playing DDR games, then more power to you, I would never bash that mindset). But I will say, it seems to me that people are too stuck up and arrogant about their "opinion" of ITG sucking to be able to see the fact that you can play whatever the fuck you want on 99% of the machines, not just the officials (or edits to the officials). And if you hate the interface that much, I'm fairly certain that people have made DDR themes and noteskins that work on ITG machines.

---

Do people really love playing customs, though? Chewphoria and Dancefreak have recently put out simfile packs that are more balanced, complete and well-presented products than either ITG, and a lot of the recent american DDR games, but nobody really seems to be making big deals about them :{

I'd expect, y'know, people talking more about custom simfile packs, because custom simfile packs are fucking awesome.

People will always make more of a big deal about officials, mainly because they're well, "official" and commercially released so everyone can play them.

I do agree, customs are awesome. They allow you to be creative and play whatever you want, but they are bit of a different story. People will always lean toward the customs that they enjoy playing, it's very rare that personal simfile packs become widespread with everyone judging them.

The main reason Rebirth was a semi-big deal was because it was presented in the most "official" capacity short of actually commercially releasing a cabinet with everything on it (except the theme, we lost our team member that was going to do it ) And by official capacity I mean it had the whole package (minus a new theme): 85 songs complete with all 9 difficulties, graphics, and movie scripts plus a whole group of marathons and survivals

---

Well, I actually am a ROM Hacker and using the SMW hacking analogy, you would say this:

Saying Super Mario World is a superior game to Super Mario Bros 3 because there's Lunar Magic to make SMW easier to hack is like saying ITG is better than DDR because ITG is easier to hack. I Think the point n00b and so many others are making is that the following ITG has is due to the community, not the original intentions of Roxor. In fact, PIU Pro and PIU are just as separated as PIU Pro greatly deviates from the traditional PIU style (normal PIU focuses more on body movement, PIU Pro on rhythm, not surprising).

At the end of the day ITG2 is still a 4-panel dance mat game, I'd play it over DDR purely for its customisability (I'm talking themes and courses as well) and challenge. DDR is great fun but it simply doesn't cater very well to players who like to play charts with long 16th runs and tricky rhythms (Max1 springs to mind as an exception to this) without stupid gimmickry. I digress.

As far as customs go it means everyone gets a hand at making content for a dance game for themselves and others to play - which is awesome.

---

Pump Pro's basic gameplay is so different from Pump It Up that it actually managed to breathe new life into the old songs, as well. Passing Slam or Canon D on Pump Pro requires a completely different strategy, and a huge achievement.

I honestly don't care much for the "ITG" songs in Pump Pro, but as a standalone game, it's fantastic, and probably one of my favorite Pump machines.

lol @ my rating drop.

look kids, there isnt a damn thing wrong with liking DDR, ITG, or playing customs. depending on my mood, i actually really enjoy all 3. for doubles i vastly prefer ITG to DDR, for courses i really anjoy giving energy and driven a go every once in a while. i'm not bashing ITG, i play it a alot and not just for customs. i just dont like you guys going nuts over how awesome ITGis when you dont even play ITG content.

also, someone pointed out that ITG hasnt had any official new content and that DDR has been able to improve still. bull shit. extreme is better than ITG2 IMO. its also older. your argument is flawed.

---

I think i have to post here too

I like both games.

ITG (i'm talking about the cab itself and the stepcharts) was, to me, a different version of DDR. Like the "pro-mode" of ddr.
ITG have some elements that makes the game more "ready for competition" than ddr imo.
BUT you can compete on ddr and be an hardcore player like on ITG too. Some japanease are good at raping every songs in every difficulty and getting insane scores. And i'm pretty amazed by what i see sometimes....

I prefer ITG a bit, because of this :

- The scoring system is awesome. They made something solid and well balance. DDR tried to fix this on X2 but the difference beetween the perfect and the marvelous is ridiculous... (see what Dr.D did for his DDR tournement about this).
- The stepcharts. The hardest charts are all different from an other. And i like how they use the full rythm of the song (Hardcore of the North just to throw one). You won't find 50 songs with the same 8th note rythm used like on ddr (the reason of this is that the difficulty are too low on some charts in ddr).
Seriously were are the 24th on ddr ? I saw many of good edits with little 24th/32th on a ddr song that make sence and it was great (not dumb at all).
Some charts of ITG are so technical and well made, we never saw the kind of thing that Soapy Bubble or Zodiac have in ddr (again, it's 2 random exemples).
- "New" stuff : Mines, hands, rolls. New accesories to make some new stepcharts and spice up the game. I trully love Vertex, both song and chart. Infection is awesome and many other too (2 exemples of charts with mines).
- Double, just awesome.
I got a lot of bad experience on ddr with doubles when i played in the 4'/7' area with missrated songs... (failed at the 2nd song many times when you put 2 tokens in the arcade is a bit meh...).
At higher level (boss songs for exemple) you can find poorly/weird charts, moves almost impossible... I'm still playing double on ddr and oh well, i found some good stuff in the X folder (sure there is some good things on the old ones too but my point still stand).
Also, Bend Your Mind double ? Every decent double player who can play on ITG should try this.
- And every other details were ITG > DDR, like :
* You can see the bpm on the song on the option screen.
* You can choose so MANY mods (i'm not talking about any hack) to play as you like or just spice up a bit.
* The little "-" which shows you if you are late or early. An "great-" means that you got a great but beacause you're late.
* The background doesn't burns your eyes because it's dark.
* When you launch a song, you can see the stepchart "artist". Like a painter who made a signature on his painting.

Now, some "bad" things on ITG : Even if in my opinion the stepchart quality is higher, there is still some "bullshit" (songs are on single).
- Utopia is so conceptual that so many people found the chart really bad. They might have right.
- Wtf is Vertex² ? Even if the rythm make sence it seems, i don't like this one at all.
- Tell i hate the step/jumps. Alla NGO .
- Euphoria is a little bit on crack.

Well but you know, i love ddr too.
They is some broken charts, sure, but there is some great great stuff too.
And oh my, some X2 songs/charts are just so great that i can't wait to play it.
It's also the game where it started. Without ddr, no itg (but it's an other story).

DDR sure improved. Since X we have planty of speedmods and we have a background filter. The idea is more from ITG but i think this kind of thing is a great improvement for ddr.
We also have Shocks Arrows. Look likes mines but it's not as good.
You can also see the "before" "after" words (i'm not sure if it's "late" and "early" or something else) when your timing isn't dead on (marvelous). It's since X2 and not for everyone it seems. But something like this could be nice to see.

What imo ddr needs now :
- Use the damn when you have a good song and that you didn't used the full rythm in the . But don't use it if you don't have too. Don't do things like FaxX/ :s
- Using shocks arrows as mines. I mean, having 4 of them at the same time shouldn't be mandatory.
- Less dumb charts and less useless bpm changes (alla 888 or VD). I like gimmicks but good ones.
- Same cab for eveyone. We all know that JAP > US/EU. It's an other kind of problem, but still that's a problem i never had on itg.


PS : I didn't talked about the custom abbilities of ITG. For me, it's like an ITG+. It's an other thing but i'll just quote something :
Some players are awesome at simfile making. So creative, so good... this is awesome.
Also, courses like WinDEU does always amazed me.

If Konami would do a stepchart contest on some songs for the future arcade game (on like 10-20 songs) we will have some good and fresh new stuff to play. I seriously want an event like this. But simfile maker must have full permission (using bpm changes if they want, stops, ect).

---

Ok, I thought on writhing in this threat, but it`s almost enough to quote this:


I Started playing DDR 1 year ago.... first half year as party game, then in April this year, I started to play it almost every day.
I always played in my European Version of Supernova.
Then I couln`t play for 2 months again cause I didn`t had a Pad and all my softpads got broken after I started playing DDR 9s often.

on Gamescom in Cologne (August 10) I played ITG for the first time.
And I felt in love with this game.
I passed my first 10 right there and finally buyed a metalpad in September.
Since then I play ITG Every day!
I I like ITG not for it`s hack-ability or the customs....I know some costumes and put some of them on my ITG, but I don`t play them often.
I just love the originals and the game itsself.
Exactly for the same reasons as PanStyle.
Oh, and I really play ITG for only 3 months now! It feels like years passed since September!


At the moment they only one think I don`t like about ITG: the Utopia Expert chart!!!! It`s just stupid!
Okay, and one other thing: We don`t have even one dedicab in whole Germany!
Our 2 ITG Arcades are very old upgraded DDR Arcades without USB support or stuff like this.
You can just go ther...and play. No Screenshot, no Costum Songs, nothing! Just the game itsself.

But I still play DDR sometimes.
Cause I like the songs.
What I would do without song like Sakura, Max 300, So Deep, Blue Impulse, Xepher, Love Shine....or the first 2 songs I ever played: KiSEKI and Doll.
I still like to play them sometimes.

---

Utopia is awesome. .

The Song...yes.....but not the Stepchart!
The whole right arrow stuff is so stupid!

---

If that is stupid then so is CSFILSM.