Musings On Rock Band/Guitar Hero Difficulty

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 10:47 am in General Gaming · Comments

I never leave a game incomplete. Irrespective of how tough it is – or even broken in terms of game play – I’ll always chip away until I pass the finish line. Lately, there have been some frustrating exceptions to this rule with a few games I seemingly lack the skill to finish, all falling under the Rock Band/Guitar Hero banner.

I’ve always maintained I’m pretty good at the rhythm action genre, but that probably comes down to the fact I have a lot of persistence with gaming. With both Guitar Hero II and III, I made it right through to the last tier on Expert (with GHII I was only two songs from completing Expert). However, I can never get past those last few hurdles.

Let’s start with Guitar Hero II, my first foray into the rhythm genre.

Hangar 18 is the devil of all songs. It’s what has prevented me from nabbing that Expert Achievement, standing between Free Bird and myself. Guitar Hero II, however, has a really consistent difficulty throughout the Expert career. It’s tough all through each of the 8 tiers, but gradually increases in difficulty as you near the end. At no point does it ridiculously jump from being perfectly easy to frustratingly hard, and for that reason I really enjoy Guitar Hero II. It’s safe to say your ‘skills’ coincide nicely with the games difficulty, improving along with the increase in challenge.

Because of this, I kept coming back to Guitar Hero II. It hypnotised me with a great ‘one more shot’ mentality. I knew I could do it, it just required practice, something I was willing to give… until I lost my GHII disc.

Guitar Hero III has been said to be even tougher than Guitar Hero II, and I’d have to agree with this. While I still managed to progress through the Expert career relatively nicely, again right through to the last tier, I did notice it was slightly more challenging. I knew that if I couldn’t finish GHII on Expert, there was little chance of me completing GHIII.

Having said that, the difficulty of these games is the reasoning behind why I put so much time into them. It’s refreshing to have a game where I can’t blitz through it within 5 hours and be done with it. Guitar Hero has longevity, so I’ve never once wished they made the difficulty any easier.

Unfortunately, I’ll never know if I could complete Guitar Hero III on Expert. I encountered a glitch where it reverts my save, oddly enough only with the final tier on Expert. If I have any chance of completing it, it would have to be all in one sitting o_O An impossible feat for myself. Still, I do find myself booting up Guitar Hero III every now and again for a blast on Quick Play, and I’m toying with the idea of starting Expert career again, hopefully avoiding the glitch this time round.

While I think Rock Band is a better game in general, I’m really disappointed with the way the developers tackled the difficulty. I must clarify I’m talking about the guitar career, not drums (which is tough!) or vocals (which I’ve so far avoided). It is considerably easier than Guitar Hero, and I know they are two separate franchises, but no harm in drawing comparisons.

I blitzed through the Hard career without failing one song, and the Expert career proved to be no problem until the final song, where the difficulty suddenly jumped ten fold (those bloody triplets!). If I was to change anything about Rock Band, it would indeed be the difficulty. A little consistency wouldn’t have went amiss, nor would it have harmed the game if they had made Expert slightly more challenging all throughout.

I’d say out of these three games, Guitar Hero II really hit the nail on the head with difficulty. OK, so I may have never completed it, but it was consistent enough to always be enjoyable, unlike Rock Band where I was thinking ‘this is pretty easy… a little too easy’ right until the last song where it became ridiculously hard.

So there you have it; my musings on the difficulty of the Guitar Hero franchise and Rock Band. What was your take on the challenge factor for either of these games?

Tags: Guitar Hero II, Guitar Hero III, Rock Band

8 Responses to “Musings On Rock Band/Guitar Hero Difficulty”

Loud78

# July 9th, 2008 at 3:10 pm

Hey Ash

Well, as you know GHII was my first introduction to a rhythm action game, and I thought the difficulty levels were perfect, even for a complete beginner. It led you through those first forays on Easy, with each successive level of difficulty being just hard enough to challenge me. It was a similar case with the difficulty change between tiers on individual difficulty levels.

GHIII was different for me, however. I didn’t enjoy the game as much for some reason, but whether this was because I went straight onto Hard difficulty I’m not sure. Expert was definitely much harder, so much so that I hardly spent any time on it at all, compared to the time I invested in GHII on Expert.

As for Rock Band, I’ve yet to play it so I can’t comment, but that will be rectified in *checks date* 10 days (yay!) when you’re going to see my legendary drumming skills put to the test Oh, and I’ll bring my GHII disc if you fancy some Hangar 18 co-op?

Andy

# July 9th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

GHII is the only one of these games that I’ve managed to complete on Expert and that was mainly through luck and random fret flailing. GHIII I thought was considerably harder. I think this is because there are a lot more three button chords needed (see 3’s & 7’s by QOTSA). Rock Band seems much easier in comparison but I think it’s fairly similar to GHII in difficulty, it’s just that it seems much easier after playing a lot of GHIII.

The main challenge for me with Rock Band is the drums. I’m getting close to half way through the career mode on hard and though I do well on some songs, other songs in the same tier cause me no end of problems at times.

All in all, I think I prefer Rock Band the most, not just because of the addition of drums, but also because I think it has the best set list out of all the games.

Rockers Delight

# July 9th, 2008 at 9:45 pm

Loud, I didn’t enjoy GHIII as much either. Not sure why; I thought I would because it supported online co-op. It’s probably why I’ve not bothered with GH: Aerosmith. Oh, that and I think Aerosmith are shite.

Andy, maybe you’re right in regards to the Rock Band difficulty seemingly being easier because of how tough GHIII was. On the subject of track listing, I’d agree with you about Rock Band, but none of these games actually have any songs I’ve really been ecstatic about playing Some Led Zep would be noice!

Los Havros

# July 11th, 2008 at 7:34 pm

Rockers, as a musically gifted person, how do you think Rock Band and Guitar Hero compare to real instruments such as guitar and drums, like for technique?

Rockers Delight

# July 12th, 2008 at 12:15 pm

Los Havros, without a doubt I feel that being a drummer has made me better at the Rock Band drums than someone who perhaps isn’t a drummer. It’s quite sad, but I actually apply the same technique to the Rock Band drums as I do with authentic drums, so I’m playing double strokes on the pedal with my heel up, and using the molar technique with my hands so I can do faster parts relatively easier.

I jumped right in at the Hard career and managed to complete that with no problem, though Expert is tricky! I’ve watched friends attempt the drums and have so much more difficulty than I did. So, I think it has helped with that.

I’m not a guitarist, so I was shit at Guitar Hero when I first picked it up. I don’t really know if playing real guitar will help with Guitar Hero, maybe just with the speed of moving between the different buttons? Who knows.

Andy

# July 12th, 2008 at 5:14 pm

From what I’ve found, people who can play the guitar seem to be worse at Guitar Hero/Rock Band than people who can’t. They also get slightly annoyed if say, I five star a song on expert and they fail it on medium, but they can actually play the song on the real guitar.

I was actually surprised at how quickly I took to Guitar Hero. I’d seen people play it quite a few times and the first time I tried it I found it to be really simple on the easy difficulty so I went almost straight to medium. A lot of people I know seemed to struggle on easy when they first picked it up though.

In contrast, I’d imagine drummers would take to the drums on Rock Band fairly easily. They’re not that different to the actual drums compared to how different Guitar Hero is to the real guitar.

Noob

# March 12th, 2009 at 3:10 am

when i first got gh III i got raped anally by it over and over again. 6 months later it’s the easiest game i have. i’ve beaten gh III on expert but i haven’t even attempted gh II. i don’t know why. NOTE: raining blood is not hard. one is hard. i’ve only beaten one like 4 times since i got the game two Christmases ago.

Magnolia

# February 11th, 2010 at 5:36 pm

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Rockers Delight