Game Review: Osu!

Osu! Review.

Welcome to clicking conundrums! A fun and very chilled game that is very easy to learn but difficult to master. Osu! is a rhythm game developed by Dean Herbert (under the alias “Peppy”) in 2007 that involves users primarily clicking circle and sliding sliders to the rhythm of the music. The game is completely free to download from the website and users must make an account on the website to get themselves started. The game was based off a popular Nintendo DS game of the similar concept known as “Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan”.

Osu! comes into 4 game modes:

Standard – the most standard form of gameplay. Users simply click on circles to the rhythm of the music. Some players can use their keyboard to tap instead of click. Many top players use a graphical tablet to play the game. Here is a video showcasing an example of the gameplay:

Taiko – Yes, the same ones at your local arcade, except you can click or use your keyboard to the rhythm. The beats come into the form of drums and it moves horizontally to the left. Players must hit the correct drums in succession. Here is a video example of the gameplay:

Catch the Beat – A quirky type of gameplay where the player must catch the food falling from the top of the screen. The more food caught in succession, the higher the points. Here is an video example of the gameplay:

Osu!mania – A ripoff to the popular rhythm game “Stepmania”, players must hit the correct notes with their keyboard to gather points. Difficulty can increase with more keys to use and harder patterns. As always, here is a video of the gameplay:

Downloading a beatmap is as easy as pie. Simply go to the website and download a certain beatmap and simply open it to get it loaded it into your client. One of the greatest aspects of Osu! is the ease of convenience and organisation of the game. The user-interface is extremely user-friendly allowing users to easily change their hotkeys, graphics, and mouse settings. The menu selection offers an organised look allowing players to easily see and pick their songs. Difficulty usually ranges from Easy, Normal, Hard and Insane. Different player-made difficulty also exists.

Osu! also allows easy customization to the game. User made skins are available through the website and other social sites such as reddit. Skins make the game appear nicer and hopefully easier to the player as they play the game. 

The game offers song modification that makes a song harder but gives additional point for the disadvantage. Mods like “Hidden” which gets rid off the timing ring circle and disappears before the beat of the song forcing users to hit the notes based entirely on sound instead of sight. The “Double-time” mod speeds up the music by 1.5x speed making the users hit the notes 1.5x as fast. If you’re a new player, there are also difficulty reduction mods such as “Easy” which makes circles larger and the ring circle slower allowing easier progression to game play. 

The game also uses a leader board that can calculate the skill level of a player and gives them a rank based on the skill level. The game implements a system known as the “performance points” that are rewarded to players when they complete a song with extremely good performance. Generally this is very good as it gives players an incentive to learn and a competitive drive to get better. Most performance points are earned through “Full Combo” when a player completes the map without missing a beat and the accuracy of their completion is quite high. Full combing songs using difficulty increasing mods also makes the performance points go up a lot higher than playing it normally. Players are given both a global rank and a country rank based on their skill level. This information can be easily accessed through your profile on the website which makes tracking progress and seeing which songs gave you the most points is very convenient.

Note: This leader board was taken in 2012.

And what would a competitive rhythm game be without a multiplayer portion. The game implements “bancho servers” that allow users to play against each other. Different modes include, teams and co-op games. The quality of the servers are excellent as there is literally no lag or delay between the players and multiplayer games also serve the same role as the single player games. So scores will also be updated to your profiles when completed.

The game also allows players to create a beatmap of a song that they choose. If there is no song that is beatmapped to your liking, why not make one yourself? The Osu! editor is the tool to do the trick that allows users to create and edit a beatmap. Fancy a bit of creativity then get beatmapping straight away.

This game is extremely polished very well. Osu! has since then taken over the popular Stepmania as the ultimate rhythm game of 2015, having organised scores and a website that keeps track of user scores and ranks. Content is quite frequent across the forums and in-game discussion. You will enjoy hours of fun and entertainment.