Concerning hyperspeed option: If you look back at old rythm games like DJMAX Emotional Sense, Stepmania, Flash Flash Revolution, they all had the option to change the scroll speed. Some people like it slow, some like it fast. It's like sensitivity in a FPS. It's NOT a cheat.
@@LamziLamziLamzi bemani, the division of Konami that made GuitarFreaks/DrumMania makes the first vertical scrolling, MOST serious rhythm game of all time, beatmania IIDX, and that has exact millisecond timings for how long the note is displayed on the screen and you can make the track shorter or longer. "Hyperspeed" (aka adjusting your playfield properly) was never considered a cheat by other rhythm gamers of the time.
Wait, i thought that GH Live was a reboot of the series, it wasn't? I mean if activision wanted to continue the GH storyline that left in GH6: WoR... it should be GH7 the new one
I did like GH Live for one. But I think it should have been 4 frets, which would technically be 8 buttons. 3 frets just looks weird even if it's 6 buttons. And you still have a lot of interesting combinations there.
Band Hero was, for me (a drummer), the pinnacle of the rhythm game craze. Not only did it let me play my preferred instrument, the campaign mode was legitimately funny and entertaining, the song choices were great, and the drum kit felt pretty good (though the pedal kinda gets wonky now and again). Considering what Activision has shown itself to be, I don't think anyone's going to see any of their wishes come true.
Back in the day my brother and me discovered that are pretty much e-drum compatible so we saved some money and bought a e-drum bass pedal. Best purchase ever.
@@pannomic1818 I mean in theory it could mean a possible guitar hero game would release on PC? Over the past few years Microsoft has had a pretty big push towards crossplay between console and PC, and with a PC release they'd be able to attract even more of the attention of CH players
Gotta say. Number one hit me pretty hard. I've always been a casual fan of these games. But my cousin is a diehard and as someone that "never really got it" but enjoyed playing them. When I saw GT live in stores and I saw only 3 lanes I thought right away it was an easier title.
Yeah I am sure I never got it GHLive for the same reasons ( Plus we already had the old GH games, why get a new one right?), I just realised in this video it is 6 hah!
#11: Bring back the characters! I know they did nothing to change up the gameplay before Warriors of Rock (which was awesome when they did that, I loved WoR), and the addition of custom characters somewhat did away with the need for them, but the unique designs and styles of those characters were a big part of what made GH so memorable. People love Johnny, Judy, Axle, and Pandora (regardless of how many times she drastically changed her costume) and I personally would love to see mah girl Echo return.
From the very beginning. I've always had ma main Izzy Sparks. Also, I would say old GH1 Xavier is better than the 2 and 3's idea. But then I saw his Captain X outfit for the first time. That made lil me gasp.
I genuinely think most if not all of the problems with guitar hero stemmed from having a marketing exec in charge of direction instead of a music enthusiast, you can see it in the most basic of blunders like as you pointed out, literally just using the most popular dream theatre song for the finale instead of a more technically challenging dream theatre song. Or more obviously the inclusion of Tools 'Parabola' WITHOUT the intro 'Parabol'. Live and the cancelled 7 exist as perfect examples to show just how out of touch Activision was with all the things guitar hero means to the players.
Great video Jason, love your content Although I do have to disagree with you on the finale song argument in GH:WT. "Pull Me Under" was to me a great finale song since it was an epic closer, and as someone who had never heard of Dream Theater before, it opened a whole new can of worms for me to discover. Looking back, they could absolutely have taken a tougher or longer track (my personal choice would have been "Metropolis Pt. 1"), but the epic nature of the track makes it a satisfying end to a long journey in career mode.
Dream Theater is one of my favorite bands and I totally get it. Glad it opened you up to checking out new stuff! Just wished they'd capitalized on the hype TTFAF created a bit more. Casual players were enthralled watching folks who could handle the challenge. Hard to follow that up no matter.
@@JasonParadise Didn't GHWT also have Satch Boogie on? Feel like they should have switched that with Pull Me Under for the finale. Pull Me Under being on the tracklist was for sure a great idea though, still a challenge while making Dream Theater accessible - I also became a fan after player that song :)
You forgot the Guitar Hero 5/Band Hero lawsuit where Courtney Love and No Doubt sued Activision for letting people use Cobain and No Doubt in any song in the game as it violated something or other about performance rights. Also generally them calling Guitar Hero 5 'Guitar Hero 5' instead of Guitar Hero 4 since it confused a lot of people who thought World Tour was a spinoff and not a main game and made it even more apparent the oversaturation of the series
You may probably never read this but I can't thank you enough for your content. My grandmother was rushed to the hospital unexpectedly in 2017. My parents, my sister and I had to go out of the state to visit her in the hospital. Your Clone Hero videos have helped me so much throughout that hard period of time. They made me smile, they made me laugh, and they made me eagerly excited to see the next meme chart you'd play next. My grandmother made it through the hospital visits and passed away three years later. I'll always miss her, but I'll never forget what your videos have done to help me throughout that time period. I can't thank you enough, Jason!
I think the final song needs to be epic rather than complicated or difficult. "Flying Whales" isn't the most difficult song ever but it would KILL as an end credits song. But I do get the idea that TTFAF was basically a superboss & definitionally those are difficult. I think you'd have to partner with a band with the explicit intent of them writing something difficult. I imagine Polyphia could do good work in this regard.
I'd say looking for songs that had all three aspects would be ideal. The Dream Theater example I would think of would be something like Dance of Eternity. Very epic song and intensely hard on all instruments (only downside is no vocals).
As someone who worked in the electronics section of your local Toys R Us in 2009, I can confirm that the market was oversaturated with the games, and the quality took a dip. If GH comes back, release one type of controller that has either bluetooth or USB connectivity and works on all consoles and PC, and re-release drums in one established format. Add a sixth button. Make hyperspeed an option. Pick good quality songs from across the gamut for all instruments and a singer. Let us customize the band, the highway, and the instruments. Don't rotate songs you can buy in and out, instead put them on sale or let people just buy as many songs or song packs as they want. Integrate score uploading across platforms, and allow people to make their own charts using a PC tool that can be sold separately. Would it let people bypass sold song packs? Maybe, but moderators could review and approve uploads. As for a finale song? For the comeback, I would /commission/ DragonForce to make a brand /new/ song, specifically for this game, since they are known for their connection to GH. The game would obviously have to be $90, or even $100 to start, or you can sell the instrument separately. But I want GH back.
GH Live tried to do that in 2015 but it didn't work out. I only bought it because it was on the Wii U and I was boycotting the PS4/Xbox One due to some bad decisions Microsoft and Sony were making and the gaming scene taking a nosedive.
@@adultmoshifan87 that's hillarious, it was the perfect time to switch to PC. PC's could handle console games at 1080p@60fps with budget specs. Instead you choose the tablet failure LOL
Honestly, using hyperspeed for me actually helped improve my playing expert difficulty as the normal/default speed of the note track i found was too slow so once i had discovered it i found speed level 3 was a perfect speed lol, also regarding the ability to chart and play your own songs idea... *stares at Rocksmith+*
When I think of the oversaturation, I always look at what Harmonix did with Rock Band and how that model would have worked so much better for the GH series as well, as least for the first three titles. There were stand alone expansion games, some great (Beatles Rock Band is a dream come true for many, including the devs) but others were very odd (Green Day Rock Band? Really? lol). But the main games were based around that DLC model to expand your library, and a new game entirely was a complete revamp of the basic game. (RB3 with the pro models as an example). This model is definitely pricier overall but more customizable for your library and in turn a bit more user friendly than buying entire games separately.
I think something you didn't mention but feels relevant especially to the argument regarding saturation is GH, whether because they didn't have time from cranking out way too many titles or just because they didn't want to try and implement it, completely missed the boat on song exporting until WAY late in the series while Rock Band had it from the start. Not only did Activision put out 5 full priced full band GH games in 2009 + the guitar playable tracks in DJ Hero, most of them were not exportable to other major games in the series. GH5 and Band Hero were fully exportable by the end, and Metallica and World Tour got partial exports, but Smash Hits and Van Halen never got anything.
I remember a long time ago when people were making custom setlists for GH3, I came up with my dream setlist that I named Expert's Edition. Clone Hero let me create my dream setlist minus a track or two.
tbh 6 fret would only benefit top guys like acai, frif, jason etc. For the general masses and probably 99%, 5 frets is perfect and shouldn't be changed
@@samxherbert2468 wym? everybody would love to give 6 frets a try, it would help promote the growth of players and give older players a new reason to buy the game instead of waiting for the charts to release onto clone hero and not having to buy it
for the next guitar hero, the final challenge should be all 3 parts of Pain Remains back to back to back, not just a test of skill, but of pure endurance as well
I think I have some good ideas for finale songs: The Odyssey by Symphony X, Mabool (the flood)/The Storm Still stages Inside by Orphaned Land, Astral Annihilation/Ripping Through Time by Unleash the Archers, Elysium by Stratovarius, Lost Children of the Universe by Star One, and My Inner War by Myrath. Yes, this is just a list of long songs by some of my favorite bands. But they are epic songs that are cool
I wish they kept with guitar battles in career mode! Part of the reason I am able to go back to GH3 is that the guitar battles offer a ton of replayability! I also agree that I would love a guitar with 6 buttons and better charting tools. Maybe tab-based charting!
For an end credits song, I'd believe 7empest by Tool would be pretty interesting. In comparison to Through the Fire and Flames, it's much less complex when it comes to shredding and such, but it is a 15 minute long endurance run with some fun guitar parts. And if it expanded to a full band, each instrument is pretty up there in difficulty, especially when dealing with odd timing. This may also just be my bias towards tool
Love this content man. I love this saga so much. Keep it going plz! The most important things we need IMO: - Classic controler / maybe a 6th fret to make the old experimented players have a new challenge and promote for the new players - Old colorfull frets, with the circule form lol - ALL INSTRUMENTS: . Guitar, Bass, Drum, Mic. (If they want to add a new one, should be piano i guess?) - Songlist carefully chosen to make a good experience - Band's DLC. I always saw Aerosmith, Metallica and Van Halen as DLCs of their previous numbered game (GH3, GH4 and GH5) GH band theme game should be a DLC and not a new full game, it is not necesary. Also, there are a lot of bands, old and new metal/rock bands that deserve a lot of songs in GH. - big customisable band: members, outfits, names.. face? personalities? posibilities are big. . they can even let the player add skins for their guitar, or simply paint them as they want. put stickers, keychains, etc. (this go together with the Free Multiplayer ↓) - Unlockeable outfits only for playing the game. I don't care if they want to put skins for money, but the old "new skins by completing the game" NEED to be there. . BUT they can also make a free to play Multiplayer, with the store of the game running on real money, to buy skins for guitar, new guitars, droms, etc. outfits and more. - Easy way to put custom songs, like Clon Hero. I agree with adding a charter in the game itself too, but making them easy to use as Moonscraper. - foment, gddamn FOMENT the eSports part. Guitar Hero ruled the eSports in 2007/8 with the championships and they even didn't promote it at all! . a web or even ingame list of worldwide records would foment people to play the game more, to compete. - more gamplay customization, not only hyperspeed, all stuf to make gameplay harder or easier, or funnier. To end, and in resume, a good example of what fans want are Clone Hero and GH:World Tour Definitive Edition.
ps: Sorry if I have spelling mistakes or I express myself badly, English is not my mother tongue 😅 ps2: this list go from the most important to the less one, again, IMO.
The dropped features part really makes me think of rock band 4 how they dropped pro support for guitar and bass and most importantly killed keyboard all together. Personally i would love to see them add it back in and make it so all 5 could play at once.
For me, number 1 was the lack of cross compatibility of devices. USB guitars that only worked on one system, and/or only specific games, despite all the consoles using USB and all the games using the same buttons. USB dongles that only worked for one instrument in the set like the drums, and sometimes even only that specific drum set so if you lost the dongle you were SOL. And this all leading to tons of instruments, cluttering up households and game stores alike, making neither want anything to do with them.
Regarding #2: I got into Dragonforce music before GH, and it blew me away that they had a song in GH3. As a birthday present, I wanted that game so bad as my first game, but it was sold out, and had no other choice than to get World Tour that day. I didn't just hope there was a DF song as the finale chart, I EXPECTED it. So much of their music is fast, complicated, and perfect for any final showdown for a rhythm game. Imagine my disappointment that a Dragonforce song was nowhere to be seen on my PS2 copy of World Tour, instead replaced by something not even close in difficulty. I still recall finishing the encore of Hot For Teacher, hearing the intro to Pull Me Under, and thinking "this song better pick up, or I'm going to fall asleep." Looking back, it kinda burns that DF didn't get a full album of theirs onto a single Guitar Hero game after GH3. I honestly think they deserve it not only for their notoriety of being such a difficult guitar chart to perfect, but also for their discography in general (during the late 2000s at least).
I was today years old when I figured out that the colours with Slash behind them are in order of the Guitar Hero colour scheme: GRYBO, and again for 6-10.
I guess I am happy that I started playing on Clone Hero instead of Guitar Hero. In fact, I didn't even think about playing until I found you Jason. I want to thank you for introducing me to a game that I got to enjoy only because you liked to play it as well. I hope you continue to play Clone Hero so I can keep watching you when I have time. Rock on my friend.
I almost 100% agree with a lot of what you said. Here's some of my thoughts on your video (which was really nicely done btw!). The biggest change I'd make is the "Finale Song choice" should have gone MUCH lower than "Controller Quality". While I don't disagree they could have had better final tracks for some games, Pull Me Under felt right because the atmosphere it gave to the scene, on top of still being a solid song to play, made that moment memorable. It also opened the knowledge of Dream Theatre to me (as well as many others I feel) by having this song where it was. I still get goosebumps from how dope this song felt when I played it. I feel the credits song shouldn't be one that is challenging, but rewarding of what you accomplished to get there. This means it doesn't have to be difficult or a test of skill, but more so a moment to really drink up what you've done. Either way you look at it, it's just nice to have SOMETHING to do while the credits go by, whether it's a nice chill song or a test of endurance. With that said, it'd be quite hard to even get that far if the controllers don't properly work, and that's the most important part of ANY game. Being able to have control over what you do. I didn't have a lot of issues with my own gear, but it should be worth noting that if issues were arising in a frequent enough nature, then that alone can threaten a game's standing. The idea of 6 strum bars is definitely insane, and really excessive. I think just simply adding a 6th button and an easier way to activate star power (which I'd say falls into Controller Quality) is all that's necessary for an updated GH controller. The 3x2 fret board was absolutely atrocious, both to learn as a seasoned GH player and just how it was displayed in game. The colorful frets made the game feel vibrant and alive. Seeing so much grey and black and white felt like the game died and became a ghost. No soul, just a vessel. The removal of so many features wasn't just a bad decision that hurt the game. It KILLED it. I had GH Live for a whole week before returning it, and I usually don't return games (hell it took me months to return Bloodborne, and I didn't even get past the first boss in that game). The idea of monetization in a game like GH honestly and legitimately infuriates me. It's like they saw how hot mobile games were and tried to turn a nonMobile game into one in an attempt to make easy money (and failed miserably). That decision was ungodly bad, and the only reason I can think for such a dumb move was greed. Guitar Hero 2 was a huge part of my high school years, and I loved the series. These games, as well as Rock Band, introduced me to a wide variety of music I love now, and also gave me something to enjoy and get good with. It's so sad to see such a great concept and idea get destroyed by greed and incompetence.
GHTunes was foundational to my early internet days! Made a bunch of friends on GameFAQs promoting each other songs - some still on my RUclips channel (RIP all my songs I had to delete thanks to tiny song storage limits). As much nostalgia I have for that janky DAW, I have to admit Harmonix's answer in the form of RBN (which inadvertently enabled true custom songs on console without mods) was the far more successful user content model.
Final songs don't have to be hard, they should be a big show off and this all out Ending rather than ultimate challenge, since the challenge is the thing you do after. You play TTFAF as your 'final' song but its no fail with no scoring, only after you play it in Quick play its the challenge. Pull Me Under is a great end song, and the challenge on is Satch Boogie, which sure no TTFAF still, but its a really kickass song to actually pull you fingers. GH5 they forgo it so sure there.
13:10 I have to HARD disagree with your hot take. Pull Me Under had a nice epic theme, and the post-credits final venue had even harder songs like Satch Boogie
One big issue was the removal of the standard controller support post WT. Not completely removed. just super hidden and only accessible through debug options. And it works like GH3 gamepad play style (Strum higher notes using low notes, star power deploy using the D-pad instead of the Select/Back button only and multiple axis whammy instead of only up). If it will release a new GH game with 5 fret style. It must have controller support.
I remember when I got the full suite of instruments for World Tour when I was younger, including a guitar that had a separate set of flat sensors for the slide notes (which were new at the time). No buttons, just a flatter portion of the neck beyond the buttons that, from what the game told you, you were supposed to slide your fingers along to use. Needless to say, I hit probably 10% of the notes you were "supposed" to hit using it. I thought that maybe the sliding thing was a bit generous of a description and instead decided to go about pressing them more like the actual buttons like a touch screen, which didn't work either. From then on, I used just the buttons and had no problems with hit detection. I've always wondered how they'd let such a poorly put-together addition to the controller like that slide (pun intended), but at least it didn't dampen my memories of the game overall. It just felt like a weird way of complicating the simple design everyone was used to.
weren't they just meant to be used when doing slide solos or whatever? I could google it and work it out but I have my own memory of what I think they did haha
@@samxherbert2468 You could use it for slide/tap notes, and you could use it as a strum bar for normal notes. If anybody actually did the latter, I'll be shocked
With Rocksmith pushing real instruments and copyright music costs at an all time high, its just not profitable to build a plastic guitar that the target audience is kids. I would say the best bet is to make an "Indy company" with the GH/RB community, Build a guitar hero-esq inspired game with unsigned bands and non-mainstream music around the world...
If Guitar Hero would return, I want a way to connect with the audience and share the music of the community. Many of us make music, it would be amazing to play each other tunes on some even monthly event rotation. Heck, in my band half of us are guitar hero fans.
I feel like a mash-up of either lamb of god or sabaton songs could work well as either a finale or a challenge at a halfway point similar to wor with the mash-up of rush songs
Guitar hero and rhythm games as a whole are perfect vessels for a live service model. A single game that constantly gets new music, maps, and game modes is exactly what fans of the genre always wanted. Guitar hero was created too early to take advantage of the business model and had to resort to near monthly releases that all felt the same except new tracks. They had a chance with Guitar Hero Live now that systems were in place to keep it going, but burnout from the last several years destined it to fail.
Honestly, I thought the perfect guitar hero guitar change was the world tour guitar with the solo bar at the bottom of the neck where you touch the the buttons instead of pressing them. It was a really awesome idea without changing functionality! I never played guitar hero live solely because I didn’t want to learn the new guitat
I really would like to see some Dualshock/controller options if a new official GH game launch. I know the guitar is the best option for players who want to be better (aka able to FC hard strumming songs or do better squeezing) but letting the Dualshock/controller available for gameplay would be really cool imo.
3:10 oh my gosh i just had a flashback of seeing all of the various available gh controllers in circuit city, like the blue fender or the pink heart one or yellow tele, and the black kramer. all available
After credit songs need to be difficult but also epic and reflect the game. 21st century schizoid man was a fantastic choice! A good challenge on all instruments but vocals, fits with the more alternative setlist, and it taught young people an old gem. It's through this game that I know and love that song. Though as much as I love this song, It'd be a better fit to find something relatively unknown with these qualities. World Tour was a bit more pop-centric, focussing on famous evergreen artists. Pull me under is epic, but that's where it ends. If I could pick any song from any guitar hero game and put it as World Tour's ending, it'd be Play With Me - Extreme. This type of music isn't my forte so I don't know of any non-guitar hero song that would make a better fit but I'm sure they exist. Something with a much more challenging drum and bass.
A problem that didn't help the oversaturation was that Rock Band was also being released at the same time with their own various spin-offs. There were so many game in the two series over the decade that it killed any want for any more games. The last GH game I got was 5, not because I was burnt out, but because the song list sucked IMO. Almost everything prior to 5's list were jammers, but I found 5's playlist weak. That combined with latency syncing issues on a CRT, which didn't have any in the prior games, led me to dropping the series. I still have all my PS3 GH games and a working (maybe, haven't touched it in over a decade) plastic guitar in the off-chance I feel like playing them. I just probably won't.
Going overboard with the real life cameos I think hurt it for me. Mainly the artists who had already passed away like Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. Just something about seeing video game Kurt Cobain sing other peoples songs somehow felt like everything Kurt would have been against. Its also the first time I felt my fandom was taken advantage of for a quick buck .
Your Number 2 Fail is somewhat wrong - you forgot the Satch Boogie by Joe Satriani! This is the final song in GHWT (at least for Guitar campaign) and it felt like one - even though it was nowhere near as hard as TTFAF, it was pretty cool to pull off! But when it comes to GH5, I completely agree - King Crimson are awesome and I like the song, but not for the finale of the game. Other than that - awesome video as always man!
I feel like a AAA GH-style title to really not only work but also capture the “Magic” of it all would need a heavy amount of community outreach and support on behalf of the developer. The following around the guitar itself could be of massive use here. The things I see people doing in the prog metal, fusion, and various other experimental styles of playing are absolutely mind-bending and could be a very TTFAF-esque way of bringing some absolute finger-breakers in front of players, watchers, and listeners alike. I don’t know about you, but as both a musician and a GH fan, the amount of sweat that would come off my brow if someone like Tosin Abasi, Andy James, or Rusty Cookey popped up at the end of a game’s career mode would be IMMENSE, and I know a fair number of people who were already guitarists who would probably pick the game up if not to just give it a go and have that be a way to interact with and experience the songs. Or, hell, use the opportunity to dig deep into some shred history. I’m sure a chart for Altitudes by Jason Becker exists and I’m also sure that I’m terrified of it.
The new features I *wish* an upcoming controller type would have are a palm mute button and either whammy control over sustains, or bendable frets. Talk to any actual guitarist that plays Guitar Hero, they will tell you they vibrate their finger on a fret when holding a sustain haha. Imagine how cool it would be to hit some palm mutes and finish it with a nasty bend on a djent song. Additionally, pinch and/or natural harmonics would be super cool, though those are pretty niche and add an extra note type for arguably little potential use.
tem um ponto que você esqueceu que para mim teve o maior impacto: quando começaram a exigir a guitarra de plastico. até o Aerosmith podia usar os controles do próprio console
I think one big problem was that they didn't focus in enough on the engine. Drum charts were occasionally broken in World Tour, which carried forward into several games, and Expert + introduced a bunch of new issues on top of that, which took forever to fix. Slider Notes were broken since they debuted in World Tour, until they were finally (more or less) fixed in the engine revamp for Guitar Hero 5. And that's just mechanical complaints. I feel like they really phoned in the character creator after they got it working in World Tour. I feel like there was a lot of potential to re-introduce unique star power particle effects after they got the base rockstar creator finished, but characters getting unique star power particle effects just left after Guitar Hero 3, and never came back. :/
I think Hard as Iron by Judas Priest would kill as a finale song. Not the most complex, but it's fast, hard, and the lyrics fit perfectly to the purpose, and the Guitar Hero theme overall. Side note: It's also a super underrated Judas Priest song! Or so I'm told - I didn't think it was counted among the underrated ones until someone told me.
Not only do you get Sudden Death, you get: Speeding, Black Widow of La Porte, Fury of the Storm, Settimg Fire to Sleeping Giants for some reason, Nemesis; If You Want Peace, Prepare for War; and Deadfall. A true victory lap. And to even get there you have to get the equivalent of at least 4 stars on This Day We Fight and Holy Wars with some help
I used to play guitar hero but every since I got rocksmith I haven't even had the urge to wanna play guitar hero, rocksmith is just more fun in my opinion, it is definitely more complicated but once you learn it and figure out the instrument delay its pretty enjoyable.
I'm still thinking that, Pull me under, was used as a credit song just because the length. A lot of time to show the devs and etc. Same for King Crimsong song. Also, Satch Boogie was on WT as the definitive "final boss" song, but it was kinda short.
100% agree on having Glass Prison as the finale for GHWT. not only is the song hard as balls and perfect for a TTFAF style ending sequence, it's also their best song by a country mile! god i love six degrees so much. 100% the GOAT prog metal album
Im bad with watching a whole vid before commenting. as you can tell. but. i would not mind AT ALL if i could pay 6$ on fortnite festival for full access for a day. BUT with the option to still buy the songs (maybe make them 1-2$ cheaper idk)
They should have done Octavarium or Change of Seasons for World Tour haha. People who don't know the song like 11 minutes in would be like "WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!?!?!?" haha
I think one of the best ways the company could monitize a new guitar hero game without turning it into a giant ad machine would be leaning into custom guitar controllers. 3D printing is much more accessible now and I can see people printing their own guitars. Obviously this would create potential quality issues but if there was an option for a "bare bones" which would be just the proprietary parts that should not change it would be wild to see what other people come up with. Venues, character customization, highway and button customization could be included as well
Really good video. One major fail I think wasn’t mentioned in the video was the shitty song export packages you got. GH actually let you export songs to later games in when they switch to full band, by which I mean less than have of the songs. Mainly GHWT and GHSH, though. They definitely got better as they went along, with GH5, GHM and especially BH, but they always paled compared to RB (which often got entire setlists, including RB3, a MAIN SERIES game, to export). Speaking of which, giving away the GHM export package, and, more infamously, the entire game GHVH, for free in promotions for buying the main series games (which makes no sense when they people most likely to buy these are GH fans who would have bought those anyway) was another pretty big fail, on their side if not so much for GH fans.
Heavy disaggre with the finale songs. Pull me under and 21st schizo REALLY fits both world tour and GH5 themes. I actually loved the finale to GH5 back when I played it.
I think Rock Band is the spiritual successor to Guitar Hero an has done soooo many things right that GH did not. Hear me out. I started in rhythm games with GH2 and GH3 Legends of Rock. I absolutely loved playing them. Then Rock Band came around. With a killer set list and constant DLC updates this game kicked ass. Then what was even more amazing is when Rock Band 2, 3 and 4 came out you could export the on disc songs as DLC to the newest version. You could even export the Green Day Rock Band song library to Rock Band 3. SO you basically got 4+ albums worth of greenday music in regular Rock Band for owning a copy of Greenday Rock Band. Even better? All the songs you've ever owned for Rock Band kept on carrying over to the newest version. Rock Band 4 is still going strong today with monthly DLC releases. Honestly I could write about all the great features of Rock Band like being able to add band members mid song without stopping the song! Or being able to sing a harmony on a vocal track instead of the melody and still getting points for it. Or custom drum fills. Playing a show where everyone playing can vote on random categories of songs to play next. Global Leaderboards and challenges with ranked play. Soooooooo many customisation options for your band avatars. Online mutiplayer!!! The biggest point I want to hammer home is the music selection. Thousands of songs to choose from with tons of genres. There is something for everybody. Harmonix the company that used to make GH games with Activation split after GH2 (not surprised why) and made what I think is what we all wanted the new GH games to be. Rock Band. Seriously if you want an excellent rythm game experience that's like old GH days then pick up Rock Band 4. I'm sure you will love it as much as me.
Unless you want to use your Ion drums from the 360 on your Xbox One, in which case, good luck, hope you feel like emptying that wallet for an absurdly expensive eBay purchase!
"When you think of final big bad boss songs what do you think of?" Green grass & high tides. Speaking of final songs id probably The Sun, The Moon, The Stars, but then again im crazy
The final songs thing is true. But I give activision the benefit of the doubt because Pull me under was in fact the hardest song on World tour. But had it been charted better it probably wouldn’t have been. So the better thing to say would be, “Don’t pick a song that is supposed to be easy and make it harder than it should be. Chart the songs accurately so that everyone can have fun.”
Some songs I think could be great finale songs, La Villa Strangiato by Rush, To Tame A Land by Iron Maiden, Cicatriz ESP by The Mars Volta, Starless by King Crimson and Blackwater Park by Opeth
Activision as a company and record labels were a really bad mix. Record labels are notorious for being brutal when it comes to licensing and rights, hence all the rotating and songs no longer being available. Activision is notorious for wanting to make millions out of pennies, and for caring way more about quarterly sales than maintaining a quality product.
Everything you said is absolutely correct but like you said earlier in the video, there was a lack of player-developer communication and i think that goes both ways. Just like we've been kept in the dark about essential information, they too weren't informed about the needs of the community, or rather didn't care to know. It's both infuriating and scary how that's becoming the norm in the gaming industry, profit margins is all they care about nowadays and i think i speak for all of us when i say that i'm running out of ideas to make them remove their head out of their ass that don't involve violence.
Despite all of its flaws, me and my daughter absolutely loved GH Live. I was the only one to ever witness her "epic" performance on "Arch Enemy - War Eternal". I played the guitar, she had the microphone. She didn' t know the song, let alone the lyrics... but she really tried her very best. Fun times.
Love this. Also appreciate she sang the only song in GH with an uncensored F bomb. Hardcore 😂 GHL had incredible ideas, but it just wasn't the classic Guitar Hero people wanted
I got another one for you and I deem this one the reason why I didn't care for the franchise. No left handed guitars. I mean yeah you could lefty flip but the whammy bar was still in the way, and overall made it difficult to get into a position to be able to comfortably play. And yes I'm left handed.
Meanwhile, we have Rock Band 3 with its pro guitar controller having a button for every fret AND every string AND having 6 strum lines (or alternatively, just being a real guitar with sensors in the frets!)
@@JasonParadise seriously tho man, this was an incredibly thought provoking video. I haven’t given much serious thought about GH since I was big into it as a teen. ❤️
Great video again, man! Makes me hold out some hope for a new entry in the Guitar Hero franchise one day soon, though I'm certainly not holding my breath...
I liked the live guitar though. It's just the black and white stuff that confuses people I think, because it isn't obviously visible, so just make the 2 rows of 3 buttons and make each button their own color.
seriously love this new style. When i saw beyond clone hero i wanted more. Got so happy we have a second one, this is so so good, please dont stop these 🤘❤️
That guitar controller is GENUINELY why I never bought Guitar Hero Live. I was super hyped to see GH and Rock Band come back at roughly the same time, and the only reason I bought Rock Band 4 but not Guitar Hero Live was because I thought it'd be silly for me to learn how to play a completely different fake plastic guitar. Going from 5 buttons to 6 is one thing, but changing to a 3x2 setup? Nah, wasn't interested at all.
My response to the conclusion of the video, yes I agree with the video. Except I don't want a sixth fret. I still wanna use the old controllers I have laying around and not buy a completely new one, just to get the full experience. Green, red, yellow, blue, orange, and strum bar. That's all we need.
In regards to Point 3, I also think the decision to make every release after World Tour be full band games was a mistake. It's one thing to chart a list of songs for two instruments, but having to chart drums and vocals, which are wildly different experiences I'm sure, on top of the other two or potentially three if the song has lead and rhythm, adds a lot more time to development so what happens? Easy, boring songs get added to the set list, and that doesn't make for a fun play experience. Even World Tour, the first game to have full band, suffered from this a little bit. I think it would have been better to keep World Tour as its own subseries, keep the other games to just the string instruments, and only release one full band game maybe every 2 years to allow time for development and to give people something to look forward to while providing smaller scale, guitar-centered games in the interim.
Sad to see this video as someone who doesn't like to play that much guitar hero but as a long time player of any other rhythm game and have a similar feeling in every single points. Edit: Almost all the big rhythm games exist nowadays in this vacuum where arcades are still the hottest thing out there and even in places with good arcades the Japanese arcade giants (Konami, Sega and Taito) make it way harder to enjoy these games outside of asia and the few other places that are lucky to get access to official servers. So now it's not only whether an arcade can afford a game and not only whether an arcade can get the game but also whether an arcade can make the game boot in the first place without official support, and the rhythm game community is obviously stuck in the middle of it all. Yes there are amazing games on steam but every one of those is getting put to the side by free games like osu, stepmania, clone hero and the like because they bring quantity but a lot of the time can't bring the same quality as a game with a budget can, with the biggest steam games that exist right now are beat saber (ok mainstream song selection but don't have a lot for hardcore players outside of modding, also vr is still expensive af) and djmax (lives on franchise recognition (which outside of asia isn't much) and a few collaborations, and having a really good online).
You pretty much summed up for me the reasons I think Warriors Of Rock is their best effort after GH3. Great songs for the time, the Megadeth boss battle, the entire after finale setlist of super hard songs ranging from shred to death metal, the whole storyline with the powerups and transformation of the characters
Long reply incoming: I like your long-form videos because they always get the brain juices flowing. First things first, I don't entirely agree with your view on the final songs for two reasons. The first is that I personally don't view "Through the Fire and Flames" as part of the career (it's more of an optional end-game or post-game content) and that it ends with the battle with Lou on "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". I have always felt like the final song shouldn't necessarily be the most challenging song on a game, but rather a culmination of your entire journey up to that point. In the Guitar Hero III career, the story goes that you sign a deal with the devil, and you must literally face off against him in one of the toughest songs in the entire franchise to win your freedom. At that point, the career ends for me. In Guitar Hero II, "Free Bird" is not the hardest song (again, still one of them), but it's an iconic tune that lyrically tells you you've reached the end and you're free (and also cleverly calls back to a loading screen for the original game). As for World Tour, I agree that "Pull Me Under" feels like the wrong song choice, but that's because I don't think it defines your entire journey up to that point. If I had to choose an ending track for World Tour, it would be "Overkill". All your hard work and suffering through "Satch Boogie", "Trapped Under Ice", "Hot For Teacher", and so on, and you're playing through a song that seemingly won't end, which makes you wonder if and when the quest is truly accomplished. I have a revamped and re-ordered setlist in my Clone Hero library that ends with this song for World Tour. So the final song doesn't necessarily have to be the hardest, but a summary of everything you've accomplished up to that point. Make the song selection meaningful and symbolic, is what I'm saying. With the hyperspeed thing and its classification as a cheat in early instalments, that's a relic of the "cheat code" era when everything that altered the game through a series of button presses was called a cheat, even if it made the game harder. I view hyperspeed as an accessibility feature rather than a cheating mechanic, but I think it's just that insistent terminology we were so used to back then. What's interesting is that you wouldn't have people saying the same thing about Performance Mode, which removed the HUD and thus forced players to play from memory (including Star Power phrases). But that's because you wouldn't be relying on it for setting records. It's more of a personal challenge. I wrote an article on Guitar Hero Live's shutdown a few years ago, but it goes without saying that it really was a mess from the moment we heard about the microtransactions. This was the peak Activision era for monetising literally anything and everything. Now that the servers are shut down, it feels so pointless and a footnote in the franchise's history. I respect FreeStyleGames for trying to experiment with something that hadn't been done before (like they did with DJ Hero). But hoo boy, the monetisation features in GHTV made it so difficult for me to enjoy. Having to pay for each song, combined with the lack of a practice mode and an extremely dull multiplayer progression system that fell off a cliff once you hit the level cap, I ended up passing on GHTV altogether before long. It's why I preferred the Live mode of the game, solely because I could play any song I wanted at any time. Plus, the videos were fun in a campy sort of way. I watched those making-of videos, and it seems like the cast had a fun time working on them, which made me think of them in a more positive light. We have seen hints at a possible second Guitar Hero revival, and Activision has never shied away from reviving a franchise if it'll make them a quick buck (see Crash Bandicoot or the Tony Hawk's games). So I wonder, with Clone Hero and similar games cropping up by a fiercely devoted fanbase that is keeping the community thriving, if they'll try and tap into that market once again or be put off by the time, money and energy spent on Guitar Hero Live. I think especially since they've held onto the license all this time, it's a never-say-never thing at this point in time. But I believe we'll never get back to a popularity level around the time of the Harmonix-early Neversoft era, and Activision may only be willing to take the plunge if they can guarantee that.
![Gunna - HIM ALL ALONG [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/w7Wf0h1Q8a4/mqdefault.jpg)
Say what you will about cheat codes, but it will always be funny that the GH3 code for hyperspeed was OBOYOBOY (cause it’s fast)
Concerning hyperspeed option:
If you look back at old rythm games like DJMAX Emotional Sense, Stepmania, Flash Flash Revolution,
they all had the option to change the scroll speed. Some people like it slow, some like it fast.
It's like sensitivity in a FPS. It's NOT a cheat.
He says himself its not a cheat, he is explaining the impact of what the option being listed as a Cheat had on things such as tournaments and such.
funnily enough, even the games they imitate (GuitarFreak and DrumMania) has that feature as well as a customization option
@@LamziLamziLamzi bemani, the division of Konami that made GuitarFreaks/DrumMania makes the first vertical scrolling, MOST serious rhythm game of all time, beatmania IIDX, and that has exact millisecond timings for how long the note is displayed on the screen and you can make the track shorter or longer. "Hyperspeed" (aka adjusting your playfield properly) was never considered a cheat by other rhythm gamers of the time.
Still waiting for Guitar Hero 8: Gods of Rock
Wait, i thought that GH Live was a reboot of the series, it wasn't? I mean if activision wanted to continue the GH storyline that left in GH6: WoR... it should be GH7 the new one
@@pannomic1818 nah, live was more like a murder of the series
@@beniscruncher9836 well, yeah, it was lol
but activision made it trying to be the reboot (emphasis on *trying* )
GH: GoR lmao
A more fitting title might be "Guitar Hero 7: Redemption Of Rock." GH Live was a huge misfire in my eyes.
Adding one extra note color really could be fun and mix things up just enough. Imagine all the new chord shapes you could play
I never considered chords, holy shit... I can think of at least three fucked up chord shapes on the fly.
@@CAPTAIN_CLOCK is Green Red Orange Purple one of them?
I did like GH Live for one. But I think it should have been 4 frets, which would technically be 8 buttons. 3 frets just looks weird even if it's 6 buttons. And you still have a lot of interesting combinations there.
Band Hero was, for me (a drummer), the pinnacle of the rhythm game craze. Not only did it let me play my preferred instrument, the campaign mode was legitimately funny and entertaining, the song choices were great, and the drum kit felt pretty good (though the pedal kinda gets wonky now and again).
Considering what Activision has shown itself to be, I don't think anyone's going to see any of their wishes come true.
Remember that activision is now on Microsoft hands... hope is the last thing we lose dnlknflafnalfjkn
Back in the day my brother and me discovered that are pretty much e-drum compatible so we saved some money and bought a e-drum bass pedal. Best purchase ever.
@@pannomic1818 I mean in theory it could mean a possible guitar hero game would release on PC? Over the past few years Microsoft has had a pretty big push towards crossplay between console and PC, and with a PC release they'd be able to attract even more of the attention of CH players
@@matthewferraro8020 I hope so, Microsoft own the biggest OS so, they probably do a crossplay between xbox and windows/Stema
maybe ps5 too, who knows
@@pannomic1818 hell with the switch it could be viable to make joycon guitars, AND the added bonus of portable play
Gotta say. Number one hit me pretty hard. I've always been a casual fan of these games. But my cousin is a diehard and as someone that "never really got it" but enjoyed playing them. When I saw GT live in stores and I saw only 3 lanes I thought right away it was an easier title.
Yeah I am sure I never got it GHLive for the same reasons ( Plus we already had the old GH games, why get a new one right?), I just realised in this video it is 6 hah!
#11: Bring back the characters! I know they did nothing to change up the gameplay before Warriors of Rock (which was awesome when they did that, I loved WoR), and the addition of custom characters somewhat did away with the need for them, but the unique designs and styles of those characters were a big part of what made GH so memorable. People love Johnny, Judy, Axle, and Pandora (regardless of how many times she drastically changed her costume) and I personally would love to see mah girl Echo return.
Justice for Clive Winston. We remember him, even though Activision never did
YOU CAN'T JUST MENTION ALL THE CHARACTERS WITHOUT BRINGING UP XAVIER
YOU CAN'T JUST LEAVE OUTTHE GOOD VIBES KING
From the very beginning. I've always had ma main Izzy Sparks. Also, I would say old GH1 Xavier is better than the 2 and 3's idea. But then I saw his Captain X outfit for the first time. That made lil me gasp.
I'd like to thank everyone for proving my point. 😆
Can't play as Judy Nails anymore :(
Crazy how we went from 5 new games in a year, to 0 new games in 7 years :(
I genuinely think most if not all of the problems with guitar hero stemmed from having a marketing exec in charge of direction instead of a music enthusiast, you can see it in the most basic of blunders like as you pointed out, literally just using the most popular dream theatre song for the finale instead of a more technically challenging dream theatre song. Or more obviously the inclusion of Tools 'Parabola' WITHOUT the intro 'Parabol'. Live and the cancelled 7 exist as perfect examples to show just how out of touch Activision was with all the things guitar hero means to the players.
Great video Jason, love your content
Although I do have to disagree with you on the finale song argument in GH:WT. "Pull Me Under" was to me a great finale song since it was an epic closer, and as someone who had never heard of Dream Theater before, it opened a whole new can of worms for me to discover. Looking back, they could absolutely have taken a tougher or longer track (my personal choice would have been "Metropolis Pt. 1"), but the epic nature of the track makes it a satisfying end to a long journey in career mode.
Dream Theater is one of my favorite bands and I totally get it. Glad it opened you up to checking out new stuff! Just wished they'd capitalized on the hype TTFAF created a bit more. Casual players were enthralled watching folks who could handle the challenge. Hard to follow that up no matter.
@@JasonParadise Didn't GHWT also have Satch Boogie on? Feel like they should have switched that with Pull Me Under for the finale. Pull Me Under being on the tracklist was for sure a great idea though, still a challenge while making Dream Theater accessible - I also became a fan after player that song :)
@@KristianC1994 Satch boogie would have been the perfect finale song honestly. I feel like it would have catapulted Joe into finally being known well.
@@KristianC1994 too bad Satch Boogie was mostly only challenging because Tap Notes didn't freaking work correctly on the WT engine.
You forgot the Guitar Hero 5/Band Hero lawsuit where Courtney Love and No Doubt sued Activision for letting people use Cobain and No Doubt in any song in the game as it violated something or other about performance rights.
Also generally them calling Guitar Hero 5 'Guitar Hero 5' instead of Guitar Hero 4 since it confused a lot of people who thought World Tour was a spinoff and not a main game and made it even more apparent the oversaturation of the series
You may probably never read this but I can't thank you enough for your content. My grandmother was rushed to the hospital unexpectedly in 2017. My parents, my sister and I had to go out of the state to visit her in the hospital.
Your Clone Hero videos have helped me so much throughout that hard period of time. They made me smile, they made me laugh, and they made me eagerly excited to see the next meme chart you'd play next. My grandmother made it through the hospital visits and passed away three years later. I'll always miss her, but I'll never forget what your videos have done to help me throughout that time period. I can't thank you enough, Jason!
Honestly would love a competitive mode on guitar hero that would massively motivate me to improve everything not just for specific songs to fc
I think the final song needs to be epic rather than complicated or difficult. "Flying Whales" isn't the most difficult song ever but it would KILL as an end credits song. But I do get the idea that TTFAF was basically a superboss & definitionally those are difficult. I think you'd have to partner with a band with the explicit intent of them writing something difficult. I imagine Polyphia could do good work in this regard.
I'd say looking for songs that had all three aspects would be ideal. The Dream Theater example I would think of would be something like Dance of Eternity. Very epic song and intensely hard on all instruments (only downside is no vocals).
if it's just a guitar only guitar hero game i would vote that tedinitis by Jason Richardson be an insane "final boss"
That’s what I loved about them using “Pull Me Under” by Dream Theater as the final encore track on GHWT.
What I liked about TTFAF is that you couldn't fail it. It was a final hail mary that you're free to attempt
Funnier thing is, the Guitar Flash actually has a song made with this Idea in mind. Just listen to "Guitar Flash - Andragonia"
As someone who worked in the electronics section of your local Toys R Us in 2009, I can confirm that the market was oversaturated with the games, and the quality took a dip.
If GH comes back, release one type of controller that has either bluetooth or USB connectivity and works on all consoles and PC, and re-release drums in one established format. Add a sixth button. Make hyperspeed an option. Pick good quality songs from across the gamut for all instruments and a singer. Let us customize the band, the highway, and the instruments. Don't rotate songs you can buy in and out, instead put them on sale or let people just buy as many songs or song packs as they want. Integrate score uploading across platforms, and allow people to make their own charts using a PC tool that can be sold separately. Would it let people bypass sold song packs? Maybe, but moderators could review and approve uploads. As for a finale song? For the comeback, I would /commission/ DragonForce to make a brand /new/ song, specifically for this game, since they are known for their connection to GH.
The game would obviously have to be $90, or even $100 to start, or you can sell the instrument separately. But I want GH back.
GH Live tried to do that in 2015 but it didn't work out. I only bought it because it was on the Wii U and I was boycotting the PS4/Xbox One due to some bad decisions Microsoft and Sony were making and the gaming scene taking a nosedive.
@@adultmoshifan87 that's hillarious, it was the perfect time to switch to PC. PC's could handle console games at 1080p@60fps with budget specs. Instead you choose the tablet failure LOL
@adultmoshifan87 they didn't do half the stuff mentioned in the original comment, that's why it failed
Honestly, using hyperspeed for me actually helped improve my playing expert difficulty as the normal/default speed of the note track i found was too slow so once i had discovered it i found speed level 3 was a perfect speed lol, also regarding the ability to chart and play your own songs idea... *stares at Rocksmith+*
When I think of the oversaturation, I always look at what Harmonix did with Rock Band and how that model would have worked so much better for the GH series as well, as least for the first three titles. There were stand alone expansion games, some great (Beatles Rock Band is a dream come true for many, including the devs) but others were very odd (Green Day Rock Band? Really? lol). But the main games were based around that DLC model to expand your library, and a new game entirely was a complete revamp of the basic game. (RB3 with the pro models as an example).
This model is definitely pricier overall but more customizable for your library and in turn a bit more user friendly than buying entire games separately.
Big ups to the GHTV group, I dread a future where everything is cloud hosted and games can't be preserved 😞
This type of content is actually pretty good. Keep it up, mr. Paradise
Thanks! Having a blast trying something new
@@JasonParadise best vid in the gh community in the past 3 years prove me wrong
I think something you didn't mention but feels relevant especially to the argument regarding saturation is GH, whether because they didn't have time from cranking out way too many titles or just because they didn't want to try and implement it, completely missed the boat on song exporting until WAY late in the series while Rock Band had it from the start. Not only did Activision put out 5 full priced full band GH games in 2009 + the guitar playable tracks in DJ Hero, most of them were not exportable to other major games in the series. GH5 and Band Hero were fully exportable by the end, and Metallica and World Tour got partial exports, but Smash Hits and Van Halen never got anything.
The export was more of a good foresight on Harmonix part.
I remember a long time ago when people were making custom setlists for GH3, I came up with my dream setlist that I named Expert's Edition. Clone Hero let me create my dream setlist minus a track or two.
6 inline fret buttons is such an obvious choice, I would absolutely be excited to buy a new GH like that
tbh 6 fret would only benefit top guys like acai, frif, jason etc. For the general masses and probably 99%, 5 frets is perfect and shouldn't be changed
@@samxherbert2468 wym? everybody would love to give 6 frets a try, it would help promote the growth of players and give older players a new reason to buy the game instead of waiting for the charts to release onto clone hero and not having to buy it
@@mysticalbeing13 if you where here during the guitar hero era you would know how such a big deal the orange button is
Final song for my guitar hero game is going to be The Violation by Fleshgod Apocalypse just to mess with everyone
for the next guitar hero, the final challenge should be all 3 parts of Pain Remains back to back to back, not just a test of skill, but of pure endurance as well
I think I have some good ideas for finale songs: The Odyssey by Symphony X, Mabool (the flood)/The Storm Still stages Inside by Orphaned Land, Astral Annihilation/Ripping Through Time by Unleash the Archers, Elysium by Stratovarius, Lost Children of the Universe by Star One, and My Inner War by Myrath. Yes, this is just a list of long songs by some of my favorite bands. But they are epic songs that are cool
I wish they kept with guitar battles in career mode! Part of the reason I am able to go back to GH3 is that the guitar battles offer a ton of replayability! I also agree that I would love a guitar with 6 buttons and better charting tools. Maybe tab-based charting!
For an end credits song, I'd believe 7empest by Tool would be pretty interesting. In comparison to Through the Fire and Flames, it's much less complex when it comes to shredding and such, but it is a 15 minute long endurance run with some fun guitar parts. And if it expanded to a full band, each instrument is pretty up there in difficulty, especially when dealing with odd timing. This may also just be my bias towards tool
Love this content man. I love this saga so much. Keep it going plz!
The most important things we need IMO:
- Classic controler / maybe a 6th fret to make the old experimented players have a new challenge and promote for the new players
- Old colorfull frets, with the circule form lol
- ALL INSTRUMENTS:
. Guitar, Bass, Drum, Mic. (If they want to add a new one, should be piano i guess?)
- Songlist carefully chosen to make a good experience
- Band's DLC. I always saw Aerosmith, Metallica and Van Halen as DLCs of their previous numbered game (GH3, GH4 and GH5) GH band theme game should be a DLC and not a new full game, it is not necesary. Also, there are a lot of bands, old and new metal/rock bands that deserve a lot of songs in GH.
- big customisable band: members, outfits, names.. face? personalities? posibilities are big.
. they can even let the player add skins for their guitar, or simply paint them as they want. put stickers, keychains, etc. (this go together with the Free Multiplayer ↓)
- Unlockeable outfits only for playing the game. I don't care if they want to put skins for money, but the old "new skins by completing the game" NEED to be there.
. BUT they can also make a free to play Multiplayer, with the store of the game running on real money, to buy skins for guitar, new guitars, droms, etc. outfits and more.
- Easy way to put custom songs, like Clon Hero. I agree with adding a charter in the game itself too, but making them easy to use as Moonscraper.
- foment, gddamn FOMENT the eSports part. Guitar Hero ruled the eSports in 2007/8 with the championships and they even didn't promote it at all!
. a web or even ingame list of worldwide records would foment people to play the game more, to compete.
- more gamplay customization, not only hyperspeed, all stuf to make gameplay harder or easier, or funnier.
To end, and in resume, a good example of what fans want are Clone Hero and GH:World Tour Definitive Edition.
ps: Sorry if I have spelling mistakes or I express myself badly, English is not my mother tongue 😅
ps2: this list go from the most important to the less one, again, IMO.
The dropped features part really makes me think of rock band 4 how they dropped pro support for guitar and bass and most importantly killed keyboard all together. Personally i would love to see them add it back in and make it so all 5 could play at once.
Another fail: Music games ARE NOT streaming friendly(due to Twitch and RUclips's Copyright ID systems).
For me, number 1 was the lack of cross compatibility of devices.
USB guitars that only worked on one system, and/or only specific games, despite all the consoles using USB and all the games using the same buttons. USB dongles that only worked for one instrument in the set like the drums, and sometimes even only that specific drum set so if you lost the dongle you were SOL.
And this all leading to tons of instruments, cluttering up households and game stores alike, making neither want anything to do with them.
Regarding #2: I got into Dragonforce music before GH, and it blew me away that they had a song in GH3. As a birthday present, I wanted that game so bad as my first game, but it was sold out, and had no other choice than to get World Tour that day. I didn't just hope there was a DF song as the finale chart, I EXPECTED it. So much of their music is fast, complicated, and perfect for any final showdown for a rhythm game. Imagine my disappointment that a Dragonforce song was nowhere to be seen on my PS2 copy of World Tour, instead replaced by something not even close in difficulty. I still recall finishing the encore of Hot For Teacher, hearing the intro to Pull Me Under, and thinking "this song better pick up, or I'm going to fall asleep." Looking back, it kinda burns that DF didn't get a full album of theirs onto a single Guitar Hero game after GH3. I honestly think they deserve it not only for their notoriety of being such a difficult guitar chart to perfect, but also for their discography in general (during the late 2000s at least).
I was today years old when I figured out that the colours with Slash behind them are in order of the Guitar Hero colour scheme: GRYBO, and again for 6-10.
I guess I am happy that I started playing on Clone Hero instead of Guitar Hero. In fact, I didn't even think about playing until I found you Jason. I want to thank you for introducing me to a game that I got to enjoy only because you liked to play it as well.
I hope you continue to play Clone Hero so I can keep watching you when I have time. Rock on my friend.
I almost 100% agree with a lot of what you said. Here's some of my thoughts on your video (which was really nicely done btw!).
The biggest change I'd make is the "Finale Song choice" should have gone MUCH lower than "Controller Quality". While I don't disagree they could have had better final tracks for some games, Pull Me Under felt right because the atmosphere it gave to the scene, on top of still being a solid song to play, made that moment memorable. It also opened the knowledge of Dream Theatre to me (as well as many others I feel) by having this song where it was. I still get goosebumps from how dope this song felt when I played it. I feel the credits song shouldn't be one that is challenging, but rewarding of what you accomplished to get there. This means it doesn't have to be difficult or a test of skill, but more so a moment to really drink up what you've done. Either way you look at it, it's just nice to have SOMETHING to do while the credits go by, whether it's a nice chill song or a test of endurance.
With that said, it'd be quite hard to even get that far if the controllers don't properly work, and that's the most important part of ANY game. Being able to have control over what you do. I didn't have a lot of issues with my own gear, but it should be worth noting that if issues were arising in a frequent enough nature, then that alone can threaten a game's standing.
The idea of 6 strum bars is definitely insane, and really excessive. I think just simply adding a 6th button and an easier way to activate star power (which I'd say falls into Controller Quality) is all that's necessary for an updated GH controller. The 3x2 fret board was absolutely atrocious, both to learn as a seasoned GH player and just how it was displayed in game. The colorful frets made the game feel vibrant and alive. Seeing so much grey and black and white felt like the game died and became a ghost. No soul, just a vessel. The removal of so many features wasn't just a bad decision that hurt the game. It KILLED it. I had GH Live for a whole week before returning it, and I usually don't return games (hell it took me months to return Bloodborne, and I didn't even get past the first boss in that game).
The idea of monetization in a game like GH honestly and legitimately infuriates me. It's like they saw how hot mobile games were and tried to turn a nonMobile game into one in an attempt to make easy money (and failed miserably). That decision was ungodly bad, and the only reason I can think for such a dumb move was greed.
Guitar Hero 2 was a huge part of my high school years, and I loved the series. These games, as well as Rock Band, introduced me to a wide variety of music I love now, and also gave me something to enjoy and get good with. It's so sad to see such a great concept and idea get destroyed by greed and incompetence.
GHTunes was foundational to my early internet days! Made a bunch of friends on GameFAQs promoting each other songs - some still on my RUclips channel (RIP all my songs I had to delete thanks to tiny song storage limits). As much nostalgia I have for that janky DAW, I have to admit Harmonix's answer in the form of RBN (which inadvertently enabled true custom songs on console without mods) was the far more successful user content model.
I really liked the cover of The Devil Went Down to Georgia for the Guitar Battle vs Lou in GH as the final battle.
Final songs don't have to be hard, they should be a big show off and this all out Ending rather than ultimate challenge, since the challenge is the thing you do after. You play TTFAF as your 'final' song but its no fail with no scoring, only after you play it in Quick play its the challenge. Pull Me Under is a great end song, and the challenge on is Satch Boogie, which sure no TTFAF still, but its a really kickass song to actually pull you fingers. GH5 they forgo it so sure there.
13:10 I have to HARD disagree with your hot take. Pull Me Under had a nice epic theme, and the post-credits final venue had even harder songs like Satch Boogie
Imagine the hand strain trying to stretch your index and pinky fingers to get a 1+6 chord?
One big issue was the removal of the standard controller support post WT.
Not completely removed. just super hidden and only accessible through debug options. And it works like GH3 gamepad play style (Strum higher notes using low notes, star power deploy using the D-pad instead of the Select/Back button only and multiple axis whammy instead of only up).
If it will release a new GH game with 5 fret style. It must have controller support.
I remember when I got the full suite of instruments for World Tour when I was younger, including a guitar that had a separate set of flat sensors for the slide notes (which were new at the time). No buttons, just a flatter portion of the neck beyond the buttons that, from what the game told you, you were supposed to slide your fingers along to use. Needless to say, I hit probably 10% of the notes you were "supposed" to hit using it. I thought that maybe the sliding thing was a bit generous of a description and instead decided to go about pressing them more like the actual buttons like a touch screen, which didn't work either. From then on, I used just the buttons and had no problems with hit detection. I've always wondered how they'd let such a poorly put-together addition to the controller like that slide (pun intended), but at least it didn't dampen my memories of the game overall. It just felt like a weird way of complicating the simple design everyone was used to.
weren't they just meant to be used when doing slide solos or whatever? I could google it and work it out but I have my own memory of what I think they did haha
@@samxherbert2468 You could use it for slide/tap notes, and you could use it as a strum bar for normal notes. If anybody actually did the latter, I'll be shocked
With Rocksmith pushing real instruments and copyright music costs at an all time high, its just not profitable to build a plastic guitar that the target audience is kids.
I would say the best bet is to make an "Indy company" with the GH/RB community, Build a guitar hero-esq inspired game with unsigned bands and non-mainstream music around the world...
Then dont target for kids
It originally wasn’t targeted for kids as the games were rated T. But what you’re describing is a game called Fret Smasher in steam.
If Guitar Hero would return, I want a way to connect with the audience and share the music of the community. Many of us make music, it would be amazing to play each other tunes on some even monthly event rotation. Heck, in my band half of us are guitar hero fans.
0:48 A MEGALOVANIA chart detected in GHMix 2.0. 👀
I feel like a mash-up of either lamb of god or sabaton songs could work well as either a finale or a challenge at a halfway point similar to wor with the mash-up of rush songs
Man, now I want a Sabaton themed Guitar Hero
Guitar hero and rhythm games as a whole are perfect vessels for a live service model. A single game that constantly gets new music, maps, and game modes is exactly what fans of the genre always wanted. Guitar hero was created too early to take advantage of the business model and had to resort to near monthly releases that all felt the same except new tracks. They had a chance with Guitar Hero Live now that systems were in place to keep it going, but burnout from the last several years destined it to fail.
Rock band 4 is like that but the money coming in isn't enough (though they aren't selling the instruments)
Honestly, I thought the perfect guitar hero guitar change was the world tour guitar with the solo bar at the bottom of the neck where you touch the the buttons instead of pressing them. It was a really awesome idea without changing functionality! I never played guitar hero live solely because I didn’t want to learn the new guitat
I really would like to see some Dualshock/controller options if a new official GH game launch. I know the guitar is the best option for players who want to be better (aka able to FC hard strumming songs or do better squeezing) but letting the Dualshock/controller available for gameplay would be really cool imo.
3:10 oh my gosh i just had a flashback of seeing all of the various available gh controllers in circuit city, like the blue fender or the pink heart one or yellow tele, and the black kramer. all available
About customs, there was Audition Mode and RBN on Rock Band.
After credit songs need to be difficult but also epic and reflect the game.
21st century schizoid man was a fantastic choice! A good challenge on all instruments but vocals, fits with the more alternative setlist, and it taught young people an old gem. It's through this game that I know and love that song. Though as much as I love this song, It'd be a better fit to find something relatively unknown with these qualities.
World Tour was a bit more pop-centric, focussing on famous evergreen artists. Pull me under is epic, but that's where it ends. If I could pick any song from any guitar hero game and put it as World Tour's ending, it'd be Play With Me - Extreme. This type of music isn't my forte so I don't know of any non-guitar hero song that would make a better fit but I'm sure they exist. Something with a much more challenging drum and bass.
A problem that didn't help the oversaturation was that Rock Band was also being released at the same time with their own various spin-offs. There were so many game in the two series over the decade that it killed any want for any more games. The last GH game I got was 5, not because I was burnt out, but because the song list sucked IMO. Almost everything prior to 5's list were jammers, but I found 5's playlist weak. That combined with latency syncing issues on a CRT, which didn't have any in the prior games, led me to dropping the series. I still have all my PS3 GH games and a working (maybe, haven't touched it in over a decade) plastic guitar in the off-chance I feel like playing them. I just probably won't.
Going overboard with the real life cameos I think hurt it for me. Mainly the artists who had already passed away like Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. Just something about seeing video game Kurt Cobain sing other peoples songs somehow felt like everything Kurt would have been against. Its also the first time I felt my fandom was taken advantage of for a quick buck .
Your Number 2 Fail is somewhat wrong - you forgot the Satch Boogie by Joe Satriani! This is the final song in GHWT (at least for Guitar campaign) and it felt like one - even though it was nowhere near as hard as TTFAF, it was pretty cool to pull off! But when it comes to GH5, I completely agree - King Crimson are awesome and I like the song, but not for the finale of the game. Other than that - awesome video as always man!
I feel like a AAA GH-style title to really not only work but also capture the “Magic” of it all would need a heavy amount of community outreach and support on behalf of the developer.
The following around the guitar itself could be of massive use here. The things I see people doing in the prog metal, fusion, and various other experimental styles of playing are absolutely mind-bending and could be a very TTFAF-esque way of bringing some absolute finger-breakers in front of players, watchers, and listeners alike.
I don’t know about you, but as both a musician and a GH fan, the amount of sweat that would come off my brow if someone like Tosin Abasi, Andy James, or Rusty Cookey popped up at the end of a game’s career mode would be IMMENSE, and I know a fair number of people who were already guitarists who would probably pick the game up if not to just give it a go and have that be a way to interact with and experience the songs.
Or, hell, use the opportunity to dig deep into some shred history. I’m sure a chart for Altitudes by Jason Becker exists and I’m also sure that I’m terrified of it.
The new features I *wish* an upcoming controller type would have are a palm mute button and either whammy control over sustains, or bendable frets. Talk to any actual guitarist that plays Guitar Hero, they will tell you they vibrate their finger on a fret when holding a sustain haha. Imagine how cool it would be to hit some palm mutes and finish it with a nasty bend on a djent song. Additionally, pinch and/or natural harmonics would be super cool, though those are pretty niche and add an extra note type for arguably little potential use.
That was always my dream
tem um ponto que você esqueceu que para mim teve o maior impacto: quando começaram a exigir a guitarra de plastico. até o Aerosmith podia usar os controles do próprio console
I think one big problem was that they didn't focus in enough on the engine. Drum charts were occasionally broken in World Tour, which carried forward into several games, and Expert + introduced a bunch of new issues on top of that, which took forever to fix. Slider Notes were broken since they debuted in World Tour, until they were finally (more or less) fixed in the engine revamp for Guitar Hero 5.
And that's just mechanical complaints. I feel like they really phoned in the character creator after they got it working in World Tour. I feel like there was a lot of potential to re-introduce unique star power particle effects after they got the base rockstar creator finished, but characters getting unique star power particle effects just left after Guitar Hero 3, and never came back. :/
I'm loving this style of video. I stopped following the gh community a couple years ago but this might just make me fall back in love with the game!
I think Hard as Iron by Judas Priest would kill as a finale song. Not the most complex, but it's fast, hard, and the lyrics fit perfectly to the purpose, and the Guitar Hero theme overall.
Side note: It's also a super underrated Judas Priest song! Or so I'm told - I didn't think it was counted among the underrated ones until someone told me.
Not only do you get Sudden Death, you get: Speeding, Black Widow of La Porte, Fury of the Storm, Settimg Fire to Sleeping Giants for some reason, Nemesis; If You Want Peace, Prepare for War; and Deadfall. A true victory lap. And to even get there you have to get the equivalent of at least 4 stars on This Day We Fight and Holy Wars with some help
5:15 "Could You Imagine A Guitar Hero With Esports Functionality Baked In Nowadays", Wow That Aged Like Fine Wine
I knew GH:Live was bad but it having microtransactions blew my mind. I had no idea
I used to play guitar hero but every since I got rocksmith I haven't even had the urge to wanna play guitar hero, rocksmith is just more fun in my opinion, it is definitely more complicated but once you learn it and figure out the instrument delay its pretty enjoyable.
I'm still thinking that, Pull me under, was used as a credit song just because the length.
A lot of time to show the devs and etc.
Same for King Crimsong song.
Also, Satch Boogie was on WT as the definitive "final boss" song, but it was kinda short.
"snapped drum foot pedals" *looks down at the snapped rock band 1 drum pedal my foot is resting on* yeah....
100% agree on having Glass Prison as the finale for GHWT. not only is the song hard as balls and perfect for a TTFAF style ending sequence, it's also their best song by a country mile!
god i love six degrees so much. 100% the GOAT prog metal album
Glass Prison is to long i think compare to TTFAF it would be perfect if they choose the dance of eternity
1 year later, if there was going to be a new guitar hero. Fortnite festival just made them cancel every single plan they may have had.
Im bad with watching a whole vid before commenting. as you can tell. but. i would not mind AT ALL if i could pay 6$ on fortnite festival for full access for a day. BUT with the option to still buy the songs (maybe make them 1-2$ cheaper idk)
They should have done Octavarium or Change of Seasons for World Tour haha. People who don't know the song like 11 minutes in would be like "WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!?!?!?" haha
I think one of the best ways the company could monitize a new guitar hero game without turning it into a giant ad machine would be leaning into custom guitar controllers. 3D printing is much more accessible now and I can see people printing their own guitars. Obviously this would create potential quality issues but if there was an option for a "bare bones" which would be just the proprietary parts that should not change it would be wild to see what other people come up with. Venues, character customization, highway and button customization could be included as well
Really good video. One major fail I think wasn’t mentioned in the video was the shitty song export packages you got. GH actually let you export songs to later games in when they switch to full band, by which I mean less than have of the songs. Mainly GHWT and GHSH, though. They definitely got better as they went along, with GH5, GHM and especially BH, but they always paled compared to RB (which often got entire setlists, including RB3, a MAIN SERIES game, to export).
Speaking of which, giving away the GHM export package, and, more infamously, the entire game GHVH, for free in promotions for buying the main series games (which makes no sense when they people most likely to buy these are GH fans who would have bought those anyway) was another pretty big fail, on their side if not so much for GH fans.
Heavy disaggre with the finale songs. Pull me under and 21st schizo REALLY fits both world tour and GH5 themes. I actually loved the finale to GH5 back when I played it.
you're absolutely right - i was around in the early days and i never heard about ANY of those features you mentioned.
I think Rock Band is the spiritual successor to Guitar Hero an has done soooo many things right that GH did not. Hear me out. I started in rhythm games with GH2 and GH3 Legends of Rock. I absolutely loved playing them. Then Rock Band came around. With a killer set list and constant DLC updates this game kicked ass. Then what was even more amazing is when Rock Band 2, 3 and 4 came out you could export the on disc songs as DLC to the newest version. You could even export the Green Day Rock Band song library to Rock Band 3. SO you basically got 4+ albums worth of greenday music in regular Rock Band for owning a copy of Greenday Rock Band. Even better? All the songs you've ever owned for Rock Band kept on carrying over to the newest version. Rock Band 4 is still going strong today with monthly DLC releases. Honestly I could write about all the great features of Rock Band like being able to add band members mid song without stopping the song! Or being able to sing a harmony on a vocal track instead of the melody and still getting points for it. Or custom drum fills. Playing a show where everyone playing can vote on random categories of songs to play next. Global Leaderboards and challenges with ranked play. Soooooooo many customisation options for your band avatars. Online mutiplayer!!!
The biggest point I want to hammer home is the music selection. Thousands of songs to choose from with tons of genres. There is something for everybody.
Harmonix the company that used to make GH games with Activation split after GH2 (not surprised why) and made what I think is what we all wanted the new GH games to be.
Rock Band. Seriously if you want an excellent rythm game experience that's like old GH days then pick up Rock Band 4. I'm sure you will love it as much as me.
Unless you want to use your Ion drums from the 360 on your Xbox One, in which case, good luck, hope you feel like emptying that wallet for an absurdly expensive eBay purchase!
"When you think of final big bad boss songs what do you think of?"
Green grass & high tides. Speaking of final songs id probably The Sun, The Moon, The Stars, but then again im crazy
The final songs thing is true. But I give activision the benefit of the doubt because Pull me under was in fact the hardest song on World tour. But had it been charted better it probably wouldn’t have been. So the better thing to say would be, “Don’t pick a song that is supposed to be easy and make it harder than it should be. Chart the songs accurately so that everyone can have fun.”
I think we need master of puppets as a finale track
Some songs I think could be great finale songs, La Villa Strangiato by Rush, To Tame A Land by Iron Maiden, Cicatriz ESP by The Mars Volta, Starless by King Crimson and Blackwater Park by Opeth
Activision as a company and record labels were a really bad mix. Record labels are notorious for being brutal when it comes to licensing and rights, hence all the rotating and songs no longer being available. Activision is notorious for wanting to make millions out of pennies, and for caring way more about quarterly sales than maintaining a quality product.
Everything you said is absolutely correct but like you said earlier in the video, there was a lack of player-developer communication and i think that goes both ways.
Just like we've been kept in the dark about essential information, they too weren't informed about the needs of the community, or rather didn't care to know.
It's both infuriating and scary how that's becoming the norm in the gaming industry, profit margins is all they care about nowadays and i think i speak for all of us when i say that i'm running out of ideas to make them remove their head out of their ass that don't involve violence.
Despite all of its flaws, me and my daughter absolutely loved GH Live. I was the only one to ever witness her "epic" performance on "Arch Enemy - War Eternal". I played the guitar, she had the microphone. She didn' t know the song, let alone the lyrics... but she really tried her very best. Fun times.
Love this. Also appreciate she sang the only song in GH with an uncensored F bomb. Hardcore 😂
GHL had incredible ideas, but it just wasn't the classic Guitar Hero people wanted
For anyone that can't lip-read what Jason says at the very end:
"What the f*uck am I doing?"
Biggest fail was disregarding open notes until the later entries
Maybe not a end game finale, but Albuquerque by Weird Al would be a nifty encore.
I got another one for you and I deem this one the reason why I didn't care for the franchise. No left handed guitars. I mean yeah you could lefty flip but the whammy bar was still in the way, and overall made it difficult to get into a position to be able to comfortably play. And yes I'm left handed.
Still loving this longer-form, scripted content. Congrats on having found success on this endeavor!
Meanwhile, we have Rock Band 3 with its pro guitar controller having a button for every fret AND every string AND having 6 strum lines (or alternatively, just being a real guitar with sensors in the frets!)
This video was so well thought out and interesting, but allow my counter argument
TABLE
Quite the argument here, tbh
@@JasonParadise seriously tho man, this was an incredibly thought provoking video. I haven’t given much serious thought about GH since I was big into it as a teen. ❤️
Great video again, man! Makes me hold out some hope for a new entry in the Guitar Hero franchise one day soon, though I'm certainly not holding my breath...
I liked the live guitar though. It's just the black and white stuff that confuses people I think, because it isn't obviously visible, so just make the 2 rows of 3 buttons and make each button their own color.
seriously love this new style. When i saw beyond clone hero i wanted more. Got so happy we have a second one, this is so so good, please dont stop these 🤘❤️
That guitar controller is GENUINELY why I never bought Guitar Hero Live. I was super hyped to see GH and Rock Band come back at roughly the same time, and the only reason I bought Rock Band 4 but not Guitar Hero Live was because I thought it'd be silly for me to learn how to play a completely different fake plastic guitar. Going from 5 buttons to 6 is one thing, but changing to a 3x2 setup? Nah, wasn't interested at all.
My response to the conclusion of the video, yes I agree with the video. Except I don't want a sixth fret. I still wanna use the old controllers I have laying around and not buy a completely new one, just to get the full experience. Green, red, yellow, blue, orange, and strum bar. That's all we need.
In regards to Point 3, I also think the decision to make every release after World Tour be full band games was a mistake. It's one thing to chart a list of songs for two instruments, but having to chart drums and vocals, which are wildly different experiences I'm sure, on top of the other two or potentially three if the song has lead and rhythm, adds a lot more time to development so what happens? Easy, boring songs get added to the set list, and that doesn't make for a fun play experience. Even World Tour, the first game to have full band, suffered from this a little bit. I think it would have been better to keep World Tour as its own subseries, keep the other games to just the string instruments, and only release one full band game maybe every 2 years to allow time for development and to give people something to look forward to while providing smaller scale, guitar-centered games in the interim.
Final song for me would be the 3-UP charted version of Soulless 5
Sad to see this video as someone who doesn't like to play that much guitar hero but as a long time player of any other rhythm game and have a similar feeling in every single points.
Edit: Almost all the big rhythm games exist nowadays in this vacuum where arcades are still the hottest thing out there and even in places with good arcades the Japanese arcade giants (Konami, Sega and Taito) make it way harder to enjoy these games outside of asia and the few other places that are lucky to get access to official servers. So now it's not only whether an arcade can afford a game and not only whether an arcade can get the game but also whether an arcade can make the game boot in the first place without official support, and the rhythm game community is obviously stuck in the middle of it all.
Yes there are amazing games on steam but every one of those is getting put to the side by free games like osu, stepmania, clone hero and the like because they bring quantity but a lot of the time can't bring the same quality as a game with a budget can, with the biggest steam games that exist right now are beat saber (ok mainstream song selection but don't have a lot for hardcore players outside of modding, also vr is still expensive af) and djmax (lives on franchise recognition (which outside of asia isn't much) and a few collaborations, and having a really good online).
Imagine playing The Glass Prison arpeggios section on GH5 🤯🤯
You pretty much summed up for me the reasons I think Warriors Of Rock is their best effort after GH3.
Great songs for the time, the Megadeth boss battle, the entire after finale setlist of super hard songs ranging from shred to death metal, the whole storyline with the powerups and transformation of the characters
Long reply incoming: I like your long-form videos because they always get the brain juices flowing.
First things first, I don't entirely agree with your view on the final songs for two reasons. The first is that I personally don't view "Through the Fire and Flames" as part of the career (it's more of an optional end-game or post-game content) and that it ends with the battle with Lou on "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". I have always felt like the final song shouldn't necessarily be the most challenging song on a game, but rather a culmination of your entire journey up to that point. In the Guitar Hero III career, the story goes that you sign a deal with the devil, and you must literally face off against him in one of the toughest songs in the entire franchise to win your freedom. At that point, the career ends for me. In Guitar Hero II, "Free Bird" is not the hardest song (again, still one of them), but it's an iconic tune that lyrically tells you you've reached the end and you're free (and also cleverly calls back to a loading screen for the original game).
As for World Tour, I agree that "Pull Me Under" feels like the wrong song choice, but that's because I don't think it defines your entire journey up to that point. If I had to choose an ending track for World Tour, it would be "Overkill". All your hard work and suffering through "Satch Boogie", "Trapped Under Ice", "Hot For Teacher", and so on, and you're playing through a song that seemingly won't end, which makes you wonder if and when the quest is truly accomplished. I have a revamped and re-ordered setlist in my Clone Hero library that ends with this song for World Tour. So the final song doesn't necessarily have to be the hardest, but a summary of everything you've accomplished up to that point. Make the song selection meaningful and symbolic, is what I'm saying.
With the hyperspeed thing and its classification as a cheat in early instalments, that's a relic of the "cheat code" era when everything that altered the game through a series of button presses was called a cheat, even if it made the game harder. I view hyperspeed as an accessibility feature rather than a cheating mechanic, but I think it's just that insistent terminology we were so used to back then. What's interesting is that you wouldn't have people saying the same thing about Performance Mode, which removed the HUD and thus forced players to play from memory (including Star Power phrases). But that's because you wouldn't be relying on it for setting records. It's more of a personal challenge.
I wrote an article on Guitar Hero Live's shutdown a few years ago, but it goes without saying that it really was a mess from the moment we heard about the microtransactions. This was the peak Activision era for monetising literally anything and everything. Now that the servers are shut down, it feels so pointless and a footnote in the franchise's history. I respect FreeStyleGames for trying to experiment with something that hadn't been done before (like they did with DJ Hero). But hoo boy, the monetisation features in GHTV made it so difficult for me to enjoy. Having to pay for each song, combined with the lack of a practice mode and an extremely dull multiplayer progression system that fell off a cliff once you hit the level cap, I ended up passing on GHTV altogether before long. It's why I preferred the Live mode of the game, solely because I could play any song I wanted at any time. Plus, the videos were fun in a campy sort of way. I watched those making-of videos, and it seems like the cast had a fun time working on them, which made me think of them in a more positive light.
We have seen hints at a possible second Guitar Hero revival, and Activision has never shied away from reviving a franchise if it'll make them a quick buck (see Crash Bandicoot or the Tony Hawk's games). So I wonder, with Clone Hero and similar games cropping up by a fiercely devoted fanbase that is keeping the community thriving, if they'll try and tap into that market once again or be put off by the time, money and energy spent on Guitar Hero Live. I think especially since they've held onto the license all this time, it's a never-say-never thing at this point in time. But I believe we'll never get back to a popularity level around the time of the Harmonix-early Neversoft era, and Activision may only be willing to take the plunge if they can guarantee that.