I've been into Guitar Hero recently. I don't know why. Maybe it's because my only chance to listen to other music than Linkin Park, or maybe it's because the CRKD guitars are easily available nowadays.

My history with Guitar Hero

I played a ton of Guitar Hero back in the day. I was never one of the top players or anything, but I played the game on expert and could get 5⭐️ on most songs. I started with Guitar Hero II. The very first time I played GH2 it was Mother on Easy. I couldn't beat it. It took me like an entire evening of attempts. I was really bad, and I felt bad, because my friend was way better than me. But eventually I cleared Mother, and eventually I had cleared Free Bird on Hard.

(This was during the early days of the Xbox 360 by the way, so I have warm fuzzy memories of this time period)

Anyway, eventually GH3 was released and I moved on to that, and eventually I moved on to Expert, and eventually, after grinding the intro for an entire summer break, I finally cleared TTFAF on Expert. Eventually GHWT was released, and I played all of it, and then finally GH Metallica was the final GH game I played on release.

After that, I kind of took a break from the games. I played it for a week or so once a year, but never really grinded anything.

Then sometime around 2013 I made a push to attempt and get 5⭐️ on TTFAF. This was probably my peak, but unfortunately I never made it. I got a score somewhere around 530K (the save is on my old Xbox 360, which is at my parents house still, because my nephews likes playing Guitar Hero when they're there)

Anyway all this is to say...

Guitar Hero I

I never played much GH1 back in the day. My friend had it (because he had asked his mom for Guitar Hero for christmas, and she took that very literally and got exactly "Guitar Hero"), but I never really played it much. Mindset back then was "why play old thing when new thing exists".

Eventually I saw some clips of it on YouTube, and was very confused why people hung a towel over their TV, which is when I found out about the towel trick. I also read here and there that HOPOs were impossible, but never played it myself really.

Then I kind of forgot about the game, until it bubbled up again for me when Marbler did a FGFC of the game, actually using the HOPOs:

Having in mind all I've read over the years that HOPOs were impossible, I was very impressed by this feat (also keeping in mind Marbler already has an insane gaming portfolio, having done the SM64 0 A-press challenge on console and everything...)

So finally this year I decided to play through GH1 for myself.

And yeah. It is impossible. It feels like your brain is not working. Everything you think you know about GH, just doesn't work. Try and try as you might, hitting any HOPO is impossible, you have to strum it.

Marbler makes it looks so easy, but until you have played GH1 yourself, you do not truly appreciate it. Having played GH1, and then watching Marbler, must be like watching Mozart back in the day or something. It is truly incredible.

Anyway, I struggled through GH1 (doing the towel trick and all), and eventually I got 5⭐️ on all the songs:

And that's about all I wanna do with GH1. I am very happy with this achievement.

Guitar Hero II

As I mentioned in the history section, GH2 I am quite fond of, and have played a bunch of.

GH2 has been on my mind quite a bit too, because of this insane achievement from Acai:

I honestly think this might be the best achievement in gaming anyone has ever done. Seriously, you need some gigantic balls to not miss a single note for 9 hours, in a game that is not forgiving.

Inspired by Acai, after I was done with GH1, I went straight to GH2, and decided to go for 5⭐️ on all songs there too, something I have not done before. Mainly because of one particular song: Six.

I've always struggled with this song. Jordan I could easily clear, and get 5⭐️ on, but Six? I could barely pass it. It's something about it's strumming I never quite got the hang of.

Until now!

I had to spend a bunch of time in practice to get the rhythm down, and also grind out the YB-RY-YB sections, for some reason they gave me a TON of trouble.

Anyway, with that done, I have now also 5-starred all of GH2.

What's next?

It would be really nice to go back to GH3 and get 5-stars on my arch nemesis, TTFAF. It's something that has been lingering with me all my life.

ugh, you never got 5-stars on TTFAF
- my brain, biweekly

So I plan on doing it, but I don't know if I will accomplish it. If I do, I'll be sure to write about it.

EDIT the day after: Oh right, Guitar Hero Rocks the 80s is a thing. I guess I'll do that first before maybe going to GH3.