To the Beat

To the Beat is a series of rhythm games developed by Team Beats and published by ACS Softworks. The series began with the release of its first installment, To the Beat!, in 2001, and has since spawned a number of sequels. Originally for Arcades, the series has been released for various consoles, including the PlayStation 2, XBox, Nintendo Gamecube, PlayStation 3, XBox 360, Nintendo Wii and PlayStation Portable.

Gameplay
To the Beat uses a four-way dance panel consisting of up-left, up-right, down-left and down-right. In the console versions, the arrows are mapped to the controller’s shoulder buttons by default, but the player also the choice of using the face buttons instead.

Just like its cohorts, Konami's Dance Dance Revolution and  Andamiro's Pump It Up, the game's objective is to hit as many of the ascending arrows that are in time with the music using the aforementioned dance pad. Each arrow corresponds to a certain panel in the dance pad, and the player must hit the ascending arrows by stepping on the corresponding arrow as it reaches the arrow icon on the top of the screen.

Stepcharts in To the Beat can sometimes contain three or four ascending arrows at the same time, which are meant to be achieved using the player’s hands, as well as “freeze arrows”, which are long arrows that must be stepped on until it ends.

Each step is judged depending on the timing of the step and the arrow. These judges include, from highest to lowest, “Excellent”, “Perfect”, “Great”, “Good”, “Bad” and “Missed” (“Oops” in most English versions).

Each missed arrow will result in the player’s combo being reset, as well as deduction of the player’s Beat Meter. When the player’s Beat Meter is depleted to zero, it will cause a “Stege Break”, and as a result, the game will be over.

Upon completion of a song, the player is given a rank depending on how well the olayer performed. With F being the lowest rank, and SSS being the highest, only acheivable by performing an Excellent full combo, where all of the steps are done in Excellent.

Modes
A typical game of To The Beat begins with a timer waiting for another player. Players who are alone can cancel this timer and head straight to the game by pressing the Start button on the machine.

When the game is in one-player mode the game continues to the Pad Select screen, players are given a choice to play Single (use only one pad; four arrows) or Double (use two pads simultaneously; eight arrows). In a 2-player games, the choices are chaged instead to Versus (both players compete for the highest score) and Duet (both players must dance in unison). Challenge mode from 4th Dance onwards remains as a 1-player only mode.

The game then segues to the Mode Select screen. In the first To the Beat game, players have to choose whether to play “Easy”, “Normal”, “Hard” or “Special (SP) Mix” mode. Easy mode has Stage Break turned off by default, but only allows players to choose one song. Normal mode is the standard gameplay mode of To The Beat, featuring three stages to play, special “boss songs” that can only be played during the final stage, an “Extra Stage” that can be accessed when the player fulfills the right requirements, as well as Stage Break turned on. Hard mode plays similar to Normal, but with the added challenge of a much faster-draining Beat Meter, as well as a different songlist consisting of songs rated 5-stars or more. Lastly, Special Mix mode is a special mode that allows players to choose from eight “mixes” (nine when counting the Roulette Mix), each consisting of four songs, and dance nonstop until all four songs are finished. A quick code can be entered on the title screen to access “All Music”, which allows players to access the entire selection of songs (including the boss songs) in Easy, Normal and Hard modes.

4th Dance features significant changes to the single mode system. Easy mode has been renamed as “Quick Play”, the Normal and Hard modes were merged together into “Standard” mode, and a new “Challenge” mode has been added, featuring several themed challenges, usually harder version of songs with certain gimmicks, like alternate noteskins, and usage of unorthodox pad conditions. The SP Mix mode stays the same.

Song Levels
The difficulty of a song in To the Beat is measured by its rating, the more stars a song has, the harder it is. The rating system in To the Beat varies in each sub-series:

The early To the Beat games (To the Beat!-5th Dance), the songs’s ratings are measured in a star system.


 * Simplistic - *


 * Average - **


 * Conventional - ***


 * Tricky - ****


 * Ecstatic - *****


 * Bewildering - ******


 * Maniacal - *******


 * Disastrous - ********


 * Nightmarish - *********

The MAXIMUM series uses the same star system as the early games, and also introduces three new star levels
 * Insurmountable - **********




 * Pinnacle - *************
 * Pinnacle - *************

Soundtrack
To the Beat's selection of music primarily consists of J-pop and electronica tracks, but sometimes also makes use of other genres of music as well. To the Beat uses both licensed songs featuring artists from the Avex Trax record label (this also includes foreign acts whose albums are distributed through Avex, like *NSYNC), as well as exclusive songs created by ACS' in-house composers, usually under various pseudonyms.

Starting To the Beat NEO, the game has also included crossover tracks from ACS' other franchises. Mostly remixes like Solidary Moon (TTB Mix) from INFINITE, a remix of Solidary Moon, Twilight's stage theme in the Crisis Moon games.

Titles

 * To the Beat! (2001; Arcade (System 200), PlayStation 2)


 * To the Beat! 2nd Dance (2002; Arcade (System 200), PlayStation 2)


 * To the Beat! 3rd Dance (2002; Arcade (System 200), PlayStation 2)


 * To the Beat! The Ultimate Dance (2002; XBox, Nintendo GameCube)


 * To the Beat! 4th Dance (2003; Arcade (System 200), PlayStation 2)


 * To the Beat! 5th Dance (2003; Arcade (System 200)


 * To the Beat! The 2nd Ultimate Dance (2003; XBox, Nintendo GameCube)


 * To the Beat MAXIMUM (2004; Arcade (System 201), PlayStation 2, XBox, Nintendo GameCube)


 * To the Beat MAXIMUM2 (2005; Arcade (System 201), PlayStation 2, XBox, Nintendo GameCube)


 * To the Beat αlpha (2007; Arcade (System 201++) PlayStation 2, Wii)


 * To the Beat αlpha2 (2008; Arcade (System 201++), PlayStation 2, Wii)


 * To the Beat αlpha3 (2009; Arcade (System 201++), PlayStation 2, Wii)


 * To the Beat SP (2009; PlayStation Portable)


 * To the Beat NEO (2011; Arcade (System 202: ENDYMION), PlayStation 3, Wii, XBox 360)


 * To the Beat NEO2 (2012; Arcade (System 202: ENDYMION)


 * To the Beat NEO3 (2013; Arcade (System 202: ENDYMION)


 * To the Beat INFINITE (2016; Arcade (System 203: ATLANTIS)