To the Beat

To the Beat is a series of rhythm games developed by Team Beats and published by ACS. 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, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation Portable and PC.

Gameplay
To the Beat uses a four-way dance panel consisting entirely of diagonals: 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 has the choice of using the face buttons and d-pad 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 receptor on the top of the screen.

Step charts 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. αlpha introduces "traps" which act like mines in In the Groove, in that they must not be stepped on, unless it deals damage to the Beat meter and resets the current combo, and are represented by a large X inside a circle, while NEO introduces "roll arrows", which are freeze arrows that must be stepped on repeatedly instead of being held down. Several songs would feature real-time BPM changes, where charts can slow down, speed up or even pause completely mid-song.

Each player has a Beat Meter, which increases as the player successfully hits each arrow in time, and decreases each time the player misses an arrow, breaking their combo in the process. Filling up the Beat Meter to its maximum level would increase the score the player gains with each successful step. However, when the player’s Beat Meter is depleted to zero, it will cause a “Stage Break”, which warrants an automatic game over.

Each step is judged depending on the timing of the step and the arrow. These judges include, from highest to lowest, “Perfect”, “Great”, “Good”, “Bad” and “Miss” (“Oops” in most international releases). Perfects and Greats add up to the combo counter and fill up a portion of the Beat meter, Goods neither add to nor break up the current combo, do not increase the Beat meter, and do not make the arrows disappear, unlike Perfects and Greats, while Bads and Misses/Oops break up the current combo and decrease the Beat meter. An "Excellent" judgment was eventually added in EXCEL.

Upon completion of a song, the game quickly segues into the Ranking screen, where the player is given a rank depending on how well the player performed, with F being the lowest rank, and S+ being the highest. 5th Dance introduces the S++ rating, which is achievable by performing a full combo of either mostly Perfects or mostly Excellents in certain songs.

Songs in To the Beat each have three charts which also denote their difficulty: “Novice”, “Inter” and “Expert”. 2nd Dance adds the option for “Master” charts, which are harder than Expert charts and are meant for experienced players, while 4th Dance would introduce "Starter" charts, which are instead meant for beginners. Players can select their chart difficulty in the Song Select screen.

3rd Dance adds in an "options menu" that allows the player to tweak certain aspects of the game to their liking, as well as granting them access to special modifiers that switch up the gameplay, and can be accessed by pressing the Start button on the machine upon prompted, usually after selecting a song. One of the more popular and widely used modifiers is the "speed modifier", which doubles the speed of the arrows scrolling up, thus adding a further layer of challenge to the game.

The Japan-only arcade spinoff To the Beat x Karaoke Superstar: Sing Dance Paradise combines the gameplay of To the Beat with that of the Karaoke Superstar series of arcade karaoke games. The game uses a split-screen cabinet with a dance pad on one side and a microphone on the other, as one player dances to the beat while the other sings the lyrics.

Modes
A typical game of To The Beat begins with a 10 second timer waiting for another player. Players who are alone can cancel out 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, where the player uses one pad to play through the standard 4-arrow charts, or Double, where the player uses both pads simultaneously, giving them access to exclusive 8-arrow charts.

In a 2-player game, the choices are changed instead to Versus, where both players compete against each other for the highest score and Duet, where both players share a single Beat Meter and must dance in unison.

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” or “Hard” mode.


 * Easy mode has Stage Break turned off by default, but only allows players to choose and play through one song.
 * Normal mode is the standard gameplay mode of To The Beat, featuring three stages of play, special “boss songs” that are exclusive to the final stage, and an “Extra Stage” that can only be accessed upon fulfilling certain requirements throughout the game.
 * 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 higher rated songs.

In the first two To the Beat titles, a quick stepcode must be entered on the title screen to access “All Music”, which allows players to access the entire selection of songs (including the boss songs) across all modes. This was abandoned from 3rd Dance onwards in favor of having all the songs be available by default.

2nd Dance replaces Hard Mode with Special Mix mode, which allows players to choose from a selection of several predetermined “mixes” (plus the Roulette Mix, which, as the name suggests, is completely randomized), each consisting of four songs, and dance nonstop until all four songs are finished.

4th Dance features significant changes to the single mode system. Easy mode has been renamed as “Quick Play”, Normal mode has been renamed into “Standard” mode, and a new “Challenge” mode has been added, featuring several challenges that play differently from typical To the Beat gameplay, like alternate noteskins, usage of unorthodox pad conditions, and unusual requirements. The Special Mix mode stays the same.

Rating System
The difficulty of a song chart 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.

In the early To the Beat games, the charts’ ratings are measured via a star system. The rating for each song is shown as a number of stars alongside a short, descriptive word.


 * Simplistic - ★
 * Average - ★★
 * Conventional - ★★★
 * Tricky - ★★★★
 * Ecstatic - ★★★★★
 * Bewildering - ★★★★★★
 * Maniacal - ★★★★★★★
 * Disastrous - ★★★★★★★★
 * Nightmarish - ★★★★★★★★★
 * Insurmountable - ★★★★★★★★★★

3rd Dance uses the same star system, and also introduces three new star levels:


 * Overwhelming - ★★★★★★★★★★★
 * Unthinkable - ★★★★★★★★★★★★
 * Pinnacle - ★★★★★★★★★★★★★

EXCEL features a reworked star system, with the idiosyncratic names removed. Each song is rated with a number of stars between 1 to 15, with 1 star being the easiest and 15 stars being the hardest. This was also the case with αlpha, which increased the maximum star rating to 18.

NEO is noted for being the first To the Beat game to not use the iconic star system. Instead, it uses a more clear-cut number rating system. Each chart is rated with a number between 1 to 20 this time around, with 1 being the easiest and 20 being the hardest.

To the Beat R reworks the rating system into something more similar to the EXCEL rating system (1-15). Besids the rating number, a level meter system has also been added, which works similar to the old star system. MAXX would redefine the rating system yet again, reintroducing charts of up to Level 20.

Soundtrack
To the Beat's selection of music primarily consists of Eurodance, J-pop, hip-hop and electronica tracks, but sometimes also makes use of other genres of music as well. To the Beat uses both licensed songs, as well as exclusive songs created by ACS'/Team Beats' in-house composers, usually under various pseudonyms. As of this writing, the spinoff game To the Beat × Karaoke Superstar: Sing Dance Paradise is the only To the Beat game to exclusively feature licensed songs.

In its earlier years, To the Beat exclusively featured artists from the Avex Trax record label (this also includes foreign acts whose albums are distributed through Avex, like *NSYNC). To the Beat EXCEL was the first game in the series to not feature the Avex Trax license, thus finally allowing them to feature songs from artists signed with other record labels.

Due to various government regulations regarding the usage of Japanese language in Korean products, Korean releases of To the Beat games are known for excluding songs with Japanese language by either replacing the song with a lyricless instrumental cover version, or excluding the song outright and replacing it with region-exclusive K-pop songs.

Starting with To the Beat αlpha, the game has also included crossover tracks from ACS' other franchises, most notably with its sister game, ritmica, another rhythm game series developed by Team Beats. To the Beat NEO would later expand from this, adding remixes of songs from other, non-rhythm ACS games, such as Kinta no Daibouken, MetaBurst, Shugo Tenshi, and Crisis Moon, to name a few. These crossover tracks are usually shared between both To the Beat and ritmica.

In 2021, coinciding with the release of To the Beat MAXX, ACS had struck a deal with the virtual YouTuber (VTuber) agency Hololive to allow the use of songs performed by their wide variety of VTubers to be featured in both To the Beat and ritmica. In 2022, the Hololive Dance Pack was added in the v1.07 update for To the Beat MAXX, featuring over 20 Hololive songs such as "NEXT COLOR PLANET", "Ahoy! Warera Houshou Kaizoku-dan☆", "Say! Fanfare!" and "SPARKS", among various others.

Titles

 * To the Beat! (2001; Arcade (NOVA System), PlayStation 2)
 * To the Beat! 2nd Dance (2002; Arcade (NOVA System), PlayStation 2)
 * To the Beat! 3rd Dance (2002; Arcade (NOVA System), PlayStation 2)
 * To the Beat! 4th Dance (2003; Arcade (NOVA System), PlayStation 2)
 * To the Beat! 5th Dance (2003; Arcade (NOVA System), PlayStation 2)
 * To the Beat! The Ultimate Dance (2003; Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, PC)
 * To the Beat EXCEL (2004; Arcade (NOVA-II System), PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube)
 * To the Beat EXCEL2 (2005; Arcade (NOVA-II System), PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube)
 * To the Beat × Karaoke Superstar: Sing Dance Paradise (2006; Arcade (NOVA-II System)
 * 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 SP (2008; PlayStation Portable)
 * To the Beat αlpha3 (2009; Arcade (System 201), PlayStation 2, Wii)
 * To the Beat SP2 (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 M (2014: iOS, Android)
 * To the Beat R (2017; Arcade (nex System)
 * To the Beat R² (2018; Arcade (nex System)
 * To the Beat R³ (2019; Arcade (nex System)
 * To the Beat JAM! (2020: iOS, Android)
 * To the Beat MAXX (2021; Arcade (nex² System), PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC)

Trivia

 * The series has featured two prominent mascots that appear in nearly all To the Beat-related media: Ban Matsuda, a breakdancer, and Mi-U, an idol. First appearing in promotional material for 4th Dance, they have since cemented themselves as the faces of the entire franchise, with Ban eventually appearing in Cross Chaos as a selectable fighter.
 * The step code for "All Music" (later known as "Full Mode") in most To the Beat versions is: down-left, up-right, down-right, up-right, up-left, down-left, down-right, up-right, up-left, down-right and down-left. Writing it out in strokes would spell out the letters "ACS".
 * In the PlayStation 2 ports of the earlier To the Beat games from 2nd Dance to 5th Dance, players can unlock songs from previous To the Beat iterations by loading the save file of an older installment from the memory card. Each save will unlock two songs from said version, which are different for each game, even when using the same save.
 * For example, loading a save file of the original To the Beat! on the memory card would unlock the songs "Déjà Vu (Para-Para Mix)" by Dave Rodgers and "It's Gonna Be Me" by *NSYNC when loaded in 2nd Dance, but loading it in 3rd Dance would unlock the songs "Boys & Girls" by Ayumi Hamasaki and the ACS Original song "iNSOMNiA" by 4444 instead.
 * Arcade cabinets of To the Beat, from the original to EXCEL2, all of which ran on the Sony PlayStation 2-based NOVA and NOVA-II arcade systems, feature a PlayStation 2 memory card slot for the purpose of loading user-made Custom chart edits created from their respective console ports.
 * To the Beat αlpha, which ran on the PC-based System 201, would omit this feature, but To the Beat NEO would bring Custom chart loading back, this time using USB flash drives to load charts made from the official BeatMaker program for PCs.
 * As of To the Beat R, Custom charts can now also be saved and loaded on the cloud via ACS' proprietary Amaze.net online service, though the option to load charts via USB flash drives still remain.
 * The spinoff game To the Beat × Karaoke Superstar: Sing Dance Paradise was inspired by the Sing n' Dance mode from Karaoke Superstars, a console-only version of the Karaoke Superstar arcade games localized for Western audiences.
 * To the Beat R went through several name changes before its final release. It was initially announced in 2015 as "To the Beat FOREVER", before eventually being renamed "To the Beat INFINITE" shortly thereafter, before finally settling to its current name.
 * Ever since the home ports of To the Beat NEO in 2012, there have been no new console ports of To the Beat games, perhaps because of the decline of dance pad games in general.
 * However, ACS has expressed interest in porting To the Beat R to modern consoles if fan demand is high enough.
 * In 2022, To the Beat MAXX would receive ports for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC, making it the first To the Beat title to be released for a home console in 10 years, as well as the first To the Beat game released for PC since The Ultimate Dance.
 * Buried within the data for To the Beat EXCEL2 are several unused licensed songs, most of which were taken directly from the North American release of The Ultimate Dance. Two such examples, "Tom's Diner" by DNA featuring Suzanne Vega and "I Am" by Static-X, can actually be loaded and even played in-game through a glitch, albeit without their music or background videos.
 * In 2003, Konami filed a lawsuit against ACS for copyright infingement regarding its dance pad game patent. The details were never released to the public up to this day, but various speculations suggest that the lawsuit was settled out of court.
 * Ironically, Team Beats, the development team behind To the Beat, were primarily composed of ex-Konami employees who had previously worked on earlier installments of Beatmania, Dance Dance Revolution and other BEMANI titles.
 * To the Beat can be simulated using the open-source rhythm game engine StepMania. StepBeat, a fork of StepMania with several tweaks to more accurately simulate To the Beat, is currently in active development, with frequent updates.