Line #15 YMMV/InTheGroove


1	* AmericansHateTingle: You would expect that since it's the SpiritualLicensee to DDR and with much harder charts, it would catch on with top-tier Japanese players. It didn't; the physical games barely released in Japan, and most Japanese players prefer DDR and its chart style and music. The ITG scene is almost exclusively Western. Of course, this may have served to damage the Japanese fandom. Once ''DDR A'' was released in America, several Americans who had honed their skills on ITG and Stepmania ''officially'' became some of the greatest DDR players in the world.
2	* DamageSpongeBoss: Hardcore of the North Single Expert has over 800 steps. By no means easy, but the arrangement and consistency makes it easier than some charts that have fewer steps.
3	* FollowTheLeader: Both ways. ''In The Groove'' took the 4-arrow paradigm from [=DDR=] and ran with it, including new features like mines (which were already in ''{{VideoGame/Stepmania}})''. In DDR X, DDR added shock arrows, which are pretty much mines. However, shock arrows always cover all four panels, which one might argue is missing the point of mines in the first place. In DDR [=SuperNOVA=], they also started introducing ITG-level boss songs, though this may be more because players had pretty much 100-percented the whole DDR series at that point.
4	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QixDSEoxig0 800$ BOOM]]. A player forgets to take his feet off, hits a mine, and loses a tournament.
5	* GoodBadBugs: In the r21 patch for [=ITG2=], players can play custom stepfiles, but the song cannot be tagged as being longer than 2 minutes. Emphasis on "tagged"; [[LoopholeAbuse the implementation of the feature read from the music file's metadata to determine length.]] In the updated r23 patch, songs now automatically cut off at 2 minutes and 15 seconds, regardless.
6	* HarsherInHindsight: The "We're just getting started!" Splash in the original game. Only one more would be released. Though it can also be seen as HeartwarmingInHindsight given that some of the ''ITG'' team would go on to create ''VideoGame/StepManiaX''.
7	* HilariousInHindsight:
8	** In the mid-noughties, Konami sued Roxor over this game's patent infringement on ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'' as well as for the reuse of ''DDR'' cabs for ''ITG'', and acquired the rights to ''ITG'' (i.e. [[ScrewedByTheLawyers killed it]]). Then in 2020, famously former ''DDR'' sound director Naoki Maeda, as well as Paula Terry who is well-known for her vocal work for ''BEMANI'' songs, would [[https://youtu.be/4-1mvrUW4ts contribute]] songs to ''ITG''[='=]s SpiritualSuccessor, ''VideoGame/StepManiaX''. In other words, [[MyRealDaddy the faces]] of ''DDR'' are now providing songs to ''DDR''[='=]s competitor!
9	** "Konami will sue," you say? The ''[=StepManiaX=]'' team first went to Konami to ensure that no legal toes would be stepped on before releasing the game. In other words, Konami will no longer sue.
10	* MemeticMutation:
11	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QixDSEoxig0 800$ BOOM]] (In a tournament, both players appeared to have gotten a perfect score on "Liquid Moon" in the tournament's final round. But one player, thinking the round was over, started celebrating and forgot to take his feet off the panels right at the end, hitting a row of mines and dropping his score. The "$800" refers to the difference in prize money, since he dropped from first place to fourth as a result of his score going down.)
12	** KONAMI WILL SUE (Refers to the fact that ITG is a SpiritualLicensee to DDR. It got a lot less funny when Konami actually did sue.)
13	* NonIndicativeDifficulty: Overall, the Driven course may be harder on Hard than on Normal. However, there is one part near the end of Monolith where, on Hard, there is a steady stream of arrows, and on Normal, there are only off-beat (blue) arrows. Combined with the mods in the course, these arrows are difficult to hit at all, while the stream on Hard is easier to read.
14	* NotSoCheapImitation: Despite its obvious ''DDR'' inspiration, it's still a very popular game in the Western rhythm game community due to the quality-of-life touches it added and its charting style, with fans continuing to make modded editions of the game with new songs and charts long after [[ScrewedByTheLawyers the official editions were snuffed out by Konami's lawyers]].
15	* OlderThanTheyThink: A lot of features commonly thought to be introduced in ''ITG'', such as different scroll perspectives and mines, actually first appeared in ''VideoGame/{{Stepmania}}'', which this game uses a fork of.
16	* PortingDisaster: The [[Platform/PlayStation2 PS2]] port. The game was functional, and even included some cool features like a screen that displayed your overall progress in the game, but:
17	** The loading times, especially when going back to a previous menu, were [[LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading pretty bad]].
18	** The fonts and overall design weren't altered at all to accommodate the [=PS2=]'s video resolution, making the smaller text hard to read, akin to ''VideoGame/GranTurismo 2''.
19	** Perhaps worst of all, the songs were subject to one of the most surreal cases of {{Bowdlerization}} in recent history. Roxor followed ''every single instruction'' given to them from the [=ESRB=] to cement an E rating. Lyrics such as "beware of the ''dark'' side of town" were replaced with lyrics elsewhere in the song, which sounds as natural as one would expect. Now it's the ''wet'' side of town. Surprisingly, this didn't affect actual gameplay too badly. Fortunately, the PC port had the proper uncensored music, and didn't have any of the other problems the [=PS2=] port had.
20	* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: Plenty based on ''DDR'' songs.
21	** The first game has "Disconnected" for "[=PARANOiA=]", "I Think I Like That Sound" for "Drop Out", "Hand of Time" for "Healing Vision", and "Pandemonium" for "Gamelan de Couple" and "Legend of MAX".
22	** The second has "Energizer" for "MAX 300", which even nicks the slow part of "neoMAX", a ''fan remix'' of "MAX 300". "Energizer" piles on the references to the MAX series especially thick. It's very likely named as it is due to "Energizer Max" batteries, it has a big jump followed by slow section in the middle (though it's longer and brighter than the slowdown in "The Legend of MAX" - the background video shows a ''[[RelaxOVision freaking field of flowers]]''), and the first sixteen steps of both the Medium and Hard charts are the same as the Medium chart from "The legend of MAX".
23	** Not every SuspiciouslySimilarSong in ''ITG'' is taken from ''DDR'' though. The second game has "Determinator" for "[[Music/FrankZappa You Are What You Is]]".
24	** "We Know What To Do" (which they neglected to mention is a very off-context remix of [[https://youtu.be/BsENOpKLSC4 the original]]) resembles "[[https://youtu.be/SA6zxC3lA3k?t=18m20s Crow Song]]", a popular VideoGame/StepMania song of the day.
25	** And finally there's "Bumble Bee" and "Tough Enough", licensed songs that were in ''DDR'', albeit with shorter edits.
26	* ThatOneAttack:
27	** Determinator Single Expert 12. ''Seventeen arrows per second''. That's like an engine running at 1000 [=RPM=], except replace "engine" with "feet".
28	** Delirium Single Expert is a cakewalk by 12 standards for most of the song... but the last part is a long stream of 116th arrows at 166 [=BPM=] (eleven arrows per second) that just. Won't. Stop.
29	** The "Speed Up" section in Robotix on Expert. To clarify, it's a steady, consistent 8th note pattern on the left and right arrows, however the scrolling gradually gets faster and faster until it's impossible to read visually, thus forcing you to keep to the beat of the 8th notes through your own internal rhythm.
30	** Tell is rather a harsh Single Expert 12 chart because of its infamous use of a 16th triplet pattern that ends awkwardly with a jump. Because this chart uses it so frequently the community coined the term "Tell Jumps" for it whenever it surfaced in other charts.
31	** The "FadeIn" modifier on courses, which makes arrows not appear until they're halfway up the screen. While other modifiers such as "alternate" are worse, those ones are accordingly in courses known for having crazy modifiers and lighter steps. "Fade in", on the other hand, appears casually in a lot of the courses, and mean you have half the reaction time you normally do to hit the arrows.
32	** Utopia Single Expert 11. The chart is solid for the most part until it gets to two certain sections where the arrows just... stop going with the rhythm of the music. It is ridiculously annoying for those trying to get a Quad Star/100% on the song. Chart can be seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTQKbAyYy0o here]]
33	* ThatOneBoss:
34	** Any [=ZiGZaG=] song is definitely one, but special mention goes to the [=VerTex=] songs for their infamous high scroll speed and mine density.
35	** "Disconnected Disco" on Expert Double.
36	* TheyCopiedItSoItSucks: Opinions are divided on the issue of whether ''ITG'' is a ripoff of ''DDR'' or a worthy successor. Opinions are generally divided by which side of the Atlantic that someone falls on.

Context YMMV / InTheGroove