The Most Broken Chart in Rhythm Games

In an obscure rhythm game created by Konami back in the 2000's, there were a few DLC packs released for it that were available for a short period of time. One of these packs, however, were broken beyond belief, and one song in particular especially stood out. This spurred years of theorycrafting, luck, and persistence to try and figure out how to FC it as a result.
Sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1c...
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[@AbyssionQC]

We really have to appreciate the title of the song

[@ShiroCh_ID]

Im Broken

[@el_poopie2042]

THE IRONY IS REAL

[@SymbiontUVPlays]

self aware

[@rapha2028]

I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS COMMENT

[@shmiksisrymtai]

The title really didn't lie..

[@TheSaltySailor]

this game really has official songs with 1000+ notes and caps the combo counter at 999

[@Perisqinkle]

the FC of I'm Broken showed to be 1002 which means without the 3 broken notes it would actually come out to 999 exactly, which i find really interesting. they definitely seem to not be intentional, i would think. are there other songs that go over 1000?

[@NunoVH]

@@Perisqinkle Yes - there are several charts that have over 1000 notes. The note counter only goes to 999 by default in this game for some dumb reason and you even get an Xbox achievement the first time you get a 999 or higher note streak. It has nothing to do with this particular chart or broken notes; it's just pure coincidence how the numbers came out.

[@Perisqinkle]

@@NunoVH Interesting, thank you.

[@SuperMario-vc4ew]

Even tho this is off topic but Mario Odyssey does the same thing! it caps at 999 Moons only!

[@arcadianwind]

@@SuperMario-vc4ew doesn't it have like 880 moons tho?

[@The1NickSkyline]

broken chart for a song called "I'm Broken" from a bad rhythm game ...screw it, I'm down.

[@froggygills3140]

699 less go

[@froggygills3140]

Someone gonna ruin it tho

[@kayotik4408]

@@froggygills3140 Good.

[@alfathfajar6856]

999 less go

[@antares56]

this is the pinnacle of "its not a bug, its a feature".

[@StrabbyStrabby]

7:48 It's almost comical how you can hear the panic/pressure escalate as they get further past the notes.

[@THENAMEISQUICKMAN]

My favourite broken chart in history was when General Relativity first came out on IIDX, if you played it as the first song upon starting the machine, all of the notes were unhittable because it used the timing windows of the song selected prior. Playing it as the first song meant it didn't have timing windows at all.

[@walkingonneedles]

oh that sounds amazing i hate it

[@rs_mind8352]

So the timing windows were calculated generally relative to the previous song

[@toondude78]

That's amazingly bad

[@Smqll_Fry]

wait is there any video of this in action? EDIT: i found a video

[@harmonicposting]

that’s hilarious what about GAMBOL

[@marie.antoinette]

this is one of those cool fun facts that needs about eighteen minutes of set up before you can even tell it due to all the background information you need to know to be able to understand it

[@TrolleyMC]

Just title this video "The most broken rhythm game"

[@acactusnamedjosh708]

Etienne talking about how the game registers notes differently in practice and quickplay: Me: HOW DID THIS GAME EVEN FUNCTION?

[@robbiefroggy1295]

it didn't.

[@acactusnamedjosh708]

@@robbiefroggy1295 sounds about right

[@THENAMEISQUICKMAN]

This game is absolutely terrible in general lol

[@KatouMegumiosu]

Konami could have just brought gitadora properly to the western market..

[@frost-tm1rx]

yeah

[@harmonicposting]

konami no care about the west

[@Zylos_the_CORE]

It's not an official western release but at least American R1s have Gitadora and western players can access Gitadora Konasute now and play at home. It's something!

[@Figgy20000]

@@harmonicposting I'm still angry how badly they fucked over the ITG community basically killing their entire DDR market at the same time. Just give people what the fuck they want konami we were more than willing to fork over $10,000 to buy a non-shitty ddr cab

[@harmonicposting]

@@Figgy20000 I'm angry at everything related to their bemani business decisions; specifically their exclusivity to japan they cry about people using arcade data but then go to restrict everything exclusively to japan meaning everyone that isnt living there gets screwed over

[@orvilleredenpiller338]

Imagine a note that leaves the note station every 21 frames.

[@NunoVH]

That's legitimately what I based my theory off of lol

[@terzaera2512]

wait is this a reference

[@terzaera2512]

i can feel like this is a reference from a super mario speed run analysis

[@NunoVH]

@@terzaera2512 that's correct

[@terzaera2512]

@@NunoVH i knew it

[@DannB_MTG]

Oh boy good memories! I was the second person ever to FC Next to You on Expert vocals and it was the peak of my RB1 expert vocals experience back then.

[@travconnelly]

Dude kudos to you, I love Rock Band but can’t stand Rock Band 1 vocals just because of the talky parts. Basically every talky part in that game feels impossible. I never understood what the game wanted from me. Sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn’t, it seemed completely random. I was so glad that in future games they were just free.

[@THENAMEISQUICKMAN]

My peak RB achievement was clearing the Endless Setlist 2 and getting the Bladder of Steel achievement on my first try when I was like... 14. Throwback memories.

[@beardalaxy]

@@THENAMEISQUICKMAN i would sing the endless setlist 2 over and over and over when i was a teenager. fast forward to today and i'm playing 3 hour live shows lol. rock band prepared me well.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Wait, so there is a decade old rhythm game that has never been completely finished? Send the internet after it. It will be done!

[@thesun5275]

Let the godly charters behind Clone Hero take a crack at it.

[@snil4]

Me before the video: Look whatever chart you will show there's no way it's worse than 1949 d28 Me a few minutes into the video: Guess I was wrong after all...

[@qoyote]

They're just gonna license 1901 from Phoenix for the final boss of Pump

[@toone1562]

1949 is bad?

[@snil4]

@@toone1562 look up this chart from pump it up, don't get me wrong it is a well constructed chart but if the only man in the world to pass it has to mash his way through the final part it's just too much. Also remember this is a dance game so stamina and tech are double important.

[@toone1562]

@@snil4 I guess you're right, they should have made it more tech-y instead of making it incredibly dense

[@sfisher923]

Was thinking Trogdor from GH2 NTSC was FCed after 15 years due to the solo being almost too much for that engine (But this was worse since GH2 was more consistent then RR)

[@heyoitskram5748]

the fact that the combo counter in game caps out at 999 makes this even more interesting

[@chibbysadventures5555]

The fact that Konami made a crappy rhythm game when they’ve made some of my absolute favorite rhythm arcade games is fascinating to me

[@JackHolleworth]

I still find it very funny how Konami published a shitty Guitar Hero ripoff, which itself was a ripoff of one of their own creations: Guitar Freaks.

[@Hopecaster]

When a Rock Band clone has 0-framers you know there's many issues

[@powergannon]

I’m surprised it took so long for people to find a solution, because when the game was new, CRT TVs were still pretty common. I didn’t have an HD TV yet when I was playing Guitar Hero.

[@FlameRat_YehLon]

Got the feeling that most TVs after 2000 are digital TVs even if they are CRT, which means that they would have latency anyway.

[@dopamineabuser403]

StepMania had very interesting ones, especially the older version like 3.9. One of them is called a negative note, and this is where the note is technically not registered within the chart, it still appears on it, but if you miss it then the entire game crashes. Or how nibbling with the files will allow you to swap mines with actual notes, and notes with mines at times to deceive the player. When you make a song chart within StepMania, those options are not available, and requires to directly change it in a file.

[@goldenpig6453]

dont give the FNF charters any ideas, i can imagine a few unironically using the negative notes as a "gimmick"

[@fatestarne2694]

Woah I made it into an Etienne video (Llama Full Pro) I can die happy now :) Also can’t talk about broken notes on RB3 without mentioning the broken one frame apart note in Standing In Your Stuff on drums.

[@NunoVH]

Ooh, that's a deep cut. Bless the MPA cymbal glitch.

[@BIIIIGBODDY]

Yeah Etienne missed the only unFCable drums chart here haha. Standing in Your Stuff on regular drums is the woat

[@NunoVH]

@@BIIIIGBODDY did you try changing your calibration? ;)

[@aWiseMoose]

Excellent video as always, Etienne. I love the fringe, obscure topics like this. Thank you Nuno for your relentless dedicated to this silly ass game lol

[@MonsterPlusArt]

damn when they made that song title I didn't think they're that literal

[@MackeeGH]

this is a really informative and interesting video, there’s a lot of bizarre bugs and glitches with all the off brand guitar hero/rock band games that saturated the market back then and it’s cool to see someone taking a look at how hilariously broken they were, amazing video I really love your style of content creation

[@Rocker21344]

Probably my favorite video of yours. There's something oddly wholesome how you see one guy persevere for so long and finally achieving it. Hopefully we can see a follow-up video with the game being fully fc'd soon

[@cicabeot1]

I had no idea this song was so infamous in Rock Revolution. Cheers to all the people trying to crack it. Now if only something could be figured out for I Can’t Drive 55 on rhythm guitar in Guitar Hero On Tour Decades.

[@femboygamingg]

pls explain??

[@masonsparkle]

go to the rhythm chart on CH. *there’s an orange note*

[@femboygamingg]

@@masonsparkle wait so one of the ds guitar heroes has an orange note in one of the charts? absolutely criminal.

[@j_eezus_christ_bro_chill]

This explains so many of my 1 misses...

[@j_eezus_christ_bro_chill]

and shitty tracking ofc ofc

[@BlameMaxSand]

God I remember Rock Revolution, I bought it on clearance for like 5 bucks and still felt ripped off. I expected a bad clone of GH, but it was worse than I ever imagined. Much credit to these guys for sticking with this hot pile of garbage for over a decade just to go full completionist on it but......count me out LOL.

[@OxMuDvAyNexO]

Seeing some of these names and screenshots of the scorehero forum was a serious nostalgia high, great video.

[@IKARUS-RG]

Loved this video!! Really informative and well put together. Such a perfect song name too haha

[@ace4evr]

Everything aside, the chart for Im Broken doesnt look all that bad. Actually, some of the stretches on the solo is very similar to playing it irl, so that's nice lol. Great video, buddy

[@lilyhat]

this is such a weirdly specific issue like if i hadn’t been suggested this video i never would’ve known about it lmaooo congrats to Nuno for doing it though! that’s some serious dedication holy smokes

[@CNSabata]

Love the video, and the tunes during explanation parts were great ! The only thing I'd love to have is a track list for these songs you used when you edited the video. Cause dude, I crave synthwave.

[@XxXAceGXxX]

RIP to Laser Cannon Death Sentence. Your X+ chart will have a special place in my heart for being the most broken.

[@LolWutMikehSM]

A) Different levels of info in memory later into songs. B) The animations behind the notes while you do a full run are probably inconsistent fucking your offset as the bad (likely unoptimized game) is probably lagging at different levels based on what animations are playing. Edit: Holy shit this game has 2 timing windows

[@QuantemDeconstructor]

people lost this FC due to either RNG or a global timer, whether intentional or not that's gotta feel like the worst thing ever on a rhythm game

[@BLooDExPLoSiVE]

I love this channel. More specifically I love that my boy Nuno is getting his recognition!

[@BroudbrunMusicMerge]

I said "oh no" out loud when you first mentioned Rock Revolution

[@zero28ism]

Just by looking at the thumbnail I already knew what chart it was lmao, I had forgotten about who uploaded a video FCing the solo

[@ambient2104]

“mom can we have guitar hero?” “we have guitar hero at home” guitar hero at home:

[@HalianTheProtogen]

I'll be honest, when you said “broken”, I was thinking “overpowered”, but I enjoyed this video. :D Also, I think Rock Revolution's drums look neat; they kinda remind me of DrumMania's. (Bring GFDM to the west pls)

[@Zetdridge]

I really like how this video is so similar to Wirtual video and i love it

[@CyphersBasement]

I and EVERYONE I KNEW when this game came out instantly panned it, and we started with the name of the game, while looking at the gameplay second. This was the easiest game to pan the quickest because it BEGGED us to do so.

[@officersoulknight6321]

Funny that the song is called “I’m broken”

[@thatonekid1078]

The dedication mans has put into fcing this song is insane

[@teh_supar_hackr]

The only instance I can think of where the same chart has two different variants of broken notes on two different platforms. It'd be interesting for you to do a video showing the history of the return of Rock Band with RB4, and Guitar Hero with Guitar Hero Live and how they both flopped when they returned (though to this day RB4 is still getting new DLC which is surprising, even having a 5th anniversary DLC pack for the 5th anniversary of RB4 being released).

[@reillocb]

Is the fc community analogous to the speed running community🤔🤔🤔? Cause this vid radiates speedrun documentary energy lol. No shade tho! I watch speedrunning content yet I don't speedrun so rhythm game content is a lot more personal and greatly appreciated~

[@Zapdatt]

Nuno managed to FC 5 minutes alone last week, so all songs have now been FC'd. Please go and give him support! (NunoVH)

[@daveraschke]

god this is my kind of deep cut hyperspecific video. hell yeah

[@BongOfDestiny]

Five Minutes Alone is somehow even worse

[@baileyapedaile8306]

We love Nuno, glad i pushed him to attempt this again, truly underrated fc I still remember waking up to his message about this happening and the feeling of absolute disbelief

[@NunoVH]

[@hibbart114]

Big Summoning Salt vibes in this video, I like it

[@axelsgf]

Love they named a broken song “I’m broken”

[@Imaproshaman7]

This was really cool!

[@mini_always_taken]

This man is the Summoning Salt of rhythm games.

[@kanetheboom]

"Until one day, this happened." *Wow classic ad* fitting

[@icebergcxc]

im convinced this game was held together with snot and duct tape

[@inujosha]

Loved the video and the song at the end was pretty sweet. I'd love to know what song that is.

[@Yoshimitsu4prez]

Lmfao the preb cameo when he was researching rock Revolution. The original bleep bloop charter fr

[@MrCatstache151]

“I’m broken” is such a fitting name

[@Verlisify]

The brokenness of this game and song broke me

[@superincredible]

haha yes

[@Takimeko]

You're broken

[@Shobas]

Assuming that this video only covers official charts made by the game developers themselves, I can see why community made Clone Hero charts aren't included. The song Chaosfonia 4 made by Mediograve along with various other artists is quite possibly the most broken chart I've ever seen. Broken parts can be found in a few different sections of the song, but the song's main solo, which is called Doppelganger, is split up into 21 subsections. In between each and every single one of those subsections are two things that make the chart super broken but not necessarily unFCable, depending on how you look at it. The first thing that can be found between the sections is oddly placed Solo Phrase starts and ends. I'm unsure of how exactly this was accomplished, but because of the way that the Solo Phrase starts and ends have been placed, the solo phrases in-game appear to count the percentage you're getting in a section WAY beyond 100%. IIRC, playing the section right before Offer's section together with Offer's section, the percentage counter counts in steps of 100% and goes up to above 10000% hit. The second thing that can be found between each solo section are invisible notes. The invisible notes are not notes that are so close to each other that they appear as one note. Instead, to my understanding they are notes that are beyond the standard GRYBO + open note span. These notes can only be hit using the game's inbuilt Bot feature (or maybe a custom made one like HelgaBot) and will count toward the total amount of notes hit in the sections but not toward the total amount of notes IN the section. In other words, using the bot will allow you to hit for example 150 notes in a section that only has 100 visible notes, and the percentage hit will ultimately go above 100%. I should also add that if you let the bot play up to the transition between two sections, slowing the song down to 5% allows for more invisible notes to be hit. I suspect that this is because the invisible notes are at the maximum note density for a given tempo, which would be 768th notes. The reason I said it isn't necessarily unFCable is because you can consider an FC of the song to include the invisible notes which of course would render the song completely unFCable without certain tool assistance of course. I have yet to check if you get stupid amounts of bonus solo points from these solos. I certainly would like to get to the bottom of how the "brokenness" of the chart actually works and why it works. The song can be found in CTP8 if anyone is interested in investigating the chart further.

[@sushimi943]

Etienne: “i know you aren’t subbed” me: how did he know?!

[@q_0191]

"until one day, this happened" Mr. Breast AD

[@dayzeed]

good stuff!

[@brawlplayer99]

Can someone explain the Next to you bug? I can't understand what he said was broken and I can't find the documentation online.

[@DE23]

Rock Revolution sounds like a DDR and Rock Band crossover.

[@relgukxilef]

Interesting video. Would be interesting to hear whether someone has tried to decompile the game and see what it's doing under the hood.

[@merudasu5688]

"Until one day.... This happened..." Casual AD: "Let me just slide in here now...."

16:40 this is the voice of a broken man

[@290coolkid]

thought this vid would mention dead end groove radar special lmfao

[@djoshawott2850]

Because just making a US GuitarFreaks game was too hard...

[@GrimmRetro]

definitely Have to respect the level of dedication to fc that song

[@megative-music]

Honestly it doesn't feel as bad and broken as Uh La La La's MANIAC chart but broken chart is broken nonetheless and FCing it is really a feat.

[@inquatic]

At first i thought the title was meant as a bonus level because they couldn’t get it to work

[@thecatking1856]

*I'm broken is the most broken... Let that sit in*

[@Kepler170]

"im broken" How fitting

[@orinami3310]

what did u censor at 14:03? the date and time? why?

[@meltyheart8]

true konmai quality charting

[@GuestExtreme]

So I watch everything in 2x speed and when the HalfTime version started playing I was like "Wait what?" haha. Great vid btw

[@therealkiwigamer]

Acai: Hello There.

[@mikestion4629]

Badass. Edit: Coming back to this 7 months later (happy new year) to say: Accurate song name.

[@Sgtcrazyeyes235]

One thing ive learned is that no FC is impossible, somebody will get it at one point

[@iexistasaconstruct]

It sounds like someone getting pissed on their keyboard whenever they end up spamming

[@GeneralNickles]

I KNEW it seemed like those quick strumming notes in green grass and high tides were impossible. Granted, I can't hit them on clone hero either, but still...

[@channelsquad1222]

Just curious, what are all the songs in guitar hero/rock band that have bugs or errors of any kind?

[@Geck0GC]

Imagine if he checked the recording and it froze.

[@primovictorian]

I remember FYE selling the bundle for $60... And a $50 rebate. Still didn't get it. I ended up getting the disc when I was in college, had my fun with it but yeah. Rock Band went back in real fast. And to be fair about Abraxis of Filth, it was released on RBN, not through Harmonix's DLC store. On RBN, unofficial charts can be submitted and released. I remember Nuclear Blast Records being super supportive of this and releasing a bunch of their stuff on there.

[@KeirnothVT]

It makes me wonder why KONAMI didn't just port Guitar Freaks to the West. They already had the formula down.

[@sombraafiada]

2:21 YO THIS IS LIT

[@gabby_5820]

Talk about a fricking coincidence

[@Bumbly_Vee]

Idk why but this makes me think about how they took out the opening bit for the guitar chart in 'Maps' on RB because it was apparently too hard to play.

[@alexchicharito141]

I know this is off topic but what’s the intro songs name

[@StompyRoA]

Yeah the name checks out.

[@Mahaveez]

They should've just given us Guitar Freaks.

[@thesaucypickle9866]

I'm not gonna lie when you started talking about offset theory I was expecting the panenkoek music to play

[@CalculatorGuides]

the name speaks for itself.

[@WeNeededThis]

Nuno the goat

[@justanotheraltaccount7821]

Why do I feel like the algorithm is going to hit this video like a truck soon?

[@georgezubat7225]

This video in a nutshell: *FURIOUS TAPPING*

[@strawbii_chy]

the absolute irony of that song name