Getting Started FAQ
Table of contents
This is an FAQ for the absolute beginners, playing level 1-5 charts.
Which side should I be playing on - 1P or 2P?
Pick whatever side you feel more comfortable with! Feel free to experiment.
Usually, the non-dominant hand is used to scratch, as you want your dominant hand to cover more of the buttons. This means most right-handed players prefer 1P side.
Once you pick a side though, stick with it. Learning to switch sides later on is very difficult.
What hi-speed setting should I be using?
Use whatever is the most comfortable for you. The default speed is way too slow for anyone. If you are new to the rhythm game genre, you might want to stick with lower speeds. If you are familiar with other vertical scrolling rhythm games, you’ll probably want to match what you are used to.
Eventually, you’ll want to switch over to floating hi-speed so that you can fine-tune the scroll speed, but for now, you can stick to the default hi-speed modifier which is BPM-independent. (This wasn’t always the case! In older versions, the default hi-speed option was always BPM dependent, which means you had to fiddle with speed modifier for every song)
How does difficulty work?
Charts in IIDX are rated from ☆1 (easiest) to ☆12 (hardest). That is really all you need to know.
A song can have multiple charts:
- Beginner
- Normal
- Hyper
- Another
- Leggendaria
Not all songs have five charts, most will have just three; Normal, Hyper, Another.
In general, for a given song, Normal is harder than Beginner, Hyper is harder than Normal, and so on. Although there are a few songs that break this rule but it’s not important.
Something to remember is that only the ☆ rating matters in terms of difficulty. Song XYZ Normal ☆4 is harder than Song ABC Hyper ☆3, because ☆4 > ☆3.
In some rhythm games, a Beginner ☆3 might be easier than a Normal ☆3 – it is not the case in IIDX.