10 Ways Guitar Hero FAILED 

Still waiting for Guitar Hero 8: Gods of Rock

Say what you will about cheat codes, but it will always be funny that the GH3 code for hyperspeed was OBOYOBOY (cause it’s fast)

Crazy how we went from 5 new games in a year, to 0 new games in 7 years :(

Concerning hyperspeed option: If you look back at old rythm games like DJMAX Emotional Sense, Stepmania, Flash Flash Revolution, they all had the option to change the scroll speed. Some people like it slow, some like it fast. It's like sensitivity in a FPS. It's NOT a cheat.

As someone who worked in the electronics section of your local Toys R Us in 2009, I can confirm that the market was oversaturated with the games, and the quality took a dip. If GH comes back, release one type of controller that has either bluetooth or USB connectivity and works on all consoles and PC, and re-release drums in one established format. Add a sixth button. Make hyperspeed an option. Pick good quality songs from across the gamut for all instruments and a singer. Let us customize the band, the highway, and the instruments. Don't rotate songs you can buy in and out, instead put them on sale or let people just buy as many songs or song packs as they want. Integrate score uploading across platforms, and allow people to make their own charts using a PC tool that can be sold separately. Would it let people bypass sold song packs? Maybe, but moderators could review and approve uploads. As for a finale song? For the comeback, I would /commission/ DragonForce to make a brand /new/ song, specifically for this game, since they are known for their connection to GH. The game would obviously have to be $90, or even $100 to start, or you can sell the instrument separately. But I want GH back.

Adding one extra note color really could be fun and mix things up just enough. Imagine all the new chord shapes you could play

Gotta say. Number one hit me pretty hard. I've always been a casual fan of these games. But my cousin is a diehard and as someone that "never really got it" but enjoyed playing them. When I saw GT live in stores and I saw only 3 lanes I thought right away it was an easier title.

#11: Bring back the characters! I know they did nothing to change up the gameplay before Warriors of Rock (which was awesome when they did that, I loved WoR), and the addition of custom characters somewhat did away with the need for them, but the unique designs and styles of those characters were a big part of what made GH so memorable. People love Johnny, Judy, Axle, and Pandora (regardless of how many times she drastically changed her costume) and I personally would love to see mah girl Echo return.

Band Hero was, for me (a drummer), the pinnacle of the rhythm game craze. Not only did it let me play my preferred instrument, the campaign mode was legitimately funny and entertaining, the song choices were great, and the drum kit felt pretty good (though the pedal kinda gets wonky now and again). Considering what Activision has shown itself to be, I don't think anyone's going to see any of their wishes come true.

I think the final song needs to be epic rather than complicated or difficult. "Flying Whales" isn't the most difficult song ever but it would KILL as an end credits song. But I do get the idea that TTFAF was basically a superboss & definitionally those are difficult. I think you'd have to partner with a band with the explicit intent of them writing something difficult. I imagine Polyphia could do good work in this regard.

I genuinely think most if not all of the problems with guitar hero stemmed from having a marketing exec in charge of direction instead of a music enthusiast, you can see it in the most basic of blunders like as you pointed out, literally just using the most popular dream theatre song for the finale instead of a more technically challenging dream theatre song. Or more obviously the inclusion of Tools 'Parabola' WITHOUT the intro 'Parabol'. Live and the cancelled 7 exist as perfect examples to show just how out of touch Activision was with all the things guitar hero means to the players.

Honestly would love a competitive mode on guitar hero that would massively motivate me to improve everything not just for specific songs to fc

You forgot the Guitar Hero 5/Band Hero lawsuit where Courtney Love and No Doubt sued Activision for letting people use Cobain and No Doubt in any song in the game as it violated something or other about performance rights. Also generally them calling Guitar Hero 5 'Guitar Hero 5' instead of Guitar Hero 4 since it confused a lot of people who thought World Tour was a spinoff and not a main game and made it even more apparent the oversaturation of the series

You may probably never read this but I can't thank you enough for your content. My grandmother was rushed to the hospital unexpectedly in 2017. My parents, my sister and I had to go out of the state to visit her in the hospital. Your Clone Hero videos have helped me so much throughout that hard period of time. They made me smile, they made me laugh, and they made me eagerly excited to see the next meme chart you'd play next. My grandmother made it through the hospital visits and passed away three years later. I'll always miss her, but I'll never forget what your videos have done to help me throughout that time period. I can't thank you enough, Jason!

Great video Jason, love your content Although I do have to disagree with you on the finale song argument in GH:WT. "Pull Me Under" was to me a great finale song since it was an epic closer, and as someone who had never heard of Dream Theater before, it opened a whole new can of worms for me to discover. Looking back, they could absolutely have taken a tougher or longer track (my personal choice would have been "Metropolis Pt. 1"), but the epic nature of the track makes it a satisfying end to a long journey in career mode.

Big ups to the GHTV group, I dread a future where everything is cloud hosted and games can't be preserved 😞

I remember a long time ago when people were making custom setlists for GH3, I came up with my dream setlist that I named Expert's Edition. Clone Hero let me create my dream setlist minus a track or two.

6 inline fret buttons is such an obvious choice, I would absolutely be excited to buy a new GH like that

for the next guitar hero, the final challenge should be all 3 parts of Pain Remains back to back to back, not just a test of skill, but of pure endurance as well

Final song for my guitar hero game is going to be The Violation by Fleshgod Apocalypse just to mess with everyone

This type of content is actually pretty good. Keep it up, mr. Paradise

I think something you didn't mention but feels relevant especially to the argument regarding saturation is GH, whether because they didn't have time from cranking out way too many titles or just because they didn't want to try and implement it, completely missed the boat on song exporting until WAY late in the series while Rock Band had it from the start. Not only did Activision put out 5 full priced full band GH games in 2009 + the guitar playable tracks in DJ Hero, most of them were not exportable to other major games in the series. GH5 and Band Hero were fully exportable by the end, and Metallica and World Tour got partial exports, but Smash Hits and Van Halen never got anything.

When I think of the oversaturation, I always look at what Harmonix did with Rock Band and how that model would have worked so much better for the GH series as well, as least for the first three titles. There were stand alone expansion games, some great (Beatles Rock Band is a dream come true for many, including the devs) but others were very odd (Green Day Rock Band? Really? lol). But the main games were based around that DLC model to expand your library, and a new game entirely was a complete revamp of the basic game. (RB3 with the pro models as an example). This model is definitely pricier overall but more customizable for your library and in turn a bit more user friendly than buying entire games separately.

Honestly, using hyperspeed for me actually helped improve my playing expert difficulty as the normal/default speed of the note track i found was too slow so once i had discovered it i found speed level 3 was a perfect speed lol, also regarding the ability to chart and play your own songs idea... *stares at Rocksmith+*

For an end credits song, I'd believe 7empest by Tool would be pretty interesting. In comparison to Through the Fire and Flames, it's much less complex when it comes to shredding and such, but it is a 15 minute long endurance run with some fun guitar parts. And if it expanded to a full band, each instrument is pretty up there in difficulty, especially when dealing with odd timing. This may also just be my bias towards tool

I wish they kept with guitar battles in career mode! Part of the reason I am able to go back to GH3 is that the guitar battles offer a ton of replayability! I also agree that I would love a guitar with 6 buttons and better charting tools. Maybe tab-based charting!

The dropped features part really makes me think of rock band 4 how they dropped pro support for guitar and bass and most importantly killed keyboard all together. Personally i would love to see them add it back in and make it so all 5 could play at once.

I think I have some good ideas for finale songs: The Odyssey by Symphony X, Mabool (the flood)/The Storm Still stages Inside by Orphaned Land, Astral Annihilation/Ripping Through Time by Unleash the Archers, Elysium by Stratovarius, Lost Children of the Universe by Star One, and My Inner War by Myrath. Yes, this is just a list of long songs by some of my favorite bands. But they are epic songs that are cool

Final songs don't have to be hard, they should be a big show off and this all out Ending rather than ultimate challenge, since the challenge is the thing you do after. You play TTFAF as your 'final' song but its no fail with no scoring, only after you play it in Quick play its the challenge. Pull Me Under is a great end song, and the challenge on is Satch Boogie, which sure no TTFAF still, but its a really kickass song to actually pull you fingers. GH5 they forgo it so sure there.

Regarding #2: I got into Dragonforce music before GH, and it blew me away that they had a song in GH3. As a birthday present, I wanted that game so bad as my first game, but it was sold out, and had no other choice than to get World Tour that day. I didn't just hope there was a DF song as the finale chart, I EXPECTED it. So much of their music is fast, complicated, and perfect for any final showdown for a rhythm game. Imagine my disappointment that a Dragonforce song was nowhere to be seen on my PS2 copy of World Tour, instead replaced by something not even close in difficulty. I still recall finishing the encore of Hot For Teacher, hearing the intro to Pull Me Under, and thinking "this song better pick up, or I'm going to fall asleep." Looking back, it kinda burns that DF didn't get a full album of theirs onto a single Guitar Hero game after GH3. I honestly think they deserve it not only for their notoriety of being such a difficult guitar chart to perfect, but also for their discography in general (during the late 2000s at least).

I really would like to see some Dualshock/controller options if a new official GH game launch. I know the guitar is the best option for players who want to be better (aka able to FC hard strumming songs or do better squeezing) but letting the Dualshock/controller available for gameplay would be really cool imo.

Love this content man. I love this saga so much. Keep it going plz! The most important things we need IMO: - Classic controler / maybe a 6th fret to make the old experimented players have a new challenge and promote for the new players - Old colorfull frets, with the circule form lol - ALL INSTRUMENTS: . Guitar, Bass, Drum, Mic. (If they want to add a new one, should be piano i guess?) - Songlist carefully chosen to make a good experience - Band's DLC. I always saw Aerosmith, Metallica and Van Halen as DLCs of their previous numbered game (GH3, GH4 and GH5) GH band theme game should be a DLC and not a new full game, it is not necesary. Also, there are a lot of bands, old and new metal/rock bands that deserve a lot of songs in GH. - big customisable band: members, outfits, names.. face? personalities? posibilities are big. . they can even let the player add skins for their guitar, or simply paint them as they want. put stickers, keychains, etc. (this go together with the Free Multiplayer ↓) - Unlockeable outfits only for playing the game. I don't care if they want to put skins for money, but the old "new skins by completing the game" NEED to be there. . BUT they can also make a free to play Multiplayer, with the store of the game running on real money, to buy skins for guitar, new guitars, droms, etc. outfits and more. - Easy way to put custom songs, like Clon Hero. I agree with adding a charter in the game itself too, but making them easy to use as Moonscraper. - foment, gddamn FOMENT the eSports part. Guitar Hero ruled the eSports in 2007/8 with the championships and they even didn't promote it at all! . a web or even ingame list of worldwide records would foment people to play the game more, to compete. - more gamplay customization, not only hyperspeed, all stuf to make gameplay harder or easier, or funnier. To end, and in resume, a good example of what fans want are Clone Hero and GH:World Tour Definitive Edition.

3:10 oh my gosh i just had a flashback of seeing all of the various available gh controllers in circuit city, like the blue fender or the pink heart one or yellow tele, and the black kramer. all available

I was today years old when I figured out that the colours with Slash behind them are in order of the Guitar Hero colour scheme: GRYBO, and again for 6-10.

For me, number 1 was the lack of cross compatibility of devices. USB guitars that only worked on one system, and/or only specific games, despite all the consoles using USB and all the games using the same buttons. USB dongles that only worked for one instrument in the set like the drums, and sometimes even only that specific drum set so if you lost the dongle you were SOL. And this all leading to tons of instruments, cluttering up households and game stores alike, making neither want anything to do with them.

About customs, there was Audition Mode and RBN on Rock Band.

Great video again, man! Makes me hold out some hope for a new entry in the Guitar Hero franchise one day soon, though I'm certainly not holding my breath...

I guess I am happy that I started playing on Clone Hero instead of Guitar Hero. In fact, I didn't even think about playing until I found you Jason. I want to thank you for introducing me to a game that I got to enjoy only because you liked to play it as well. I hope you continue to play Clone Hero so I can keep watching you when I have time. Rock on my friend.

Another fail: Music games ARE NOT streaming friendly(due to Twitch and RU-vid's Copyright ID systems).

0:48 A MEGALOVANIA chart detected in GHMix 2.0. 👀

you're absolutely right - i was around in the early days and i never heard about ANY of those features you mentioned.

Not only do you get Sudden Death, you get: Speeding, Black Widow of La Porte, Fury of the Storm, Settimg Fire to Sleeping Giants for some reason, Nemesis; If You Want Peace, Prepare for War; and Deadfall. A true victory lap. And to even get there you have to get the equivalent of at least 4 stars on This Day We Fight and Holy Wars with some help

Imagine the hand strain trying to stretch your index and pinky fingers to get a 1+6 chord?

One big issue was the removal of the standard controller support post WT. Not completely removed. just super hidden and only accessible through debug options. And it works like GH3 gamepad play style (Strum higher notes using low notes, star power deploy using the D-pad instead of the Select/Back button only and multiple axis whammy instead of only up). If it will release a new GH game with 5 fret style. It must have controller support.

Love these new kinds of vids from you, Jason!

With Rocksmith pushing real instruments and copyright music costs at an all time high, its just not profitable to build a plastic guitar that the target audience is kids. I would say the best bet is to make an "Indy company" with the GH/RB community, Build a guitar hero-esq inspired game with unsigned bands and non-mainstream music around the world...

I almost 100% agree with a lot of what you said. Here's some of my thoughts on your video (which was really nicely done btw!). The biggest change I'd make is the "Finale Song choice" should have gone MUCH lower than "Controller Quality". While I don't disagree they could have had better final tracks for some games, Pull Me Under felt right because the atmosphere it gave to the scene, on top of still being a solid song to play, made that moment memorable. It also opened the knowledge of Dream Theatre to me (as well as many others I feel) by having this song where it was. I still get goosebumps from how dope this song felt when I played it. I feel the credits song shouldn't be one that is challenging, but rewarding of what you accomplished to get there. This means it doesn't have to be difficult or a test of skill, but more so a moment to really drink up what you've done. Either way you look at it, it's just nice to have SOMETHING to do while the credits go by, whether it's a nice chill song or a test of endurance. With that said, it'd be quite hard to even get that far if the controllers don't properly work, and that's the most important part of ANY game. Being able to have control over what you do. I didn't have a lot of issues with my own gear, but it should be worth noting that if issues were arising in a frequent enough nature, then that alone can threaten a game's standing. The idea of 6 strum bars is definitely insane, and really excessive. I think just simply adding a 6th button and an easier way to activate star power (which I'd say falls into Controller Quality) is all that's necessary for an updated GH controller. The 3x2 fret board was absolutely atrocious, both to learn as a seasoned GH player and just how it was displayed in game. The colorful frets made the game feel vibrant and alive. Seeing so much grey and black and white felt like the game died and became a ghost. No soul, just a vessel. The removal of so many features wasn't just a bad decision that hurt the game. It KILLED it. I had GH Live for a whole week before returning it, and I usually don't return games (hell it took me months to return Bloodborne, and I didn't even get past the first boss in that game). The idea of monetization in a game like GH honestly and legitimately infuriates me. It's like they saw how hot mobile games were and tried to turn a nonMobile game into one in an attempt to make easy money (and failed miserably). That decision was ungodly bad, and the only reason I can think for such a dumb move was greed. Guitar Hero 2 was a huge part of my high school years, and I loved the series. These games, as well as Rock Band, introduced me to a wide variety of music I love now, and also gave me something to enjoy and get good with. It's so sad to see such a great concept and idea get destroyed by greed and incompetence.

I'm still thinking that, Pull me under, was used as a credit song just because the length. A lot of time to show the devs and etc. Same for King Crimsong song. Also, Satch Boogie was on WT as the definitive "final boss" song, but it was kinda short.

GHTunes was foundational to my early internet days! Made a bunch of friends on GameFAQs promoting each other songs - some still on my RU-vid channel (RIP all my songs I had to delete thanks to tiny song storage limits). As much nostalgia I have for that janky DAW, I have to admit Harmonix's answer in the form of RBN (which inadvertently enabled true custom songs on console without mods) was the far more successful user content model.

Great video as always! Loving the new video format

I remember when I got the full suite of instruments for World Tour when I was younger, including a guitar that had a separate set of flat sensors for the slide notes (which were new at the time). No buttons, just a flatter portion of the neck beyond the buttons that, from what the game told you, you were supposed to slide your fingers along to use. Needless to say, I hit probably 10% of the notes you were "supposed" to hit using it. I thought that maybe the sliding thing was a bit generous of a description and instead decided to go about pressing them more like the actual buttons like a touch screen, which didn't work either. From then on, I used just the buttons and had no problems with hit detection. I've always wondered how they'd let such a poorly put-together addition to the controller like that slide (pun intended), but at least it didn't dampen my memories of the game overall. It just felt like a weird way of complicating the simple design everyone was used to.

I feel like a mash-up of either lamb of god or sabaton songs could work well as either a finale or a challenge at a halfway point similar to wor with the mash-up of rush songs

Am liking the new video format 🙂 keep it up dude

I really liked the cover of The Devil Went Down to Georgia for the Guitar Battle vs Lou in GH as the final battle.

crushing it with the video essays

tem um ponto que você esqueceu que para mim teve o maior impacto: quando começaram a exigir a guitarra de plastico. até o Aerosmith podia usar os controles do próprio console

Imagine comfortably numb or Time - by Pink Floyd as the finale of world tour or gh3... At the same time, i cant comprehend the fact that there isnt any pf songs in any of the original gh games..

Long time fan of your usal content, but I'm definitely looking forward for more content like this. Have a great one! Greetings from México

Another Great Video! I hope to see more of those in the Future!

A problem that didn't help the oversaturation was that Rock Band was also being released at the same time with their own various spin-offs. There were so many game in the two series over the decade that it killed any want for any more games. The last GH game I got was 5, not because I was burnt out, but because the song list sucked IMO. Almost everything prior to 5's list were jammers, but I found 5's playlist weak. That combined with latency syncing issues on a CRT, which didn't have any in the prior games, led me to dropping the series. I still have all my PS3 GH games and a working (maybe, haven't touched it in over a decade) plastic guitar in the off-chance I feel like playing them. I just probably won't.

5:15 "Could You Imagine A Guitar Hero With Esports Functionality Baked In Nowadays", Wow That Aged Like Fine Wine

Honestly, I thought the perfect guitar hero guitar change was the world tour guitar with the solo bar at the bottom of the neck where you touch the the buttons instead of pressing them. It was a really awesome idea without changing functionality! I never played guitar hero live solely because I didn’t want to learn the new guitat

Some songs I think could be great finale songs, La Villa Strangiato by Rush, To Tame A Land by Iron Maiden, Cicatriz ESP by The Mars Volta, Starless by King Crimson and Blackwater Park by Opeth

The new features I *wish* an upcoming controller type would have are a palm mute button and either whammy control over sustains, or bendable frets. Talk to any actual guitarist that plays Guitar Hero, they will tell you they vibrate their finger on a fret when holding a sustain haha. Imagine how cool it would be to hit some palm mutes and finish it with a nasty bend on a djent song. Additionally, pinch and/or natural harmonics would be super cool, though those are pretty niche and add an extra note type for arguably little potential use.

That last one reminds me of the Pro controller for Rock Band 3. It had hundreds of buttons to simulate each and every single fret and all 6 strings on a guitar... Has anyone ever tried using it? Did it feel natural like an actual stringed guitar?

13:10 I have to HARD disagree with your hot take. Pull Me Under had a nice epic theme, and the post-credits final venue had even harder songs like Satch Boogie

They could make something similar to Rocksmith, and give you the option of using a controller or a REAL guitar or bass. The bass "controller" that I use is a flame maple 2002 Peavey Cirrus USA 5 string (as seen in my profile picture). Just a thought.

The final songs thing is true. But I give activision the benefit of the doubt because Pull me under was in fact the hardest song on World tour. But had it been charted better it probably wouldn’t have been. So the better thing to say would be, “Don’t pick a song that is supposed to be easy and make it harder than it should be. Chart the songs accurately so that everyone can have fun.”

Your Number 2 Fail is somewhat wrong - you forgot the Satch Boogie by Joe Satriani! This is the final song in GHWT (at least for Guitar campaign) and it felt like one - even though it was nowhere near as hard as TTFAF, it was pretty cool to pull off! But when it comes to GH5, I completely agree - King Crimson are awesome and I like the song, but not for the finale of the game. Other than that - awesome video as always man!

I only had one trophy left in GHTV before the took away the service where I had to use the power 500 times, I think, but I didn’t like to use the power so I played on Expert and had Difficulty Up selected because it would never show up. Now I just have a trophy sitting there unclaimable.

After credit songs need to be difficult but also epic and reflect the game. 21st century schizoid man was a fantastic choice! A good challenge on all instruments but vocals, fits with the more alternative setlist, and it taught young people an old gem. It's through this game that I know and love that song. Though as much as I love this song, It'd be a better fit to find something relatively unknown with these qualities. World Tour was a bit more pop-centric, focussing on famous evergreen artists. Pull me under is epic, but that's where it ends. If I could pick any song from any guitar hero game and put it as World Tour's ending, it'd be Play With Me - Extreme. This type of music isn't my forte so I don't know of any non-guitar hero song that would make a better fit but I'm sure they exist. Something with a much more challenging drum and bass.

Hi-Speed/Hyperspeed settings locked behind the codes isn't exactly something new, especially way back in the day. But considering pretty much all the rhythm games had some kind of selectable high speed without a code, why didn't GH? Even Guitarfreaks, which is the equivelant in Japan, had selectable Hi-Speed available from the get go at this point.

Going overboard with the real life cameos I think hurt it for me. Mainly the artists who had already passed away like Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. Just something about seeing video game Kurt Cobain sing other peoples songs somehow felt like everything Kurt would have been against. Its also the first time I felt my fandom was taken advantage of for a quick buck .

Heavy disaggre with the finale songs. Pull me under and 21st schizo REALLY fits both world tour and GH5 themes. I actually loved the finale to GH5 back when I played it.

"snapped drum foot pedals" *looks down at the snapped rock band 1 drum pedal my foot is resting on* yeah....

Perfect boss/finale song: Bury the Light by Casey Edwards

I feel like a AAA GH-style title to really not only work but also capture the “Magic” of it all would need a heavy amount of community outreach and support on behalf of the developer. The following around the guitar itself could be of massive use here. The things I see people doing in the prog metal, fusion, and various other experimental styles of playing are absolutely mind-bending and could be a very TTFAF-esque way of bringing some absolute finger-breakers in front of players, watchers, and listeners alike. I don’t know about you, but as both a musician and a GH fan, the amount of sweat that would come off my brow if someone like Tosin Abasi, Andy James, or Rusty Cookey popped up at the end of a game’s career mode would be IMMENSE, and I know a fair number of people who were already guitarists who would probably pick the game up if not to just give it a go and have that be a way to interact with and experience the songs. Or, hell, use the opportunity to dig deep into some shred history. I’m sure a chart for Altitudes by Jason Becker exists and I’m also sure that I’m terrified of it.

They should have done Octavarium or Change of Seasons for World Tour haha. People who don't know the song like 11 minutes in would be like "WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!?!?!?" haha

You pretty much summed up for me the reasons I think Warriors Of Rock is their best effort after GH3. Great songs for the time, the Megadeth boss battle, the entire after finale setlist of super hard songs ranging from shred to death metal, the whole storyline with the powerups and transformation of the characters

Still loving this longer-form, scripted content. Congrats on having found success on this endeavor!

Could you do a similar thing to the Rock Band series?

I think one of the best ways the company could monitize a new guitar hero game without turning it into a giant ad machine would be leaning into custom guitar controllers. 3D printing is much more accessible now and I can see people printing their own guitars. Obviously this would create potential quality issues but if there was an option for a "bare bones" which would be just the proprietary parts that should not change it would be wild to see what other people come up with. Venues, character customization, highway and button customization could be included as well

If Guitar Hero would return, I want a way to connect with the audience and share the music of the community. Many of us make music, it would be amazing to play each other tunes on some even monthly event rotation. Heck, in my band half of us are guitar hero fans.

Imagine playing The Glass Prison arpeggios section on GH5 🤯🤯

WHOA! Was that my video at 1:06 ? 😮👀

Sadly none of those websites have any guitars especially the katana mods one...

In regards to Point 3, I also think the decision to make every release after World Tour be full band games was a mistake. It's one thing to chart a list of songs for two instruments, but having to chart drums and vocals, which are wildly different experiences I'm sure, on top of the other two or potentially three if the song has lead and rhythm, adds a lot more time to development so what happens? Easy, boring songs get added to the set list, and that doesn't make for a fun play experience. Even World Tour, the first game to have full band, suffered from this a little bit. I think it would have been better to keep World Tour as its own subseries, keep the other games to just the string instruments, and only release one full band game maybe every 2 years to allow time for development and to give people something to look forward to while providing smaller scale, guitar-centered games in the interim.

I liked the live guitar though. It's just the black and white stuff that confuses people I think, because it isn't obviously visible, so just make the 2 rows of 3 buttons and make each button their own color.

Everything you said is absolutely correct but like you said earlier in the video, there was a lack of player-developer communication and i think that goes both ways. Just like we've been kept in the dark about essential information, they too weren't informed about the needs of the community, or rather didn't care to know. It's both infuriating and scary how that's becoming the norm in the gaming industry, profit margins is all they care about nowadays and i think i speak for all of us when i say that i'm running out of ideas to make them remove their head out of their ass that don't involve violence.

Final song for me would be the 3-UP charted version of Soulless 5

Really good video. One major fail I think wasn’t mentioned in the video was the shitty song export packages you got. GH actually let you export songs to later games in when they switch to full band, by which I mean less than have of the songs. Mainly GHWT and GHSH, though. They definitely got better as they went along, with GH5, GHM and especially BH, but they always paled compared to RB (which often got entire setlists, including RB3, a MAIN SERIES game, to export). Speaking of which, giving away the GHM export package, and, more infamously, the entire game GHVH, for free in promotions for buying the main series games (which makes no sense when they people most likely to buy these are GH fans who would have bought those anyway) was another pretty big fail, on their side if not so much for GH fans.

A good final boss song for a new GH could be Destiny by Galneryus, if you haven't heard it yet, then go right now pls, it's a GREAT song for a finale!

I think the best guitar hero ending song would be Technical Difficulties by Racer X, not cuz it's, like, an ultra hard song, but it's just a REALLY cool song

No okay, I would have been SO happy if I knew about the online portion of guitar hero. I started playing Guitar Hero III on the Wii back when It was released when I was only 2. Of course, I had the help of my older siblings, and I started only strumming, or only doing the frets on easy, and worked my way up to expert by 3rd grade, unfortunately, I stopped playing soon after cause I got stuck on the 8th setlist. I didn't pick it back up until 8th grade (I graduated this year), and had to start almost completely over on medium, and I still play weirdly since I started before I could properly hold the controller, I got back to expert in 10th grade and started playing clone hero early into 2022. If I would have known about the online capabilities when I was starting to get bored of the game, I'm 100% sure I wouldn't have stopped playing and would be a hell of a lot better than I am today, since I still often struggle with the 8th setlist and many songs on clone hero that is built like that. Oh and not to mention my absolute disappointment when Guitar Hero Live came out, since because of the 6 fret guitar designs and my weird playstyle from III, I was never able to make it out of easy since I legit cannot play the notes... I still don't understand why they changed the frets from something that had ALWAYS worked (design-wise, obviously they'd still mess up... I have to reset the neck of my guitar if I don't use it for like a week for the red to work...) and it's not like it was only guitar hero who originally used that design, since Rock Band did too.

Maybe not a end game finale, but Albuquerque by Weird Al would be a nifty encore.

Guitar Hero 8 God's of Rock should have TARKUS by Emmerson Lake and Palmer as its finale song. Either that or Karn Evil 9. Also Camino Royale somewhere in the quickplay.

Biggest fail was disregarding open notes until the later entries

Guitar hero and rhythm games as a whole are perfect vessels for a live service model. A single game that constantly gets new music, maps, and game modes is exactly what fans of the genre always wanted. Guitar hero was created too early to take advantage of the business model and had to resort to near monthly releases that all felt the same except new tracks. They had a chance with Guitar Hero Live now that systems were in place to keep it going, but burnout from the last several years destined it to fail.

I'd say one of the best finale songs that was never used is Panic Attack by Dream Theater

I would pick highway to oblivion, metropolis part 1, stream of consciousness, or like you said, the glass prison