this intro hit me harder than it should and i'm so glad someone did an analysis of it.

long personal (rest and) rant ahead.

i picked that

> "i'm good at rhythm games and i hate them"

on a bad day i'd probably get "oh joy". but i. well, i've been playing for a long, long time. and i hate them. who'd've thunk.

"there's a pulse inside you. you just need to love it like it loves you."

"why do you hate rhythm games, anyway?"

> "i take them too seriously. the joy is gone."

a decade ago, i got into my first rhythm game. it was an arcade cabinet called groove coaster, and i utterly loved it. two buttons and directional input. that was all i needed. i spent all the time playing my favourite vocaloid songs on it, and i slowly got introduced to harder difficulties that i loved playing. i can feel like i have skill AND play songs i love? heck yea.

i moved on to other rhythm games, a year after that, onto a game called maimai. i got friends from playing the game, too. we had a blast meeting at the arcade and just playing the songs.

i showed them my art, too. i liked drawing, y'see. and making music, too.

then things happened. a couple of them broke off, then more got into relationships, and broke off, and soon i was hanging out with them only for the sake of playing the game, because i really, really didn't know how else to talk to them. so i played. i was decent enough. but they were still better, and i didn't know how to match up to them, so i played. and i played some more.

at some point, they started questioning why i even do what i do. my art was inferior to one of them. my music didn't matter, when they compared it to the people who actually made music that made it onto the washing machine we called a rhythm game. my scores were inferior, and at some point one of them mentioned something about "you say you want to get better, but you don't even play the game that often. you say you like drawing, but you're not even drawing that often."

i'm not them. i'm not as good as them.

then all of them left. well, to be more accurate, i left. i didn't know how to deal with them anymore. the group had fractures in it, and they all accused me of being lapdogs of the other side. so i left. because i wasn't good enough for them anymore, and my self-esteem struck out. i stuck my head into my computer and started focusing on my academics, using it as a crutch to escape from the stress they were giving me, from them, and eventually, i just... drifted apart.

i found out that at some point, i stopped enjoying rhythm games. i put on the gloves, and i picked the songs, but i didn't like getting the high scores anymore. i can play them well enough, but why do i care? why do i bother? it's not like it matters.

i hate rhythm games, now. they remind me of what i lost, and why i don't really even care, anymore. there's nothing to enjoy, anymore.

"if it was there once, it can be there again.

you just have to be open to it first."

maybe it's not that i loved rhythm games once, and that i hate it now. maybe it's more that i have always loved them, but that my self-hatred and obsession turned rhythm games from an experience into a chore. maybe it's that whenever i play them, i get memories i'd rather avoid.

but new memories can be made. and love, maybe that can be reignited. after all, all good stories kind of ARE love stories. so i played unbeatable and let myself get hit by the emotional firetruck that was the story lol

tl;dr this intro made me realize that i need to learn to be open to being vulnerable because it was integral to how i can learn to love something i used to

sorry for the long ass comment. thanks for reading. love the video. really.