Espyo

Hey, I'm Espyo from Pikipedia!

Visualization sandbox

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"Peck your	beak!"	Ⓐ Ⓐ	Ⓐ

"Stretch	out	your neck!"	Ⓐ==
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"Stretch				out				your		neck!"		Ⓐ	===
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GBA/DS scoring explanation sandbox

In Rhythm Tengoku and Rhythm Heaven, each Rhythm Game contains a fixed set of inputs that it expects from the player. What the player does for each input mid-game determines what is happening within the Rhythm Game, and also determines the player's final rank. A few different mechanics come into play to decide this.

Input outcome

For any given input, there can be one of three outcomes, depending on what the player does:

Hit

A Hit is when the player does whatever action the game expects at the right time, within an acceptable time frame. This can mean tapping a button/stylus down, releasing it, flicking the stylus, or sliding it. Essentially, this performs something good within the Rhythm Game.

As explained below, getting a sufficient amount of Hits is necessary in order to pass a Rhythm Game, as well as to get a Superb rank.

Early/Late

If the player attempts a regular Hit but is just too early or too late, that counts as an Early or Late input. The effect within the Rhythm Game depends, and can be indistinguishable from a Hit, indistinguishable from a Miss, a different outcome where something good happens, or a different outcome where something bad happens.

As explained below, an Early or a Late will not count as a Hit for the sake of passing or getting a Superb rank, but will also not count as a Miss for the sake of getting a Try Again rank.

Any Early or Late triggers a failure in a Perfect Campaign, with the exception of the following Rhythm Games (alongside their appearances in sequels and Remixes):

• Shoot-'Em-Up
• Frog Hop
• Lockstep

Miss

A Miss is when the player does not perform the input action at all. Naturally, in the Rhythm Game, something bad happens in this case. In some Rhythm Games, a Miss can also be registered if the player performs some input action in a time where they shouldn't. This is the case for example if the player claps when they shouldn't in Fan Club, though clapping at will becomes allowed during the ending where all of the monkeys cheer, where it's not registered as a Hit, an Early/Late, or a Miss.

In Rhythm Heaven, whenever there is a Miss, the player is given an "invulnerability period" where further misses will not be penalized. This period depends on the Rhythm Game and can be shortened or lengthened a bit at random. Only one "invulnerability period" can be active at a time, and if the player gets a Miss on an input of a different type, the previous "invulnerability" gets lost and the process takes place for the new one.

Also in Rhythm Heaven, some Rhythm Games start with a number of "grace" misses. If the player makes a Miss on certain types of inputs while they have "grace" misses left, their number decrease by one and the player's number of Hits, Early/Lates, or Misses is not changed in any way. The "invulnerability period" will still take effect after this.

In Rhythm Tengoku, these "grace" misses work the same except instead of the numbers not changing, the input is simply counted as an Early/Late.

As explained below, if the player misses too many times, they will get a Try Again rank.

Input availability

Mid-game, an input is normally available, but can become unavailable because of actions the player performed earlier. An example would be if the player lets the ball fall in Space Soccer: the next few inputs will not be available since the ball takes a while to return from the bottom of the screen. As explained below, unavailable inputs will not be counted when deciding the score.

Types of input

Every input is categorized into one of several different types, up to four (Rhythm Tengoku) or five (Rhythm Heaven) per Rhythm Game. What exactly a type means depends on the Rhythm Game, for example, regular inputs during Freeze Frame belong to "type A" whereas inputs when there are crowd distractions on-screen belong to "type B".

Each Rhythm Game contains data for how each of the input types behaves. Each input type contains the following properties:

• Ranking properties: These properties are important for calculating the ranking, and their values can either be a number or a percentage – in the case of the latter, it's a percentage of the inputs that were available in this attempt.
  • Superb requirement: Inputs that need to be Hits for a Superb rank. Early/Lates do not count.
  • Passable requirements: Inputs that need to be Hits in order for the player to pass. Early/Lates do not count.
  • Try Again requirements: Inputs Missed that will trigger a Try Again rank. Early/Lates do not count. This can also be undefined, in which case this requirement will not be accounted for.
• Other properties:
  • "Grace" allowed: Whether the player can use one of their "grace" misses on these inputs. This property only exists in Rhythm Heaven.
  • Superb message: If the player meets this type's Superb requirements, the rank screen will display this message, if any.
  • Try Again message: If the player meets this type's Try Again requirements, the rank screen will display this message, if any.

Ranking

At the end of each Rhythm Game, the game will check the number of inputs that were available in that attempt, the number of Hits and Misses performed by the player for each input type, and all of the requirements in that Rhythm Game's data, and use those to determine the final rank.

Superb

In order to get a Superb, all of the following need to be true:

• The player meets the requirements for an OK rank, as explained below.
• The player met all of the necessary input type Superb requirements.
• The player made zero misses (though they are allowed "grace" misses).

OK

In order to get an OK, all of the following needs to be true:

• The player met all of the input type passable requirements.
• The player has avoided all of the input type Try Again requirements.

If the player meets the requirements for a Superb, as explained above, they will instead get a Superb. If the player gets any positive "Superb"-based comment but failed to get a Superb rank, their OK rank will read "Just OK".

Try Again

If any of the following is true, the player will get a Try Again:

• The player failed on any of the input type passable requirements.
• The player met any of the input type Try Again requirements.

Perfect

A Perfect rank is only awarded during Perfect Campaigns. If the player gets any Miss, the Perfect Campaign is failed right there and then. The same happens with an Early/Late, although there are a few exceptions as explained above.

Notable Rhythm Games

Because of the aforementioned mechanics, some Rhythm Games have fairly extreme or bizarre logic for their ranking. The following are some of the most notable examples:

Rhythm Tengoku

• In Karate Man and all of its appearances in Remixes, hitting a boulder or bomb with the Flow Gauge lower than 3 will result in forced Early/Late input.
• In Power Calligraphy, the very last input or set of inputs has no bearing on whether the player passes or fails, but a Hit is mandatory for a Superb.
• In Marching Orders and Remix 2, the very last input or set of inputs has no bearing on whether the player passes or fails.
• Marching Orders, The☆Bon Odori, Polyrhythm, Toss Boys, The Snappy Trio, Bon Dance, Toss Boys 2, and Polyrhythm 2 will always be passed, even with Early/Late inputs, provided the player does not reach the input type Try Again requirements for misses, or inputs when they shouldn't.
• In Remix 2, during the Sick Beats segments, it's safe to ignore the virus altogether since doing so will not count the input at all, provided the segment changes before the virus travels through the bottom tube.
• In Remix 4, it's safe to ignore the Quiz Show segments altogether since doing so will not count the input at all.
• In Remix 6, it's safe to ignore the second inputs of either widget in the Polyrhythm segment since doing so will not count the input at all.
• All inputs of all Remixes belong to the exact same type. The player needs 80% Hits to get a Superb, 50% to pass, and can only miss 30% of the inputs at most, except Remix 6 where it's 2 Misses.

Rhythm Heaven

• In Built to Scale, Shoot-'em-up, and both their sequels, the very last input or set of inputs has no bearing on whether the player passes or fails, but a Hit is mandatory for a Superb. The same is true for Karate Man's first inputs.
• The last inputs of Rockers and its sequel, as well as the final segment of Blue Birds 2 have to be Hit for a Superb.
• Glee Club, Fan Club, Love Lizards, Crop Stomp, Love Lab, Frog Hop, Space Soccer, and all of their sequels will always be passed, even with Early/Late inputs, provided the player does not reach the input type Try Again requirements for misses, or inputs when they shouldn't.
• All inputs of all Remixes belong to the exact same type. The player needs 90% Hits to get a Superb, 70% to pass, and can only have 4 misses at most.
• In Glee Club, its sequel, and in its appearance in Remix 10, the player does not need to tap to close their yap on the very last input – whether the Chorus Kid keeps screaming or not is not accounted for.