Osu! Beginner Guide

[LunaRyu]

Hi everyone, My name is LunaRyu, and i'll be posting this Osu! beginner guide for people that want to start playing the game. So if you were wondering what osu! was, osu! gameplay is based on a variety of popular commercial rhythm games. While keeping some authentic elements, osu! adds huge customization via skins/beatmaps/storyboarding, online rankings, multiplayer and boasts a community with more then 500,000 players. Play the way you want to play, with your own music, and share your creations with others. Now i will give you a few tips for Osu!

STEP ONE: The Beginning
If you're new to osu! and have no idea where to start Step 1 is certainly the right direction!
Here you will learn general beat hitting, hitting to rhythm, hitting to vocals, and some minor mouse control.
To make it easier for your gameplay, use the Z and X keys to tap instead of clicking, if your not comfortable with those 2, feel free to go in controls and change them. Welcome to the World of Osu!
Your Rhythmical adventure begins here.

1) ORANGE RANGE - Ikenai Taiyou [Beginner] --This is a really good welcome map to your wonderful osu! journey! Click the circles when the shrinking circles overlap; those are called beats. The circles that extend are called sliders; they do the same thing except a ball comes out; keep your mouse button held and move the cursor over the ball in till it reaches the end! When a large circle appears on the screen hold down the mouse button and spin the cursor in circles, this is called a spinner and if you are fast enough you may pick up some bonus points! Also when none of the things I mentioned earlier appear and a painted circle or X appears don't do anything, it's a break you can rest.This song is good to learn the basic skills, if you find it too easy you can skip to #4.
2) Silvertide - Devil's Daughter [Easy] --This map is good for practicing spinners.
3) Steel Angels - Kiss Kara Hajimaru Miracle [Easy] -- This map is a really good foreshadow of what's to come. Try to click to a repeating beat.
4) Catherine Warwick - Pollyanna (I Belive In You) [Easy] -- This is where the real fun begins. Try to find patterns within the song to help you follow them.
5) Neon Genesis Evangelion - Cruel Angel's Thesis [Rei (Easy)] -- Really listen to the music in this map as it goes along. This is where the beats are really relevant to the song and you need to listen to the song to know when to hit them. This map also introduces double beats which are beats on top of each other. You'll know when you see them.] Also watch out for 1-2-3 combo's that go back and forth, they can be tricky. Also the notes are smaller now, but still pretty large compared to harder maps.
6) Jonathan Coulton - Code Monkey [Easy] -- This map is a really great display of how to follow the tempo of a song.
7) Nights: Journey of Dreams - Dreams Dreams (Will Version) [Easy] -- This map teaches you how to follow vocals in a song. Try and tap when they say words.
KOTOKO - agony [Easy] -- This song has a lot of sliders that repeat. If you haven't learned by now, when there is a bent arrow on the end of the slider that means to keep holding onto the ball the other way.
9) BrainCells, SnappleMan - Scrambled Eggman [Beginner]Mini-Boss alert! -- This map may seem a little tough, but if you can beat it that means your making some progress! If you have trouble go back to some earlier maps and brush up (also you could try and improve scores while your at it!)
BOSS) Hyadain - CRASH!! (Let's do it) [Easy]Boss alert! -- Now it's time to put what you learned to the test. Apply what you learned earlier as this map has a lot of just that!
BONUS CHALLENGE) Initial D - Running in the 90's [Easy] -- Here is another nice beginner challenge map, try it whenever you feel.
Step Two: The beat begins
Refresher) Arashi - Love So Sweet [Easy] - Use this map as a nice refresher for what was covered in the last step. Pretty Easy. Note that the heart-shaped slider starts going to the left. An arrow will pop up to help you know which way to start on that slider.
1) All American Rejects - Swing Swing [Easy] - Now you may want to start taking into consideration beat spacing. Beat spacing usually is a very helpful way of knowing when to hit a beat. If beats are closer together, you should try to hit them within a shorter amount of time. If beats are far away. allow a longer amount of time to hit them. Also allow spacing to help you identify patterns that may occur in different ways. Also note the little circles that connect each beat. They always follow to the beat right after it, so use this to identify the order in which to hit the beats.


Keep in mind these are very easy maps that you can play to try out and get the hang of.

2) Alestorm - Nancy The Tavern Wench [Teatotaller]
3) Hatsune Miku - Miku Miku ni shite ageru [Easy]
4) The Wingless - All the World in One Girl [Easy]
5) The Black Mages - Battle Theme (Final Fantasy VI) [Easy]
6) Michiru Yamane/Masahiko Kimura - Bloody Tears [Easy]
7) Animal Crossing - DJ KK [Easy]
Hatsune Miku - THIS IS SPARTAAA!!! [Easy] Mini-Boss Alert!
9) TAITO - Snow Melt Into Water (JET de GO!) [Easy]
BOSS) Puffy Ami Yumi - K2G [Easy] Boss Alert!!
BONUS CHALLENGE) Jakazid - Cillit Bang (Hardcore Mix) [Easy]

If you're ever having trouble figuring out how to hit some beats or how a combo is spaced look to the side of the screen on song select. There you will see scores that are either local or online. There is a button that looks either like a man or a chi-symbol at the top of the screen; it toggles local and online scores. Click on one of the scores to view the score page and click Watch Replay osu! will then begin replaying what that person did! Also when you finish a song, unless your computer has barely any space at all I recommend always saving your replay as they can deem useful to not only you, but others as well.
Also If you're ever having any problems, feel free to drop into chat (F8) and talk to us, we are a really nice community! (As long as you don't say something dumb)
Also check the forums if you didn't find what you were looking for in this guide. Hopefully whoever decides to play Osu!. I hope you have fun with your time playing the game. Good Luck!