Well, I started with the Mario Party minigame-type of things, if those even count. Mario Bandstand was fairly basic (1 button), but I was very young so that didn't really matter. Then was Fusion Frenzy, which had a 4-button rhythm minigame, but the rhythms were still fairly basic (no 8ths, 16ths, etc). I then learned about the rhythm genre's existence from my older brother playing DDR music on his PC, which led me to trying out DDR Disney Mix at a friend's birthday party (to get a feel for the gameplay), trying out Stepmania and FFR, and eventually buying DDR Ultramix 3 for Xbox.
After playing that game a ton, I eventually forgot about rhythm games until Guitar Hero became popular. I tried a demo of GH1 at Best Buy, but I've never had experience with a guitar before, and held the guitar upside down (not on lefty mode), and gave up half-way through the song I was playing. I then downloaded Frets on Fire after watching my older brother play it, and picked that up quite easily and quickly grew interested in it and other GH clones on PC. I then spent the next few years obsessing over Rock Band and Guitar Hero, completely ignoring other genres (with the exception of Halo 3 and Pokemon).
In 2008-2009 I started checking out a bunch of rhythm games, and I rather enjoyed DS games such as EBA/Ouendan, GH:OT (Guitar Hero on DS), and Rhythm Tengoku. Eventually, my DS lite decided to bite the dust, and I still had a strong craving for Ouendan gameplay, so I found osu! in 2009. The problem was, I had a crappy wireless mouse at the time, and I didn't know how to properly set up the mouse settings, not to mention my PC was several years old (and already low-end at the time of purchase) and couldn't handle it smoothly so I was having a difficult time getting into the game. I downloaded a few authentic maps from Ouendan 2, mainly at the highest difficulty I could play on DS. I remember failing Hyde - COUNTDOWN on Hard or Insane a couple of times before giving up and uninstalling the game. I then got a DSi XL and caught up on the DS games that I missed.
After that, I got an Android phone and a laptop to start that school year with. I continued with my Ouendan obsession by getting osu!droid, which didn't really run well on my phone. This is also around the time my friends started playing LoL, so I picked up a decent wired mouse so I could play with them. I was then hit by a sudden realization that I had a decent mouse and a decent computer, and this is when I started actually playing osu!.
(I also picked up a couple of games after this, but this'll also continue into the future, so I'll just end the post here)

My brother showed me stepmania. 8 years ago. I still recall the day when I managed to catch up and beat him at it like 1 year or 2 after we started. I then watched some videos on youtube to see some more stuff, and that's a bit how I ended up here.

How did I start rhythm gaming? Thank my brother Rebound/RIP.

It all started when me and my brother Rebound (now RIP) started out playing rhythm games since December 25th, 2005 while we were visiting New York with our parents. We received Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3 as our Christmas Present for the Xbox and started from there. Later on Fall (I believe around September/October 2006), Rebound caught a cold and was absent from school that day. However, during that day he was randomly in the computer and was Google (or Yahoo, I believe we used Yahoo at that time) searching for things. He eventually searched for an online DDR rhythm game and managed to end up at Flash Flash Revolution (FFR) website. He tried the game and got interested, so he eventually registered for an account as "youcannotstopme" at the time (He created "i love you" months later originally to disguise himself as a female player named "Kiki", but now he just use it as an official username as he eventually (around 2009 maybe?) revealed that he was a guy lol). He eventually told me about FFR and I got interested. However, I didn't registered for an account until a month later when I registered as "idrawanime" at the time. A few months later (still on 2006), RIP made a few friends on FFR (Rebirth0 being one of his main buddies). I believe it was rebirth0 who introduced him to Stepmaina 3.9 and he eventually introduced me to the game and I found the game more enjoyable, but it was harder to time the notes (since FFR has an legit timing window lol). We both eventually start stepping with simfiles on late 2006. I taught myself how to time and find offset (including BPM changes) on any song and just step without assistance, including learning how to use the editor itself as it was much more advanced than DDR Ultramix 3 editor (Yes I made dozens of custom difficulties at DDR before Stepmania).

Ever since the FFR tokens (and eventually Skill tokens) got implemented around Summer 2007 and more staff abusing their moderation powers for no reason, I started to dislike the FFR community and eventually quit FFR in 2008. In FFR, there is literally no such thing as mod abuse, as the FFR forum/IRC rules apply. Rebound kept playing FFR until it got shut down on 2009 (of course he played Stepmania on occasion). When FFR shutdown, me and Rebound moved to Keybeat Online forums (as "BeatofIke" this time and my brother as "Rebound") and settled from there while more than half the FFR community moved to other things (possibly osu! being one of them). Since that day, me and Rebound became very active and competitive at stepping simfiles and playing Stepmania respectively, including making vibrajacking and dump collection maga packs on 2009 and 2010. This is the time when Rebound really improved his skills, including being the first to AAA Disregard in 2010. It wasn't until late 2010, when FFR returned and we came back eventually (I never played FFR, I only visit the forums and that's it). Rebound ended up raping the FFR scores as it was now too easy for him. In January 2011, I registered for an another FFR account as "BeatofIke" since I do not remember my password lol (although I evetually asked an admin to recover my account and now have it back XD). Anyways, as months passed by we both got really bored in FFR and Stepmania on occasion and started trying other games such as Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (SWR) and eventully Undefined Natural Law (UNL), which both are touhou fighting games.

Losing hope in finding another rhythm game to play while playing touhou as a temporary game, I slowly begin to quit Stepmania as it was slowly "dying" at the time (of course today, FFR and Stepmania is back in it's feet) and move on to other things. Finally around August 2011, Rebound was talking out of boredom to one of his online buddies on AIM who happened to came along with another rhythm game called osu! and recommended him to try the game. Rebound didn't seem interested at first and got too lazy too download lol. He was eventually reminded again and he finally decided to try the game, but it was Catch the Beat lol. He played MP with his friend in Catch the Beat. He eventually tried osu! and preferred playing that mode better then Catch the Beat and bulid off from there. He eventually told me about it to give it a try (even though we both discovered osu! back in 2010 on a Youtube video, but the game looked retarded so we didn't bother playing it lol). Anyways, I gave the game a try and I thought it was alright (especially the osu! tutorial storyboard). The first thing I noticed on osu! is that it completely surpassed every aspect of what Stepmaina has to offer and I quickly grew interested in the game and started playing it. I ended up registering for an account a month later as "BeatofIke" at September 20, 2011. Rebound registered a moth before me. That's how me and RIP started playing osu!

I started Stepmania around 2010, and then quit for osu just about 5 months ago

BeatofIke wrote:

We received Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3 as our Christmas Present for the Xbox and started from there.

Oh damn. It's like everyone started with Ultramix 3. I also did, and a couple of my friends did too (and I wasn't even aware of this until I talked about DDR with them a few years later).

My rhythm gaming experience is pretty much like this:

2005-2013 Stepmania
2008-2009 Guitar Hero 3 and Frets on Fire
2012-2013 Osu!mania (never played the standard mode)

Haven't really gone out and discovered anymore rhythm games I fear.

Started playing DDR on the PS1 at around 2002 iirc, then moved on to the taiko machines in the arcade at around 2005.
Then from there I started playing taiko on my PSP, PS2, Nintendo Wii, etc.
Stopped for around 2 years until my addiction came back when I stumbled across Osu! in 2010 :3

Tried playing some other rhythm games such as jubeat, beatmania and DJMAX, but they are just too hard for me orz

Since my childhood years, someone introduced to me O2Jam PH and I started playing it.
After several days of O2Jam PH closed, I looked for an offline game to play like it. Obviously I found O2Mania.
The moment I got bored on playing it, I looked for another game that can give records and other stuffs but I didn't found any so I gave up.

This January 2013, I found osu! from a person at a facebook group who posted a screenshot of osu!
I asked that person what is the name of the program and I downloaded it.

Well that's my story including how I found osu!

My history with rhythm gaming is fairly short.
2008 - Started playing Guitar hero III, got up to the easier hard songs and then got GH4 for christmas.
2009 - I still played GH but not much, once a week at most.
2010 - Nothing.
2011 - Nothing.
2012 - Nothing.
2013 - Heard someone mention Osu! on a forum and downloaded it.

I tried downloading o2Jam a couple of months back but I couldn't get on it.

I had a knockoff DDR-dance mat - played that for most of my childhood.

This might not count, but I played the hell out of tap tap revenge (iOS game) from 2008.

After that, I discovered Stepmania sometime in 2011.

I just discovered osu! around 3 months ago - saw a friend playing mania. 7 keys looked pretty damn intimidating at first, but I managed to pick it up fast and now I'm improving (I still suck at all other modes lol)

I started out with DDR MAX 2 at 2004 i believe; Chuckie Cheese! Eventually I moved onto DDR Max 3 and a PS2 version of DDR. While trying to search for spreadsheets for DDR Max, i stumbled upon flash flash revolution and stepmania and i believe that was around 06. I played Stepmania for about a couple months and had to quit due to other games. Just barely 2 months ago i've found out about osu! through a friend, and noticed the mania game mode; hooked on it ever since!

I don't remember exactly when I started rhythm gaming, but I do know I played lots of DDR (with a ps2 controller XD) I also played a little Guitar Hero at arcades when I had the chance (though I sucked at it) And then I found osu! and I'm addicted! But I still suck at osu!mania mode xp

2008-2009 - GH3
2009-2012 - nothing
early 2013-now - Cytus(android game)
January 2013-now - Lunatic Rave 2 still couldn't even easy clear a Lv5 Normal ><
February 2013-now - osu!

I didn't play rhythm games until I saw a youtube vid of Space Channel 5 (Part2) in Oct 2012.
Since then I liked Rhythm games, like Rhythm hunter and My favorite, HarmoKnight, which was how I came to Osu!. (Osu is my favorite now!)
Somebody said that playing Ouendan and Osu! were not helpful in that game, so I went on Youtube, Searched Osu, 20 min later, I was playing.

I first played Dance Dance Revolution at an arcade in 2003, I think. It was a on a school trip, and we had pizza for lunch. My friends knew I liked video games, and they asked me to play it. They chose a relatively difficult song, and I was able to pass it easily. I didn't play rhythm games regularly until 2010, when I bought the last High School Musical 3 dance game at the store. I needed a mat if I was going to play a dancing, and it was the cheapest way to get one.

Anyway, since then I have played Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I discovered Osu! a few months ago because a member of a Square Enix forum I visit mentioned he had a friend with a Twitch channel dedicated to Osu!. Now I play osu!mania exclusively.

I think I played Singstar or something for a brief time period, then Guitar Hero, then osu.

I was never really 'seriously' into the genre until I saw the "Queen - Don't Stop Me Now" beatmap on Youtube.

Started Playing Rhythm Games Around 2011, That Game Was Called " Hatsune Miku Project Diva "

Then I Ended Up Playing The Project Diva 2nd And Extend

PaRappa the Rapper in 1st grade.

Too lazy to write the whole story, so I'll just put what I do here.

-Play DDR first, experienced alot notably with DDR SuperNova.
-Found about StepMania thanks to SMFreak (who don't play anymore). Spent playing from 2007-2013.
-Decided to play osu after one of my local friend talk about it. Spent up to 10 months playing this as up right now.

For o!mania, I had ability to play any keys if I want to, although I prefer playing 4K. I didn't like playing 7K unless I found some maps easy to do.

O2jam since 2007.
stopped for about six months last year then I found out about osu mania late December that made me go back to play O2jam again this year

o2jam since beginning

wooooooooow

My music game playing history is somewhat strange XD. Don't know anyone who shares the same way.

My first time of playing rhythm game devotes to Taiko no Tatsujin. When NDS emulator comes out, I found this game (I think it's Touch De Dokodon! 1 ) in a great number of RPG games. When i start to play this game, I was deeply attracted by it. But emulator has great problem which makes you really hard to press Great (良), and sound delays too.

Then it comes to the day when I got my first gaming console, PSP, as a present from my relative. I started to play Taiko crazily and when I have earned some expertise (I was able to FC Oni 8 star back to then), when I searched the Internet, I found DJMAX Portable 2 (Just released then). The Key-sounded games finally brings me into the rhythm game world where rhythm games first climbed up to first place in my preference list, overriding RPGs.

My Taiko ability didn't improve much in the past few years (I can't FC any 10 star; the only one TCC downgraded to 9), and I currently don't play Taiko a lot; However my mania experience grows rapidly in the last 5 years, making me possible to play a few of hardest songs in the game.

2009 Feb to May - o2jam and I was pretty bad.
Quit for little more than a year because I was 13 and I preferred going outside and play xD

Late 2010 to 2011 - stepmania (spread)

2011 August to now - stepmania (index 2 finger style)

2013 Feb - Found this thing called osu rofl.

2013 April - Started osu!mania. Kinda improved quick I guess.

2013 August - Started stepmania solo

Guitar Hero 3 on PS2. I remember waking up early in the mornings to "train" on it :p Eventually moved over to Rock Band 2 (on launch day) and bought RB1 equipment for my 360 and was pretty awesome at all instruments. I suck at RB3's Keyboard though, but mainly because I haven't tried it too often I guess.

Had some random instances of Frets on Fire thrown in there too and some Guitar Hero World Tour.

Then, at some point I heard of osu!

Throw in some random Taiko no Tatsujin also, but that didn't really last too long.

Rock Band in 2007.. Thanks to this game, I'm a drummer now.
I also played Stepmania a few times, I didnt like it (I still dont)
And then I discovered osu! in January 2013, I go on osu!mania.. aaaaand I will never stop this game.

Hey!

So... one of my friends somehow found out about a certain game called "EZ2ON" (Korean rhythm game, 4k-6k, later 8k was implemented) and told "our circle" about it.
No, not the new EZ2ON Reboot... it was ~end of 2008, the old EZ2ON by Uplay... yes, it has been a while. *wipes nostalgic tears* I'm surprised it has actually been this long, I still remember a lot of things. Great times~ *-*

Anyway I played it from ~dec/2008-mar/2009, stopped for personal reasons. I was bad and played 4k only for a long time, and I somehow eventually improved enough to achieve exr15 in Metagalactic. In the last month I tried to move on to 5k and 6k (8k was and still is impossible), which was fun, but then I had to stop playing.

Then, in ~nov/2009, I wanted to get addicted again. I was heartbroken to find out that ez2on had closed and, while I randomly tried some other similar games, I didn't ever get "the fever" again, so that hardly counts. :p

So, not much happened, fastforward to 27/jul/2013... it somehow got to my knowledge that osu had implemented osu!mania, so I immediately registered ^.^/ and then, while I played some 4k/6k in the very first days, I quickly decided to take the opportunity to stop being a scrub of the lowest levels and made the switch to 7k. Obviously the first days were terrible, but now I play mainly 7k and I have no regrets ^.^/ though I am still a scrub. :s

And... some days later, it also got to my knowledge that some company brought EZ2ON back as "EZ2ON Reboot"... AYAYAY so happy~ but then I found out the hard way that I was a few months too late, as now it's pretty much impossible for foreigners to register. Heartbroken again, but not as much :p as osu is pretty okay in fulfilling my rhythm game needs.

hey

i started out as playing DDR then play o2jam when it got famous but luckily still have the o2mania installed in my pc so basically still play them a lot just like how i am playing osu!mania most of the time then now also got back into ddr by training in stepmania and also a friend teaching me some tricks

Got ddr maxx 2 for Christmas then migrated to guitar hero. Found stepmania for when I got bored at work(which was all the time). A friend showed me osu in march last year but I didn't care for it. Then osumania released.

Played the original dance dance when my ps1 was working. Since then I dedicated myself to rhythm games. I now own project diva 1 through diva f, both ouendan games, both Elite beat agent games, and touhou rhythm carnival (quite unforgiving).

Going to add osu! to my collection.

It's more or less written in my profile page, but long story short :

- Discovered O2jam 6 or 7 years ago, I was something around 10 when I watched my cousin playing it. I almost immediately liked the game and started to play it myself a few days later, playing the o-so-famous V3 [LV.6] without stopping.
- After a moment, I stopped playing it, for no particular reason, and a few years later, when I wanted to try it, I found out that the game had been shut down.
- In 2011, I discovered O2mania, and an immense joy flowed through me as I played stuff I loved a few years back (The Festival of Ghosts 2, V3, Bach Alive and Electro Fantasy).
- Pause again, I stopped playing it a few months later.
- In 2013, some of my friends in Skype started to talk about a game called osu!. At first I thought it was some kind of stupid MMO as they were talking about level upping and stuff. I googled it and found out that it was in fact a rythm game and watched some osu!standard plays. One of my friend then "forced" me to try the game out. My first impressions were like : "Oh, that's a fun game." for the first few days. But then, as I accidentally clicked on the Mode tab while choosing my song, I saw the mania icon. I mentally shouted "OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOLMGOGLGOGIOJSFAIOUHJFUIJIKZ" and tried it out immediately, super-happy to play mania again. From this day on, mania has always been my main gamemode, and I have hardly played any other mode since then, and I decided to play this game seriously. Now I can't stop playing osu!, and I even donated for 4 months of osu!supporter (and also offered 4 months to Elementaires, who started playing osu!mania a few weeks later than me, but managed to get #1 FR long before me).

Aaaaand that's it

LR2 probably idk 5-6 years ago.

o2jam. Like i was still in 6th grade.

With DDR/Guitar hero, moving onto Stepmania, moving to osu!

SUPER CRAZY GUITAR MANIAC DELUXE 3!

ftw

This thread brings back memories for sure!

My earliest memory of rhythm gaming was going to Disney World and seeing these two guys playing DDR Disney Mix at Innoventions. I thought I would have been good at it because I play soccer and have fairly quick feet, but alas, we all know no one is good at DDR their first time. In the fall of 2005, I played DDR Extreme 2 with my friend on his PS2 a few times and it was a lot of fun. I started getting the hang of light songs and streams of quarter notes. That Christmas, my parents got me DDR Universe 3 (so surprised other people actually played this game!). I played a lot and started skillboosting a ton, so that by June of 2006 I was close to FCing Sakura on Heavy and I had passed Legend of Max on Heavy (incredibly challenging on a soft/foam pad!). During that time, I saw someone at school playing FFR, so I lurked there a bit until I made an account. I also downloaded Stepmania and got files from bemanistyle/FFR. These days were the good ol' days. Through the rest of 2006 I played more SM than FFR and I got pretty decent at index. However, I really wanted to play all of my files on a pad, so for Christmas my parents got me an 8 panel usb foam pad. Unfortunately, it was either broken or I was retarded (probably the latter) because I could not get this thing to work. That was the beginning of a long hiatus on rhythm games for me. FFR and bemanistyle lost their databases, and I lost interest.

In 2008 I started playing Guitar Hero 2 & 3 (2007 beat the entirety of Super Crazy Guitar Man 2) and I got decent at it. I could never beat TTFAF or Devil Went Down to Georgia, but I had a fun time playing it. Then in late 2008, I quit video games altogether.

I came back to vidya (not as intense) in mid 2010 after I graduated high school, but I didn't have much interest in playing so intently. The computer I played SM on was untouched for two years and this was around when FFR was offline. I would play FFR on the lightdarkness server on occasion to show my friends what it was all about, but I didn't come back until late 2012 when I found out it was back up! I started playing FFR a lot more, downloaded the Tachyon packs by MadMatt, and frequented the forums. I downloaded osu! on my iPod Touch randomly, and decided to look it up online. Sure enough I am here infrequently and I am enjoying it! Although, I'm so used to 4key that anything else is difficult.

I started with DDR Supernova on PS2. I was really good at it too

back in 2005 I was at a lan house playing CS 1.6 with my friends
3 hours later we decided to go home. We saw this guy playing o2jam and we decided to play it
played o2jam/o2mania until 2008 was having a great time... BUT all of a sudden the server died... it made me go =( because i was great at it but since all the servers were dying and no one was talking about it anymore, i finally decided to quit. yeah even though i worked my ass just to get good at it. thats why i always tell people.
Play for fun because one day you WILL stop playing and all that skill WILL be lost
days after i started to play pop n music.Ii also played a drum rhythm game but i cant remember the name, played a little bit of burst a fever since it was the same as o2jam but i decided to quit because i didnt want to accept the fact that i got bad at the game LOL ( yeah frustration )
played a liiiitle bit of stepmania, dance online and audition.
in december 2010 a friend of mine introduced osu! to me im still playing osu! standard.
Last year they introduced osu!mania. i'm playing it and NOW i am having fun with it ( even though i'm not as good as i was before...) because i learned my lesson.
it's not about getting good at it... it's all about having fun lol

TBH.. i never played any rhytm games before, because i'm really terrible at it . . .
so, u can say that the first rhythm game i've played is Osu!

Although after my brother has download this game, i just play it when boring ..
and then after a month i found Osu!Mania

i try to playing all the time because it's so fun
and now i'm trying to increase my rank . . .

i'm not really good in English, just tell me if there's any wrong grammar