Expert 5* Breakdown (Defunct; last updated 8/09)

[jesse0986]

THE EXPERT 5* BREAKDOWN

Aerosmith lists are up. Let me know what you think!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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I. Introduction

1. What?
   
2. Why?
   
3. How?
   
4. Additional Info/Future Additions
   
5. How Can I Help?

II. Frequently Asked Questions

1. What's a 5* (Five-Star)?
   
2. So What's the Deal With Getting 5*s Then?
   
3. How Do You Determine a Song's 5* Difficulty?
   
4. Hey, Your Lists Say This Song is (Easy/Hard) But it's Not! What Gives?
   
5. Where Can I Go to Get Help on a Song?
   
6. Can We Get to the Breakdowns Already?

III. The Expert 5* Breakdowns

1. Guitar Hero
   
2. Guitar Hero II (inc. 360 exclusives)
   
3. Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s
   
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
   
5. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
   
6. MASTER LIST (GH1, GH2, GH80s, GH3, GHA)

IV. End

1. Credits
   
2. Final Words

V. History

1. Edit History

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I. Introduction

I.1. What?
This thread contains lists of songs in five-starring difficulty order, from easiest to hardest. This is by no means a definitive list - everybody is going to have different opinions on how these should be ranked. These lists should serve as general guidelines as players embark on their quest to five-star the songs in each game. This thread is NOT intended to actually help you with specific songs. Its sole purpose is to create a list, agreed upon by the general consensus, of the order of songs in terms of five-star difficulty across the five console games.

I.2. Why?
I have compiled these lists because it's not always obvious where to go next. Many players juggle different goals, such as five-starring a certain set of songs on Expert while trying to complete Hard. Additionally, the games hardly play out in difficulty just by going down the setlist - it is quite common for songs to be "out of place." These lists will attempt to roughly group songs of the same difficulty together, so that if you happen to five-star the 30th-easiest song in GH3, you can infer that you most likely have the skill to five-star the three or four songs immediately before or after that song.

I.3. How?
A few steps went into compiling these lists. First and foremost, to remove all personal bias, I went straight to the data - I looked at each individual song's score pages, found out the number of five-stars, divided that by the total number of score entries, and arrived at a percentage. I then ranked the songs based on percentage (higher % obviously means easier to five-star). Of course this is not exact science, as there are almost always anomalies within the data (certain songs receiving more attention than others, certain songs having one very challenging part that may offset the easiness of the rest of the song, people inputing low scores or cutoff scores, etc.).

At this point it's impossible to not interject personal bias, so after I arrived at the percentage rankings, I moved certain songs up or down on the lists to attempt to offset those anomalies. This is also how the Master list was created, since cross-comparing data over the five games is very difficult. The lists are then posted in this thread, where other players can discuss and debate them. Changes are made after a convincing opinion has been made to justify a song moving up or down. Again, the goal is not to be definitive, because that is impossible - the project should be a group of lists that generally reflect the order in which players achieve these five-stars.

I.4. Additional Info/Future Additions
The only lists I could reasonably compile myself are ones that consist of the Expert songs that have appeared in each console version of each game. This includes the 47 GH1 songs, the original 64 GH2 songs, the 30 GH80s songs, the 70 in-game GH3 songs, and the 41 GHA songs. I have since added the GH2 360 exclusives, but I currently do not have lists for the other difficulties (offers have been made for Hard), and I have decided at this point to not include DLC tracks, the GH1 hidden songs, GH: On Tour songs, or any song that may have appeared somewhere outside of the in-game setlist (such as songs on a demo disc, or GH1 DLC tracks for the 360). If you would like to help out in compiling any of the lists I currently do not have, or would like to help me integrate those songs not currently included into the Master Lists, leave me a comment in this thread, or send me a PM and we'll work something out!

At this point I have not decided what I will do with GH4. It'll depend largely on what changes (if any) the forums go through at release time. At the very minimum I imagine I'll put up a list for guitar, but we'll see. Any ideas, let me know.

Sooner or later I would like to break at least the Master list up into "tiers" that players can use to roughly gauge the songs they can five-star at their given skill level. One example would be a tier of songs that can be five-starred on Expert without even beating Hard; another example would be songs that could be five-starred after you've passed the first half of the Expert career setlist.

I.5. How Can I Help?
Fear not young Padawan, you too can help! Even if you don't have the time to put together giant lists of songs (which is an extremely tedious endeavor that I don't recommend anyone else trying unless they're really dedicated), there are still numerous things you can do to help make this an exceptional guide.

First and foremost, give me your opinions! Tell me which lists suck, which songs are overrated, where you would put certain songs, any of that stuff! The idea here is adaptability. We continually make changes until we reach something upon which a majority (not everyone obviously, but a majority) can agree.

Secondly, give me ideas on ways I could maybe break these lists up into neater, smaller piles. I outlined the tier idea in I.4., but if you have a different idea, I'd like to hear it.

Finally, and I'm just being nitpicky here - I'm an English major, and although I am very casual around the forums, using proper mechanics and spelling words correctly are a strong priority of mine. If you see any misspelled words, broken links, messed-up numbers, Freudian slips, or any of that stuff, let me know about em so I can fix them promptly. Overall opinions on the presentation of the guide are welcome as well.

Back to Table of Contents



II. Frequently Asked Questions

II.1. What's a 5* (Five-Star)?
Pretty simple! Surely you've seen those little stars on the newspaper screen after you've completed a song? Those stars will also show up (along with your score) on the setlist screen. Out of three-stars, four-stars, and five-stars, a five-star rating is the best you can receive on a song in any GH game. Five-stars are granted to scores that are over 2.8 times the base score of the song (3.0 in GH1). In GH2, GH80s, GH3, and GHA, you can see this multiplier on the More Stats screen. So for example, if you played a song in GH2 that had a base score of exactly 10,000 (base score is the cumulative total of points in a song assuming each note is under a 1x), you would need at least 28,000 points in order to obtain the five-star. (The same song would need 30,000 points if it were in GH1.)

II.2. So What's the Deal With Getting 5*s Then?
Five-star scores are a great way to gauge your overall progress. There is generally a huge difference between simply passing a song and getting five stars on it - passing may entail using SP to power through a part that gives you a lot of trouble, while five-starring may entail learning to survive through that one tricky part in order to conserve Star Power for a place you can hold a combo. A good goal to shoot for after you've beaten a game on a certain difficulty is to go back and five-star all of the songs on that difficulty.

Aside from just being a good way to measure your progress, obtaining five stars on a song may also force you to learn to hit and combo certain sections of songs. It's a learning experience as much as it is an accomplishment - you'll almost always need to use these techniques on a different song somewhere down the road, and as you begin your journey towards FCs, you're gonna have to learn this stuff anyway, so you might as well do it while just trying to five-star the damn things.

Generally speaking, you're going to progress down the Career setlist as you attempt to obtain more five-stars. Makes sense, as you start with the easiest songs while the hardest songs are usually at the bottom. This is definitely NOT absolute, though - that's why we have these breakdowns, because you'll undoubtedly (and in fact quite commonly) come across songs that have no business being where they're placed.

If you're materialistic, then I should also note that five-starring all of the Career songs in any given game grants you some fun rewards for all your hard work, most commonly a novelty guitar. Sometimes the satisfaction just isn't enough for you people.

II.3. How Do You Determine a Song's 5* Difficulty?
A number of factors can go into determining a song's 5* difficulty. Some songs have difficult, constantly repeating sequences that must be learned in order to have any measure of success; for example, Beast and the Harlot is (to my understanding) impossible to five-star without learning to at least competently strum the verses. Some other songs may simply have a section or two that grants you a billion points (especially with Star Power), making your quest for a five-star substantially easier. You'll usually find the most point-heavy sections to be made up of chords, which are worth more than single notes. Places like the chord solos in Cochise and Pride and Joy are examples of this. Of course there are also songs (such as What I Like About You) that contain virtually the same sequence throughout the entire song, so figuring out a Star Power path isn't very tricky.

Some five-stars are difficult because they force you to waste a Star Power activation in order to survive through a very difficult part of the song. Jordan and One are great examples of this, as both contain very deadly solos that you may not be able to pass without perhaps as much as a full bar of Star Power (remember, Star Power is your best friend when you're trying to five-star Expert songs). Some songs don't have truly deadly parts, but have long sections or solos that are very difficult to combo, which basically forces you to combo every part of the easier stuff with very little room for error (like Hangar 18 or Play With Me). Some songs can induce a lot of pain into your hands, rendering them as much a test of physical stamina as a test of skill (for example, Electric Eye or Freya). And some songs are just so fucking weird all over their charts that it just takes a solid cumulative effort on the entire song in order to get the five-star (Psychobilly Freakout or Texas Flood).

In still other cases, it's not necessarily the notechart itself that makes a five-star easy or difficult, but rather the amount of Star Power and perhaps the untimely placement of it throughout the song. As you may know, Star Power gives you those great 8x boosts, which will undoubtedly be your gateway to five-star scores, especially on more difficult songs. Some songs hand you bundles of SP that greatly aid your five-star quest. But other songs' charts lack a great deal of SP. Killer Queen, Laughtrack, and Story of My Life are well-known for having tons of SP (relative to the amount of notes in the song, anyway), while Rock You Like a Hurricane, Monkey Wrench, and Raining Blood are infamous for their scarce SP. (RYLAH is also notorious for featuring several of the most difficult phrases to obtain in any song to date, making SP doubly precious.)

II.4. Hey, Your Lists Say This Song is (Easy/Hard) But it's Not! What Gives?
Whoa whoa, easy there champ! Like I said before, this is rarely an exact science. Every now and then you'll pull a five-star out of your ass on a hard song long before you truly have the skill to do it consistently. Conversely, there will also be some relatively easy songs that you just simply "don't get." There's not really a whole lot you can do about these instances except practice those songs (or perhaps devise/revise your Star Power path to go through stuff you KNOW you can hit).

Sometimes getting a five-star entails learning one really really difficult aspect of an otherwise exceptionally easy song. Minus Celsius is by far the best example of this, as it has a combo-raping chord change that appears like a thousand times throughout the song. It would not surprise me if you hit every single note in that song except for those chords and still managed to wind up with only a four-star. Thing is though, you can usually get the hang of those really difficult parts fairly quickly (usually an hour of practice or less), at which point your score will absolutely skyrocket because you can already hit everything else in the song.

Also, it's definitely possible that a song is simply listed a little higher or lower than it really should be, and there hasn't been enough discussion in this thread to bring a change in its ranking yet. All of the changes I make to the lists will occur after there's been at least some semblance of discussion concerning those changes, and you're more than welcome to leave your thoughts on a specific song's ranking and get some discussion going about where it should be moved.

II.5. Where Can I Go to Get Help on a Song?
Sadly this breakdown is long enough that I simply don't really have the time to cover certain songs, much as I'd like to. However, there are still many many players who have provided guides for many songs, particularly the very challenging ones.

The first thing you should check is the Definitive List of Guides, which is conveniently stickied at the top of the TSG forum. TheThirdDay has put a great deal of effort into collecting the many guides players have written specifically for certain songs, and the list is updated regularly as more guides get written.

While there might not be a guide for every song out there, you should still be able to find threads and posts that cover songs in-depth. You're probably already familiar with the ScoreHero search function, but if that isn't yielding the results you want, you can also try EWiggen's ScoreHero search powered by Google. Both resources will help you find virtually anything you might need.

Also keep in mind that just because there hasn't been any discussion on a song, that doesn't mean there won't be. You could be an innovator! Fire up a new thread on a technique or a song that hasn't been covered in depth, or maybe try experimenting with your own techniques and posting about your technique and the results it yields. There's no wrong way to play the game, you know!

II.6. Can We Get to the Breakdowns Already?
Sure thing, just scroll down a little ways.

Back to Table of Contents



III. The Expert 5* Breakdowns

All lists begin with the easiest song and conclude with the most difficult.

III.1. Guitar Hero
Last updated 6/10/08

1. Hey
2. I Love Rock & Roll
3. Sail Your Ship By
4. Iron Man
5. Story of My Love
6. Infected
7. Even Rats
8. More Than a Feeling
9. Hey You
10. Stellar
11. Ziggy Stardust
12. Thunder Kiss 65
13. Behind the Mask
14. Smoke on the Water
15. Eureka, I've Found Love
16. You Got Another Thing Comin'
17. Unsung
18. Killer Queen
19. Callout
20. Sharp Dressed Man
21. Take it Off
22. Spanish Castle Magic
23. Heart Full of Black
24. Caveman Rejoice
25. Take Me Out
26. I Wanna Be Sedated
27. Fat Lip
28. All of This
29. Fire it Up
30. Symphony of Destruction
31. Godzilla
32. Higher Ground
33. Fly on the Wall
34. Cochise
35. Ace of Spades
36. Guitar Hero
37. Decontrol
38. Farewell Myth
39. Crossroads
40. No One Knows
41. Cheat on the Church
42. Get Ready 2 Rokk
43. Frankenstein
44. Bark at the Moon
45. The Breaking Wheel
46. Cowboys From Hell
47. Texas Flood

Back to Table of Contents


III.2. Guitar Hero II
Last updated 8/23/08
Songs in italics are 360 exclusives

1. Parasite
2. Heart-Shaped Box
3. Red Lottery
4. Radium Eyes
5. Possum Kingdom
6. Soy Bomb
7. Cherry Pie
8. Salvation
9. Surrender
10. Sweet Child o' Mine
11. Mr. Fix It
12. Yes We Can
13. Billion Dollar Babies
14. Message in a Bottle
15. Life Wasted
16. Can't You Hear Me Knockin'
17. John the Fisherman
18. Shout at the Devil
19. Them Bones
20. You Really Got Me
21. Elephant Bones
22. Mother
23. Hush
24. Last Child
25. Laughtrack
26. Carry on Wayward Son
27. Dead!
28. Girlfriend
29. War Pigs
30. X-Stream
31. Strutter
32. Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo
33. Search and Destroy
34. Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart
35. Monkey Wrench
36. Jessica
37. Trogdor
38. Drink Up
39. The New Black
40. Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight
41. Collide
42. Killing in the Name
43. Who Was in My Room Last Night?
44. Kicked to the Curb
45. Woman
46. Fall of Pangea
47. Madhouse
48. Raw Dog
49. One for the Road
50. Tattooed Love Boys
51. Arterial Black
52. Push Push (Lady Lightning)
53. Bad Reputation
54. Free Bird
55. Crazy on You
56. Stop
57. FTK
58. Laid to Rest
59. Freya
60. Beast and the Harlot
61. YYZ
62. Less Talk More Rokk
63. Thunderhorse
64. Gemini
65. Carry Me Home
66. The Light That Blinds
67. Rock This Town
68. Institutionalized
69. The Trooper
70. Hangar 18
71. Jordan
72. Psychobilly Freakout
73. Misirlou
74. Six

Back to Table of Contents


III.3. Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s
Last updated 4/18/08

1. We Got the Beat
2. Because, it's Midnite
3. The Warrior
4. 18 and Life
5. Shakin'
6. No One Like You
7. Balls to the Wall
8. (Band Your Head) Metal Health
9. Heat of the Moment
10. I Ran (So Far Away)
11. Lonely is the Night
12. Round and Round
13. I Wanna Rock
14. Holy Diver
15. Turning Japanese
16. Only a Lad
17. Synchronicity II
18. Bathroom Wall
19. Hold on Loosely
20. Wrathchild
21. Ain't Nothin But a Good Time
22. Police Truck
23. Los Angeles
24. Radar Love
25. What I Like About You
26. Ballroom Blitz
27. Electric Eye
28. Seventeen
29. Caught in a Mosh
30. Play With Me

Back to Table of Contents


III.4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Last updated 8/23/08

1. Sabotage
2. Closer
3. Metal Heavy Lady
4. Hit Me With Your Best Shot
5. Bulls on Parade
6. Radio Song
7. Generation Rock
8. When You Were Young
9. My Name is Jonas
10. Slow Ride
11. Mississippi Queen
12. Sunshine of Your Love
13. Paranoid
14. Story of My Life
15. Ruby
16. Can't Be Saved
17. Talk Dirty to Me
18. Helicopter
19. Avalancha
20. Reptilia
21. School's Out
22. Lay Down
23. Miss Murder
24. Anarchy in the U.K.
25. Rock You Like a Hurricane
26. Even Flow
27. La Grange
28. Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll
29. Rock and Roll All Nite
30. Kool Thing
31. She Bangs the Drums
32. Black Magic Woman
33. Go That Far
34. Prayer of the Refugee
35. Hier Kommt Alex
36. In Love
37. Cherub Rock
38. In the Belly of a Shark
39. Suck My Kiss
40. Paint it Black
41. Holiday in Cambodia
42. Barracuda
43. The Seeker
44. Don't Hold Back
45. Cult of Personality
46. Stricken
47. Black Sunshine
48. I'm in the Band
49. Down 'n Dirty
50. Welcome to the Jungle
51. The Metal
52. Impulse
53. Monsters
54. Pride and Joy
55. 3's & 7's
56. Minus Celsius
57. Same Old Song and Dance
58. My Curse
59. Knights of Cydonia
60. Mauvais Garcon
61. The Number of the Beast
62. One
63. Before I Forget
64. Cliffs of Dover
65. F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X.
66. Take This Life
67. Nothing for Me Here
68. Raining Blood
69. The Way it Ends
70. Through the Fire and Flames

Back to Table of Contents


III.5. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
Last updated 8/23/08

1. Dream On
2. She Sells Sanctuary
3. Dream Police
4. All the Young Dudes
5. Kings and Queens
6. Pandora's Box
7. Draw the Line
8. Complete Control
9. Uncle Salty
10. Make It
11. I Hate Myself for Loving You
12. No Surprize
13. Rag Doll
14. Sex Type Thing
15. Cat Scratch Fever
16. Pink
17. King of Rock
18. Nobody's Fault
19. Love in an Elevator
20. All Day and All of the Night
21. Livin' on the Edge
22. Personality Crisis
23. Movin' Out
24. Sweet Emotion
25. Mama Kin
26. Bright Light Fright
27. Always on the Run
28. Walk This Way (Run DMC)
29. Hard to Handle
30. Beyond Beautiful
31. Talk Talkin'
32. Shakin' My Cage
33. Let the Music Do the Talking
34. Walk This Way
35. Back in the Saddle
36. Toys in the Attic
37. Rats in the Cellar
38. Train Kept a Rollin'
39. Mercy
40. Combination
41. Joe Perry Guitar Battle

Back to Table of Contents


III.6. MASTER LIST (GH1, GH2, GH80s, GH3, GHA)
Last updated 8/23/08

LEGEND
Red = GH1
Green = GH2
Green Ital. = GH2 360 exclusives
Blue = GH80s
Orange = GH3
Violet = GHA


1. Dream On - can we say sightread FC?
2. Parasite - slow, doesn't jump around too much, lots of Star Power
3. Sabotage - chords are easy as pie to combo
4. Hey - if you're lucky you might just FC this on sightread
5. I Love Rock & Roll - only problem is that it might be TOO slow
6. She Sells Sanctuary - virtually nothing faster than eighth notes
7. Closer - great practice for chord changes
8. Dream Police - another possible sightread FC here
9. All the Young Dudes - lots of Star Power here to pick you up
10. Heart-Shaped Box - if you've spent any time on Hard before playing this, it'll be a breeze
11. We Got the Beat - by the time you get to anything even remotely tricky (the ending), you should have the five-star
12. Red Lottery - hardest thing about this song is getting through it without falling asleep
13. Because, it's Midnite - easy even with a full bar for the solo
14. Kings and Queens - "good luck ur rly g2 need it"
15. Metal Heavy Lady - verse riff is slightly strange
16. Hit Me With Your Best Shot - chord points make up for tricky fills and solo
17. Sail Your Ship By - the easiest Count Zero song in GH history
18. Radium Eyes - the hardest Count Zero song in GH history
19. Bulls on Parade - don't waste SP on the verses, save it for the chords!
20. The Warrior - another opportunity for a sightread FC
21. Possum Kingdom - patterns are weird at first but it's slow enough to get the hang of it fairly quickly
22. 18 and Life - slow and steady wins the race... or something
23. Radio Song - also a pretty easy FC
24. Soy Bomb - a good early test of strumming
25. Generation Rock - speed takes a little bit of adjusting but it's manageable
26. When You Were Young - holy easy chords batman
27. Iron Man - some scales and trills are made complicated because you have to strum them, but they're not that bad
28. Pandora's Box - nice and laid back, decent chord anchor practice
29. Shakin' - one easy chord part will assist greatly
30. Story of My Love - a good place to start working with odd time signatures
31. Cherry Pie - tons of SP, and it's piss-easy outside of that one solo
32. Draw the Line - do do do do do do do
33. No One Like You - if you can get 18 and Life this should be just as easy
34. Salvation - good chord transfer practice
35. Infected - also good chord transfer practice
36. Surrender - try practicing YBO in this song!
37. Complete Control - sort of fast
38. Even Rats - spring's nice in canada
39. Balls to the Wall - don't waste SP in the verses
40. Uncle Salty - the jump from green to YO/BO chords might be slightly daunting
41. My Name is Jonas - chords are slow and HO/POs aren't as menacing as they may first appear
42. Sweet Child o' Mine - way easier than it looks
43. Make It - easy "staircase" chord patterns to practice here
44. More Than a Feeling - star power up the ass in this one
45. (Bang Your Head) Metal Health - note density is lacking outside crazy parts, but it's mostly chords
46. Slow Ride - the trickiest part might actually be how drowned out the guitar track sounds
47. I Hate Myself for Loving You - easy
48. Mr. Fix It - chord jumps are a little tricky at first but nothing to fret over (get it? fret over? LOL)
49. Mississippi Queen - BOY I BEG YA PARDON
50. No Surprize - chord progressions are slightly tricky and worth a lot of points
51. Heat of the Moment - trip-chords used to give fits but they're pretty tame by today's standards
52. Yes We Can - some weird strumming patterns
53. Hey You - no, it's not pinky floyd
54. Rag Doll - the hardest part might be stopping yourself from singing along!
55. Sunshine of Your Love - goofy HO/POs usually claim a few combos
56. Stellar - nothing overly difficult whatsoever, an easy FC too
57. Billion Dollar Babies - most of it's kinda weird even if it is pretty basic
58. I Ran (So Far Away) - main riff is a little frantic but it's not all bad
59. Paranoid - chords aplenty
60. Story of My Life - no shortage of SP
61. Sex Type Thing - can mangle your fingers fairly easily
62. Message in a Bottle - will become much easier as you get more confident with strumming and fretting
63. Ruby - beware the stupidly difficult chord changes in here
64. Life Wasted - steady strumming here, good for chord jumping
65. Cat Scratch Fever - decent jump practice
66. Can't You Hear Me Knockin' - more than enough easy stuff to make up for the tricky chord changes
67. Lonely is the Night - great chord transfer practice here
68. John the Fisherman - well, uh... it's easier than bass, that's for sure
69. Pink - point-heavy choruses have some very strange progressions, but they're not too difficult
70. Round and Round - can afford a few mistakes even outside the solo, pretty easy
71. Can't Be Saved - you can almost follow the optimal path just by getting 2 SPs and activating every time
72. King of Rock - fun easy solos for the most part
73. Talk Dirty to Me - most places are cash cows for points, so be liberal with SP
74. Ziggy Stardust - this is also an easy 6* and 7*, at least for GH1
75. I Wanna Rock - tons of room for the five-star before the solos
76. Thunder Kiss 65 - forget about the solo here, just get the easy verse chords
77. Behind the Mask - up-and-down stuff is fairly tricky
78. Helicopter - easy even if you can't get the choppa
79. Avalancha - screaming "AVALANNNNNNNNCHE" in english doesn't quite have the same effect
80. Holy Diver - "HOLY DIVAAAAH" sounds just fine in english though
81. Smoke on the Water - pretty easy five-star, but a pretty challenging six-star
82. Nobody's Fault - be steady and controlled with your strums and utilize the HO/POs
83. Reptilia - kinda speedy
84. Turning Japanese - also kinda speedy
85. School's Out - not very speedy
86. Love in an Elevator - some tricky solo stuff, make your bones in the easy choruses
87. Shout at the Devil - fills break combos easily if you're not good with them
88. Eureka, I've Found Love - what classics are you studying exactly?
89. Them Bones - the chord holds here give you some good practice in hanging on as long as possible for ticks
90. Lay Down - careful with your activations, it's fairly easy to break combo going from strums to HO/POs
91. You Really Got Me - enough SP to make up for possible misses in outro, solo, and verse 2 fills
92. Elephant Bones - surf riff can be tricky if you're not good at recognizing note divisions
93. You've Got Another Thing Comin' - tons of easy stuff before and after the solo
94. Miss Murder - pretty rough with downstrumming
95. All Day and All of the Night - ooh, random chord duplets are tricky
96. Only a Lad - a few chord-heavy sections will assist you greatly
97. Unsung - chord city
98. Killer Queen - this chart is fucking weird
99. Mother - can be tricky if you can't finger the chords well
100. Livin' on the Edge - best points come on the tricky chord jumps, so practice them
101. Anarchy in the U.K. - sliding with 14 to hit GB-RO progressions is kinda weird
102. Hush - verses keep you on your toes
103. Last Child - nice and laid back after some intense songs in PS2 tier 5
104. Laughtrack - ridiculous amounts of SP
105. Callout - follow the optimal path and this is easy
106. Carry on Wayward Son - main riff and chorus should get you by, but practice some of the solos for insurance points
107. Dead! - yeah, the GBO chords can be nasty
108. Rock You Like a Hurricane - easy chords but SP is limited and hard to get
109. Personality Crisis - easy patterns, just a bit tricky due to the speed
110. Sharp Dressed Man - without HO/POs, the quick strumming can be dangerous
111. Even Flow - ghost HO/POs make this one tougher than it should be
112. Girlfriend - chords are easy enough, but the boston hooks and other fills can eat your combo up
113. War Pigs - it's easy to hoard SP because it's long and the note density isn't great, but don't be too conservative
114. Synchronicity II - once you've got some decent stamina, you can probably break a 900+ NS easily
115. La Grange - you can get half the points for a five-star before you do any soloing
116. X-Stream - 1) get SP 2) use on triple-chords 3) ???? 4) profit!
117. Take it Off - brett anderson is hot as hell
118. Strutter - features those notorious strange verse patterns that are staples of KISS songs
119. Bathroom Wall - GH needs moar surfer riffs
120. Movin' Out - HO/PO riff can be extremely tiring
121. Spanish Castle Magic - first 300 notes are pretty tame, good chance to rack up points before the tough solos
122. Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo - tough to sightread, but the 5* should come when you're familiar with it
123. Hold on Loosely - trickier than it looks
124. Search and Destroy - make your activations count, not a ton of SP here...
125. Sweet Emotion - recurring riffs are sufficient enough, just don't fail in the solo
126. Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart - tricky if you don't have the stamina to downstrum or the rhythm to alt-strum
127. Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll - no tips here, just wanna point out that this song and chart rule
128. Monkey Wrench - needs moar SP
129. Rock and Roll All Nite - lots of similarities to Strutter, tough solo gives it a bump though
130. Heart Full of Black - fretting and strumming is a little weird
131. Jessica - way easier than its tier 6 placement suggests
132. Caveman Rejoice - work out the RB-GY-RB switch and this one's pretty easy
133. Mama Kin - some really fucking weird chord sequences
134. Trogdor - chord switches are tricky at first
135. Kool Thing - not much in this song, but alt-strums can be tricky
136. Wrathchild - very low cutoff and tons of SP, much easier than you'd expect
137. She Bangs the Drums - little hiccup sequences keep you on your toes
138. Bright Light Fright - another tricky one due to hiccup riffs
139. Always on the Run - repeating riff actually gets MORE confusing the more you play it
140. Black Magic Woman - follow the optimal path, not too bad
141. Drink Up - lots of moving around here
142. Go That Far - the riff can be VERY nasty, work at getting consistent at everything else
143. Walk This Way (Run DMC) - definitely good practice for the harder original version
144. Prayer of the Refugee - seriously, it's not that hard
145. Take Me Out - very strange strumming patterns
146. The New Black - main riff is goofy
147. Hard to Handle - i'd think after 20 years i would have some idea what the hell the lyrics are... still no luck >_>
148. Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight - only places to rack up points are fairly tricky to hit
149. I Wanna Be Sedated - definitely the toughest test of stamina seen on the first tier to date
150. Fat Lip - can be downstrummed but it's tolling
151. Beyond Beautiful - lots of jumping around, and a potentially deadly solo make this trickier than it seems
152. Collide - chord jumps in verses are a little daunting at first
153. Killing in the Name - two words: noise build
154. Hier Kommt Alex - chugging stuff is a haven for points, but also pretty tricky to hit
155. Talk Talkin' - small little combo breakers are amplified by the tricky fretboard
156. Shakin' My Cage - love ya joe, but stick to geetar plz
157. In Love - very little rhythm to much of the strumming
158. Ain't Nothin But a Good Time - LOL ain't
159. Who Was in My Room Last Night? - HO/PO bug is a bitch in this song
160. Let the Music Do the Talking - random strums disrupt any real flow to this song
161. Police Truck - easy for final tier, but still a little hectic
162. Kicked to the Curb - probably the easiest "easy riffs WTF solos" song in GH
163. Cherub Rock - SP usage is fairly obvious here
164. In the Belly of a Shark - blast those trip-chords at the end with SP for teh mega pointz
165. All of This - that's one hell of a solo
166. Fire it Up - sufficient amount of room outside of solos for this and All of This
167. Suck My Kiss - super tricky hook that stretches the whole fretboard
168. Paint it Black - surprisingly taxing with downstrumming
169. Walk This Way - main riff is much nastier here, and it'll make or break the five-star, so get to practicin
170. Los Angeles - breaking combo is very costly since it's almost all chords
171. Holiday in Cambodia - requires a fair amount of stamina, but the chart's pretty basic
172. Barracuda - yay gallops
173. Woman - pretty relentless for first tier, not a whole lot of free points
174. The Seeker - some very awkward note sequences, chord changes, and alt-strumming to be found here
175. Don't Hold Back - some fun chord changes and stretches to be found here
176. Radar Love - lots of little things here to trip players up
177. Back in the Saddle - works out the pinky real good-like
178. Cult of Personality - if you don't hoard, you could easily get this the first time you pass it
179. Symphony of Destruction - very little breathing room outside solo
180. Fall of Pangea - Hard and Expert charts are pretty similar, so try Hard is Expert is giving you trouble
181. Madhouse - not very tricky at all, hardest part is just the stamina to keep up with the strumming
182. Stricken - tons of chords but they're pretty easy
183. Godzilla - tons of easy stuff to offset the small amount of very tricky stuff
184. Toys in the Attic - dependant almost entirely on your ability to combo the chords after the HO/PO riff
185. Raw Dog - pretty frantic pace and the song can work you up, easy to slip if you get excited
186. Higher Ground - pure stamina test
187. One for the Road - this one's a bit of an armbuster
188. Black Sunshine - I don't think it's all hard but a lot of people struggle with it
189. Fly on the Wall - harder than it appears at first glance, chord changes are VERY weird
190. Cochise - it's possible to five-star this without comboing any of the chord solo... just ask me >_>
191. I'm in the Band - triplet sequences are annoying as hell; this one's tricky to sightread
192. Down 'n Dirty - easy as hell if you blast the long streams of YB chords with SP
193. Tattooed Love Boys - point-heavy choruses and solo are very difficult to master
194. Arterial Black - can be rather tricky if you need SP to survive the solo
195. Push Push (Lady Lightning) - just be mindful not to waste SP in dead spots
196. Ace of Spades - good practice for bursts
197. Welcome to the Jungle - gets much much easier the more familiar you get with the chart
198. Guitar Hero - wild solo, not much room for error outside of it
199. Bad Reputation - such a tough jump from hard to expert
200. Rats in the Cellar - nasty main riff that's tricky to both alt-strum and downstrum
201. The Metal - wears out the fingers like crazy
202. Impulse - lots of mid-to-high difficulty stuff going on here, a great warmup song
203. What I Like About You - tip: use only your three strong fingers!
204. Monsters - speedy chorus chords, but easy once you get em down
205. Free Bird - shoot for at least 120K entering the solo
206. Pride and Joy - practice the chord solo at the end, that alone could push you to a five-star
207. Train Kept a Rollin' - can't go wrong with activating in the verses
208. Crazy on You - verses of doom
209. Decontrol - also a very tough six-star
210. 3's & 7's - remember kids: chika-chika BOOM BOOM chika-BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM chika-BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
211. Farewell Myth - requires very quick, very precise strumming and fretting; trickier than it looks
212. Minus Celsius - this one is a total wild card for virtually everyone
213. Stop - stream of chords in the solo will get you a million points
214. FTK - requires strong stamina and the ability to adjust to wild tempo changes
215. Same Old Song and Dance - lots of little things to screw up here
216. Laid to Rest - it's not too fast but it keeps your fingers moving at all times
217. Crossroads - chords offer easy points but it's very difficult holding a combo anywhere in the solos
218. No One Knows - swing stuff is rather tricky
219. Ballroom Blitz - where the hell do you use SP in this?
220. Mercy - Gemini lite right here
221. My Curse - requires great stamina and focus, a mental test as much as a physical one
222. Freya - similar to My Curse but with more chords
223. Knights of Cydonia - don't be fooled by the metal background's low note density, there are lots of points there
224. Beast and the Harlot - cake with verse practice
225. YYZ - thank goodness for the 20,000 free points at the start
226. Cheat on the Church - crazy chord jumps and wild solos, difficult to tame this beast
227. Mauvais Garcon - pattern is very goofy and fast but fairly easy once you figure it out
228. Less Talk More Rokk - extremely difficult without practice on ascending scales
229. Thunderhorse - make your bones in the verses
230. Gemini - there is some REALLY nasty stuff going on here
231. Electric Eye - i try to avoid my pinky as much as i can on the chord stuff, see if that helps
232. Combination - the outro is super-nasty and very costly; don't depend on it for points, look elsewhere
233. The Number of the Beast - cake after you learn the riff
234. One - darkness riff does wonders
235. Get Ready 2 Rokk - fills break combos with ease
236. Before I Forget - try watching your hands!
237. Carry Me Home - believe me, it's possible to five-star this without hitting the chord switch
238. Seventeen - one hell of a chorus riff
239. Joe Perry Guitar Battle - try to remember the order of the sequences and work on stringing them together
240. Frankenstein - not too bad if you learn how to manage the insane amount of SP
241. The Light That Blinds - not too bad if you can navigate the bridges and hit the chords
242. Cliffs of Dover - requires a pretty strong consistent effort
243. Rock This Town - obnoxiously difficult swing style strumming
244. F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X. - i don't suggest you seriously attempt this until you have some real strumming stamina
245. Bark at the Moon - tons of soloing leaves very little room for error in verses
246. Institutionalized - SP in choruses is obvious, but be liberal and sneak some activations into verses 1 and 2
247. The Trooper - everything here is at breakneck pace
248. Hangar 18 - BIGGER RIFF
249. Caught in a Mosh - relentless verses
250. The Breaking Wheel - tempo changes will screw you over
251. Take This Life - verse chords provide sufficient points
252. Jordan - the big problem here is simply being able to pass the song
253. Psychobilly Freakout - make anything that repeats your first priority, and then work on other stuff
254. Nothing for Me Here - the most deceptively difficult song ever put into a GH game
255. Play With Me - no room for error outside the crazy stuff
256. Misirlou - imperative that you get the outro trip-chords under SP
257. Raining Blood - throws everything at you but the kitchen sink... and then throws the kitchen sink
258. The Way it Ends - well, at least everyone will envy your masturbation skills...
259. Six - incredibly painful and unforgiving; all you can do is chip away
260. Cowboys From Hell - this remains the ultimate alt-strumming/fretting test in GH history
261. Texas Flood - just when you think it might be your run you screw up something you always hit
262. Through the Fire and Flames- ORLY?

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IV. End

IV.1. Credits
CorpusCollosum - for providing rankings for the GH2 exclusive songs.
zsjostrom35 - for taking the time to correct the Quicklinks.

Many thanks to the Scorehero community at large, for always being so supportive while at the same time being so relentlessly competitive.

IV.2. Final Words
I wish I was better with final words. Just know that I got a lot of eyesores from typing all of this out while staring into Notepad's white background. If nothing else I hope whatever I put into them is what you get out of them.

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V. History

V.1. Edit History
Note: most edits are minor and are done to increase the quality of the guide (i.e. fixing spelling errors or bad punctuation, expanding or clarifying a comment that wasn't clear, etc.). All major updates (added subsections, updated lists and breakdowns, etc.) will be included in this section and will be listed on the day they occur.
8/23/08 Added GHA's standalone list and its inclusion into the Master list. Added Final Words. Edits to Introduction, FAQs, Credits, GH2, GH3, Master lists.
7/5/08 Quicklinks fixed, many thanks to zsjostrom35 for providing the corrected code.
6/10/08 Edits to GH1, GH3, Master lists.
5/25/08 Edits to GH1, Master lists.
5/21/08 Edits to GH1, Master lists.
4/22/08 Added GH2 exclusives to GH2, Master lists. Added legend to Master list.
4/18/08 Edits to GH2, GH80s, GH3, Master lists.
4/17/08 Table of contents added. Introduction, FAQs, breakdowns, epilogue, history sections added. What, Why, How, FAQs, GH1, GH2, GH80s, GH3, Credits, Edit History subsections added.
4/16/08 Thread created.

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_________________

Signatures are overrated. Like pants.

[jesse0986]

THE EXPERT 5* BREAKDOWN

Aerosmith lists are up. Let me know what you think!

=================================
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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I. Introduction

1. What?
   
2. Why?
   
3. How?
   
4. Additional Info/Future Additions
   
5. How Can I Help?

II. Frequently Asked Questions

1. What's a 5* (Five-Star)?
   
2. So What's the Deal With Getting 5*s Then?
   
3. How Do You Determine a Song's 5* Difficulty?
   
4. Hey, Your Lists Say This Song is (Easy/Hard) But it's Not! What Gives?
   
5. Where Can I Go to Get Help on a Song?
   
6. Can We Get to the Breakdowns Already?

III. The Expert 5* Breakdowns

1. Guitar Hero
   
2. Guitar Hero II (inc. 360 exclusives)
   
3. Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s
   
4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
   
5. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
   
6. MASTER LIST (GH1, GH2, GH80s, GH3, GHA)

IV. End

1. Credits
   
2. Final Words

V. History

1. Edit History

=================================

I. Introduction

I.1. What?
This thread contains lists of songs in five-starring difficulty order, from easiest to hardest. This is by no means a definitive list - everybody is going to have different opinions on how these should be ranked. These lists should serve as general guidelines as players embark on their quest to five-star the songs in each game. This thread is NOT intended to actually help you with specific songs. Its sole purpose is to create a list, agreed upon by the general consensus, of the order of songs in terms of five-star difficulty across the five console games.

I.2. Why?
I have compiled these lists because it's not always obvious where to go next. Many players juggle different goals, such as five-starring a certain set of songs on Expert while trying to complete Hard. Additionally, the games hardly play out in difficulty just by going down the setlist - it is quite common for songs to be "out of place." These lists will attempt to roughly group songs of the same difficulty together, so that if you happen to five-star the 30th-easiest song in GH3, you can infer that you most likely have the skill to five-star the three or four songs immediately before or after that song.

I.3. How?
A few steps went into compiling these lists. First and foremost, to remove all personal bias, I went straight to the data - I looked at each individual song's score pages, found out the number of five-stars, divided that by the total number of score entries, and arrived at a percentage. I then ranked the songs based on percentage (higher % obviously means easier to five-star). Of course this is not exact science, as there are almost always anomalies within the data (certain songs receiving more attention than others, certain songs having one very challenging part that may offset the easiness of the rest of the song, people inputing low scores or cutoff scores, etc.).

At this point it's impossible to not interject personal bias, so after I arrived at the percentage rankings, I moved certain songs up or down on the lists to attempt to offset those anomalies. This is also how the Master list was created, since cross-comparing data over the five games is very difficult. The lists are then posted in this thread, where other players can discuss and debate them. Changes are made after a convincing opinion has been made to justify a song moving up or down. Again, the goal is not to be definitive, because that is impossible - the project should be a group of lists that generally reflect the order in which players achieve these five-stars.

I.4. Additional Info/Future Additions
The only lists I could reasonably compile myself are ones that consist of the Expert songs that have appeared in each console version of each game. This includes the 47 GH1 songs, the original 64 GH2 songs, the 30 GH80s songs, the 70 in-game GH3 songs, and the 41 GHA songs. I have since added the GH2 360 exclusives, but I currently do not have lists for the other difficulties (offers have been made for Hard), and I have decided at this point to not include DLC tracks, the GH1 hidden songs, GH: On Tour songs, or any song that may have appeared somewhere outside of the in-game setlist (such as songs on a demo disc, or GH1 DLC tracks for the 360). If you would like to help out in compiling any of the lists I currently do not have, or would like to help me integrate those songs not currently included into the Master Lists, leave me a comment in this thread, or send me a PM and we'll work something out!

At this point I have not decided what I will do with GH4. It'll depend largely on what changes (if any) the forums go through at release time. At the very minimum I imagine I'll put up a list for guitar, but we'll see. Any ideas, let me know.

Sooner or later I would like to break at least the Master list up into "tiers" that players can use to roughly gauge the songs they can five-star at their given skill level. One example would be a tier of songs that can be five-starred on Expert without even beating Hard; another example would be songs that could be five-starred after you've passed the first half of the Expert career setlist.

I.5. How Can I Help?
Fear not young Padawan, you too can help! Even if you don't have the time to put together giant lists of songs (which is an extremely tedious endeavor that I don't recommend anyone else trying unless they're really dedicated), there are still numerous things you can do to help make this an exceptional guide.

First and foremost, give me your opinions! Tell me which lists suck, which songs are overrated, where you would put certain songs, any of that stuff! The idea here is adaptability. We continually make changes until we reach something upon which a majority (not everyone obviously, but a majority) can agree.

Secondly, give me ideas on ways I could maybe break these lists up into neater, smaller piles. I outlined the tier idea in I.4., but if you have a different idea, I'd like to hear it.

Finally, and I'm just being nitpicky here - I'm an English major, and although I am very casual around the forums, using proper mechanics and spelling words correctly are a strong priority of mine. If you see any misspelled words, broken links, messed-up numbers, Freudian slips, or any of that stuff, let me know about em so I can fix them promptly. Overall opinions on the presentation of the guide are welcome as well.

Back to Table of Contents



II. Frequently Asked Questions

II.1. What's a 5* (Five-Star)?
Pretty simple! Surely you've seen those little stars on the newspaper screen after you've completed a song? Those stars will also show up (along with your score) on the setlist screen. Out of three-stars, four-stars, and five-stars, a five-star rating is the best you can receive on a song in any GH game. Five-stars are granted to scores that are over 2.8 times the base score of the song (3.0 in GH1). In GH2, GH80s, GH3, and GHA, you can see this multiplier on the More Stats screen. So for example, if you played a song in GH2 that had a base score of exactly 10,000 (base score is the cumulative total of points in a song assuming each note is under a 1x), you would need at least 28,000 points in order to obtain the five-star. (The same song would need 30,000 points if it were in GH1.)

II.2. So What's the Deal With Getting 5*s Then?
Five-star scores are a great way to gauge your overall progress. There is generally a huge difference between simply passing a song and getting five stars on it - passing may entail using SP to power through a part that gives you a lot of trouble, while five-starring may entail learning to survive through that one tricky part in order to conserve Star Power for a place you can hold a combo. A good goal to shoot for after you've beaten a game on a certain difficulty is to go back and five-star all of the songs on that difficulty.

Aside from just being a good way to measure your progress, obtaining five stars on a song may also force you to learn to hit and combo certain sections of songs. It's a learning experience as much as it is an accomplishment - you'll almost always need to use these techniques on a different song somewhere down the road, and as you begin your journey towards FCs, you're gonna have to learn this stuff anyway, so you might as well do it while just trying to five-star the damn things.

Generally speaking, you're going to progress down the Career setlist as you attempt to obtain more five-stars. Makes sense, as you start with the easiest songs while the hardest songs are usually at the bottom. This is definitely NOT absolute, though - that's why we have these breakdowns, because you'll undoubtedly (and in fact quite commonly) come across songs that have no business being where they're placed.

If you're materialistic, then I should also note that five-starring all of the Career songs in any given game grants you some fun rewards for all your hard work, most commonly a novelty guitar. Sometimes the satisfaction just isn't enough for you people.

II.3. How Do You Determine a Song's 5* Difficulty?
A number of factors can go into determining a song's 5* difficulty. Some songs have difficult, constantly repeating sequences that must be learned in order to have any measure of success; for example, Beast and the Harlot is (to my understanding) impossible to five-star without learning to at least competently strum the verses. Some other songs may simply have a section or two that grants you a billion points (especially with Star Power), making your quest for a five-star substantially easier. You'll usually find the most point-heavy sections to be made up of chords, which are worth more than single notes. Places like the chord solos in Cochise and Pride and Joy are examples of this. Of course there are also songs (such as What I Like About You) that contain virtually the same sequence throughout the entire song, so figuring out a Star Power path isn't very tricky.

Some five-stars are difficult because they force you to waste a Star Power activation in order to survive through a very difficult part of the song. Jordan and One are great examples of this, as both contain very deadly solos that you may not be able to pass without perhaps as much as a full bar of Star Power (remember, Star Power is your best friend when you're trying to five-star Expert songs). Some songs don't have truly deadly parts, but have long sections or solos that are very difficult to combo, which basically forces you to combo every part of the easier stuff with very little room for error (like Hangar 18 or Play With Me). Some songs can induce a lot of pain into your hands, rendering them as much a test of physical stamina as a test of skill (for example, Electric Eye or Freya). And some songs are just so fucking weird all over their charts that it just takes a solid cumulative effort on the entire song in order to get the five-star (Psychobilly Freakout or Texas Flood).

In still other cases, it's not necessarily the notechart itself that makes a five-star easy or difficult, but rather the amount of Star Power and perhaps the untimely placement of it throughout the song. As you may know, Star Power gives you those great 8x boosts, which will undoubtedly be your gateway to five-star scores, especially on more difficult songs. Some songs hand you bundles of SP that greatly aid your five-star quest. But other songs' charts lack a great deal of SP. Killer Queen, Laughtrack, and Story of My Life are well-known for having tons of SP (relative to the amount of notes in the song, anyway), while Rock You Like a Hurricane, Monkey Wrench, and Raining Blood are infamous for their scarce SP. (RYLAH is also notorious for featuring several of the most difficult phrases to obtain in any song to date, making SP doubly precious.)

II.4. Hey, Your Lists Say This Song is (Easy/Hard) But it's Not! What Gives?
Whoa whoa, easy there champ! Like I said before, this is rarely an exact science. Every now and then you'll pull a five-star out of your ass on a hard song long before you truly have the skill to do it consistently. Conversely, there will also be some relatively easy songs that you just simply "don't get." There's not really a whole lot you can do about these instances except practice those songs (or perhaps devise/revise your Star Power path to go through stuff you KNOW you can hit).

Sometimes getting a five-star entails learning one really really difficult aspect of an otherwise exceptionally easy song. Minus Celsius is by far the best example of this, as it has a combo-raping chord change that appears like a thousand times throughout the song. It would not surprise me if you hit every single note in that song except for those chords and still managed to wind up with only a four-star. Thing is though, you can usually get the hang of those really difficult parts fairly quickly (usually an hour of practice or less), at which point your score will absolutely skyrocket because you can already hit everything else in the song.

Also, it's definitely possible that a song is simply listed a little higher or lower than it really should be, and there hasn't been enough discussion in this thread to bring a change in its ranking yet. All of the changes I make to the lists will occur after there's been at least some semblance of discussion concerning those changes, and you're more than welcome to leave your thoughts on a specific song's ranking and get some discussion going about where it should be moved.

II.5. Where Can I Go to Get Help on a Song?
Sadly this breakdown is long enough that I simply don't really have the time to cover certain songs, much as I'd like to. However, there are still many many players who have provided guides for many songs, particularly the very challenging ones.

The first thing you should check is the Definitive List of Guides, which is conveniently stickied at the top of the TSG forum. TheThirdDay has put a great deal of effort into collecting the many guides players have written specifically for certain songs, and the list is updated regularly as more guides get written.

While there might not be a guide for every song out there, you should still be able to find threads and posts that cover songs in-depth. You're probably already familiar with the ScoreHero search function, but if that isn't yielding the results you want, you can also try EWiggen's ScoreHero search powered by Google. Both resources will help you find virtually anything you might need.

Also keep in mind that just because there hasn't been any discussion on a song, that doesn't mean there won't be. You could be an innovator! Fire up a new thread on a technique or a song that hasn't been covered in depth, or maybe try experimenting with your own techniques and posting about your technique and the results it yields. There's no wrong way to play the game, you know!

II.6. Can We Get to the Breakdowns Already?
Sure thing, just scroll down a little ways.

Back to Table of Contents



III. The Expert 5* Breakdowns

All lists begin with the easiest song and conclude with the most difficult.

III.1. Guitar Hero
Last updated 6/10/08

1. Hey
2. I Love Rock & Roll
3. Sail Your Ship By
4. Iron Man
5. Story of My Love
6. Infected
7. Even Rats
8. More Than a Feeling
9. Hey You
10. Stellar
11. Ziggy Stardust
12. Thunder Kiss 65
13. Behind the Mask
14. Smoke on the Water
15. Eureka, I've Found Love
16. You Got Another Thing Comin'
17. Unsung
18. Killer Queen
19. Callout
20. Sharp Dressed Man
21. Take it Off
22. Spanish Castle Magic
23. Heart Full of Black
24. Caveman Rejoice
25. Take Me Out
26. I Wanna Be Sedated
27. Fat Lip
28. All of This
29. Fire it Up
30. Symphony of Destruction
31. Godzilla
32. Higher Ground
33. Fly on the Wall
34. Cochise
35. Ace of Spades
36. Guitar Hero
37. Decontrol
38. Farewell Myth
39. Crossroads
40. No One Knows
41. Cheat on the Church
42. Get Ready 2 Rokk
43. Frankenstein
44. Bark at the Moon
45. The Breaking Wheel
46. Cowboys From Hell
47. Texas Flood

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III.2. Guitar Hero II
Last updated 8/23/08
Songs in italics are 360 exclusives

1. Parasite
2. Heart-Shaped Box
3. Red Lottery
4. Radium Eyes
5. Possum Kingdom
6. Soy Bomb
7. Cherry Pie
8. Salvation
9. Surrender
10. Sweet Child o' Mine
11. Mr. Fix It
12. Yes We Can
13. Billion Dollar Babies
14. Message in a Bottle
15. Life Wasted
16. Can't You Hear Me Knockin'
17. John the Fisherman
18. Shout at the Devil
19. Them Bones
20. You Really Got Me
21. Elephant Bones
22. Mother
23. Hush
24. Last Child
25. Laughtrack
26. Carry on Wayward Son
27. Dead!
28. Girlfriend
29. War Pigs
30. X-Stream
31. Strutter
32. Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo
33. Search and Destroy
34. Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart
35. Monkey Wrench
36. Jessica
37. Trogdor
38. Drink Up
39. The New Black
40. Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight
41. Collide
42. Killing in the Name
43. Who Was in My Room Last Night?
44. Kicked to the Curb
45. Woman
46. Fall of Pangea
47. Madhouse
48. Raw Dog
49. One for the Road
50. Tattooed Love Boys
51. Arterial Black
52. Push Push (Lady Lightning)
53. Bad Reputation
54. Free Bird
55. Crazy on You
56. Stop
57. FTK
58. Laid to Rest
59. Freya
60. Beast and the Harlot
61. YYZ
62. Less Talk More Rokk
63. Thunderhorse
64. Gemini
65. Carry Me Home
66. The Light That Blinds
67. Rock This Town
68. Institutionalized
69. The Trooper
70. Hangar 18
71. Jordan
72. Psychobilly Freakout
73. Misirlou
74. Six

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III.3. Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s
Last updated 4/18/08

1. We Got the Beat
2. Because, it's Midnite
3. The Warrior
4. 18 and Life
5. Shakin'
6. No One Like You
7. Balls to the Wall
8. (Band Your Head) Metal Health
9. Heat of the Moment
10. I Ran (So Far Away)
11. Lonely is the Night
12. Round and Round
13. I Wanna Rock
14. Holy Diver
15. Turning Japanese
16. Only a Lad
17. Synchronicity II
18. Bathroom Wall
19. Hold on Loosely
20. Wrathchild
21. Ain't Nothin But a Good Time
22. Police Truck
23. Los Angeles
24. Radar Love
25. What I Like About You
26. Ballroom Blitz
27. Electric Eye
28. Seventeen
29. Caught in a Mosh
30. Play With Me

Back to Table of Contents


III.4. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Last updated 8/23/08

1. Sabotage
2. Closer
3. Metal Heavy Lady
4. Hit Me With Your Best Shot
5. Bulls on Parade
6. Radio Song
7. Generation Rock
8. When You Were Young
9. My Name is Jonas
10. Slow Ride
11. Mississippi Queen
12. Sunshine of Your Love
13. Paranoid
14. Story of My Life
15. Ruby
16. Can't Be Saved
17. Talk Dirty to Me
18. Helicopter
19. Avalancha
20. Reptilia
21. School's Out
22. Lay Down
23. Miss Murder
24. Anarchy in the U.K.
25. Rock You Like a Hurricane
26. Even Flow
27. La Grange
28. Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll
29. Rock and Roll All Nite
30. Kool Thing
31. She Bangs the Drums
32. Black Magic Woman
33. Go That Far
34. Prayer of the Refugee
35. Hier Kommt Alex
36. In Love
37. Cherub Rock
38. In the Belly of a Shark
39. Suck My Kiss
40. Paint it Black
41. Holiday in Cambodia
42. Barracuda
43. The Seeker
44. Don't Hold Back
45. Cult of Personality
46. Stricken
47. Black Sunshine
48. I'm in the Band
49. Down 'n Dirty
50. Welcome to the Jungle
51. The Metal
52. Impulse
53. Monsters
54. Pride and Joy
55. 3's & 7's
56. Minus Celsius
57. Same Old Song and Dance
58. My Curse
59. Knights of Cydonia
60. Mauvais Garcon
61. The Number of the Beast
62. One
63. Before I Forget
64. Cliffs of Dover
65. F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X.
66. Take This Life
67. Nothing for Me Here
68. Raining Blood
69. The Way it Ends
70. Through the Fire and Flames

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III.5. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
Last updated 8/23/08

1. Dream On
2. She Sells Sanctuary
3. Dream Police
4. All the Young Dudes
5. Kings and Queens
6. Pandora's Box
7. Draw the Line
8. Complete Control
9. Uncle Salty
10. Make It
11. I Hate Myself for Loving You
12. No Surprize
13. Rag Doll
14. Sex Type Thing
15. Cat Scratch Fever
16. Pink
17. King of Rock
18. Nobody's Fault
19. Love in an Elevator
20. All Day and All of the Night
21. Livin' on the Edge
22. Personality Crisis
23. Movin' Out
24. Sweet Emotion
25. Mama Kin
26. Bright Light Fright
27. Always on the Run
28. Walk This Way (Run DMC)
29. Hard to Handle
30. Beyond Beautiful
31. Talk Talkin'
32. Shakin' My Cage
33. Let the Music Do the Talking
34. Walk This Way
35. Back in the Saddle
36. Toys in the Attic
37. Rats in the Cellar
38. Train Kept a Rollin'
39. Mercy
40. Combination
41. Joe Perry Guitar Battle

Back to Table of Contents


III.6. MASTER LIST (GH1, GH2, GH80s, GH3, GHA)
Last updated 8/23/08

LEGEND
Red = GH1
Green = GH2
Green Ital. = GH2 360 exclusives
Blue = GH80s
Orange = GH3
Violet = GHA


1. Dream On - can we say sightread FC?
2. Parasite - slow, doesn't jump around too much, lots of Star Power
3. Sabotage - chords are easy as pie to combo
4. Hey - if you're lucky you might just FC this on sightread
5. I Love Rock & Roll - only problem is that it might be TOO slow
6. She Sells Sanctuary - virtually nothing faster than eighth notes
7. Closer - great practice for chord changes
8. Dream Police - another possible sightread FC here
9. All the Young Dudes - lots of Star Power here to pick you up
10. Heart-Shaped Box - if you've spent any time on Hard before playing this, it'll be a breeze
11. We Got the Beat - by the time you get to anything even remotely tricky (the ending), you should have the five-star
12. Red Lottery - hardest thing about this song is getting through it without falling asleep
13. Because, it's Midnite - easy even with a full bar for the solo
14. Kings and Queens - "good luck ur rly g2 need it"
15. Metal Heavy Lady - verse riff is slightly strange
16. Hit Me With Your Best Shot - chord points make up for tricky fills and solo
17. Sail Your Ship By - the easiest Count Zero song in GH history
18. Radium Eyes - the hardest Count Zero song in GH history
19. Bulls on Parade - don't waste SP on the verses, save it for the chords!
20. The Warrior - another opportunity for a sightread FC
21. Possum Kingdom - patterns are weird at first but it's slow enough to get the hang of it fairly quickly
22. 18 and Life - slow and steady wins the race... or something
23. Radio Song - also a pretty easy FC
24. Soy Bomb - a good early test of strumming
25. Generation Rock - speed takes a little bit of adjusting but it's manageable
26. When You Were Young - holy easy chords batman
27. Iron Man - some scales and trills are made complicated because you have to strum them, but they're not that bad
28. Pandora's Box - nice and laid back, decent chord anchor practice
29. Shakin' - one easy chord part will assist greatly
30. Story of My Love - a good place to start working with odd time signatures
31. Cherry Pie - tons of SP, and it's piss-easy outside of that one solo
32. Draw the Line - do do do do do do do
33. No One Like You - if you can get 18 and Life this should be just as easy
34. Salvation - good chord transfer practice
35. Infected - also good chord transfer practice
36. Surrender - try practicing YBO in this song!
37. Complete Control - sort of fast
38. Even Rats - spring's nice in canada
39. Balls to the Wall - don't waste SP in the verses
40. Uncle Salty - the jump from green to YO/BO chords might be slightly daunting
41. My Name is Jonas - chords are slow and HO/POs aren't as menacing as they may first appear
42. Sweet Child o' Mine - way easier than it looks
43. Make It - easy "staircase" chord patterns to practice here
44. More Than a Feeling - star power up the ass in this one
45. (Bang Your Head) Metal Health - note density is lacking outside crazy parts, but it's mostly chords
46. Slow Ride - the trickiest part might actually be how drowned out the guitar track sounds
47. I Hate Myself for Loving You - easy
48. Mr. Fix It - chord jumps are a little tricky at first but nothing to fret over (get it? fret over? LOL)
49. Mississippi Queen - BOY I BEG YA PARDON
50. No Surprize - chord progressions are slightly tricky and worth a lot of points
51. Heat of the Moment - trip-chords used to give fits but they're pretty tame by today's standards
52. Yes We Can - some weird strumming patterns
53. Hey You - no, it's not pinky floyd
54. Rag Doll - the hardest part might be stopping yourself from singing along!
55. Sunshine of Your Love - goofy HO/POs usually claim a few combos
56. Stellar - nothing overly difficult whatsoever, an easy FC too
57. Billion Dollar Babies - most of it's kinda weird even if it is pretty basic
58. I Ran (So Far Away) - main riff is a little frantic but it's not all bad
59. Paranoid - chords aplenty
60. Story of My Life - no shortage of SP
61. Sex Type Thing - can mangle your fingers fairly easily
62. Message in a Bottle - will become much easier as you get more confident with strumming and fretting
63. Ruby - beware the stupidly difficult chord changes in here
64. Life Wasted - steady strumming here, good for chord jumping
65. Cat Scratch Fever - decent jump practice
66. Can't You Hear Me Knockin' - more than enough easy stuff to make up for the tricky chord changes
67. Lonely is the Night - great chord transfer practice here
68. John the Fisherman - well, uh... it's easier than bass, that's for sure
69. Pink - point-heavy choruses have some very strange progressions, but they're not too difficult
70. Round and Round - can afford a few mistakes even outside the solo, pretty easy
71. Can't Be Saved - you can almost follow the optimal path just by getting 2 SPs and activating every time
72. King of Rock - fun easy solos for the most part
73. Talk Dirty to Me - most places are cash cows for points, so be liberal with SP
74. Ziggy Stardust - this is also an easy 6* and 7*, at least for GH1
75. I Wanna Rock - tons of room for the five-star before the solos
76. Thunder Kiss 65 - forget about the solo here, just get the easy verse chords
77. Behind the Mask - up-and-down stuff is fairly tricky
78. Helicopter - easy even if you can't get the choppa
79. Avalancha - screaming "AVALANNNNNNNNCHE" in english doesn't quite have the same effect
80. Holy Diver - "HOLY DIVAAAAH" sounds just fine in english though
81. Smoke on the Water - pretty easy five-star, but a pretty challenging six-star
82. Nobody's Fault - be steady and controlled with your strums and utilize the HO/POs
83. Reptilia - kinda speedy
84. Turning Japanese - also kinda speedy
85. School's Out - not very speedy
86. Love in an Elevator - some tricky solo stuff, make your bones in the easy choruses
87. Shout at the Devil - fills break combos easily if you're not good with them
88. Eureka, I've Found Love - what classics are you studying exactly?
89. Them Bones - the chord holds here give you some good practice in hanging on as long as possible for ticks
90. Lay Down - careful with your activations, it's fairly easy to break combo going from strums to HO/POs
91. You Really Got Me - enough SP to make up for possible misses in outro, solo, and verse 2 fills
92. Elephant Bones - surf riff can be tricky if you're not good at recognizing note divisions
93. You've Got Another Thing Comin' - tons of easy stuff before and after the solo
94. Miss Murder - pretty rough with downstrumming
95. All Day and All of the Night - ooh, random chord duplets are tricky
96. Only a Lad - a few chord-heavy sections will assist you greatly
97. Unsung - chord city
98. Killer Queen - this chart is fucking weird
99. Mother - can be tricky if you can't finger the chords well
100. Livin' on the Edge - best points come on the tricky chord jumps, so practice them
101. Anarchy in the U.K. - sliding with 14 to hit GB-RO progressions is kinda weird
102. Hush - verses keep you on your toes
103. Last Child - nice and laid back after some intense songs in PS2 tier 5
104. Laughtrack - ridiculous amounts of SP
105. Callout - follow the optimal path and this is easy
106. Carry on Wayward Son - main riff and chorus should get you by, but practice some of the solos for insurance points
107. Dead! - yeah, the GBO chords can be nasty
108. Rock You Like a Hurricane - easy chords but SP is limited and hard to get
109. Personality Crisis - easy patterns, just a bit tricky due to the speed
110. Sharp Dressed Man - without HO/POs, the quick strumming can be dangerous
111. Even Flow - ghost HO/POs make this one tougher than it should be
112. Girlfriend - chords are easy enough, but the boston hooks and other fills can eat your combo up
113. War Pigs - it's easy to hoard SP because it's long and the note density isn't great, but don't be too conservative
114. Synchronicity II - once you've got some decent stamina, you can probably break a 900+ NS easily
115. La Grange - you can get half the points for a five-star before you do any soloing
116. X-Stream - 1) get SP 2) use on triple-chords 3) ???? 4) profit!
117. Take it Off - brett anderson is hot as hell
118. Strutter - features those notorious strange verse patterns that are staples of KISS songs
119. Bathroom Wall - GH needs moar surfer riffs
120. Movin' Out - HO/PO riff can be extremely tiring
121. Spanish Castle Magic - first 300 notes are pretty tame, good chance to rack up points before the tough solos
122. Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo - tough to sightread, but the 5* should come when you're familiar with it
123. Hold on Loosely - trickier than it looks
124. Search and Destroy - make your activations count, not a ton of SP here...
125. Sweet Emotion - recurring riffs are sufficient enough, just don't fail in the solo
126. Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart - tricky if you don't have the stamina to downstrum or the rhythm to alt-strum
127. Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll - no tips here, just wanna point out that this song and chart rule
128. Monkey Wrench - needs moar SP
129. Rock and Roll All Nite - lots of similarities to Strutter, tough solo gives it a bump though
130. Heart Full of Black - fretting and strumming is a little weird
131. Jessica - way easier than its tier 6 placement suggests
132. Caveman Rejoice - work out the RB-GY-RB switch and this one's pretty easy
133. Mama Kin - some really fucking weird chord sequences
134. Trogdor - chord switches are tricky at first
135. Kool Thing - not much in this song, but alt-strums can be tricky
136. Wrathchild - very low cutoff and tons of SP, much easier than you'd expect
137. She Bangs the Drums - little hiccup sequences keep you on your toes
138. Bright Light Fright - another tricky one due to hiccup riffs
139. Always on the Run - repeating riff actually gets MORE confusing the more you play it
140. Black Magic Woman - follow the optimal path, not too bad
141. Drink Up - lots of moving around here
142. Go That Far - the riff can be VERY nasty, work at getting consistent at everything else
143. Walk This Way (Run DMC) - definitely good practice for the harder original version
144. Prayer of the Refugee - seriously, it's not that hard
145. Take Me Out - very strange strumming patterns
146. The New Black - main riff is goofy
147. Hard to Handle - i'd think after 20 years i would have some idea what the hell the lyrics are... still no luck >_>
148. Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight - only places to rack up points are fairly tricky to hit
149. I Wanna Be Sedated - definitely the toughest test of stamina seen on the first tier to date
150. Fat Lip - can be downstrummed but it's tolling
151. Beyond Beautiful - lots of jumping around, and a potentially deadly solo make this trickier than it seems
152. Collide - chord jumps in verses are a little daunting at first
153. Killing in the Name - two words: noise build
154. Hier Kommt Alex - chugging stuff is a haven for points, but also pretty tricky to hit
155. Talk Talkin' - small little combo breakers are amplified by the tricky fretboard
156. Shakin' My Cage - love ya joe, but stick to geetar plz
157. In Love - very little rhythm to much of the strumming
158. Ain't Nothin But a Good Time - LOL ain't
159. Who Was in My Room Last Night? - HO/PO bug is a bitch in this song
160. Let the Music Do the Talking - random strums disrupt any real flow to this song
161. Police Truck - easy for final tier, but still a little hectic
162. Kicked to the Curb - probably the easiest "easy riffs WTF solos" song in GH
163. Cherub Rock - SP usage is fairly obvious here
164. In the Belly of a Shark - blast those trip-chords at the end with SP for teh mega pointz
165. All of This - that's one hell of a solo
166. Fire it Up - sufficient amount of room outside of solos for this and All of This
167. Suck My Kiss - super tricky hook that stretches the whole fretboard
168. Paint it Black - surprisingly taxing with downstrumming
169. Walk This Way - main riff is much nastier here, and it'll make or break the five-star, so get to practicin
170. Los Angeles - breaking combo is very costly since it's almost all chords
171. Holiday in Cambodia - requires a fair amount of stamina, but the chart's pretty basic
172. Barracuda - yay gallops
173. Woman - pretty relentless for first tier, not a whole lot of free points
174. The Seeker - some very awkward note sequences, chord changes, and alt-strumming to be found here
175. Don't Hold Back - some fun chord changes and stretches to be found here
176. Radar Love - lots of little things here to trip players up
177. Back in the Saddle - works out the pinky real good-like
178. Cult of Personality - if you don't hoard, you could easily get this the first time you pass it
179. Symphony of Destruction - very little breathing room outside solo
180. Fall of Pangea - Hard and Expert charts are pretty similar, so try Hard is Expert is giving you trouble
181. Madhouse - not very tricky at all, hardest part is just the stamina to keep up with the strumming
182. Stricken - tons of chords but they're pretty easy
183. Godzilla - tons of easy stuff to offset the small amount of very tricky stuff
184. Toys in the Attic - dependant almost entirely on your ability to combo the chords after the HO/PO riff
185. Raw Dog - pretty frantic pace and the song can work you up, easy to slip if you get excited
186. Higher Ground - pure stamina test
187. One for the Road - this one's a bit of an armbuster
188. Black Sunshine - I don't think it's all hard but a lot of people struggle with it
189. Fly on the Wall - harder than it appears at first glance, chord changes are VERY weird
190. Cochise - it's possible to five-star this without comboing any of the chord solo... just ask me >_>
191. I'm in the Band - triplet sequences are annoying as hell; this one's tricky to sightread
192. Down 'n Dirty - easy as hell if you blast the long streams of YB chords with SP
193. Tattooed Love Boys - point-heavy choruses and solo are very difficult to master
194. Arterial Black - can be rather tricky if you need SP to survive the solo
195. Push Push (Lady Lightning) - just be mindful not to waste SP in dead spots
196. Ace of Spades - good practice for bursts
197. Welcome to the Jungle - gets much much easier the more familiar you get with the chart
198. Guitar Hero - wild solo, not much room for error outside of it
199. Bad Reputation - such a tough jump from hard to expert
200. Rats in the Cellar - nasty main riff that's tricky to both alt-strum and downstrum
201. The Metal - wears out the fingers like crazy
202. Impulse - lots of mid-to-high difficulty stuff going on here, a great warmup song
203. What I Like About You - tip: use only your three strong fingers!
204. Monsters - speedy chorus chords, but easy once you get em down
205. Free Bird - shoot for at least 120K entering the solo
206. Pride and Joy - practice the chord solo at the end, that alone could push you to a five-star
207. Train Kept a Rollin' - can't go wrong with activating in the verses
208. Crazy on You - verses of doom
209. Decontrol - also a very tough six-star
210. 3's & 7's - remember kids: chika-chika BOOM BOOM chika-BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM chika-BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
211. Farewell Myth - requires very quick, very precise strumming and fretting; trickier than it looks
212. Minus Celsius - this one is a total wild card for virtually everyone
213. Stop - stream of chords in the solo will get you a million points
214. FTK - requires strong stamina and the ability to adjust to wild tempo changes
215. Same Old Song and Dance - lots of little things to screw up here
216. Laid to Rest - it's not too fast but it keeps your fingers moving at all times
217. Crossroads - chords offer easy points but it's very difficult holding a combo anywhere in the solos
218. No One Knows - swing stuff is rather tricky
219. Ballroom Blitz - where the hell do you use SP in this?
220. Mercy - Gemini lite right here
221. My Curse - requires great stamina and focus, a mental test as much as a physical one
222. Freya - similar to My Curse but with more chords
223. Knights of Cydonia - don't be fooled by the metal background's low note density, there are lots of points there
224. Beast and the Harlot - cake with verse practice
225. YYZ - thank goodness for the 20,000 free points at the start
226. Cheat on the Church - crazy chord jumps and wild solos, difficult to tame this beast
227. Mauvais Garcon - pattern is very goofy and fast but fairly easy once you figure it out
228. Less Talk More Rokk - extremely difficult without practice on ascending scales
229. Thunderhorse - make your bones in the verses
230. Gemini - there is some REALLY nasty stuff going on here
231. Electric Eye - i try to avoid my pinky as much as i can on the chord stuff, see if that helps
232. Combination - the outro is super-nasty and very costly; don't depend on it for points, look elsewhere
233. The Number of the Beast - cake after you learn the riff
234. One - darkness riff does wonders
235. Get Ready 2 Rokk - fills break combos with ease
236. Before I Forget - try watching your hands!
237. Carry Me Home - believe me, it's possible to five-star this without hitting the chord switch
238. Seventeen - one hell of a chorus riff
239. Joe Perry Guitar Battle - try to remember the order of the sequences and work on stringing them together
240. Frankenstein - not too bad if you learn how to manage the insane amount of SP
241. The Light That Blinds - not too bad if you can navigate the bridges and hit the chords
242. Cliffs of Dover - requires a pretty strong consistent effort
243. Rock This Town - obnoxiously difficult swing style strumming
244. F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X. - i don't suggest you seriously attempt this until you have some real strumming stamina
245. Bark at the Moon - tons of soloing leaves very little room for error in verses
246. Institutionalized - SP in choruses is obvious, but be liberal and sneak some activations into verses 1 and 2
247. The Trooper - everything here is at breakneck pace
248. Hangar 18 - BIGGER RIFF
249. Caught in a Mosh - relentless verses
250. The Breaking Wheel - tempo changes will screw you over
251. Take This Life - verse chords provide sufficient points
252. Jordan - the big problem here is simply being able to pass the song
253. Psychobilly Freakout - make anything that repeats your first priority, and then work on other stuff
254. Nothing for Me Here - the most deceptively difficult song ever put into a GH game
255. Play With Me - no room for error outside the crazy stuff
256. Misirlou - imperative that you get the outro trip-chords under SP
257. Raining Blood - throws everything at you but the kitchen sink... and then throws the kitchen sink
258. The Way it Ends - well, at least everyone will envy your masturbation skills...
259. Six - incredibly painful and unforgiving; all you can do is chip away
260. Cowboys From Hell - this remains the ultimate alt-strumming/fretting test in GH history
261. Texas Flood - just when you think it might be your run you screw up something you always hit
262. Through the Fire and Flames- ORLY?

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IV. End

IV.1. Credits
CorpusCollosum - for providing rankings for the GH2 exclusive songs.
zsjostrom35 - for taking the time to correct the Quicklinks.

Many thanks to the Scorehero community at large, for always being so supportive while at the same time being so relentlessly competitive.

IV.2. Final Words
I wish I was better with final words. Just know that I got a lot of eyesores from typing all of this out while staring into Notepad's white background. If nothing else I hope whatever I put into them is what you get out of them.

Back to Table of Contents



V. History

V.1. Edit History
Note: most edits are minor and are done to increase the quality of the guide (i.e. fixing spelling errors or bad punctuation, expanding or clarifying a comment that wasn't clear, etc.). All major updates (added subsections, updated lists and breakdowns, etc.) will be included in this section and will be listed on the day they occur.
8/23/08 Added GHA's standalone list and its inclusion into the Master list. Added Final Words. Edits to Introduction, FAQs, Credits, GH2, GH3, Master lists.
7/5/08 Quicklinks fixed, many thanks to zsjostrom35 for providing the corrected code.
6/10/08 Edits to GH1, GH3, Master lists.
5/25/08 Edits to GH1, Master lists.
5/21/08 Edits to GH1, Master lists.
4/22/08 Added GH2 exclusives to GH2, Master lists. Added legend to Master list.
4/18/08 Edits to GH2, GH80s, GH3, Master lists.
4/17/08 Table of contents added. Introduction, FAQs, breakdowns, epilogue, history sections added. What, Why, How, FAQs, GH1, GH2, GH80s, GH3, Credits, Edit History subsections added.
4/16/08 Thread created.

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_________________

Signatures are overrated. Like pants.

[PoPoX]

-deleted-

[PoPoX]

-deleted-

[eiirish]

I think you should make one.
I remember when I was worse and didn't have a lot of 5* I thought it would be great if there were a list of the 5* difficulties kind of, so I knew what I should go for. I think it could help many to improve.

[eiirish]

I think you should make one.
I remember when I was worse and didn't have a lot of 5* I thought it would be great if there were a list of the 5* difficulties kind of, so I knew what I should go for. I think it could help many to improve.

[christiano27]

I will use my 500th post to say.......definately!

Helps you see what bonus songs etc can be be 5*d easily when you don't have many yourself!
_________________

christiano27's GH accs. thread

[christiano27]

I will use my 500th post to say.......definately!

Helps you see what bonus songs etc can be be 5*d easily when you don't have many yourself!
_________________

christiano27's GH accs. thread

[MetalMadness]

If I ever decide to play GHIII again, I will use it! I've used the FC breakdowns alot. I'm sure there are players on here interested. Let's get to it. And PFo is #64 for GHII!!

Edit: whoops, I mean #63 - I forgot about Six.
_________________

[MetalMadness]

If I ever decide to play GHIII again, I will use it! I've used the FC breakdowns alot. I'm sure there are players on here interested. Let's get to it. And PFo is #64 for GHII!!

Edit: whoops, I mean #63 - I forgot about Six.
_________________

[smithal3]

I can help. I only play hard, and even though I have 50 GH3 FCs and 16 80s FCs and am way past "just 5*ing" certain songs, I still know what it is like, and am very familiar with each song.

Also, I have 5*d every song (except TTFAF (I'm about 10k short)).

I'll start working on it.
_________________

[smithal3]

I can help. I only play hard, and even though I have 50 GH3 FCs and 16 80s FCs and am way past "just 5*ing" certain songs, I still know what it is like, and am very familiar with each song.

Also, I have 5*d every song (except TTFAF (I'm about 10k short)).

I'll start working on it.
_________________

[TheThirdDay]

[TheThirdDay]

[Sabin83]

A list would be nice for people looking to slowly work on their 5*'s. I found the FC lists were a good way to start looking for songs to FC that I liked, but were also in my skill range.

Something to think about is taking into account how hard the song is to pass. For instance, Jordan's not that hard to 5* IF you can pass it.

Also I think Six is the hardest 5* in GH2. :]
_________________

Accomp thread: Cliffs of Dover and RYLaH FC's!!! FC #52 + 53

[Sabin83]

A list would be nice for people looking to slowly work on their 5*'s. I found the FC lists were a good way to start looking for songs to FC that I liked, but were also in my skill range.

Something to think about is taking into account how hard the song is to pass. For instance, Jordan's not that hard to 5* IF you can pass it.

Also I think Six is the hardest 5* in GH2. :]
_________________

Accomp thread: Cliffs of Dover and RYLaH FC's!!! FC #52 + 53

[Arts4Lyfe]

Yeah, do it .

It'd be nice to have a forum that has a list of difficulty to 5*, but maybe you should go beyond that. You know, like the difficulty to pass / 3* it too. And put the requirement to 5/4* next to it so we don't always have to go to the "Song Stats" menu from the home page =/.

But if all that is too much, it's still a good idea to have a list of 5* difficulty.

Could help alot of players here.

Maybe have a short 1-line description/tip to 5*ing the song...

Y'no, if you're gonna make a big list to help people, may as well make it prosperous...

Good luck either way.
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Top 50 on Xbox 360 [ ] (97)

23Mil for Gh3 [X]

[Arts4Lyfe]

Yeah, do it .

It'd be nice to have a forum that has a list of difficulty to 5*, but maybe you should go beyond that. You know, like the difficulty to pass / 3* it too. And put the requirement to 5/4* next to it so we don't always have to go to the "Song Stats" menu from the home page =/.

But if all that is too much, it's still a good idea to have a list of 5* difficulty.

Could help alot of players here.

Maybe have a short 1-line description/tip to 5*ing the song...

Y'no, if you're gonna make a big list to help people, may as well make it prosperous...

Good luck either way.
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Top 50 on Xbox 360 [ ] (97)

23Mil for Gh3 [X]

[CorpusCollosum]

[CorpusCollosum]

[TheRiff]

Jesse I can give you a hand if you want my opinions or general input in the guide let me know.
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im baaackkkk....but just stoppin by

New goals:
FC Slither [ ]
FC The Outsider [ ]
FC Seventeen, I Wanna Rock, or, R&R [ ]

[TheRiff]

Jesse I can give you a hand if you want my opinions or general input in the guide let me know.
_________________

im baaackkkk....but just stoppin by

New goals:
FC Slither [ ]
FC The Outsider [ ]
FC Seventeen, I Wanna Rock, or, R&R [ ]

[guitarroker]

This is definitely a good idea, just send a PM if I can help, I only have Raining Blood, The Way It Ends, F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X, TTFAF and Nothing For Me Here to five star.
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[guitarroker]

This is definitely a good idea, just send a PM if I can help, I only have Raining Blood, The Way It Ends, F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X, TTFAF and Nothing For Me Here to five star.
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[DarcnesS]

hardest 5* for GH2 I'm pretty sure is as follows:

#62 - PF - Randomness=hard to keep combo
#63 - Misirlou - Rhythm remains a mystery to many
#64 - Six - awkward mix of downstrumming and alt strumming


For GH1

#45 - Frankenstein - Not too easy to keep a combo
#46 - CFH - No hopos make the strumming speed kinda difficult to figure out.
#47 - Texas Flood - hardest. harmonix. 5*. Period.



I'd help more but I don't remember much being hard to 5* past that.

[DarcnesS]

hardest 5* for GH2 I'm pretty sure is as follows:

#62 - PF - Randomness=hard to keep combo
#63 - Misirlou - Rhythm remains a mystery to many
#64 - Six - awkward mix of downstrumming and alt strumming


For GH1

#45 - Frankenstein - Not too easy to keep a combo
#46 - CFH - No hopos make the strumming speed kinda difficult to figure out.
#47 - Texas Flood - hardest. harmonix. 5*. Period.



I'd help more but I don't remember much being hard to 5* past that.

[MPChedda]

Jesse - I can help out as well.

Especially with hard, as due to a rivalry I'll be going through trying to FC everything in every game on hard, but I can take notes on 5 stars as well. Let me know

(I can help with expert too)
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[MPChedda]

Jesse - I can help out as well.

Especially with hard, as due to a rivalry I'll be going through trying to FC everything in every game on hard, but I can take notes on 5 stars as well. Let me know

(I can help with expert too)
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[jesse0986]

Alright, groovy, I'll start putting the lists up sometime today.

Let me just say first and foremost that I didn't just sit down and make these lists myself. I actually compiled data from all the songs, dividing the number of five-stars by the number of total scores, to arrive at percentages for each song, and then I just moved around some of the anomalies. The only real injection of personal bias is in instances when I felt one song was slightly too high or too low, so I think overall the lists are a good reflection.

Combining the four lists might be a little tricky, and that's really where the big discussion will come in. I'm hoping this thread will kinda reflect the FC breakdowns where people just post their own thoughts on how songs are ranked, and I change the list if we reach a majority opinion.
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Signatures are overrated. Like pants.

[jesse0986]

Alright, groovy, I'll start putting the lists up sometime today.

Let me just say first and foremost that I didn't just sit down and make these lists myself. I actually compiled data from all the songs, dividing the number of five-stars by the number of total scores, to arrive at percentages for each song, and then I just moved around some of the anomalies. The only real injection of personal bias is in instances when I felt one song was slightly too high or too low, so I think overall the lists are a good reflection.

Combining the four lists might be a little tricky, and that's really where the big discussion will come in. I'm hoping this thread will kinda reflect the FC breakdowns where people just post their own thoughts on how songs are ranked, and I change the list if we reach a majority opinion.
_________________

Signatures are overrated. Like pants.