• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.

iamchris4life becomes the first person ever to 100% Vertex² after 15 years

Reader mode
StayMe7o

StayMe7o

Member
May 11, 2018
1,016
Kamurocho
Context: Chris Chike (iamchris4life/CHRS4LFE) of Guitar Hero and DDR fame (or any rhythm game, really) has become the first person ever to get a 100% score on Vertex² from In The Groove 2, which was released in 2005. He's also the very first person to get 100% on every single song in both In The Groove and In The Groove 2.

To get 100% on any song, your timing needs to be extremely precise and it requires that you get all "Fantastic**" ratings per arrow (which is really hard if you've ever played any 4 panel game).

Congrats to Chris for finally doing it!




Edit: Here's a video of him being the first person to 100% Euphoria a week earlier:



Edit 2: Here's some more backstory posted by Lumination and also added a threadmark about the timing windows for In The Groove 2 (I'm not sure what timing windows Chris uses).

www.polygon.com

The rise, fall and return of Dance Dance Revolution in America

We look at the state of the DDR community in the U.S.
www.polygon.com www.polygon.com

Edit 3:
StarCreator said:
I believe he's streaming from someone else's home, and the other people that appear on stream are the homeowners.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Edit 4:
StarCreator said:
So ITG isn't really a game I follow but apparently Chris isn't the first person to do this: Happy Feet has a video of the feat from a couple years ago.

Still telling how crazy the achievement is that after 15 years, only two people can prove they've accomplished it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
Last edited:
Kientin

Kientin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,277
Holy crap. I've seen videos of him getting close. Massive accomplishment and congrats to him.
 
nopattern

nopattern

Member
Nov 25, 2017
984
I havent played DDR seriously for years, but I always side-eyed people he used the back bar lol. I think part of the game is having the stamina to get through it on top of accuracy.
 
Indy in the Fridge

Indy in the Fridge

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
15,278
DDR meta having devolved into micro-shuffling kills me. legit strats, sure, but damn does DDR look goofy.

kudos to him, that ending section looked rough.
 
MaverickHunterAsh

MaverickHunterAsh

Good Vibes Gaming
Verified
Oct 24, 2017
1,390
Los Angeles, CA.
Tremendously impressive. I used to be a pro DDR player (nowhere near this good, mind you) and the stamina — both physical and mental — it takes to accomplish something like this is insane.

Serious props to him!
 
Phellps

Phellps

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,800
Even my eyes couldn't keep up with all those arrows, damn.

It's kind of funny to watch this video muted though.
 
Letters

Letters

Prophet of Truth
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
4,443
Portugal
Can't even comprehend what is going on with his feet and on screen, other than it looks impossibly hard, but the support from his family and/or friends was very cool in both clips.
 
savageturnip

savageturnip

Member
Oct 28, 2017
266
That was insane to see, how is the pad even configured? A lot of the time it seemed like he was barely touching the arrow that he needed to at the time, either that or my brain was running too slow for it.
 
Cheezeman3000

Cheezeman3000

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jan 5, 2018
1,092
Just how insane of an accomplishment this is will be lost to most people. According to the wiki, "Hitting a Marvelous perfect means you were able to hit the arrow within 0.022500 (225 ten thousandths) of a second (under official settings), and will give you the full points not only for DP score, but also for EX score."

Now do that 576 times in a row with the music changing speed multiple times. Trying not to be hyperbolic when I say, the level of dedication on display here is leagues beyond what most people will ever achieve in gaming.
 

Ashhong

Member
Oct 26, 2017
16,593
I like how someone I. The chat knew, and said y'all going to be on YouTube talking about pop tarts
 
OnionPowder

OnionPowder

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,323
Orlando, FL
Isn't Chris the guy who first FC'ed through the fire and flames as well?

I seem to remember it being him back on ScoreHero

Dude is a fucking legend.
 
Camwi

Camwi

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
6,375
Me during the first part of the video - "Definitely far better than I could possibly do at a rhythm game, but still doesn't seem that impressive."

Me when the music speeds up - "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-"
 
PsionBolt

PsionBolt

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,299
There being two different "Fantastic" judgements threw me for a bit. From the graph at the end, it looks like the top one is just an imaginary even-tighter timing window? Like in DDR judgements, where you have three frames to hit a Marvelous, the higher Fantastic here would be hitting it on the second frame, while the lower Fantastic would be hitting it on the first or third. (Apparently ITG uses a slightly larger window that doesn't exactly equal frame timings, according to google, but this seems to still be the same general idea.)

Anyway, that's darn impressive, and even moreso given that the vast majority of the notes were hit on the "even-better Fantastic" timing judgement. I wonder if anyone will ever grind out getting 100% of the notes in the even-better Fantastic window... A whole new level of holy moly, that'd be!
 
Lumination

Lumination

Member
Oct 26, 2017
12,468
Cheezeman3000 said:
Just how insane of an accomplishment this is will be lost to most people. According to the wiki, "Hitting a Marvelous perfect means you were able to hit the arrow within 0.022500 (225 ten thousandths) of a second (under official settings), and will give you the full points not only for DP score, but also for EX score."

Now do that 576 times in a row with the music changing speed multiple times. Trying not to be hyperbolic when I say, the level of dedication on display here is leagues beyond what most people will ever achieve in gaming.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
For reference, a frame in most fighting games is 1/60s = .01666... So a marvelous is around 40% easier than a frame perfect jab, but he does it over 500 times. There is something to be said about having a beat to do it to, countered by the physical exertion to do it. Its very impressive.
 
The Bankslammer

The Bankslammer

Member
Oct 25, 2017
196
nopattern said:
I havent played DDR seriously for years, but I always side-eyed people he used the back bar lol. I think part of the game is having the stamina to get through it on top of accuracy.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

not sure if i understand this comment. i'm not really sure how this is relevant to someone achieving a goal that nobody has been able to accomplish for 15 years, bar or no bar.
 
Jmille99

Jmille99

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,098
Yes, but can he really dance?

Damn impressive. I stomp around like a damn neanderthal with those type of games and dude be up there Riverdancin. Props
 

GabriocheXD

Member
May 27, 2019
784
MaverickHunterAsh said:
Tremendously impressive. I used to be a pro DDR player (nowhere near this good, mind you) and the stamina — both physical and mental — it takes to accomplish something like this is insane.

Serious props to him!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Right? I was one of the best ITG players in Canada at one point, scoring-wise, and at the time doing a quad star on 12s and 13s was basically a pipedream, specially for me. My timing was a-1, but I never wanted to play using the most efficient way, so I ran out of stamina too fast. Chris is insane.
 
Timing Windows Explained
  • Index
    • B4mv

    B4mv

    Member
    Nov 2, 2017
    3,054
    I'm surprised this happened, that chart is just a mess. Chris was definitely the one to do it though.


    For reference, here are the timings for the ratings in In The Groove.
    Fantastic: +/- 21.5 ms
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Excellent: +/- 43 ms
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Great: +/- 102 ms
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Decent: +/- 135 ms
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Way Off: +/- 180 ms
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Anything above a great holds a combo, but getting a Quad star/ 100% requires all Fantastics, meaning every step must be in a 43ms window of the step.
     
    Last edited:
  • Index
    • Cheezeman3000

    Cheezeman3000

    One Winged Slayer
    Member
    Jan 5, 2018
    1,092
    Lumination said:
    For reference, a frame in most fighting games is 1/60s = .01666... So a marvelous is around 40% easier than a frame perfect jab, but he does it over 500 times. There is something to be said about having a beat to do it to, countered by the physical exertion to do it. Its very impressive.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Right. There certainly are tighter timing windows in other aspects of gaming. I think some of the best Tetris players out there are also probably similar in their level of dedication, or some speedrunners, etc.

    It also appears he only spent a week on this particular song, although I could be wrong on that. But if true, it just shows that he's dedicated enough time to get to a level of play where this kind of thing can be accomplished in a week. Insane!
     
    StarCreator

    StarCreator

    Member
    Oct 25, 2017
    4,853
    StayMe7o said:
    To get 100% on any song, your timing needs to be extremely precise and it requires that you get all "Marvelous" ratings per arrow (which is really hard if you've ever played any 4 panel game).
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    To be pedantic, ITG uses a "Fantastic" rating, which is actually quite different from a "Marvelous" both in terms of the size of the window and how the game itself judges time (StepMania and its variants use a realtime clock while DDR locks timing to video refreshes).
     
    ZeroCDR

    ZeroCDR

    The Fallen
    Oct 25, 2017
    2,141
    Best I could do is a few 9 footers on DDR (barely at that) back in the day. This is insaaaaaane.
     
    Lumination

    Lumination

    Member
    Oct 26, 2017
    12,468
    StarCreator said:
    To be pedantic, ITG uses a "Fantastic" rating, which is actually quite different from a "Marvelous" both in terms of the size of the window and how the game itself judges time (StepMania and its variants use a realtime clock while DDR locks timing to video refreshes).
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I couldn't find the actual timing needed with quick googling during work. Any insight into what it is?
     
    B4mv

    B4mv

    Member
    Nov 2, 2017
    3,054
    To the people whose eyes can't keep up, see what kind of insanity has been going on in the itg scene the past couple of years

     
    Kirksplosion

    Kirksplosion

    Member
    Aug 21, 2018
    2,465
    iamchris4life
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    God damn. Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.

    Seriously, it brings me back to my ScoreHero days before Guitar Hero had online leaderboards, so manually inputting your scores on a website was a thing.

    Anyway, congrats to Chris! This is awesome.
     
    SmokeMaxX

    SmokeMaxX

    Member
    Oct 25, 2017
    2,336
    Huge deal in the rhythm game community. Congrats!
    StarCreator said:
    To be pedantic, ITG uses a "Fantastic" rating, which is actually quite different from a "Marvelous" both in terms of the size of the window and how the game itself judges time (StepMania and its variants use a realtime clock while DDR locks timing to video refreshes).
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I have been told that the tighter Fantastic window is half as big as a normal Fantastic and is smaller than Marvelous.
     
    Liliana

    Liliana

    Banned
    Oct 28, 2017
    3,375
    NYC
    nopattern said:
    I havent played DDR seriously for years, but I always side-eyed people he used the back bar lol. I think part of the game is having the stamina to get through it on top of accuracy.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Uh, what? You do realize that he accomplished is impossible without the backbar, right? It's practically mandatory.
     
    FullNelson

    FullNelson

    Member
    Jan 28, 2019
    1,319
    His wife and kid (I presume?) make the video more wholesome than I expected. Fantastic!

    Edit: English is hard.
     
    Last edited:
    daegan

    daegan

    #REFANTAZIO SWEEP
    Member
    Oct 27, 2017
    2,897
    MrWindUpBird said:
    Are you really trying to gatekeep an accomplishment like this because of the use of the back bar?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Regret said:
    Uh, what? You do realize that he accomplished is impossible without the backbar, right? It's practically mandatory.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    AaronInJapan causing everyone to focus on perfect attack + then later ITG's focus on songs that basically require the bar absolutely killed any interest I had in high-level play. It's putting all the challenge in one basket instead of two, it's a completely different game really.
     
    Reader mode
    You must log in or register to reply here.