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How I beat my first expert+ map in 8 hours (Anime Edition/Songs)
Introduction
I’ve always wanted a VR headset ever since I got to try one out at a gaming centre, and after a year or two I finally had enough money to buy the affordable oculus quest 2. Games like superhot and half life seemed pretty cool, but the game I was dying to play was beatsaber. The concept of swinging lightsabers at blocks flying towards you is pretty simple, but I figured that the custom songs and gamemodes would provide immense amounts of replayability compared to story games. In this video, I’m going to show you how I went from being a complete beginner at beat saber to beating my first expert+ map within 8 hours of play-time.
Prior to playing beat saber, I had no real advantages: the only experience I had prior playing rhythm games was the ghetto roblox version of beat saber, which isn’t even remotely close to the real thing. I’m also not buff, and I have virtually no knowledge in music. If you’re trying to improve, but are failing to see any progress, take my journey as inspiration to beat your own expert+ map as well. Without any further ado, let’s begin.
Milestones
3 Hours- Kakegurui (Hard)
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During the first few hours, I spent most of my time getting used to the controls. I tried my fair share of expert and expert+ maps, just to fail within the first few seconds. I was able to beat the default beat saber hard maps, but it didn’t feel that satisfying; as a result, I downloaded “Deal with the devil” from Kakegurui and here’s what happened.
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Play clip
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I found it harder compared to the hard maps provided by beatsaber, and I found the ending to be challenging yet fun. Now, it was time for the next challenge: beating an expert map.
4 Hours- Centimeter (Expert) 3.63
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Beating hard maps came natural to me, but expert maps took a bit more out of me. Instead of being able to ace maps within my first run, I was getting overwhelmed by the speed and complexity of the new patterns I encountered. Low and behold, my first expert map.
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To be honest with you, I was not expecting to beat an expert map this fast. Nonetheless, I still did it, and now it was time to beat an expert+ map…
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Clip of losing
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Nevermind. Instead, I decided to first beat another expert map that had more blocks per second.
6 Hours- Fatima (4.75 BPS)
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The next milestone I reached was beating Fatima: it was another expert map, but it had 4.75 blocks per second compared to centimeter’s 3ish.
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The beginning of the song was fairly easy, but the end part really killed me. I recognized the patterns, but my arms failed to replicate them. As a result, I began practicing that one specific part. First I started at 80%, then slowly worked my way up to 100% as I consistently started to beat the speed I was on. After 30 minutes of doing the same pattern over and over again, I was ready.
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The pattern doesn’t seem too complicated when I watched my recording, but I was still pumped nonetheless. Now, it was finally time to challenge the hardest difficulty in the game: an expert+ map. However, as soon as I was in my prime, the beat saber gods had other plans.
Not being able to play
- The following day, I loaded up virtual desktop, hit play on beat saber, but when I selected the play button ingame, something was off; the button press didn’t make a sound. I thought it was just an audio bug, so I loaded up a map, but I couldn’t hear anything. The music, the block hits, the fireworks at the end, my game had lost all it’s audio. I tried restarting my game, my pc, my VR headset, I tried reinstalling the game twice, I tried everything that was recommended by people in previous reddit posts, but after countless hours of troubleshooting, I found no solution. The odd thing was, the audio from my Oculus Quest 2 was working just fine, and when I loaded a different game I purchased, I could hear it’s ingame sounds. The beat saber gods bested me, and as a result, I surrendered my desires to play the game for 10 excruciating days.
Reawakening
After being deprived of my virtual escape, I decided to try and troubleshoot my error once again. I joined the virtual desktop discord and shared my problem, but no one responded.
After an hour tweaking different settings and trying different solutions, I finally fixed my audio. I had changed the output of the game audio to my microphone’s mixing application, and forgot to switch it out. Silly me. Even though it was a stupid little error that I should have known from the start, I put all of my anger aside as I was finally able to play my favorite game.
I was ecstatic. After warming up and getting used to the controls again by playing some expert maps, I charged straight in to play a newly downloaded expert+ song: Hikaru Nara from YLIA. Here’s how it went.
8 Hours- Hikaru Nara (Expert+, 5.39 BPS)
I may have been super sloppy at the end, but I did it. I finally beat my first expert+ map in only 8 hours of playing the game.
I felt like I was in the flow state, my hands slashing the blocks before I could even comprehend their approach. Deprived of the rhythm game I was eager to play, I came back stronger than ever, and somehow jumped in skill level. Of course, after suddenly playing for 1-2 hours after 10 days of no exercise whatsoever, my arms began to tire out. However, I wasn’t going to waste the adrenaline I had in me from beating my first expert+ map; I wanted to prove that beating my first expert+ map wasn’t a fluke. Through my perseverance, I kept trying to beat my next expert+ map to see if I really was on such a level. Within 30 minutes, this happened.
8.5 Hours- Guren no Yumiya OP1 (Expert+)
Despite sweating and being physically exhausted from practicing it, beating this song marked my second expert+ map completed. The patterns in this song were straightforward, but the wide distances between blocks tired me out fairly quickly. Nonetheless, the song was pretty fun to play; I imagined myself as if I was part of the Survey Corps, hacking away at the napes of the titans.
So here I was, having played over 2 hours of beat saber and completing 2 expert+ maps in one sitting. What’s the logical thing to do in this scenario? You guessed it, keep playing. I still wasn’t satisfied, and I wanted to beat a map that had complicated patterns and a fast pace. As a result, I chose Kawaki ko Ameku: a song that I had miserably failed before, but only this time with a new sense of flow and rhythm.
9 Hours- Kawaki Ko Ameku (Expert+)
- I was finally content. Within 1 hour, I had beaten 3 expert+ maps without any prior practice. I had secured my place as a competent beat saber player, and the next day, I couldn’t play at all because of how sore my arms were. If I were to give one piece of advice, I would recommend you stretch before and after playing, or else you’re 100% going to regret it the next day.
Reflection
- To be honest, I did not expect to improve this fast. I’m not the best when it comes to rhythm games, as I suck miserably at osu. Paired with my average fitness, I thought I would encounter a slower rate of growth, and was expecting to only beat my first expert+ map a month later. If you’re not as epic of a gamer as I am and are struggling to improve, here are some tips that helped me out.
Tips
Claw grip
- I know it’s not how you would normally hold a lightsaber, but this grip has made the overall beatsaber experience less tiring and more comfortable. What you do is you stick your index and middle finger into the loop, while you wrap the rest of your fingers around the handle. This allows for better wrist movement, and makes it so your arm is parallel to the lightsabers. If you want to learn more about this grip, be sure to check out Michael Gerry’s video on it, as that’s where I found out about it.
Play songs you already know
- By importing custom songs I already knew, I was able to focus more on learning the mechanics of the game and the mapping of the stage. Plus, I enjoyed it more than playing the stock songs, and it provided a new way to appreciate my favorite anime songs :)
Use practice mode
- I like using practice mode since it lets you focus on specific parts of the song you struggle with. For example, I used the practice mode on Fatima to help me with this part on the screen right now. Since it’s the second half of the song, using practice mode was way more efficient than if I were to replay the song from start to finish just to fail within seconds of this part. You can slow it down, and slowly amp up the speed as you identify the patterns and form it into muscle memory.
Conclusion
If I were forced to play only one VR game for the rest of my life, it would be beat saber. After hours of saber-slashing, I have yet to feel any boredom from playing this game. Even if you beat the campaign or play through all the built-in songs, there’s a whole community full of generous mappers to provide you an endless amount of content. After an hour long work session, I can unwind and load up my Oculus Quest 2 for some extra daily cardio. I’m not able to see how many calories I burned from playing during my 30 minute sessions, but if I’m sweating, that’s gotta mean something. Although I wasn’t as serious about improving compared to previously, I’m still able to beat a new expert+ map here and there, and my efficiency in playing the game has added to my overall enjoyment. If you still don’t have the game, or even a VR headset in general, I would highly recommend trying the experience for yourself. If you’re not a fan of it, you can always find other games that may suit your preference, or you can share your device for your family and friends to try. With that being said, that wraps up my journey towards improving in beat saber. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to leave a like, share it with those who may also be interested, and subscribe for more content like this. If you still want some more beat saber content, here’s some more expert+ maps I beat that I used as background footage during my commentary sessions.
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Crossing field
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Louder
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Fatima expert+
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