Pros: Osu! is essentially a clone of and on the DS, for PC and iOS. Osu! allows players to play songs that were not on the game, and if they...

Cons: New players to Osu! will find the mouse extremely hard to get accustomed to. Since I used to play Osu! on/off, I daresay it took me around...

Pros: Osu! is essentially a clone of and on the DS, for PC and iOS. Osu! allows players to play songs that were not on the game, and if they can't find those songs already, they can create them themselves and optionally, upload it to a public server for everyone to play. Osu! also features a Taiko mode, a clone of the arcade and multiplatform drum game , and CatchTheBeat, which is an original mode as far as I know.

Osu! features the addictive standard osu! mode, where players time clicks and drags over note circles, sliders and spinners in accordance with the rhythm of the songs that are played. This is easily addictive, though it may get aggravating for players who are trying to obtain 100% accuracy on songs. Taiko is a mode that simulates japanese drumming, and so is more similar to DDR, where scrolling notes meet a circle, indicating when players should hit the keys. CatchTheBeat involves catching falling fruit timed with the song's rhythm, with an Osu! character at the bottom of the screen holding a plate. These modes offer varying styles of gameplay, and can serve as temporary entertainment should a player get bored of another mode.

As players differ greatly in skill level, there are a variety of built-in modifications that allow players to pass songs easier/harder as they please. These mods affect the scoring system, however. Generally, mods to make the song easier will drop scores by a large margin, and those to make the song harder will increase scores by a smaller margin. This, along with the different song difficulties ensures that players will have at the very least, one difficulty that they can pass.

Osu! has an everincreasing song list, with multiple songs being added daily by players. If the song in question is more than a month old, chances are it'll be in the song list. If not, players can map them themselves if they wish. Even if they are already mapped, players can provide alternate renditions. The songs are hosted on Osu!'s servers, with certain songs grouped in packs, hosted on MediaFire. The song download servers are always available and provide fast downloads (I regularly receive 500kB/s ~ 800kB/s), although the server does limit the number of songs a user may download in a short timeframe. Packs don't have this limitation though.

In addition to that, Osu! has online multiplayer built-in. The multiplayer mode allows players to compete head-on or play co-op on any song chosen by the room master. IRC is integrated into Osu! to facilitate matchmaking, as well as interaction between players. As of the writing of this review, there are 22 channels available, covering game channels, language channels, and support channels.

In addition, when players finish songs on or offline, their score is automatically uploaded to Osu's servers, where they obtain a map ranking. The top 40 players are shown in the song selection screen, with the top 100 shown on the song download page.

Cons: New players to Osu! will find the mouse extremely hard to get accustomed to. Since I used to play Osu! on/off, I daresay it took me around a week to get used to it, if all that time was put together. Unlike the DS versions where you know where you will touch, you'll find yourself missing circles/spinners by mere pixels at first. There is tablet support for those who own graphics tablets, though. This does not apply to the iOS version.

Of all the game modes, only standard mode is available on iOS Osu!, on Solo mode. In essence, this is Osu! stripped down to its barebones. Also, the iOS version of Osu! requires a jailbreak, as it is not available on the official app store. Downloading songs sometimes doesn't work, as Osu! will display "Beatmap not found..." when it is accessible via a PC. Instead of redownloading all songs, players already playing on PC can manually copy their songs over via SSH.

Like other rhythm games, Osu! rewards heavily for continuous combos. As a result, however, one single miss in the middle of a song can effectively cut one's potential score by half, a quarter, or even more. Players mindful of their score will be put down heavily by the huge difference between leaderboard scores and their own, which can be anywhere from 5x to 20x higher.