I’ve been playing Guitar Hero III the last couple days and I’ve found that the biggest difference from Guitar Hero II is the Battle Mode. Personally I’m not a big fan of Battle Mode, but I’ll put together a full review another time. Today I’m going to take a look at some strategies and tips for getting through the battles.

First, off a quick overview of how the Battle Mode works. There is a tutorial in the game that covers it pretty well, but basically any time you would have gotten star power now you get battle power that can be used to attach your opponent. Once you have battle power stored up it will give you attacks to use on your opponent. These attacks are activated just like star power is activated by tipping your guitar up. You have until the end of the song to make your opponent loose. You can’t simply end higher than your opponent on the rock meter you have to actually make them loose.

The Attacks

• Broken String: One string/button on the opponent’s guitar will not work until it is fixed by rapidly tapping the button.
• Difficulty Up: This attack increases the difficulty level your opponent has to play.
• Amp overload: The fret board will shake and cause the notes to blink, making the scrolling notes difficult to read.
• Whammy Bar: The opponent will have to use the whammy bar repeatedly before he can play notes again.
• Power Steal: This will steal your opponent’s power-up. If they do not have one it does nothing.
• Double notes: The opponent will have to play any single note as a two-button chord, and any two-button chord as a three-button chord.
• Lefty/Righty flip: The fret board will be mirrored, requiring the attacked player to change his handedness.
• Death Drain: After the players go into Sudden Death mode, all Battle Powers turn into unstoppable Death Drain attacks. When Death Drain is unleashed upon the opponent, a figure resembling a winged Grim Reaper will appear to have a constant negative influence on their opponent’s rock meter. Every mistake the player makes accelerates their rock meter drain, and eventually the Grim Reaper will block the player’s view of the frets and thus the player will fail, since their Rock Meter will be put past the failing red range.

The first thing to keep in mind is that this is a video game and you should treat the battles like a boss fight in any other video game. This is not how most people are use to playing Guitar Hero. Most of us play Guitar Hero to have some fun jamming to songs we like. Battle Mode will be very hard for you if you treat it this way. However, if you treat battle mode like you do other video game’s boss battles then they fights may be hard, but they are winnable.

Like boss battles in other games you need to try and get every power up (attack) that you can. Even if this means missing other notes right after the battle (star) power notes. Without any attacks you will not win. Unlike playing normal songs in Guitar Hero it is ok to miss a few notes in Battle Mode as long as you get all the attacks and don’t miss too many a note here and there will not cause you to loose.

Once you are getting every attack available during the battle you need to use them effectively. Like in a boss battle in a shooter you need to use them when your opponent will be the weakest or when it will have the strongest effect. There are a couple things to keep in mind to do this. First, you attacks are stackable. You can have up to three of them stored up to use back to back. Some of the attacks, like Double Note and Difficulty Up are most effective when you can use them at the same time as something that will force your opponent to miss notes; like Broken String or Whammy Bar. Second, be sure to use your attacks when they will make your opponent miss the most notes. Generally this is right as they are starting a nice long section of notes. Finally, building on this last tip, use the attacks so your opponent not only misses notes, but so they miss the battle power notes. If you can cause your opponent to miss a note right at the start of the battle power notes not only will the rock meter go down because they missed notes but they will not have any way to attack you back.

So, for best results put all three of these strategies together when you can. Save a couple of attacks to use together and then use them right at the start of the battle power notes to make them miss notes and not get any attacks to use on you. However, it is better to use a single attack and stop your opponent from getting the battle power notes with attacks that will force you to miss notes no matter what (whammy bar, amp overload, or break string). It is better to keep them from getting these attacks than it is to get two or three attacks stacked up to use against them at once in most cases. If they are getting attacks from the battle power notes that I can still play through (lefty flip, double note, or difficulty up) then I’ll save my attack for when I have two attacks stacked together. Using this strategy I’ve not had too much trouble with any of the boss battles so far. Once in a while things will not go your way and you may have to retry a battle, but for the most part using this strategy of keeping your opponent from attacking you and maximizing your attacks will give you the win every time.

If you have other tips or strategies please leave me a comment and let me know about them.

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