2003 marks the release of SSX3, the third installment of one of my all-time favorite game series.  The original SSX titles delighted me with their zany over-the-top world designs, larger-than-life character personalities, and thrilling snowboarding action.  SSX3 holds a particularly special place in my heart because its DJ-style on-the-fly remixing of the music in response to the gameplay and environment makes for an incredibly immersive experience that kept me hooked for hours on end.  The SSX3 Original Soundtrack is incredibly nostalgic for me for that reason, so I've paired Do Your Thing (Jaxx Club Remix) from that album with some easygoing fun charts as a throwback to one of the greatest gems of my early gaming days.

2005 introduced me to DDR and kicked off my lifelong love of rhythm gaming.  You won't find a whole lot of praise for the US version of DDR Extreme for PS2, but as the first DDR game I owned, it was certainly the soundtrack of my childhood for that year and gave me many fond Memories.  Among several classic licenses from older arcade titles, this game featured Only You, my introduction to the man, the myth, the legend, Captain Jack (may he rest in peace).  I tend to avoid doing DDR resteps, but DDR's song cut and chart are both woefully inadequate, so I made an exception this time and put together a warm, joyful set of charts for this warm, joyful track.

2009 was a brief period of time when I was very invested in the DJMAX Portable series.  Getting my button-mashing rhythm game fix on-the-go was one of the biggest highlights of the PSP era for me.  Though I no longer play the games today, there are still a handful of great songs that have stuck with me over the years.  Two in particular, Desperado by Croove (featured in my 2011 original simfile collection, "Zeta3 - Summation") and Syriana by Bexter, are both banger tracks with driving beats and smooth vocals by JC that I came back to time and time again.  In honor of that era, I've paired the latter song with an engaging set of charts that includes possibly my favorite 10 I've ever written.

2010 brought me into the ITG customs scene and inspired me to take on an ambitious and...rather misguided simfile project.  The result was a 40-song collection of (bad) charts exclusively featuring songs from beatmania IIDX, very cleverly titled..."In the Groove - IIDX edition".  Yikes.  At least it had full lowers and background videos?  Though I don't want to revisit much from that era, I did want to at least give a nod to a funky underappreciated Remo-con track, Shakin' 31, included in that pack.  I considered doing a straight restep, but then I happened upon Remo-con's incredible glitch hop remix from his second album.  As soon as I heard it I knew Zapper ~Shakin' 41~ had to be a part of this collection.

2011 was my second foray into simfile competition with my entry into r21freak's Pad File Comp VI.  My entry into the previous year's contest was...very bad and earned me damn near last place, but with an extra year of experience under my belt I was eager to give it another go.  My results this time around were...less bad (23rd of 34 isn't the worst), but regardless of my chart's performance, my song choice was a clear winner.  I found Eskimo via a random web search for a remix of the Hello Moto ringtone, and when I subsequently gave Are You Serious (Eskimo Remix) a listen, I knew I needed to stomp arrows to it.  Over a decade later, I've decided to restep this psytrance banger...skipping the obnoxious gimmicks this time.

2012 highlights not only the shenanigans of my early college years, but also the height of my dubstep addiction.  Because of lack of access I wasn't particularly involved with rhythm games or their music at the time, but I was jamming out to just about anything that sounded vaguely like Skrillex.  I wanted to pay homage to this time in my life of musical discovery and passion, and I couldn't think of a better song than Experts.  This combination drumstep/dubstep track celebrates unabashed enthusiasm for hard-hitting EDM, and its music video features animated charicatures of dubstep's biggest names of the time waging battle against the internet trolls and naysayers.  Pairs perfectly with some tech alphabet soup.

2012 was the year I finally started to hit my stride with stepcharting.  I released my second original simfile collection, "Zeta3 - Summation (2nd Term)", and over a decade later I'm still quite proud of many of those charts.  Boom Boom Disco Night in particular is elegantly simple with just a sprinkle of visual flare, a great example of how I try to connect players to the music through my charts.  Though that version of the song doesn't need revisiting, I was excited by the extended version from the BEST HIT YCo album, which puts an energetic spin on the original track.  So I cut down this version and crafted a set of charts for it, also in the spirit of elegance and simplicity, as a tribute to my best chart work of last decade.

2014 brought me back to rhythm games in a big way after a couple years' hiatus.  I finally put together a humble beatmania IIDX setup in my campus apartment and had the opportunity to catch up on four years' worth of IIDX music I had missed.  That also sparked in me a greater interest in the catalog of music that Bemani (and Bemani-adjacent) musicians had to offer outside of the games.  Sota Fujimori's SYNTHESIZED3 has been a longtime favorite of mine, and it's always a delight to give a listen to Just a Little Smile (SF Dubstep Mix), a quirky remix of a IIDX staple.  I've paired the song with some equally quirky arrows as a throwback to a time when Bemani musicians could freely showcase their talents independently of the games.

2019 marks the return of my stepcharting motivation after seven idle years.  In an effort to ease back into the hobby and catch up on the evolution of the charting meta, I assembled the first iteration of global namespace, combining a handful of my best charts from my previous collections with some new charts to my more recent IIDX favorites.  I was thrilled to step シムルグの目醒め, a gorgeous track that I immediately fell in love with when it was released.  Unfortunately, the resulting chart was not very fun and I've since scrapped it (along with most other charts I wrote that year).  But I knew I just had to come back to this song eventually, so I've restepped it for this collection to finally give it the fun charts it deserves.