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Guitar Battle (GH3)

A Guitar Battle in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

List of Battle Modes in the Guitar Hero series where two or more players verse wach other and clash each other with Battle Power-Ups.

Guitar Battle[]

In Guitar Hero, a Guitar Battle is a competition between two players or a player and a computer player. In Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, using Battle Power-Ups in place of Star Power to disrupt your opponent and make them lose.

When playing online, Battle Mode was very popular, however Guitar Hero officials claim that it was not a true way of beating another online player, as it was not a true show of talent.[citation needed]

Guitar Battles in Career[]

In Guitar Hero III's Career, the player faces Tom Morello (Mitch's Moose Lounge), Slash (Shanker's Island), and Lou (Lou's Inferno).

There is a Guitar Battle against Joe Perry in Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. It is played at the end of Career Mode, and, upon beating it, Joe Perry is unlocked as a playable character.

In Guitar Hero World Tour's Career, the format of the Guitar Battle format was changed. Power ups no longer appear; instead, the player tries to bring the crowd meter all the way to their side in a manner similar to the original Face-Off and Pro Face-Off modes. The two battles in World Tour are against Zakk Wylde and Ted Nugent. However, Battle Mode is still available as a two player gametype. Apparently, Kirk Hammett of Metallica had recorded a Guitar Duel for Guitar Hero: Metallica, but was ultimately scrapped from the game. It is rumored that the Guitar Duel would have been very challenging, with many slider and HOPO sections.

Battle Powers-Ups[]

Battle Powers-Ups (also known as Battle Powers and Attacks during the Tutorial) are earned by successfully completing Battle Power sequences (replacing Star Power sequences/phrases) without breaking combo. Each player can store up to three Battle Power-Ups to be used against the opponent to make them fail the song. Tilting the guitar controller or pressing the Star Power button triggers the player's latest stored Battle Power-Up. Players may activate multiple Battle Power-Ups they have stored to maximize the disruption on their opponent. If a player acquires a new Battle Power-Up after storing three Battle Power-Ups, the latest Battle Power-Up will be replaced.

Using Battle Power-Ups against an A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) opponent, regardless of what it is, also reduces the A.I.'s performance while the Power-Up is in effect against them.

In Guitar Hero: Metallica, some Battle Power-Ups were renamed after titles of their songs and were given different visual effects based on the title name.

  • Amp Overload - Distorts your opponent's highway and nakes their notes invisible and re-visible at random, making it harder to see their notes (except the tail of sustained notes retain their visibility). If used against non-A.I. players that already know the note patterns of the song, this Battle Power-Up may not affect their performance unless used in conjunction with other Battle Power-Ups.
    • Ride the Lightning (Guitar Hero: Metallica) - Metallica's version of Amp Overload that sends a bolt of lightning on the opponent's highway.
  • Blackout - Introduced in Guitar Hero: Metallica as Fade to Black, this Battle Power-Up makes the opponent's highway and notes completely black, making the notes impossible to see. The highway's and notes' visuals are shortly restored.
  • Broken String - Pulls one of the opponent's target icons up at random and the corresponding fret cannot be used to hit notes in that lane until the opponent repeatedly presses the corresponding fret multiple times until the sprung target icon back in base position.
    • Damage Inc. (Guitar Hero: Metallica) - Metallica's version of Broken String. The effects are the same but the name is different.
  • Whammy Bar - Lifts up the opponent's target icons off the highway that completely disables their frets until the opponent repeatedly pushes in the whammy bar. Similar to Broken String, but it disables the entire strike line rather than a single button.
    • Trapped Under Ice (Guitar Hero: Metallica) - Metallica's version of Whammy Bar that freezes the opponent's target icons until the whammy bar is pressed repeatedly to break the ice.
  • Difficulty Up - Temporarily increases the difficulty level of the opponent to the next difficulty level for upcoming notes if they were below Expert difficulty. This Battle Power-Up is not available to the player if the opponent was already playing on Expert difficulty.
  • Double Notes - Temporarily adds an extra note to the opponent's upcoming notes as chords, usually 1 extra note to the adjacent right lane (left on Lefty Flip) if applicable (see below). There can only be a maximum of 3 notes per chord with this Power-Up.
    • G notes become GR chords. R notes become RY chords. Y notes become YB chords. B notes become BO chords. O notes, however, become YO chords since there is no higher fret above orange and the morphed BO chord is used for B notes.
    • YO chords become RYO chords, GB chords become GRB chords, RO chords become RBO chords.
  • Lefty Flip/Righty Flip - Temporarily flips the opponent's fret board horizontally, making your opponent's to play on Lefty Flip (or "Righty Flip" if they normally play on Lefty Flip).
  • Mines - Introduced in Guitar Hero World Tour, this Battle Power-Up randomly adds grey notes on the opponent's screen. If the opponent hits a grey note, his/her Rock Meter will greatly decrease, and they will lose their most recent power-up.
  • Steal Power-Up (Powerup Steal in Guitar Hero World Tour onward) - Steals the opponent's current Battle Power-Up shown. If the opponent does not have any Battle Power-Ups, it should be saved until he/she does.
  • Death Drain (Sudden Death only) - A skull appears over the opponent's highway and the opponent's Rock Meter continuously drains. The meter drains faster for those on higher difficulties. This effect lasts until a player loses.

In Guitar Hero World Tour, Sudden Death is replaced with "Do or Die!" In Do or Die!, the song restarts like in Sudden Death, however, unlike Sudden Death, Death Drain no longer appears; instead, the song plays much faster, and some power-ups, such as Amp Overload, now last twice as long, while other power-ups, such as Broken String, now require twice as many button presses to fix.

Guitar Duel[]

Guitar Hero - On Tour - Guitar Duel

The player is hit with the Pyrotechnics Battle Power-Up in Guitar Hero: On Tour. Meanwhile, the player is storing (from top to bottom) a Difficulty Down, Bomb Notes, and Hyper Speed Power-Ups, ready to be activated. Meanwhile, the opponent has two stored Battle Power-Ups unidentified and no active power on them.

The Guitar Hero: On Tour game series on the Nintendo DS has a variation of Guitar Battle called Guitar Duels. While they are similar in having two players (or an A.I.) clash against each other with Battle Power-Ups, the winning conditions are different. Guitar Battles on console has players fighting each other until one's Rock Meter hits red to make them fail the song while players in Guitar Duels on Nintendo DS fight for the highest score until the song is over (fails are disabled). The player and the opponent share a Guitar Duel Rock Meter that determines which player has the higher score with the position of the needle (the player's side is green while the opponent's side is red).

Battle Power-Ups[]

In Guitar Duels, each player can hold a maximum of three Battle Power-Ups and each player has one active slot (as their character icon; when their character icon is replaced with a Battle Power-Up icon, another Battle Power-Up cannot be used in that active slot until that power expires.

  • Amp Overload - The opponent's music volume will temporarily be muted and the opponent cannot advance the arrow to their side.
  • Broken String - Randomly breaks one the opponent's strings and disables one of your opponent's fret. That fret cannot be used until the broken guitar string is pulled from the bottom to the top of the guitar on the touchscreen.
  • Camera Flash - A bright light quickly flashes on the opponent's screen.
  • Hyper Speed - Temporarily increases the scrolling speed of the opponent's highway.
  • Pyrotechnics - The opponent's guitar will catch on fire, disabling the ability to play notes until the opponent blows into the microphone to remove the flames off the guitar.
  • Screen Flip - The screens on the opponent's Nintendo DS will temporarily swap. The touchscreen when swapped still operates the same as its original screen (including Battle Power-Up slot locations) but the victim cannot open the pause menu until the effect ends.
  • Signature - A fan in the crowd will ask the opponent to sign their random object (in the language of the game being played in), disabling all of his/her actions until the opponent writes/scribbles on the item until the item goes away. Such items can be a piece of clothing (shirt, sleeve, shoe, etc.), skateboard, mobile phone, and more.
  • Steal Item - Allows the player to see their opponent's stored Battle Power-Ups and steal any one of them if they have any stored, otherwise this Battle Power-Up will be wasted if an item is not selected within 4 seconds. While this Battle Power-Up is active, no one can activate any Battle Power-Ups until it resolves or expires. This Battle Power-Up cannot be activated if a Battle Power-Up is currently active on either player.
  • Difficulty Up - Temporarily increases the opponent's difficulty level by 1 level. This Battle Power-Up is not available to the player if the opponent is already playing on Expert.
  • Difficulty Down - Temporarily decreases the difficulty of the user but increases the user's base score of notes hit during that time (A.I. opponents that use this Power-Up do not get an increase in base score which benefits the player instead) and temporarily prevents the opponent from activating offensive Battle Power-Ups while this is active just like Shield. This power-up cannot be activated while another Battle Power-Up is on your character icon.
  • Bomb Notes - This Battle Power-Up temporarily replaces some upcoming notes at random on the opponent's highway with bomb-like notes. If the opponent plays a bomb note, their score will decrease and their streak will reset. Ignoring/missing these bomb notes will automatically play these notes as if they were normal notes.
  • Shield - Temporarily prevents the opponent from activating offensive Battle Power-Ups while this is active. This power-up cannot be activated while another Battle Power-Up is on your character icon.

Videos[]

Tom Morello and Slash Guitar Battles[]

Tom Morello[]

Slash[]

Lou Guitar Battle[]

Lou's Victory[]

Player's Victory[]

Zakk Wylde and Ted Nugent Guitar Battles[]

Zakk Wylde[]

Ted Nugent[]

Trivia[]

  • Although the Broken String power-up randomly disables one of the fret buttons and has an icon of a pair of scissors, the attack is misnamed; if a string actually was broken, it would be permanently disabled. It's possible that power-up doesn't actually break the string, but instead pulls the string loose and out of tune, and pressing the fret button twists the machine head, tightening the string and putting it back in tune.
v · t · eGameplay features of the Guitar Hero series
Difficulty levels
Beginner/Basic · Easy/Casual · Medium/Regular · Hard/Advanced · Expert · Expert+
In-game features
Achievements/Trophies/Awards · Calibration · Cheat Codes · Lefty Flip · Multiplier · Notes · Rock Meter · Scoring · Star Power (meter · phrases · paths explained) · Star Rating · Whammy
Instruments
GH Guitar iconGuitar · GH Bass iconBass · GH Lead alt iconLead · GH Rhythm alt iconRhythm · GH Drums iconDrums · GH Vocals iconVocals
Cheats
Hyperspeed · Large Gems · No Fail · Performance Mode · Precision Mode
Note types
Guitar/Bass Chords · Hammer-ons and Pull-offs · Long notes / Sustains (extended sustains · reverse extended sustains) · Open notes · Slider notes / Tap notes
Drums Accent notes · Bass drum notes · Drum swells · Ghost notes
Vocals Vocal notes · Spoken notes · Freeforms
Game Modes
General Career (Quest) · GHTV (songs) · Mii Freestyle · Quickplay(+) (Gig Challenges · Star Challenges) · Party Play · Practice · Rock Star Creator / Rocker Creator · Tutorial
Multiplayer Band · Battle · Cooperative · Face-Off · Pro Face-Off · Roadie Play (Roadie Battle · Roadie Quickplay+ · Roadie Setlist Manager) · RockFest (Do-or-Die · Elimination · Momentum · Momentum+ · Perfectionist · Streakers)
Music Studio / GHStudio GHTunes / GHTracks · Recording Studio / GHJam · GHMix / GHMix 2.0
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