How to Beat Through the Fire and Flames on Expert

Surviving the Intro

Use a rubber band or capo to hold down the green note. The intro section of this song, which forces you to alternate between green notes and the other notes on the neck at a rapid-fire pace, is considered by many to be one of the most difficult sections in the whole song. One common trick that Guitar Hero experts use to make this section easier is to keep the green note held down with a tool like a rubber band, a hair scrunchie, or an actual guitar capo throughout the whole section. This way, the player only has to focus on the other notes — not necessarily an easy task, but an easier one. If you want to use this trick, make sure the tool you use has a tight enough hold to keep the green button held down consistently but is loose enough to be quickly removed from the green button when you want to transition to the rest of the song.

Use hammer-ons for the intro (not constant strumming.) After the very first red note, the whole intro section is one giant sequence of hammer-ons and pull-offs, which don't require you to strum, just to touch the correct buttons. This means that, amazingly, it's possible to clear this section only strumming the first note. Extra strums won't lose you any points if they're on the correct notes, but they're not necessary, so you may want to focus less on them than on hitting the right notes. Hammer-ons are played by strumming one note and "hammering on" the second note above it by touching it without strumming. Conversely, pull-offs are played by strumming the first note and touching the note below it without strumming. In Guitar Hero, hammer-ons and pull-off notes have a white center (without a black border). The difficult thing about using solely hammer-ons and pull-offs for the intro is that, if you miss a single note, you will need to strum again to reset the "string." If you're not paying attention, it's easy to miss dozens of notes by forgetting to strum after a mistake.

Alternatively, consider tapping the intro. Playing the intro section can be very difficult to play with one hand. If you are having a hard time reaching the blue and orange notes while keeping the green note held down, consider using your strumming hand to help. To do this, bring your strumming hand up the neck of the guitar after the first strum and use your index finger and middle finger to handle the blue and orange notes. For example, if you strum with your right hand, you would strum the first note with your right hand and then use your right index and middle finger to play the blue and orange notes (if you're a lefty, do the exact opposite.) Some high-level players even use the elbow of their strumming hand to hit the first note — this allows them to have their fingers in place for tapping right away.

Leave one color out of the intro section. Having trouble hitting every note in the intro section? Try restricting yourself to just four and leaving out one of the more difficult ones to hit (like, for instance, the orange note.) You'll miss some points, but there are enough notes in the intro section that you won't do poorly enough to fail as long you hit everything else. Keep in mind that, if you miss notes and break your streak, you'll need to be ready to strum again — your sequence of hammer-ons and pull-offs won't carry through.

Be ready to transition immediately into fast scales. One of the hardest things about the intro is that, after repeating the same extremely difficult pattern over and over, it ends with a very fast sequence of scales that aren't at all like what came before. However, this part isn't impossible if you know what's coming: The intro pattern ends on a green note and the scales start on an orange note — these happen to be at the same places as they are during the intro pattern, so if you're paying attention, you can transition smoothly from one to the other. The first downward run is all pull-offs. However, the second green note at the bottom of the scale must be strummed again. After that, the second orange note at the top of the scale must be strummed as well.

Getting Through the Rest of the Song

If needed, leave the rubber band on until the vocals start. If you used the rubber band trick described above, it may seem like you need to take the rubber band off of the green note as soon as the intro is over. This isn't actually true — in Guitar hero, if you're playing a single note, you can have any notes "under" it (further down the fret) held down and you'll still hit the note. Because there aren't any chords (two notes or more at once) until just before the lyrics start, you can actually leave the rubber band on until then and it won't affect your playing. This is handy because it keeps you from missing notes by taking a second to move the rubber band out of the way during the early parts of the song, which are packed with notes. After the first chord, there's a brief pause in the guitar part, so you'll have a second to get rid of the rubber band safely.

Use a steady 16th-note rhythm for the rapidly-strummed sections. Throughout the song, there are numerous parts where a single note must be played very rapidly for a second or two. The best way to tackle these parts is not to wildly strum as fast as you can — this can actually cause you to lose points and break your streak by playing too many notes. Instead, you'll want to use a quick but very steady rhythm. Since there are so many notes packed into these sections, using a strumming tempo that's not steady can cause you to miss dozens of notes. For sections like the "Post Insanity" section right after the intro where this fast rhythm alternates between multiple notes, concentrate on keeping your strumming steady and just move your fretting fingers when you need to switch notes. Once you get your strumming under control, these sections actually aren't that hard.

Nail the "easier" star power sections. Having a reserve of star power to fall back on during this song can make the difference between victory and failure. Because of this, you'll want to make sure that you take every opportunity to build up star power that you can get. Missing an easy star power section is not an option in this song! Below are a few of the less-difficult sections near the beginning of the song where you can earn star power — if you can get these, you can get the easy sections throughout the song: Right before the loud instruments kick back in during the first verse there are a few easy chords followed by a short scale which can be hit for star power. Right after this, there is a long string of rapid green notes which give star power. When the lyrics switch to "So now we fly ever free/We're free before the thunderstorm," there are two easy star power sections right in a row. At the start of the first chorus ("So far away..."), there's a very easy two-chord star power opportunity. Use the whammy bar here to get extra star power!

Use your star power carefully. In a difficult song like this where survival is more important than winning points, star power isn't helpful if you don't use it to help you through the trickiest spots. While almost the entire song is difficult enough for any part to cause failure, there are a few parts that most high-level players agree are even harder than the rest. These are listed below (the names for each section come from Practice mode): "They're hammer ons" (the intro) "Blackest waves" "Climactic Buildup" "Herman's Solo" "What the..!?" "Rampaging Dragons." "Twin Solo" — if you can get past this, the rest of the song should be manageable.

Building Up Your Skills

Make full use of Practice mode. Guitar Hero's built-in practice function is your best friend when it comes to conquering extremely hard songs like "Through the Fire and Flames". In Practice Mode, you have a wide variety of handy features that make it easy to gradually work up to playing the "real" song. These include: The ability to slow down the tempo of the song. The ability to practice individual parts of the song without having to play the rest of the song. The ability to adjust the scrolling speed — note that this requires you to input a cheat code via the Options menu.

Start playing the song on a "doable" difficulty, then work up to expert. Unless you have the skills of Herman Li (guitarist and songwriter for Dragonforce), the odds that you'll be able to clear this song on Expert the first time you try to are very, very slim. The best way to get good at this song is generally to start at a difficulty that allows you to get through the whole song consistently (even if that difficulty is easy.) This will give you a feel for the important "moments" of the song and help you gradually build your speed and accuracy (even if the jumps from normal to hard and hard to expert are pretty massive.) In addition, playing at easier difficulties will allow you to get past the intro so that you can practice the parts that come after.

Practice other difficult songs for variety. The skills that allow you to beat other difficult Guitar Hero songs are just as useful for "Through the Fire and Flames" — plus, practicing other hard songs will give you a little variety to keep you from "burning out" on Dragonforce. Below are a selection of Guitar Hero songs from the games that have "Through the Fire and Flames" that are considered to be some of the most difficult: Guitar Hero III "Raining Blood" by Slayer "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" (cover) originally by Charlie Daniels Band "One" by Metallica" Guitar Hero Smash Hits "Play With Me" by Extreme "Beast and the Harlot" by Avenged Sevenfold "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden

Listen to the song in real life. Part of what makes "Through the Fire and Flames" so hard to clear is that it's very difficult to guess what will come next. However, listening to the song in real life until you more or less remember how the whole thing goes can make this a little easier. Once you have a good feel for the progression of the song, you can plan ahead as you play it in Guitar Hero — for instance, if you know that Herman Li's impossible solo is about to start, you may want to hold off on triggering your star power until you really need it.