Where to Start/Solo Game[edit]
When you start a solo game, you will be prompted to create a Freq, which is your avatar in the game. You can select from a number of prefab Freqs or select from the various parts available to create your own (and customize the colors of the various parts). Once you're satisfied with the look of your Freq, you give it a name. Your Freq is used to save your progress in the campaign, and can be displayed as you play the game (go to Options to choose the size of the Freq displayed, or to hide the Freq). Your controller configuration is also saved with your Freq, so each player can create a different Freq to save their own progress in the game and their own control settings.
Once you get into the Solo game mode, you can select your difficulty level. Mellow gives you access to 23 of the songs and is probably the best place to start out, especially if you haven't played Frequency before this game, or haven't played in a while. Normal is more challenging and gives access to 24 of the game's songs. Brutal and Insane difficulties are more difficult in turn, and give access to all 25 of the game's songs.
If you've played with the Remix mode a while, you can also select Custom, which allows you to play a Remix as you would one of the normal songs in the game.
The game's basic and advanced training go over the basics of playing the game, and you have to go through the basic training to unlock the first arena in the single player game. To reiterate the basics, though, you simply need to keep as much of the song playing as possible, for as long as possible. In order to do this, you have to shoot the notes for a full bar in each track of the song. Once you get through a full bar, the track will continue playing for a number of bars, giving you a chance to turn on more tracks in the same song. You move your ship to the left and right to select which track you are shooting at, and there are two buttons to choose from for shooting each of the left, right, and center notes in the individual tracks (see Controls for details).
The advanced training touches on powerups and streaks. There are different icons for the different powerups, and shooting a set number of the powerup icons in a row will make that powerup available to you. A streak is achieved by hitting your shots in consecutive bars without missing a shot. The longer the streak continues, the more points you get for each track unlocked. This leads to the main goal of playing the full song (all tracks in the song) for as long as possible.
After the training arena is complete, you have five more arenas to work through. Each arena has a number of songs to play, and scoring a certain number of points or getting through the initial set of songs will unlock more songs in each arena (usually a Boss song unlocked by getting through the initial songs, and Bonus song unlocked with points). The number of songs available at the outset and the number of points required to unlock the bonus songs are determined by the difficulty level chosen when starting the game.