Buttons all the way. I also really like the one handed style so I can feel the rhythm while fueling my cigarette habit.

Button for sure. Haven't tried one-handed yet, though.

I think the flicks are really inconsistent on Button Mode, particularly on the FMS stages where you have to hit it at the end of a Slide--I've heard some tricks on how to circumvent this difficulty, but it never works every time for me. This, plus the fact that I put a lot of time into the original, means that I play exclusively in Stylus Mode. While it's slightly annoying holding my monstrous XL in one hand (yes, I'm a weakling), I find much more consistency when playing this way.

Gotta use that Stylus!

Man I love this game. I just wish I wasn't so addicted to Destiny right now so I could play it more.

Buttons for battles, stylus for the other two. Field songs are way too hard with the circle pad, there's zero precision with that thing. Also, the buttons seem to lag for me on the movie songs.

I only play with the stylus. It is the only 3DS game that I think the stylus real shines in, at least for my collection of games. I'm surprised by the amount of button loved here.

Button style so far. This is my first exposure to any Theatrhythm, and I'm only like 4 hours in, but I'm hoping I can make button mode work for me even on the field events. Going to try 1-handed next.

Stylus style or nothing. I need to tap those buttons real fast like with that stylus.

Stylin' the stylus!

I tried out the buttons for one song and that was it for me. I dunno why you'd use anything other than the stylus.

@chemystery:

I didn't think there'd be this many stylus users! I tried it with some field songs and my cursor was all over the place. You people are crazy!

I'm also surprised. I played the first game for 30 hours and I've only been using buttons in Curtain Call but I also have trouble mastering the FMS. I noticed you can do it if you flick the circle pad really quickly at the end of those FMS green hold notes.

@basketsnake: @bigmess: Maybe the majority of stylus users are players from the original game. I'm pretty sure there was no button mode for that one.

@chemystery:

That's what I figured. I didnt play the original and I dont think I could ever go back to that.

It's hard to remember now, but I think one of the reasons I didn't like stylus for the original was because sometimes you would end with an upward slide at the end of an upward hold and I would just run out of screen space to make the slide motion? But that doesn't seem to be the case any more. Maybe I should go back to stylus. Would make it harder to play in bed though.

Button Style get my vote because I haven't tried the others styles.

Finally figured it out, managed to almost get a Perfect Chain on Melodies of Life on Ultimate on my third try. The first two were quick restarts as I was testing this new technique, and the third time the only Bad I had was a dumb mistake totally unrelated to a Hold>Slide trigger. Basically on every Hold trigger I push the circle pad all the way left, then just wiggle it diagonally up-left or down-left far enough to get the cursor to follow the slope of the line. This makes it so that I never accidentally trigger the Slide at the end too early. I'll have to build up the muscle memory to make the move feel completely natural, but it seems very consistent. It wouldn't work if a FMS Hold>Slide ended with Left or diagonally Up/Down-Left, but now that i think about it I can't actually remember seeing any of those.