Bemanistyle [dot] com Forums - View Single Post - DDR Bracket 02

Xythar · 08-11-2006, 08:32 AM

OK here's the first half and then I'm taking a break

Scores are subject to change if I finish rating everything and then decide they're not consistent across the board.

ALL IN THE WAY

Steps: 5.25/6 These were pretty good, but at the same time they felt like 6 foot Standard steps rather than 7 foot heavy steps (and it's not just because there are challenge steps as well). I felt the red, red, red-blue-red pattern was a bit overused at the expense of not following the music as closely as I'd like - the steps all worked fine, but the patterns felt a bit too generic. I liked the end, I would have preferred it if the start was more similar to the end I think.

Everything Else: 3.5/4 Alright song choice, alright graphics. It could use a lyrics file, tho, and I probably would have ended the cut a little earlier but this way works too.

8.75/10 Fairly good/professional, I just wish heavy had a bit more to it.

BOUNCIN

Steps: 5/6 I can appreciate that you made an effort to vary your steps for a song which basically consists of the same four bars of music over and over and over, but some parts (like the freezes with three steps) repeated a bit too much for my liking anyway, and I'm not sure the 16ths were really warranted for an 8 footer. There are also some short freezes here and there which could stand to be removed.

Everything Else: 3/4 I liked the graphics, but the song was just so boring and samey throughout that I think it made your file less fun to play than it could have been. It's sort of DDR material but there are probably better choices.

8/10 Technically it's not too bad, but I still probably won't play it much in the future.

DANCIN' IN MY DREAMS

Steps: 5.25/6 These were pretty good, I liked the use of jumps and even the stepjumps worked pretty well but I didn't agree with all the 16ths. A significant proportion of them didn't feel quite right in terms of matching the synth, particularly towards the end - I don't mean that you didn't use enough, just that they were placed a bit weirdly I think.

Everything Else: 3.75/4 I was going to invoke the "eurobeat is more than just Initial D clause" but I guess you wanted to use the video and have the graphics match the video so fine. It's all done pretty well and the song was a decent choice (although I've heard better eurobeat, from both a musical and DDR suitability standpoint, IMO), and I'll ignore the lack of a lyrics file in favour of the inclusion of a video and doubles steps, but the Initial D artstyle is so uglyyyy

9.25/10 Yeah, pretty good. You got a pretty significant bonus for your extras in the end but I probably would play this again all the same although the weird 16th placement will take some getting used to.

DO YOU KNOW

Steps: 5.25/6 They felt a bit double steppy for me at times, and every time you went red-yellow-blue (or vice versa) on "do you know" I think the yellow on "you" was a 16th too early (so it should have been red-red-blue or blue-blue-red). However, other than that, I thought these worked well.

Everything Else: 3.75/4 Excellent song choice. Children is a cool song and this is a nice vocal version of it which works well for DDR. Graphics aren't bad either, although there's no extras. I really did like your choice of song however, enough to be worth saying so twice

9/10 This was a pleasant surprise!

FUKU WA UCHI

Steps: 6/6 Really fun! I was a little iffy about the very end, but not enough to take points off for it. I especially liked the main chorus line, with the string of 8ths and then a jump slightly after on the "hey!" or whatever.

Everything Else: 3.75/4 I still don't really like Domino much (especially her faux-Japanese vocals) and the very start of the song makes me want to hit something, but the song works pretty well here, and the graphics are good. No extras, tho...

9.75/10 Best so far in this bracket, well done!

GASOLINA

Steps: 5.5/6 Pretty cool, although the first slow part takes some getting used to. About all I'd say is that it felt a bit sparse at times, you'd have 16ths and then nothing and then 16ths, where it might be more fun to fill in the space a bit. The 16ths late on could also use more variation instead of being on the same two arrows for several triplets in a row. Still, I liked it.

Everything Else: 4/4 The graphics are okay (CD title is a bit too big I think) but it's an interesting song choice with a well executed speedup and a lyrics file too (not to mention the bonus one, hahaha) so I'll give the full 4 here in recognition of technical achievement in particular. Also your readme is hilarious.

9.5/10 Memorable and well made!

HIGH SCHOOL LOVE

WHERE ARE THOSE LYRICS I WORKED OUT

Steps: 5.25/6 Pretty hard for an 8 (long streams, that one bit with 16ths), I think this most likely should have been a 9 although it's pretty easy to score. It's straight 8ths most of the way here, but you use them pretty well and I liked the freeze usage also. There are some parts where it feels like you used jumps unnecessarily (ie, they didn't really go with anything in the music) and some parts where you could have used jumps more, tho. For instance you use two jumps on two synth hits at the start, which makes sense, but then you use two jumps again on three drum hits, I realise three jumps is a bit hard but maybe put three steps instead, or two steps and a jump on the two arrows the player just stepped on, that pattern's usually cool (or maybe even a jump and two steps?). Especially at the end of the middle part because that triple piano chord with drums is so emphasised that two jumps feels like you're just shortchanging it. Also, I think you could have done more with the middle part - that's like the coolest bit of the song, but the steps are mostly the same as the rest except for that one part with 16ths that were probably more than what was necessary (actually, I think I've made the same complaint about Yolcu Mustafa with not using 16ths where I'd have liked to see them and then turning around and using 16ths where they weren't necessary but this is probably mostly a matter of 'is this how I'd step it' rather than 'are these good steps' so it's no big deal). But yeah, I just play that piano bit and it feels like it's missing something, I don't think the standard 8th streams do it justice, it's meant to stand out from the rest of the song and not just be the same as the rest (I realise the 16ths were kind of intended to do this but I didn't really feel it was enough, and I'm not talking difficulty). Sorry, that's just how I felt about it, but either way it was pretty fun and I really do like those freezes with steps on the cymbal hits, they're awesome. Holy crap this is like the longest paragraph I've ever written

Everything Else: 2.75/4 The song choice works pretty well but your graphics are still ugly as sin

The text is alright but the character is as always rather pixelly and it seems like you've brought in a random pixelly Google Images background to match. I realise this is your style but it still doesn't exactly look pleasing. You had no excuse not to have a lyrics file this time :P although I only take off points for not having any extras if I was going to give a 4 otherwise, so it doesn't really matter in the end.

8/10 Honestly at this point I think your graphics are the main thing holding you back from a better score, so maybe we need a new scoring system, I dunno. I think I've already used enough words on this review, onto the next :P

INSPIRATION

...Is this seriously your first file? I can't help but wonder if this is someone's alias.

Steps: 6/6 Great! Probably closer to 8 than 9, and I wasn't certain about two of the 16ths, but most of it was excellent and matched the music really well. No other problems, and the ones above I didn't think were worth taking anything off for.

Everything Else: 3.75/4 Nice song choice, not to mention that you have hands down the best graphics in the bracket. But it doesn't have any extras, so I can't give the full 4...

9.75/10 Seriously, is this by one of the ex-nDDRo crew (I'm thinking Titiln, but I'm not sure) under an assumed name? >_> Um, if it's not, then you should take that as a compliment, heh. It's just a combination of factors that make me suspicious (such as the file contrasted with the readme, and your account only having two posts and both of them being in the OSC5 forum)

KICKSTART MY HEART

Steps: 5/6 To be honest, I think this one has the problem shared by a lot of other rock-based entries to OSC5 in that it basically just makes you pound out uniform chains of 8ths that don't particularly match the music for 2 minutes. Or at least, it ended up that way at the end, because I went to replay it and it does follow the music a bit early on, then it gets less interesting. It's not particularly bad, but also not particularly interesting and it doesn't make the file stand out much to me. Also, the slowdown at the end could have been a bit more graceful.

Everything Else: 2.75/4 The graphics are good, but I should probably be complimenting the guy who made the image instead, since the text added to it didn't look particularly amazing. Song isn't really what I'd pick for DDR, it's a bit hard to make steps to without them ending up kind of samey.

7.75/10 This isn't really technically bad in any way, but it doesn't stand out to me as a file I'd want to play again.

LITTLE LITTLE PRINCESS

Steps: 3.5/6 I will admit to a certain level of bias here because I am already quite used to the stepfile prepared for VJAMix for this (which is quite different) but even when trying to look at this objectively I just don't think this is that great. It's just a very amateurish stepfile, for lack of a better description - it follows the vocals too closely in some parts and follows seemingly nothing at all in others. Random 16th gallops (which at this BPM aren't a lot of fun) are thrown in where they don't belong. Freezes are overused for no good reason (I especially disliked the 16th gallop-into-freeze bits and saw one or two short freezes too) and the steps on the whole feel too random, they're unevenly spread all over the place without much regard for flow. At least you knew how to avoid double stepping for the most part, tho.

Everything Else: 2/4 The banner could be better, as the contrast between the text used for the title and artist are a bit too great, I think. The BG source image is a bit low quality as well. The song choice is alright, but all the BPM changes were just completely unnecessary - the double wasn't as bad as Domino's because it was so brief, but the numerous halvings were just annoying for the most part. I've played this song a bunch of times on IIDX, and the only time I remember the BPM slowing down was right at the end! Whereas you halve the BPM right before the end and then speed it up slightly for the last few notes, which is just strange any way you look at it considering the song slows down at that point.

5.5/10 Again, your steps'll get better with practice, I think. Just don't overuse BPM gimmicks so much, it's not a good way to make your file stand out other than in a negative light.

LOVE IS ETERNITY (SF SYNTH TRANCE MIX)

Steps: 5/6 In all honesty I think these could benefit from being easier, you do this thing often where you have a yellow arrow immediately followed or preceded by another, whereas just the yellow would also do (and I'd like it better that way). Still, that's pretty much a matter of preference. I found it a bit hard to grasp what some of the later patterns were following, however - they didn't go to the obvious elements in the music that I thought they would. In particular, the part after the first "Love is eternity" felt too early to me - I actually quit out and played light the first time I got there to see if the BPM/gap were off at all and they weren't, so I think the steps are just a bit counterintuitive, or at the very least not what I'd expect.

Everything Else: 3.25/4 Good song choice (I love this song

), and decent banner, but the BG felt a bit lacking to me (not as 'futuristic' as I feel the song should have, and the text was a bit plain). The graphics were alright overall, tho.

8.25/10 Pretty good but it didn't feel completely natural to me.

PARANOIA ~SKY~

Steps: 5.5/6 Ouch. These were really twisty and annoying for the most part, but then you're trying to emulate Paranoia, so I'd say you succeeded admirably in that respect. You have nearly 600 steps here, however, which is really pushing your 9 rating a tad. I think they were designed fairly well without a significant amount of double stepping (just lots of twisting), but I don't entirely enjoy steps like this (especially at this BPM). I liked the wind-down at the end with the red arrows.

Everything Else: 3.5/4 Cool song choice, nice banner, but background could need some work as it took me a moment to even see the "sky" element of it. I think the sky should be more prominent, much like the banner, so maybe you should take out more parts of the foreground like that grid or something. Good work on font matching, tho. The videos sort of alternated between cool (especially towards the end) and really annoying (especially towards the start), but I suppose in the end the net effect was positive. Song edit is a bit long.

9/10 This is pretty well made all round, I guess. I think you pretty much succeeded in doing what you set out to.

Note: Please see a few posts down for the remainder of my reviews.

08-11-2006, 08:32 AM	#3
Xythar DON'T BE CUNNING!! Xythar is offline Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Melbourne, Australia Xythar's Collection Posts: 2,035 Marketplace Rating: 0	OK here's the first half and then I'm taking a break Scores are subject to change if I finish rating everything and then decide they're not consistent across the board. ALL IN THE WAY Steps: 5.25/6 These were pretty good, but at the same time they felt like 6 foot Standard steps rather than 7 foot heavy steps (and it's not just because there are challenge steps as well). I felt the red, red, red-blue-red pattern was a bit overused at the expense of not following the music as closely as I'd like - the steps all worked fine, but the patterns felt a bit too generic. I liked the end, I would have preferred it if the start was more similar to the end I think. Everything Else: 3.5/4 Alright song choice, alright graphics. It could use a lyrics file, tho, and I probably would have ended the cut a little earlier but this way works too. 8.75/10 Fairly good/professional, I just wish heavy had a bit more to it. BOUNCIN Steps: 5/6 I can appreciate that you made an effort to vary your steps for a song which basically consists of the same four bars of music over and over and over, but some parts (like the freezes with three steps) repeated a bit too much for my liking anyway, and I'm not sure the 16ths were really warranted for an 8 footer. There are also some short freezes here and there which could stand to be removed. Everything Else: 3/4 I liked the graphics, but the song was just so boring and samey throughout that I think it made your file less fun to play than it could have been. It's sort of DDR material but there are probably better choices. 8/10 Technically it's not too bad, but I still probably won't play it much in the future. DANCIN' IN MY DREAMS Steps: 5.25/6 These were pretty good, I liked the use of jumps and even the stepjumps worked pretty well but I didn't agree with all the 16ths. A significant proportion of them didn't feel quite right in terms of matching the synth, particularly towards the end - I don't mean that you didn't use enough, just that they were placed a bit weirdly I think. Everything Else: 3.75/4 I was going to invoke the "eurobeat is more than just Initial D clause" but I guess you wanted to use the video and have the graphics match the video so fine. It's all done pretty well and the song was a decent choice (although I've heard better eurobeat, from both a musical and DDR suitability standpoint, IMO), and I'll ignore the lack of a lyrics file in favour of the inclusion of a video and doubles steps, but the Initial D artstyle is so uglyyyy 9.25/10 Yeah, pretty good. You got a pretty significant bonus for your extras in the end but I probably would play this again all the same although the weird 16th placement will take some getting used to. DO YOU KNOW Steps: 5.25/6 They felt a bit double steppy for me at times, and every time you went red-yellow-blue (or vice versa) on "do you know" I think the yellow on "you" was a 16th too early (so it should have been red-red-blue or blue-blue-red). However, other than that, I thought these worked well. Everything Else: 3.75/4 Excellent song choice. Children is a cool song and this is a nice vocal version of it which works well for DDR. Graphics aren't bad either, although there's no extras. I really did like your choice of song however, enough to be worth saying so twice 9/10 This was a pleasant surprise! FUKU WA UCHI Steps: 6/6 Really fun! I was a little iffy about the very end, but not enough to take points off for it. I especially liked the main chorus line, with the string of 8ths and then a jump slightly after on the "hey!" or whatever. Everything Else: 3.75/4 I still don't really like Domino much (especially her faux-Japanese vocals) and the very start of the song makes me want to hit something, but the song works pretty well here, and the graphics are good. No extras, tho... 9.75/10 Best so far in this bracket, well done! GASOLINA Steps: 5.5/6 Pretty cool, although the first slow part takes some getting used to. About all I'd say is that it felt a bit sparse at times, you'd have 16ths and then nothing and then 16ths, where it might be more fun to fill in the space a bit. The 16ths late on could also use more variation instead of being on the same two arrows for several triplets in a row. Still, I liked it. Everything Else: 4/4 The graphics are okay (CD title is a bit too big I think) but it's an interesting song choice with a well executed speedup and a lyrics file too (not to mention the bonus one, hahaha) so I'll give the full 4 here in recognition of technical achievement in particular. Also your readme is hilarious. 9.5/10 Memorable and well made! HIGH SCHOOL LOVE WHERE ARE THOSE LYRICS I WORKED OUT Steps: 5.25/6 Pretty hard for an 8 (long streams, that one bit with 16ths), I think this most likely should have been a 9 although it's pretty easy to score. It's straight 8ths most of the way here, but you use them pretty well and I liked the freeze usage also. There are some parts where it feels like you used jumps unnecessarily (ie, they didn't really go with anything in the music) and some parts where you could have used jumps more, tho. For instance you use two jumps on two synth hits at the start, which makes sense, but then you use two jumps again on three drum hits, I realise three jumps is a bit hard but maybe put three steps instead, or two steps and a jump on the two arrows the player just stepped on, that pattern's usually cool (or maybe even a jump and two steps?). Especially at the end of the middle part because that triple piano chord with drums is so emphasised that two jumps feels like you're just shortchanging it. Also, I think you could have done more with the middle part - that's like the coolest bit of the song, but the steps are mostly the same as the rest except for that one part with 16ths that were probably more than what was necessary (actually, I think I've made the same complaint about Yolcu Mustafa with not using 16ths where I'd have liked to see them and then turning around and using 16ths where they weren't necessary but this is probably mostly a matter of 'is this how I'd step it' rather than 'are these good steps' so it's no big deal). But yeah, I just play that piano bit and it feels like it's missing something, I don't think the standard 8th streams do it justice, it's meant to stand out from the rest of the song and not just be the same as the rest (I realise the 16ths were kind of intended to do this but I didn't really feel it was enough, and I'm not talking difficulty). Sorry, that's just how I felt about it, but either way it was pretty fun and I really do like those freezes with steps on the cymbal hits, they're awesome. Holy crap this is like the longest paragraph I've ever written Everything Else: 2.75/4 The song choice works pretty well but your graphics are still ugly as sin The text is alright but the character is as always rather pixelly and it seems like you've brought in a random pixelly Google Images background to match. I realise this is your style but it still doesn't exactly look pleasing. You had no excuse not to have a lyrics file this time :P although I only take off points for not having any extras if I was going to give a 4 otherwise, so it doesn't really matter in the end. 8/10 Honestly at this point I think your graphics are the main thing holding you back from a better score, so maybe we need a new scoring system, I dunno. I think I've already used enough words on this review, onto the next :P INSPIRATION ...Is this seriously your first file? I can't help but wonder if this is someone's alias. Steps: 6/6 Great! Probably closer to 8 than 9, and I wasn't certain about two of the 16ths, but most of it was excellent and matched the music really well. No other problems, and the ones above I didn't think were worth taking anything off for. Everything Else: 3.75/4 Nice song choice, not to mention that you have hands down the best graphics in the bracket. But it doesn't have any extras, so I can't give the full 4... 9.75/10 Seriously, is this by one of the ex-nDDRo crew (I'm thinking Titiln, but I'm not sure) under an assumed name? >_> Um, if it's not, then you should take that as a compliment, heh. It's just a combination of factors that make me suspicious (such as the file contrasted with the readme, and your account only having two posts and both of them being in the OSC5 forum) KICKSTART MY HEART Steps: 5/6 To be honest, I think this one has the problem shared by a lot of other rock-based entries to OSC5 in that it basically just makes you pound out uniform chains of 8ths that don't particularly match the music for 2 minutes. Or at least, it ended up that way at the end, because I went to replay it and it does follow the music a bit early on, then it gets less interesting. It's not particularly bad, but also not particularly interesting and it doesn't make the file stand out much to me. Also, the slowdown at the end could have been a bit more graceful. Everything Else: 2.75/4 The graphics are good, but I should probably be complimenting the guy who made the image instead, since the text added to it didn't look particularly amazing. Song isn't really what I'd pick for DDR, it's a bit hard to make steps to without them ending up kind of samey. 7.75/10 This isn't really technically bad in any way, but it doesn't stand out to me as a file I'd want to play again. LITTLE LITTLE PRINCESS Steps: 3.5/6 I will admit to a certain level of bias here because I am already quite used to the stepfile prepared for VJAMix for this (which is quite different) but even when trying to look at this objectively I just don't think this is that great. It's just a very amateurish stepfile, for lack of a better description - it follows the vocals too closely in some parts and follows seemingly nothing at all in others. Random 16th gallops (which at this BPM aren't a lot of fun) are thrown in where they don't belong. Freezes are overused for no good reason (I especially disliked the 16th gallop-into-freeze bits and saw one or two short freezes too) and the steps on the whole feel too random, they're unevenly spread all over the place without much regard for flow. At least you knew how to avoid double stepping for the most part, tho. Everything Else: 2/4 The banner could be better, as the contrast between the text used for the title and artist are a bit too great, I think. The BG source image is a bit low quality as well. The song choice is alright, but all the BPM changes were just completely unnecessary - the double wasn't as bad as Domino's because it was so brief, but the numerous halvings were just annoying for the most part. I've played this song a bunch of times on IIDX, and the only time I remember the BPM slowing down was right at the end! Whereas you halve the BPM right before the end and then speed it up slightly for the last few notes, which is just strange any way you look at it considering the song slows down at that point. 5.5/10 Again, your steps'll get better with practice, I think. Just don't overuse BPM gimmicks so much, it's not a good way to make your file stand out other than in a negative light. LOVE IS ETERNITY (SF SYNTH TRANCE MIX) Steps: 5/6 In all honesty I think these could benefit from being easier, you do this thing often where you have a yellow arrow immediately followed or preceded by another, whereas just the yellow would also do (and I'd like it better that way). Still, that's pretty much a matter of preference. I found it a bit hard to grasp what some of the later patterns were following, however - they didn't go to the obvious elements in the music that I thought they would. In particular, the part after the first "Love is eternity" felt too early to me - I actually quit out and played light the first time I got there to see if the BPM/gap were off at all and they weren't, so I think the steps are just a bit counterintuitive, or at the very least not what I'd expect. Everything Else: 3.25/4 Good song choice (I love this song ), and decent banner, but the BG felt a bit lacking to me (not as 'futuristic' as I feel the song should have, and the text was a bit plain). The graphics were alright overall, tho. 8.25/10 Pretty good but it didn't feel completely natural to me. PARANOIA ~SKY~ Steps: 5.5/6 Ouch. These were really twisty and annoying for the most part, but then you're trying to emulate Paranoia, so I'd say you succeeded admirably in that respect. You have nearly 600 steps here, however, which is really pushing your 9 rating a tad. I think they were designed fairly well without a significant amount of double stepping (just lots of twisting), but I don't entirely enjoy steps like this (especially at this BPM). I liked the wind-down at the end with the red arrows. Everything Else: 3.5/4 Cool song choice, nice banner, but background could need some work as it took me a moment to even see the "sky" element of it. I think the sky should be more prominent, much like the banner, so maybe you should take out more parts of the foreground like that grid or something. Good work on font matching, tho. The videos sort of alternated between cool (especially towards the end) and really annoying (especially towards the start), but I suppose in the end the net effect was positive. Song edit is a bit long. 9/10 This is pretty well made all round, I guess. I think you pretty much succeeded in doing what you set out to. Note: Please see a few posts down for the remainder of my reviews. __________________ Last edited by Xythar : 08-13-2006 at 07:30 PM.