Far Away / livetune feat. ~N

from: Miku Hatsune -Project DIVA- Original Song Collection

steps: Xythar
graphics: Xythar (sourced from screencaps of the video)

Video recorded from "Miku Hatsune -Project DIVA Dreamy Theatre-", cut and encoded by Xythar

For: Best-Mix 4 (DDR Division)


Since Konami have decided as of late that we're not good enough for decent home versions of Bemani games that aren't DDR, I've been getting into other music games here and there. One such game is Miku Hatsune -Project Diva- (hyphens optional), on the PSP and later PS3. It's a pretty standard music game and not very challenging, but then I suck at PSP controls anyway and I like the music. This is probably my favourite song from the game, and now you get to play it in Stepmania alongside a video I recorded from Dreamy Theatre, the high definition PS3 remake. Hooray!

The artist is kz/livetune (the names seem somewhat interchangeable), who makes some pretty neat electro pop music using the Miku Hatsune synthesiser. Some of his songs sound almost Perfume-like, so that's always good. The artist is listed as "kz" in the game and video, but "livetune" on the soundtrack CD itself, so I went with the latter.

Included in this package are a still background and banner, video banner and background video, four DDR style charts and the readme you're reading right this moment. I know only two charts were required, but honestly it was very little effort to throw in Beginner and Light as well, and it makes the whole thing feel just that little bit more complete. The video included is at 640x480 resolution because we are in 2010 now and many people have upgraded their computers at least once in the past decade. If you stole your PC from a museum and it can't quite handle a video of this size, you can download a 320x240 version here:

http://www.notesmash.org/dropbox/FarAway-lq.zip

Just replace the included video with the one from that zip.

As for the two charts that are to be judged - Standard follows the music fairly closely and has relatively few surprises. It's livened up by the occasional crossover and freeze arrow. Heavy is where things get a bit more experimental, the music is taken as more of a general guideline and the steps do all kinds of interesting things. There are no points in the heavy chart where you're expected to turn around completely - it's all intentional double stepping, DDR style. None of it should be too difficult, I trust.

One other theme I played around with in both charts (particularly during the chorus) is repeated three-arrow sequences. We see repeated two and four arrow sequences all the time, that's easy (and not terribly interesting). An odd number like three, though? Not so much, seeing as how you end on the same foot on which you began. Double stepping isn't necessarily the only result of this pattern, as you'll see.

Shameless plug copied and pasted verbatim from my Best-Mix 3 readme: If you play Beatmania IIDX or Pop'n Music and want to keep track of your scores and/or rank them online, or just want to hang out at one of the best Bemani forums ever, make sure you stop by Solid State Squad. VJ Army may have closed down, but its spirit lives on!
http://iidx.solidstatesquad.com
http://popn.solidstatesquad.com
http://forum.solidstatesquad.com

Cheers,
Xythar (gmmazz@hotmail.com)