BMSSCFZIVBWNOSLGTPSogmcc!: Schedule/Rules/Reviews Thread

Please Don't Go - Asletics

~STEPS~
(Like "Face to Face", I had to use a weird scoring system here due to weird difficulty allocation...)
S-Beginner: Pretty much your archetypical Beginner chart; the only real problem is that it doesn't change once it settles into the "one quarter note every second beat" pattern. 6.1/6.7.
S-Light: Pretty much perfect for this song. 6.7/6.7.
S-Standard: These steps do a suitable job of following the lyrics, but it kinda lags near the middle. A lot. 4.1/6.7.
S-Heavy: That middle part is a problem once again, as some of the streams there seem rather randomly placed and rather lacking in flow. 4.1/6.7.
S-Challenge: This feels more like a hard nine to me, but whatever. These steps are fun, no doubt about it, but I can't help but feel the middle would've been more effective if you had followed the beepy synth thing instead of the scratching. 5.6/6.7.
D-Light: It's just S-Light without the personality! 6.1/6.7.
D-Standard: Pretty similar to the S-Standard chart, as far as I can tell. 4.1/6.7.
D-Heavy: I'm still not fond of the streams on the scratches, but the rest of the chart seems a little better than on Single. 5.1/6.7.
D-Challenge: And finally, a chart that follows that beepy synth! I'm impressed, though I still feel this is too simple to deserve ten-footer status. 6.1/6.7.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Nice song, good quality. 20/20.
Extras: Terribly blurry screenshots, and not much of a readme. 14/20.

TOTAL: 82/100

POODLE - Y&Co.

~STEPS~
S-Light: This is one of those cases where the steps are probably too constant. Not bad, though. 15/20.
S-Standard: Great. I....can't think of anything else to say. 18/20.
S-Heavy: I'm one of those people who don't like stupidly short freezes, though thankfully they're not used enough to drag this down too much. 16/20.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: No problem here. 20/20.
Extras: Graphics are fine, though I find it odd that the title is rendered as "POODLE!" in the graphics, when the song title doesn't actually have an exclamation point in it. I know, I know, that's kind of nitpicky. Sorry. 19/20.

TOTAL: 88/100

Procyon - eiji

~STEPS~
S-Light: There's a few uncomfortable step patterns in this otherwise decent stepchart. 14/20.
S-Standard: Too easy for a six-footer, for the most part; plus, I can't begin to figure out what the random offbeat jumps that pop up from time to time are supposed to be following. 10/20.
S-Heavy: Not bad. The long streams in the middle seem kind of out-of-place, especially since there's clearly potential for chaos in that part of the song. The streams into double-steps at the end work fine, though. 16/20.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: I can't complain. 20/20.
Extras: The graphics are nice, but....that's it. Nothing else here. 14/20.

TOTAL: 74/100

QUEEN OF LOVE - WILDSIDE

~STEPS~
S-Light: Overly repetitive use of freezes and freeze jumps throughout most of the song, and streams on the slowdown that don't really mesh with the rest of the chart. 10/20.
S-Standard: Erm....isn't that first stream just a bit too long for a Standard chart? At least at this speed, I think. And what the heck is the chaos on the slowdown supposed to be following? 8/20.
S-Heavy: More competent than the other charts - I've noticed that your Heavy charts tend to be good, but it's as if you have no idea how to go about stepping the other difficulties. It's a bit too jumpy, and the random hands are kind of awkward, but other than that it's fine. 15/20.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: My least favourite of the three songs you contributed, but the quality is just fine, at least. 20/20.
Extras: The graphics aren't exactly consistent....and no readme, either, which is odd. 8/20.

TOTAL: 61/100

Ride A White Horse - Goldfrapp

~STEPS~
S-Beginner: A bit boring an uninspired for Beginner, honestly. 9/12.
S-Light: Again, it's certainly servicable, but terribly uninspired. 9/12.
S-Standard: I very much appreciate the gradual increase in difficulty. They're not perfect, but they certainly fulfill their purpose. 10/12.
S-Heavy: What's with the random short freezes near the end? That brings it down a bit for me, but the rest of this is just fine. 9/12.
S-Challenge: I think you extracted all you could out of this one without having to stretch unreasonably for difficulty, which is certainly admirable. 12/12.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Good quality. Nice song choice, too. 20/20.
Extras: Nothing, unfortuntely. 'Tis a shame. 0/20.

TOTAL: 69/100

Rokuko!! - Super Junior-T

~STEPS~
S-Beginner: Perfectly fine until the very end - an up arrow straight into a left-right jump is, frankly, beyond the scope of one-footer Beginner charts. 9/12.
S-Light: A bit on the awkward side at times. 8/12.
S-Standard: Decent but surely not spectacular. 9/12.
S-Heavy: Meh. It's okay, but.....I dunno, there's just something missing. Some spark of creativity to make the whole thing "click", y'know? 9/12.
S-Challenge: Solid steps for the most part, though repetitivity becomes a problem. 10/12.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Not exactly high quality, to say the least. Also, it could've used a bit of trimming; it would've seemed less repetitive if it weren't so long. 7/20.
Extras: Nice graphics, and readme is short but informational. The lyrics are a nice addition, as always, even if I have no idea what the hell it means. XD 20/20.

TOTAL: 72/100

RUNNING IN THE 90'S - MAX COVERI

~STEPS~
(As RoyBoyCF - apparently the only other person who's gonna review every song here - pointed out, the beginning is offsync, and that automatically detracts from all these scores. About 2 points each, for me.)
S-Beginner: A bit hyper for a Beginner chart, though it's about on-par with Hottest Party's two-footer Beginner charts I suppose. 8/12.
S-Light: At this speed, I think it's a bit much for a four-footer. Especially the eighths at the end. It's just....weird. 6/12.
S-Standard: Better than Light, definitely. 8/12.
S-Heavy: Not bad......not bad at all. 8/12.
S-Challenge: Some of the chaos is weird, but it's still fun. 7/12.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Just fine, I guess. I'm not exactly a fan of this one, though. 20/20.
Extras: Gotta love it when readmes actually contain non-obvious information - in this case, the car featured in the graphics, which are nice, by the way. 20/20.

TOTAL: 77/100

SEXUAL HEALING - E-ROTIC

~STEPS~
S-Beginner: No real complaints to be made about this one. 12/12.
S-Light: Parts of this chart are waaaaaay too simple for a three-footer, which seriously clashes with the tougher patterns in the beginning and end. 7/12.
S-Standard: Pretty darn good, methinks. 10/12.
S-Heavy: Solid, though not exactly interesting. 10/12.
S-Challenge: Good, but they're too airy for a song like this. 9/12.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Yeah, it's a bit soft. I think that's just how the song's supposed to be, though, so I'm not gonna deduct too many points. I also would like to mention just how much I enjoy this really quite good departure from the usual (read: crap) E-ROTIC style. 18/20.
Extras: Again, nothing. 0/20

TOTAL: 66/100

I'd like to quickly ask, regardless of the rules, how many people were emotionally devastated when the file they got didn't have a readme?

A few comments:
1. I can't complain if you don't like that about S-Challenge, but I prefer Singles and Doubles to be different, so I couldn't use that pattern for both of them.

2. Well, it wasn't as detailed as the others, so I get that. I thought I provided enough details about the song, but for the steps, I'm not going to describe NINE charts.

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MarsPhoenix - I wasn't "emotionally devastated", and I don't really see the need for readmes in general here....but, omitting it is blatantly ignoring the rules, and not dedicting points for its non-inclusion isn't really fair to those people who actually made sure to follow the rules laid out for them. Make sense?

RoyBoyCF - I like that you're trying to differentiate Singles and Doubles, I just like what you did with Doubles better in this case, as the scratching is kind of sporadic, and even a bit hard to hear at times. The readme thing is a minor complaint; most of the points deducted were because of the blurry, hard-to-read graphics.

Solid State Squad - Kors K vs. L.E.D.

~STEPS~
S-Beginner: Far too streamy for Beginner, and the eighth notes are uncalled for. Also, throwing in a step just one beat after the speedup also seems too tough for Beginner. Are you even familiar with the Beginner difficulty? 4/12.
S-Light: Not the best, but it's definitely an improvement over Beginner. 8/12.
S-Standard: Kinda weird, especially the steps on the slowdown, and the random offbeat quarter note run. 7/12.
S-Heavy: There's some parts I really like, but still too many that I don't. The speedup is too disproportionately hard compared to the rest of the song, for one. 7/12.
S-Challenge: Definitely the best chart you managed to put together for this song. 9/12.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Seems just fine by me. 20/20.
Extras: Decent graphics, but not the best readme out there. 16/20.

TOTAL: 71/100

Teraholic - 44teru-k

~STEPS~
S-Beginner: These are NOT Beginner steps. No way, no how. I mean, twelfth notes?? Really??? 1/12.
S-Light: Also inappropriate for the difficulty level. The twelfth note stream near the end seems terribly out-of-character....actually, in general, this is far too unfocused to form any sort of coherent whole. Plus, eighth note streams following parts that obviously have a swing beat are terribly confusing. 3/12.
S-Standard: A bit of an improvement, I guess....I'm still not a fan, though. 5/12.
S-Heavy: Too hard to be a nine! 3/12.
S-Challenge: This just.....doesn't work somehow. Sorry. 3/12.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Aaaaahhhh! My ears, my ears! Too loud! 8/20.
Extras: Banner's the wrong size and doesn't even bear the most remote resemblance to the background. No readme. Supposedly these terribly annoying speed changes and background were copied from someone else, which seriously pisses me off. 1/20, if only because I can't give a zero when there's actually something here.

TOTAL: 24/100

The Detonator - Teranoid vs. L.E.D.

~STEPS~
S-Beginner: The exact opposite of most Beginner charts in this contest, it's actually too simple. I don't like how it doesn't really follow....anything at all. 6/12.
S-Light: Most of this chart is, confusingly, only marginally harder than your average Beginner chart. It just doesn't fit. At all. 4/12.
S-Standard: Far too simple for a song like this, once again. 6/12.
S-Heavy: Finally, a spark of the sort of creativity this song deserves! 10/12.
S-Challenge: It's weird how the difficulty swings so wildly, from quarter note streams to random sixteenth runs. It's an odd imbalance, but there are some very good ideas in here. 8/12.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Great. 20/20.
Extras: Graphics look okay, nice readme, and the inclusion of an alternative .sm file is a cool little bonus. 20/20.

TOTAL: 74/100

The Place to Be - Des-ROW feat. Mai

~STEPS~
(Once again, weird difficulty allocation, weird rating scale, blah blah blah, you know the drill.)
S-Beginner: Oddly balanced and probably just a bit repetitive, even for Beginner. 3.4/6.7.
S-Light: Decent enough, I'd say. Could've been better, though. 5.7/6.7.
S-Standard: Definitely on the easier end of the seven-footer spectrum. The steps are at their best when they're trying to follow the vocals, whereas the steps that try to follow the melody seem kinda random and offsync. 4.6/5.7.
S-Heavy: Better. This is sort of fun, actually. 5.7/6.7.
S-Challenge: Odd how the difficulty is so front-loaded, with two massive streams in the first half of the song, and relatively tame second half (until the steps start following the vocals, at least, but it's still not as hard). 5.1/6.7.
D-Light: Acceptable, though again, could've been improved just a bit. 5.7/6.7.
D-Standard: See S-Standard....the same kinds of oddities are present here. 4.6/5.7.
D-Heavy: Seems weird to see an eight-footer consisting entirely of quarters, doesn't it? The steps aren't awful but I do feel as if more could've been done with this. 5.1/6.7.
D-Challenge: All the hands kinda caught me off-guard....kind of an odd addition to a simfile that is otherwise wholly DDR-esque, though that doesn't make it a bad chart by any means. Better-balanced than S-Challenge, too. 5.6/6.7.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Very slightly fuzzy, somehow. Not enough to really be a problem at all, but enough that I couldn't help but notice after having to play through this one. 18/20.
Extras: Graphics could, quite frankly, use a LOT of work. Readme could've been more detailed, too. 12/20.

TOTAL: 75.5/100

Tsubame - Asaki

~STEPS~
S-Beginner: Um.....what? For most of this chart it's far too simple even for Beginner, but then there's a few random eighths and un-Beginner-esque groups of quarters with jumps near the end. Lack of balance is a major issue here! 4/12.
S-Light: Another oddly balanced stepchart. The part at the beginning with eight consecutive steps on each arrow is kinda annoying, to be honest, and the first quarter-note jump after all the offbeat ones doesn't seem to be following....anything. 6/12.
S-Standard: A bit too hard to be considered a five, if you ask me. Definitely more of a six. That's the only big complaint I've got about this one, though. 10/12.
S-Heavy: Not bad, but they're not particularly....interesting, either. 8/12.
S-Challenge: A lot like S-Heavy, but the random lumps of chaos do their part to make this a bit less generic. 9/12.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Nope, no problem here! 20/20.
Extras: I like how the graphics are pop'nesque. Readme is just fine, aside from a few easily ignorable spelling errors. (Begginner?) 19/20.

TOTAL: 76/100

URU Trailer Theme (E3 Version) - Tim Larkin

~STEPS~
S-Beginner: Regardless of the necessity of it, I still think the usage of chaotic steps (thirty-second notes and even worse!) on Beginner is sort of odd. You could've done more with the steps on the more steady BPM parts near the end, too. 6/12.
S-Light: Not bad; chaos is less of a problem here, but I still think the ending run is uninspired in comparison to the rest of the chart. 8/12.
S-Standard: It's a more inspired idea here, which I quite like, though perhaps it's still kinda repetitive. 9/12.
S-Heavy: See S-Standard. 9/12.
S-Challenge: There's a few parts where it seems like maybe you're stretching this one too hard in terms of difficulty, but on the other hand I really really enjoyed the triplet run that closes this one out. So it all evens out to the same score as the last two charts. 9/12.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: A little soft, a little fuzzy, a little hard to hear some of these subtle parts your steps are trying to follow. 15/20.
Extras: Graphics are okay, readme is kinda unnecessarily vague, though. 16/20.

TOTAL: 72/100

Vodka - Morena

~STEPS~
(Note that points have been deducted from each difficulty due to the offset problems Roy already mentioned)
S-Light: Pretty good. 15/20.
S-Standard: Also a nice chart. Its energeticness really fits this song well. 15/20.
S-Heavy: Same here, for the most part; however, the gallops near the beginning were sort of weird and don't really flow well with the rest of the chart. 12/20.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Just a bit too loud. 18/20.
Extras: Definitely one of the more amusing readmes in the contest! Graphics are nice, too. 20/20.

TOTAL: 80/100

Votum stellarum -forest #25 DDR RMX- -ONI StYlE- - iconoclasm

~STEPS~
S-Challenge: Well, it's definitely a song that got shafted in the difficulty department in SN2. This definitely kicks things up several hundred notches from that disappointing rendition, though the "jump streams" weren't really necessary....so, 45/60 seems fair.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Just fine. Excellent song choice, by the way. 20/20.
Extras: Graphics fit the song pretty well. Readme has a few glaring errors that prevent me from giving this the full score, though. 19/20.

TOTAL: 84/100

Wake Me Up Inside - Evanescence & Linkin Park

~STEPS~
S-Challenge: Ughhh....for one thing, it doesn't seem perfectly synched. Also, some of the streams are utterly nonsensical. And the freezes near the end felt seriously out-of-character compared to the rest of the chart. 25/60.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: A bit on the loud side....as others have mentioned....but otherwise fine. 15/20.
Extras: Nothing to speak of. Also, you put the artists' names on the subtitle line instead of where the artists should go, rendering the title as "Wake Me Up Inside (Evanescence & Linkin Park)" by "Unknown Artist"....that really irks me. 0/20.

TOTAL: 40/100

Waluigi Pinball - Kentaro Ishizaka

~STEPS~
S-Beginner: Too easy to be of much use, really. There's a certain difficulty level Beginner charts should be aiming for but lots of people tend to either under- or overshoot it. 8/12.
S-Light: Seems a bit too simple for a 3; it's scarcely harder than your average Beginner chart! I'm also not fond of the uselessly short freezes, even if they do serve a purpose - signifying the tempo changes. 6/12.
S-Standard: Almost all quarters on Standard? Boooo-ring! Also, same short freeze complaint as S-Light. 6/12.
S-Heavy: The only real complaint I could make is about the useless short freezes - again - but otherwise, it's a damn good chart. 10/12.
S-Challenge: See S-Heavy. 10/12.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Another excellent choice! 20/20.
Extras: Nice graphics, and nice readme, though if I were you, I would've mentioned somewhere in there that it's the Brawl version. That's just a very minor complaint, though. 19/20.

TOTAL: 79/100

Wicked Plastic - Jakazid

~STEPS~
S-Beginner: Another horribly simple ITG-Novice-esque chart that doesn't follow the music. 6/12.
S-Light: This almost would've worked better for the Beginner chart! 6/12.
S-Standard: Yet another chart that seems a bit behind where it really should be. Too simple. 6/12.
S-Heavy: Okay-ish. 8/12.
S-Challenge: The difficulty is obviously skewed; lack of balance really hurts this. 8/12.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: Perfect, in terms of audio quality at least. 20/20.
Extras: Graphics get the job done, and the readme is, uh....at least it's there? 20/20.

TOTAL: 74/100

You Know Me - Renard feat. Colson

~STEPS~
S-Beginner: Glaring overuse of jumps and freezes, plus a few corner jumps, which generally aren't used in Beginner. Ever. 7/15.
S-Light: The biggest problem is the awkward freeze-turn, which is sort of hard for Light, but such a small detail that it doesn't bring this down too much. 12/15.
S-Standard: Great steps, though a wee bit hard for a five-footer in places. 12/15.
S-Heavy: I absolutely adore how varied these steps are; I'd give 'em the full score, if not for the fact that the two sixteenth runs at this speed are just a bit beyond the scope of eight-footerdom. 13/15.

~MISCELLANY~
Song Quality: One of my favourite songs in this contest, actually. I do have to agree with the complaints that the sped should've went back down for the end part, though. 18/20.
Extras: Nice graphics, and the inclusion of the individual elements in a separate folder was a nice touch. Highly detailed readme, too, which I quite like. 20/20.

TOTAL: 82/100

And I think that takes care of all the reviews for me, except for Love Me Do. I'm still waiting for an official ruling from Ty on which version we're supposed to be rating here....

The most recent one.

And...*sigh*...I really don't want to do this...Let's vote and see which ones win out. (I should have done that in the beginning) I haven't got all the reviews completed by a long, long, long shot. The last week or two has wreaked havoc on me and I've barely been able to get myself out of bed in the morning. I've been feeling a bit better the past few days though, but I won't be able to get all the reviews done in time...I'm so sorry you guys.

So yeah, it figures in the first contest I've ever run I'd screw it all up eventually!

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D'ya want me to sort out the second one? I've got some ideas, and I may get help from the guys over at DDRExtreme to be judges with me.

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Irony

Just a little comment...


Haha, I oversight that... remember that I'm spanish, so I'm sorry for the spelling errors

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Sorry but this isn't a spelling contest, the only reason that one should subtract points for spelling is if those happened in the banner, background or in the songwheel. And considering that the entrant (just like me!) isn't a (native) english-speaker, that just seems a little too harsh.

In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have deducted points....er, point. I was in sort of a bad mood by that point in the reviews, and that probably affected my scoring a bit in certain spots. Of course, Tsubame's score on the 10-point scale would've been the same regardless. 8/10.

Haha, please, be my guest.

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So. . . what's going on with this pack?

Just askin'

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