ayyy
I'll get to the notes on Carissa and Excite Bike some other time, but briefly skimming them I agree for the most part (would be happy to drop the Heavy version, actually)
Where I disagree is in some of the notes for The Pokemedley:
-[00:27.827] Would have liked to see some more jumps in this section, particularly in music scale to chord changes like at 00:29.542, and 00:31.256. They are included after 00:35.536, so why not here?
Agreed - a bit more can be accented into jumps here. But, note that the jumps after 35.536 go to two flutes playing at the same time, not the chord changes. That is why there are 0 jumps in the 1-flute bit right before, and lots of jumps after.
Quote:
-[01:16.659] Missing a lot of instruments that can be used here. It doesn’t make much sense to omit it when that is thrown out the window when music picks up a tiny bit at 01:31.401.
[...]
-Given the difficulty curve of the file, and how empty some sections are with the omittance of some instruments, file needs a lot more attention to other instruments and additional layering. There’s also a level of omittance in relation to what priority jumps assume as well, which creates a level of confusion when similar sections utilize them for being a little bit louder for including a duette of the same instrument that’s not immediately clear otherwise to the player. Essentially, beef it up. Stuff starting at 02:24.912 is where difficulty is sitting at.
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Now these notes I don't quite agree with as much. Yes, there is an additional guitar that can be charted at 1.16.659. There are also percussion layers elsewhere that can be added. But I'm generally not a fan of layering melody on top of melody on top of percussion - in 4k, it's too many things at once to create jumps. Especially the part at 1.16.659 is such a marked slowdown in the pace of the music that it feels a lot better thematically (this is the Pallet Town theme after all, and the music is deliberately slow as hell to account for that, right after a big sectional climax; it should be a
notably easy section) to cut down to the bare minimum, and slowly build back up in the subsequent sections.
In general this is a highly melodic medley, and just because things can be layered in, doesn't mean they should be. I prefer to keep the general focus on the foreground instrument(s) at each point. This is why the percussion, outside of cymbal crashes, (like the tom drums)
never account for
any of the jumps. Rather, the jumps are always for clashing and accented flutes, choir singing, and pronounced guitar strums. The point of the song, and therefore the file, is the melody.
The difficulty is also as fair as plenty of things ingame: the opening is mid C-VC, the part afterwards up to the slowdown at 1.12.393 is C, and when the music picks back up in energy at 1.46.806 up to 2.24.912, this whole section is VC. The ending is a high VC, low FMO at
worst (I'd be very surprised if this qualified for Oni - and after fixes, this will be VC max too). By no means is this an unfair procession of difficulty in a 3min long file. Overall, I think the file is pretty structurally consistent and sensible, even if it's far from the only way to do it.
(P.S. - you didn't mention this, but if part of the problem with the difficulty progression is the trilly polys at the end, I agree it's a little silly lol, and will happily tone those down a bit)