ACCEPT -FR-

[FR] Giving this FR on the basis of a quick cleanup of layering and anchors for better consistency, and also fixing the egregiously off PR section that doesn't need to be.

18.080: Very long anchor on column 2 (13-notes).

25.147: Watch out for arbitrarily long anchors in this type of JS-heacy charting. Column 4 here has a 12-notes anchor.

33.680: Hand, there's a crash. There are a couple other inconsistencies like this such as: 40.480, 40.880, 42.480, 42.880, 44.080, 45.280. This section needs to be checked for layering.

1:07.278 & 1:09.678: Hands, every third 4th here is layered as a hand.

1:17.144 & 1:17.411: Why hands here?

1:24.611: Not a hand.

1:30.478: Hand.

1:42.876: Wrong PR, shouldn't have 4 consecutive jumps for this triplet jumpjack layering.

2:14.076-2:14.476: The crashes are on the 8ths here, there are other mistakes like that in this section: 2:10.876, 2:19.142, 2:21.107.

2:43.542 & 2:43.809: Wrong PR, should be like 2:41.942 & 2:42.209.

3:13.676-3:24.876 [FR]: The use of repeated (123)4 and (234)1 is very odd to play given that the notes clearly have different pitches. Imo this is too jarring and would need different patterning to drastically improve PR.

This chart has fun sections and makes for a great stamina challenge. However there are quite a few inconsistencies in the layering here and there. While it isn't my favorite type of chart/song personally, this has relatively good execution and with a quick polish could be pretty enjoyable. Despite the inconsistencies in the layering, the general intended variations of intensity on the 4ths and 8ths is nice considering how log and repetitive the song is.

Idk if the "personal opinion that contradicts what the music actually does" meant to include my points too, but the layering does have a fair amount of inconsistencies in how the same sounds are charted. With many of those, it gives a vibe of arbitrary-ness to some sections. But yeah, imo it's all fairly easy to fix hence my accept FR.

NOTE: This is just my opinion though, the decision isn't mine to make.

I've been following the discussion on this file as part of tracking the ratings given in this batch. Samurai's comment definitely raises an interesting discussion point. As one of FFR's lead judges and the guy who's giving the tiebreak/final decision on this file I think some discussion of my (very subjective!!) viewpoint on how FFR's charting meta has evolved may be warranted.

Colour usage is a somewhat subjective point overall, and I think this file's execution in this regard is good.

Anchors are an interesting case where I'm not certain the "meta" has shifted much at all, outside of ensuring they start and end at musically justified points. This file definitely has some spots that need to be touched up to do this, as well as (somewhat subjectively) shuffling around some presumed unintentional anchors, even within trill sections. This can get muddied a bit with the file's layering structure but the pattern choices can be smoothed out to accomodate this, and the file will feel better to play as a result.

Extended one hand trills are still a perfectly valid way to step a section, but in recent years have not been viewed as favourably by the FFR playerbase. They have very much been seen as either overly uncomfortable or an extreme difficulty spike for the near-universal spread playstyle playerbase. Charters are players, so there is a certain logic to our comparative lack of "modern" OHT-focused files. Or at least files that feature longer OHTs - shorter ones are still often used climactically.

This file takes an old-school-adjacent approach by making OHTs a central point of the overall difficulty. That removes spikiness from any single OHT by placing them all over the file, within jumpstream and explicitly on their own in a few spots. That is to say I'm fine with how this file uses OHTs but I also think it's likely this approach will get a mixed reaction similar to DIST SQUAD. (Though that was skewed a bit by being the D6 Round 7 file for this past OT)

I've decided to give this a comparatively thorough look, as I feel this is the file that most needs it most in this batch (isn't really like the dump files we were expecting). But it seems it can get there with detail work. I'm giving this a Reject rating because this needs a fair bit of general clean up that verges on needing structural changes and is too much for a Fixes Required rating. Song is great though, chosen structure is fairly reasonable but hindered by inconsistencies primarily with hand placements. I hope you resubmit this.

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4.880 - 27.280 - Look into your hand use here, for consistency imo have them on either every crash or just the ones that coincide with the start of a musical phrase

8.547 - 9.214, 9.480 - 10.280 - the first seemingly unintentionally long anchors on 3 and 2 respectively
11.014 - (subjective, can ignore) should be jump imo, not as much of a bend as 10.614
14.014 - 14.814 - 2 anchor, suggest change-up at .280 to follow drums
18.080 - 19.680 - 2 anchor (same as Op noted)
25.147 - 26.614 - 4 anchor (same as Op noted)

33.680 - 46.480 - Same hand consistency thing Op noted
40.414 - (somewhat subjective) I only really hear vocal on this note, suggest removing
45.747 - missing

1:05.678 - 1:17.411 - hand consistency is an issue here
1:30.478 - hand (same as Op noted)

1:34.476 - 1:35.276, 1:35.809 - 1:36.609 - both 2 anchors that could be shuffled to follow music better (eg. keep 1:34.876 - 1:35.143)
1:37.543 - 1:38.609 - 3 anchor
1:40.076 - 1:41.143 - 2 anchor, but comparatively understandable

1:44.076 - 1:50.476 - same hand consistency thing
2:09.676 - 2:35.276 - same hand consistency thing, more noticeable because there are hands here that are an 8th off from where you want them (assuming going to crashes)

2:52.409 - missing
2:53.476, .609 - (very subjective, can ignore) could argue to remove these as the snare fill dies out

3:28.942 - 3:30.409 - 2 anchor, despite being in a trill section, this will still feel obnoxiously long
3:34.809 - 3:36.276 - same thing here on 4
3:37.676 - (subjective) might not want this as a hand

3:39.276 - 3:52.076 - same hand consistency thing, somewhat similar to 2:09.676 note
--3:41.876 - seems missing
--3:48.409 - seems like a ghost note