Songs of the Week (August 24, 2013)

(was that a Game Grumps sample at the end? lol).

Pretty lame week overall. Despite being one of my least favorite types of music, Sagano Rakuyou Emaki was a standout for how well-made the file was. Definitely the favorite of the week.


Alice's Garden
PR errors everywhere in the grace notes. Grace notes should follow the direction the tone is being rolled. Also some more minor PR errors in the melody, such as a repeating jump near the middle where the tone actually goes up. In a file this simplistic literally all there is to do is get the PR absolutely perfect; that it is incorrect is a problem.
Not sure about the arrow colors: either the white arrows were for color theory and went to absolutely nothing, or the BPM was wrong. Use small BPM changes to avoid this. Either way the arrows were the wrong color and that was annoying.
Overall just your typical technically weak file that got in because it's easy. Judges please be more harsh with this level of file in the future.

Note: As far as stylistically, I've said this before and I've said it again: easy files should have a consistent beat and give new users something to follow to practice reading and rhythm. This overabundance of ambient, color-fucced gracenote fests are bad for the game and push away potential new players. I would actually prefer being the most harsh with easy files, as it's the experienced players who know they will have to wade through some bad files to get to ones that make sense. New players shouldn't be thrust into the world of ~dumpy artfiles~ without at least the chance to understand the core of the game first. It's why we moved Synthlight files to Legacy and it's why we should hold files like this to an incredibly high standard before accepting.

Sagano Rakuyou Emaki
Interesting layering scheme, PR and the white arrow color theory followed nicely and was used where appropriate.
I applaud your restraint in not stepping the trills. The difficulty flows really well as a result.
Despite not being a fan of the music, I happily concede that this is a really well done file and an excellent addition to FFR for those who do like this genre.

Suit Up
Started out really fun. The half BPM sections made sense to me. As noted, the green color theory arrows were frequently a frame off. Use BPM changes to fix this next time (if you want an example, check my Silence file from my Tournament Pack. It's a huge pain in the ass to do correctly.)
The trill was definitely a huge difficulty spike but whatever, sometimes you need a dumb difficulty spike to give an otherwise bland file some character. It's a tradeoff.
The quarter BPM section was a little excessively hard to read. Got pretty repetitive after that, to be honest.
Overall just a really repetitive song pick, then you put some gimmicks and difficulty spikes in to give it replay value.
On one hand it's not that bad technically, cool song, fun to play and all that, so I guess it's fine. On the other hand though it was a pretty weak song choice from a steppability perspective and that's why people are raging, I think.

XTC Hill Zone Act 24.7
Super generic file. Lots of little background rhythms that could have been utilized to give some variety that weren't, especially in the beginning. Not saying what was stepped was wrong, just that there were some missed options to spice it up.
Most steppers have made a file with lol16ths and jumps to the bass drum, glad to see the tradition lives on. (DESTINYYY)
Overall nothing hugely wrong with it, nothing majorly recommending it. Cool Sonic nostalgia from the sound effects. 24ths and the color notes to Big were fun little interludes (was that a Game Grumps sample at the end? lol). JS patterns were solid.
Like there's not too much overtly wrong with the file except for the fact that I'm a jaded old stepman and have seen all this before so yeah. Good stuff, I suppose.

I had this marked down as a 3.5 until I had to pass, due to it already being accepted. I don't get why it received the scores that it did rofl, the pattern usage is blatantly incorrect, grace notes make absolutely no sense, it's super boring, and yet the highest it got was an 8.5.

Judges need to be harsher, otherwise we get shit files that people don't like in-game.

Hey Choof you gotta be politically correct, it's not "people don't like this file" because I realize one person likes the file.

The problem is we are trying to appeal to more than just one person when you put something up for public consumption on a site with thousands of active members.

still a bad file

rofl Alice's Garden so bad

I agree with this however it's a mellow chart, but the graces do make it harder to hit if you're a newer player looking at it.

Bodies In The House Next Door by The Flashbulb, dif 14
Alice's Garden by The Flashbulb, dif 14

hmmmmm...

Bodies In The House Next Door by The Flashbulb, dif 14
Alice's Garden by The Flashbulb, dif 14

hmmmmm...