First file

Hey, Darkbreezee! Just got around to play your file! Here's my (beta) review. Remember, you should take this lightly, as I am no official judge. I still think that it could help you revisit some spots of the song in order to perfect it.

Be aware that I was VERY picky. I know the judges of the Queue Batch Thread don't go easy on anyone, so I'll try to be as strict as I can. If you contest any of my comments, simply send an explanation and we'll try to figure out who's right. :P Again, my goal here is not to make you feel like s***.

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First of all, the first thing I notice is that you did not currently fill out the info for your song. For instance, the artist's name (DJ Sharpnel) is shown as the song's name and your username is shown as the artist's name. Overall, it's pretty confusing. Here's what you should write and where in order to make the info correct:

(in the stepmania editor)

- Main Title: The Others
- Sub Title: (you leave this field empty)
- Artist: DJ Sharpnel

(in your browser)

- Name of the song folder: The Others (Darkbreeze)

See, your name is only featured on the song's folder, as it should NOT appear in stepmania. Don't worry, if your file gets accepted in the batch, the judges will look up who charted the song through the folder's name. If you check out other files from other simfile artists, you'll notice that they filled their info the same way (most of the time, as they don't all submit songs to FFR).

Good stuff about your song:

- It was made with care. Now this may not sound like an official trait for a chart, but let me explain: what I was first expecting was a beginner's song. I was happily surprised when I played your song the first time, as it had a nostalgic style that made it fun! Still, there are some issues and suggestions I'd like to make, but I wanted to let you know first that I was impressed by what I saw at first.

- Nice attention to detail. With almost every arrow, I could tell which sound it went to, which is, believe it or not, rare with new steppers.

Things to work on:

- The sync. It may as well be me, as I have no proof and confirmation of what I am saying, but the sync seems a tad off. When I test it out with assist tick at 0.4x, it seems not too bad. The beats are off by a hair, but it does seem valid. However, when played at full speed, something definitely feels wrong about the sync of the arrows. With a song this hard, you really have to nail the bpm! It's hard to explain, so, all I recommend is to look up in DDReam how the beats align to the peaks of the waveform. It might be very close to perfection, but you have to make sure it's perfect (on the top of the peak - zoom in in DDReam in order to make sure your beats are perfectly placed). It might be the bpm or the offset, I can't confirm as of now because DDReam broke down on me, but, if you could fix this (again, if the issue is real), it'd make the file already 10 times better.

- Redundancy in the patterns. This may be because the song itself is very repetitive and very very long. The chart smells like copy/paste, which is not a feel you want to go for in order to please an audience! I recommend cutting the song (and, at the same time, a few steps) to around the 124,40th second or at least the 210.65th second. Anything beyond that is just ridiculously long, despite all your efforts to fully chart the song. If you really want to preserve the whole song, find a way of making the steps vary. Again, the first option is objectively better if you want to submit your file to the batch, as the judges find long files most of the time boring and finding new unique patterns for the same repeating sounds through the song is harder than it seems if you want to keep the chart's quality high. Just a thought: if you don't want to submit this song, it may make a good marathon in order to sharpen up your FFR skills.

- Song choice for this chart was... meh. It is true, DJ Sharpnel is one of the most steppable artists ever for rhythm games, but he is also the most overused! If you want to make your name shine in the simfile "industry", you have to pick up hidden gems. For that, I recommend listening to as many artists as possible listed in this thread, especially the ones in pink. Those are every artists we have permission for, so use this list to your advantage!

Side note: did you know that song choice is almost as important, if not more important, than the chart itself? Picking a unique song we haven't heard of before is a great way to make the balance tilt in your favor in a judge's heart, despite all he/she will say.

- I wouldn't chart the streams like at the 19.84th second. Instead, I would just leave it blank. The wall is unnecessary, especially in the beginning of the song!

- Pitch relevancy is missing. Back in the day, this theory wasn't used a lot, that's the reason why I previously said this file made me feel nostalgic. There are many spots where you could follow the pitch. The most obvious flaw is at second #89.84. While the yellow arrow and the one following are on sync (or seem to be, like I previously talked about), they are both left arrows and the note they represent is CLEARLY different. The first one has to be more to the right. You must polish this kind of mistake. ;P Another one that comes to mind is around the 21.15th second. If you start placing blue notes, why not as well make that part fit the little girl's voice or the quick little synths that sound a bit like lasers? When it goes lower, go from right to left and vice versa. That will make the player feel like they actually are playing the song, and not just a chart that matches the beat of the song. I know that you chart the synths of the song, but following a pitch will give the song a bit variety, especially when it's this long!

- The arrow at 36.26 seconds in is what we call a ghost arrow. You have to remove it as it doesn't relate to any sound and makes the gameplay unfair. Look for these and eliminate every ghost arrow you see!

- The 60.36th seems stepped very poorly, yet it is a very cool part! By poorly, I mean that the jumps seem placed at random. Make them fit the synths. For example, instead of (34)1(23)4... step (12)(34)1(13)(24)3(12)4. The challenge will then seem a lot more reasonable, even if, in reality, the pattern I just made up is clearly more difficult :P.

- Look at the 97.60th second. You used 24th notes (pink being the smallest division), while it should be 32nd notes if you closely listen when slowing down the song (hold ctrl+alt and press left several times). I suggest using 16th notes, though, as this is a clam part of the song and the sounds are hard to distinguish. It makes the play-through fairer. This error repeats over a few times in a row. Either put 16ths or 32nds, but, clearly, 24ths won't do.

- 117.21 seconds in, those jacks are pretty nasty. I just wanted to point them out. They are pretty borderline in my book! xP

- On the 105.98th second and the other similar patterns, you are missing a note in the group (a blue one at 150.94th, in this case). We call this a missing note. Look for them as well! There are a lot around that part of the song, so slow down the song and listen carefully.
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Those were the issues I could point out as of now. Clearly, since I am trying to be as picky as possible, this could take all day to point out everything (especially because the song is 4.5 minutes long omfg!). I hope you get the picture, though!

In summary, your song is playable, but far too long and redundant. Some patterns and pitch relevancy could use some work.

All in all, I'd give this song a 3/5 (60%): Accurate difficulty, but also repetitive and flawed.

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As a first file, this was mighty brilliant. Never give up, I can't wait to see what you'll come up with!!