[bmah]

An interesting observation I have is that Stian's incredibly refined skills of SM is something easily appreciated amongst the general public but not so easily appreciated for someone more well-versed in rhythm games (aside from SM). People are comparing games that may have a harder learning curve, and that masks their ability to appreciate an SM player of an extremely high skill level. You'd think that the general public would not be able to appreciate it due to their lack of context, but in fact it's other rhythm gamers who can't muster that appreciation. If we're conparing a casual SM player to a casual IIDX player, I may say that the latter is more impressive, but that is not the case here. Staian's skill simply cannot be discounted like that.

Tl;dr just because one rhythm game may be more difficult to learn and master does not make another rhythm game less impressive particularly for a player of its highest caliber.