I think I have made up my mind about which songs might be getting my vote, and which ones aren't. I explain why I'm not, of course. (Based on Expert and Challenge only!)
Might vote for... (NOT in order of preference)
RELEASE ME - Very very well done simfile, althought I think either of the Expert or Challenge chart could have gone here alone. Expert seems to be "twistier" and Challenge more straightfoward, but I honestly didn't felt the NEED to have them both here. They are both great, and the presentation of the simfile overall is top-notch.
BACK2BACK - I insist that the Challenge chart is much better and fun than Expert, but I understand why you wanted to have an easier Expert chart there. It's just that I'll never play it again after this review
. Challenge covered the song pretty well and gave it a lot of variety, which the expert chart lacks in its simplistic nature. It's a great simfile, good job.
KACHOUFUUSETSU - Excellent IIDX crossover! I remember that the first time I played this when the song ended I was like "ok here comes the final section" and then...song has ended o_o. It was funny if anything, but it makes perfect sense. Very solid simfile, enjoyed it a lot.
COME BACK TO ME (TONY MORAN & WARREN RIGG CLUB MIX) - This is absolutely perfect for DDR. Exactly what I'm looking for in these simfile competitions. Fun steps, good music, and adequate presentation.
SON OF SUN - I have nothing negative to say about this simfile, steps were very well thought out and honestly it surprised me, it is not easy to make these kind of songs work for DDR but you just did that. Congratulations.
MY BOY - Jeez, FOUR 200bpm in a single bracket? Haha, this was speedy fun, I have to say that when I first heard the sample of this song, it sounded like a sped-up version of any other jpop song lol, but after playing it I thought it was pretty decent. Video was cool to have too.
Might not vote for... (NOT in order of preference)
ANJELIER - Nooooo, as much as I love this song (my favorite mp3 of this bracket, I already found the full version! =D), I can't vote for it, because I feel it's not as polished as my picks for "best of the bracket". I'm not a fan of that kind of BG changes (more distracting than anything), the sync goes early after a few of the first measures (perhaps an innacurate mp3 cut?) and your insane fixation on making the song twisty. Gah, I'm not afraid to say that your entry would be my bracket's favorite without these not-so-hard-to-avoid flaws
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BARBIE GIRL - Just because you have a video doesn't mean that you can slap anything as a background for the song, people who have the videos off in their preferences will be stuck with that during all the song =/. The song choice as I said before was extremely unoriginal (who hasn't heard this song before and NOT though about making steps for it?!) It needed the mother of all the stepcharts to really shine here, and while it wasn't bad, it failed to impress.
BATTLE FUNKTASTIC - Remix of Battle Without Honor or Humanity, but honestly, I'd rather play BWHOH in DDR. This remix didn't do it for me =/. Steps were not bad at all but at certain points I had flashbacks of BWHOH. PLEASE come back for BM4.
KOKORO NO TAMAGO - This stepchart fits this song PERFECTLY, unfortunately, I'm not too fond of the song. Just like anime-based games cater to their fans and everyone else think the game is crap, I can see fans of the anime enjoying this a lot, but the rest of "us"...PLEASE come back for BM4.
LIKE THIS - I'm really sorry but I didn't enjoyed this at all. To me is on the "weaker" side of the bracket, you have to think twice about stepping a song with changing bpm and with so much musical "variety" not-so-greatly remixed as this one. The presentation was seriously lacking too. You can probably do better than this.
LOST - Another waste of a song with potential, the steps follow the beat pretty well, but the stepchart is lacking "pattern", it's an ugly chart honestly, you're just...stepping around the four arrows without much thought. I'm more inclined to think that this was a rushed stepchart. One can only wonder how long you spent on those bg changes and how much this chart could have been improved with that extra time...presentation wasn't that stellar either.
LUNATIC EYES - I liked this a lot, but I just can't overlook two glaring flaws: I couldn't feel that long 12th arrows run around the beginning, and you couldn't give a proper ending to the song step-wise (it just kept going and going with the music fading out...) The art was nice, but be A LOT more careful with the font choice or whatever effect you apply to them next time.
S.P.A.M. - Author already asked about deeper insight in this thread. Long story short, surprisingly decent stepchart, and good job handling the constantly changing BPM (you're brave lol), but it's just not what I'm looking for in this contest: THE NEXT DDR-WORTHY SONG. It's kinda like a "ghetto-rapper" going to an American Idol audition, he might be a damn good rapper but it's just not what the judges are looking for.
SUPER DRIVER - See Kokoro No Tamago. Except for the "PERFECT stepchart for the song" bit. I thought you had a few too many twisty-ish steps here, which didn't left too much place for step-variety in the song.
YOU CAN'T BEAT AIRMAN - While there's nothing terribly wrong with this, I can't really point out anything outstanding about it...the second half of the song was more fun than the first half for some reason (I think it was for the accurate usage of freeze arrows at certain points). The presentation could have been a lot better, I'm a fan of detailed graphics, and this is totally the opposite.
Well those are my thoughts on this bracket, I though it was better than average, I can't really say something here was TERRIBLE. Waiting for bracket TWO!!