DDR - Bracket 2.3 Reviews

[BLueSS]

SCORE CRITERIA: All scores must be whole integers between 0-max
/5 - Presentation (2 being "average")
/11 - Second Hardest chart (4-7 being "average" for a chart)
/11 - Hardest Chart
/3 - Tilt
--------------
Max of /30 points

ALL JUDGING MUST HAVE FEEDBACK ON WHY IT WAS GIVEN THAT SCORE! Judging without feedback will NOT be counted in any situation.

Everyone is free to add a Public Review (PR), which will consist of a scoring sheet (using above criteria) for each song in a sub-bracket. The PR scores are then averaged together and the top move on.
You are not allowed to judge any bracket or sub-bracket your song is in!

You must review all the files in the sub-bracket for your review to count.

[Hainaut]

ALEJANDRO (DON'T CALL MY NAME):

Heavy: (6/11)
This stepchart goess quite overboard with karaoke, in my opinion. Although most of it actually works quite well, it feels like the vocal melody is usually the only thing you're interested in following throughout, and therefore many of your patterns are a bit iffy, especially when there's a bit gap in-between the notes that doesn't flow well during the phrase. On the plus side, step placement is quite smooth and makes this chart easily playable.

Challenge: (6/11)
This stepchart has far less excessive karaoke and flows slightly better overall, but it's still not without its problems. The biggest beef I had with this stepchart was that a lot of the 16ths here are completely artificial and don't go to anything. It feels as if most of them, especially during the chorus, were thrown in just to make this stepchart more difficult, but for the most part they seem completely unnecessary and detract from the fun of this. In general, I thought this stepchart was actually pretty decent, but it needs to be toned down and polished up a little more to truly stand out.

Presentation: (0.5/5)
This is where you really dropped the ball the most. First off, the mp3 quality is absolutely terrible and sounds like it was ripped from a radio station or something. Also, what in the world are those weird, startling noises later on all about? Next, the cut isn't that well done, starting and ending at rather abrupt and inappropriate locations. The graphics for this aren't great - the background is extremely fuzzy, and the banner is just generic white text over a dark backdrop. The syncing of this is very early. Finally, although a video was included, it does not work for me, and instead I'm treated to just a black screen the entire time except for when the bg image is present. You included a readme, at least.

Tilt: (1/3)
Your steps actually show a lot of potential, but your presentation skills need a lot of work, because that was ultimately the greatest downfall of this simfile for me.

FINAL SCORE: (13.5/30)


GHOSTS N STUFF:

Standard: (9/11)
Pretty fun and well-stepped for the most part. Although I think you could've been slightly more creative early on, given the quirky nature of the song, the note placement here flowed really well. Occasionally, you would create artificial rhythms to avoid following the synth directly, which I found awkward, but otherwise there isn't much technically wrong with this.

Heavy: (7.5/11)
Also a fun stepchart. The patterns here do a lot of switching between following the vocals and the backup synths, and as a result flow a little clunkily in some areas. I also found some of the placement to be a bit obvious or too leading, but for the most part it's handled quite well.

Presentation: (3.5/5)
The graphics are pretty cool and fit the song very well. The syncing is rather early, however.

Tilt: (2/3)
A solid, well-rounded simfile overall. Not the best in the pack, but a strong effort nonetheless. Also one of my favorite songs musically (though that does not factor into its score).

FINAL SCORE: (20/30)


GIBOLD (SCANDALOUS UNTLD. REMIX):

Standard: (8/11)
Given how messy the song is, I don't think there was a whole lot you could do to make a standard-difficult stepchart work, but overall I think you handled it pretty effectively. Nothing really struck me as spectacular or super-polished here, but you did a good job in ensuring that this did not go too far and end up really messy, while still maintaining a fair amount of pattern variety.

Heavy: (5/11)
I think the song, once again, is the biggest problem that affects this stepchart. You have a lot of step patterns that, for the most part, look like they would work fine, but in this case it actually almost feels like the bpm should be halved because there isn't enough support in the backdorp. The steps, as a result, feel very overdone and awkward. Even the chorus, which is pretty much one of the only phrases with a strong beat, has very erratic steps that move around way too much and flow poorly.

Presentation: (5/5)
I'll give this extra points for going all the way so as to include doubles, and the graphics + miscellaneous attributes here are fine, anyway.

Tilt: (1/3)
Your steps show a lot of expertise for the most part, but next time, I'd suggest you pick a different song, since this track was just a chaotic mess of unmusical and unrhythmic synths that clearly weren't designed to be stepped to.

FINAL SCORE: (19/30)


MONSTER OH MONSTER (REMIX):

Standard: (10.5/11)
This is a very strong and effective Standard stepchart. It's actually quite easy and most certainly isn't a 6, though. I'd probably rate it an easy 5 or even a difficult 4, since the use of 8th notes is very sporatic and your step placement isn't that challenging, so I'm docking just a half point for the obvious misrating. That aside, however, the step patterns here are very fun and fit the song excellently. Just about anyone who's trying to master the Standard difficulty should easily be able to play this and still quite enjoy it.

Heavy: (11/11)
Wow! This has absolutely fantastic note placement and execution throughout! Even though this chart is extremely karaoke, it's handled so well that it's incredibly fun all the way through. This shows such expertise that I'd probably go as far to say that it's one of my very favorite Heavy charts in this competition!

Presentation: (5/5)
The graphics are quite nice. A little monotone color-wise, but still crisp and aesthetically interesting. The background video is actually quite hilarious and definitely enhances the enjoyment factor of this simfile for me.

Tilt: (3/3)
This one really took me by surprise. One of the best overall simfiles in the contest, without a doubt.

FINAL SCORE: (29.5/30)


SOUND ABOVE MY HAIR:

Standard: (4/11)
I wasn't that impressed by this chart. During the buildup, the notes are entirely karaoke. Though following the major melody is usually a good thing, it's also important to acknowledge the present intensity of the track, and in this case you did not create any sort of logical buildup, leaving many areas either overly gappy or too full-on. The synth phrase (the non-bagpipe one), at least, puts an end to the karaoke theme, but isn't much better. The steps are way too repetitive with the continous 1-(r)-and-(rest)-4 pattern every measure, and the switch to the pattern with 16ths in it comes abruptly and does not fit very well. You get a few points because the placement isn't bad, and this is definitely playable, but it's nonetheless rather uncreative and not very well-polished.

Heavy: (5/11)
Pretty much the same problems persist in this stepchart. To be honest, I actually thought this felt almost like a carbon copy of the Standard chart, except with some additional steps to qualify it for the Heavy difficult. Way too much karaoke early on, and now the addition of unnecessary 16th runs certainly doesn't help matters, either. This gets a slightly higher score because I thought the later half was actually fairly decent, but still this needs a lot of work.

Presentation: (1/5)
Graphics are not so pretty here. The banner text looks truly awful, with tacky white edges and hardly any substance. The picture in the background looks pretty nice, but the image is ruined by the same ugly-looking gray banner with the text slapped over it. Sound quality is not perfect, and neither is the song edit, which just cuts off out of nowhere at the end.

Tilt: (1/3)
This one needs a lot of work, unfortunately. Your note placement is good, but this file is severely lacking in step creativity and variety. Presentation could be a lot better, too.

FINAL SCORE: (11/30)

[Greg]

Alejandro 10 / 30
00 / 05 - Presentation
Sorry, not even a single point... The banner is a black background with plain, white text. It can be made in up to 3 minutes. The background is very low quality, plus the guy's head is cut off by the default StepMania theme xD Also, the song is WAY TOO QUIET! For some reason the video is just a black screen for me and I doubt it's a matter of codecs, cause I'm playing all kinds of movie files without any problems...
05 / 11 - Second Hardest chart
It's mainly so called karaoke-stepping. There are also some double-steps... And I don't think it's 8 feet, I would rather call it 7. The steps are so-so, I'm sure you would get something better if you wanted to.
05 / 11 - Hardest Chart
It's a bit overstepped and there's too many unneceseary holds. Also, a bit too much karaokestepping and too many empty moments. Some moments are overstepped and some are understepped xD There are also some nice 16th streams, but still, the chart isn't really anything cool...
00 / 03 - Tilt
Sorry, nothing to tilt it for...

Ghosts n Stuff 15 / 30
03 / 05 - Presentation
Nice graphics, but not amazing Hard to say anything more about it ^^;
06 / 11 - Second Hardest chart
Double-steps again... It really spoils the fun of playing... Other than that, it's a good 5 footer, but it's a bit boring, especially at the slow down. I think that moment is too long.
06 / 11 - Hardest Chart
A nice and easy 7 footer. It goes well with the music and it's not too hard. Too bad there are also some double-steps :/
00 / 03 - Tilt
Sorry, nothing to tilt it for...

Gibold 21 / 30
04 / 05 - Presentation
Great graphics They really fit the theme of the song. Maybe I would only change the stroke's color in the artist title. I think the beginning of the song is a bit too long, you could've cut it a bit.
07 / 11 - Second Hardest chart
The beginning looks a bit harder than the beginning of the heavy chart. It's more interesting and the streams fit the music more. It's a nice chart that 5 feet players should enjoy
08 / 11 - Hardest Chart
Very nice chart, steps fitting the music very well. Too bad the flow isn't perfect (some double-steps)and the beginning is a bit boring.
02 / 03 - Tilt
2 points for really good graphics and for the bonus, double-charts

Monster oh monster 24 / 30
04 / 05 - Presentation
Very nice graphics, but a bit too bright colors. And the video is really cool, did you made it? The song has a tiny bit offsync, 20ms to be exact.
09 / 11 - Second Hardest chart
Perfect floooow Very good 6 footer It has fitting streams, good for the standard players.
09 / 11 - Hardest Chart
Very good chart! Finally, ALMOST perfect flow, I've noticed just one double-step, comparing to other simfiles in this bracket it's great The steps go well with the music, it is fun to play.
02 / 03 - Tilt
2 points for being the best simfile in this bracket and the first one with almost perfect flow That's a very important thing in steps

Sound above my hair 13 / 30
00 / 05 - Presentation
Sorry, no points. The banner is terrible, the same goes for the background... Paint FTW, huh? xD The preview seems kinda random. Also, the song edit is just cut off at some moment.
04 / 11 - Second Hardest chart
This chart is a copy of the heavy chart with a few 16th arrows added and some moments slightly changed. Most of the arrows are exactly in the same places.
08 / 11 - Hardest Chart
Perfect flow again, that's what I like! The steps are good, reflecting the music very well.
01 / 03 - Tilt
1 point for the bonus, double charts

The winners of this subbracket are "Monster oh monster" and "Gibold" The most disappointing was "Alejandro" and "Sound above my hair". "Ghosts n stuff" stay in the middle

[will-i-am]

good chart, but there were double-steps, double-steps, and more double-steps

Wait....Seriously? Is this even a legitimate review? Is this really the only way you can come up with to dock off points? Nearly every single one of your reviews has a comment on double-stepping and how it's not "fun" to have to use one foot twice in a row to hit consecutive arrows.

So-called "good" charts are ruined by an intolerance of this widely-used, DDR-used, yet somehow still not universally acceptable, stepping technique that continues to be a topic amongst discussion even after years that the many cases that shed light on the immorality of denoting a file for its poor "flow", which was concluded to be a completely objective and opinion-based judgement, should've been solved.

I respect the time and effort you put into your reviews, but if you're going to continue docking perfectly fine step charts because you'd rather not perform a simple foot placement variation technique, then I'm going to have to call these reviews a bust.

[Greg]

Sorry, but all best simmakers will tell you that double-steps are a major mistake of the stepmaker. I definitely wouldn't call them "a simple foot placement variation technique". I remember seeing a comment about double-steps (probably Chmurek's, I'm not sure) that said: "Double-stepping gives me the same kind of pleasure as hitting my head against a wall" and I totally agree with that. Flow is a very important thing in stepmaking, the stepmaker is supposed to "guide" the player through the chart, not to put double-steps and make him guess if he's supposed to do a crossover, double crossover, spin or whatever else. The player will end up confused and the chart stops being fun.

Anyway, you don't have to agree with that... It's my review, so I'm reviewing the things that I regard most important. And I'm not substracting like 6 or 8 points if a single double-step appears in a chart, it can be up to 2 points. And I can tilt a chart for a perfect flow, cause that's a very good and important thing to me.

[Xythar]

What are you referring to in terms of double steps? It's fallacious to say that double steps are automatically bad; as with many things, it depends on how they are used.

Double steps during an 8th stream are usually not that great, although it's been done in DDR before (e.g. End of the Century) so I'd have to see the specific usage before I decided.

Double steps between 8th streams, e.g.

R-D-L R-D-L
or
L-D-U L-D-U
or
L-D-R L-U-R
etc

are perfectly fine unless the BPM is very high. Those are very, very common patterns in DDR and I use them frequently (and quite deliberately, because when you've played as many charts as I have it starts to get a little boring when every chart essentially just makes you do the LDURDUL figure-8 back and forth)

Heck, have you seen DDR's Polyrhythm steps? The last measure is like L-D-U-L-D-U-L-D-U-L-D-U...

So no, I think your statement that "all best simmakers will tell you double stepping is a major mistake" is false because I certainly don't think so, and I know many other people who also don't.

[Juub005]

Flow is a very important thing in stepmaking, the stepmaker is supposed to "guide" the player through the chart, not to put double-steps and make him guess if he's supposed to do a crossover, double crossover, spin or whatever else. The player will end up confused and the chart stops being fun.

I don't agree. It often becomes more fun because you come up with your own way to make it fun. The whole idea that every chart should be possible to do while alternating feet makes things frankly boring, and as has been pointed out above, this is certainly not the case for DDR itself. Sure, a lot of charts are that way and they're fun, while a lot of charts aren't, and they're fun too. It's like a small puzzle with multiple solutions - so what if you don't get it the first time? Try again. It adds an element of freestyle, or of trickery. One of the key parts of MAX300 near the end is a double-step in a series of quarter notes that seems to be there just to throw the player off. The reason double-steps have gotten such a bad rep in the simfile community is not because they add difficulty (and I would argue that a tough 8th stream at 300 is generally a lot more painful than a few double-steps at a song with tempo from 100-200), but because amateurs often have a tendency to put them in unintentionally.

Also, whenever you go from a single step into a jump (or vice versa) with an 8th note's time in between, you are really doing a double-step, since you have to hit two consecutive arrows with the same foot quickly. It's just easier to read when the arrows scroll up.

[will-i-am]

Yeah, I also think that the statement that "all simmakers" yaddahyaddah would agree that double-stepping is an unforgivable sin is complete garbage. Did you read what this competition is about? We're not random nobodies who've never stepped DDR before. Actually...

BEST-mix is a DDR simfile tournament that showcases creative original Dance Dance Revolution simfiles made by members of the community. It is the longest running competition of it's type, and features some of the best step-chart authors in the world of DDR.

This site is a collection of the very few DDR simfile creators that still make simfiles today, besides many of those from the Otaku's Dream/Polish-Anime community who focus on perfect "flow" charts, which I don't get. Honestly, a bonehead could make a chart with perfect flow without knowing anything about what makes a step chart fun. You know why? Because it's simple! All perfect flow is is simple left foot right foot patterns. Left, Right, Left, Right, Left. Boring. This isn't the military, it's DDR. All you need to do to check for double-stepping in your own chart is to play it through once. Instead, you can take a break from the formal L, R patterns and find something creative and tasteful that works, but is not over the top, and that is double-stepping.

I agree, double-stepping can get confusing during 8ths at times, especially at high BPM's, but if you're given 4th breaks in between, then seriously what's the problem? In Ghosts n Stuff, the only really dominant double-stepping I noticed was during simple 4th runs. Are you really too lazy to just step from D to R with your right foot on both of those arrows?

It's kinda sad really that people still hold on to these age-old made up rulebooks of "How To Make DDR Steps For Dummy's". It really blocks a lot of room for creativity. Sure, a good DDR step chart should have its limits, but it shouldn't be hindered by stupid laws that were invented by a community who never once contributed to the making on an actual in-game step chart.

[jammitch!]

I'm pretty big into "flow" myself, but I would definitely argue that double-steps can be used intentionally and effectively. The main problem with them is when they're used randomly, imprecisely, and without regard to foot placement, as many beginners are wont to do. Used sparingly and purposefully, they can be fun. I'd point to HVAM as a good use, EOTC as a bad one, and Get Up'n Move as somewhere in between.

Mostly, what I want to see is steps that are placed with intent and awareness, rather than just random. Usually, you can feel the difference.

[Greg]

Wow, a lot of people replied

So, first of all, double-steps are the main reason I don't like official DDR mixes, so I don't play them anymore.
Next, IMO the best simmaker I know is Chmurek. A lot of his steps won in different stepmaking contests. I wonder why he never uses double-steps in his charts if they're so fun and exciting as you guys are saying?
Go check his charts, will-i-am, and you will see that charts with perfect flow aren't boring at all

And I'll repeat once more: I regard double-steps as a major mistake in a stepchart, I don't find them fun at all and finally, that's my review, so I'm writing about things that I liked or didn't like.

[Xythar]

I'm going to take this to the main discussion thread, no need to derail this review topic with a continued argument.

[Greg]

Well, I think there's no point in talking about double-steps at all. These guys won't make me change my mind and I won't make them change their, so it would eventually just turn into a flame war...

[Xythar]

I think it's worth discussing, but over here:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=449&p=5911#p5911

[Loki]

Well, i really have to apologize for alejandro, i did the entire 2 songs in 4 or 5 hours, so it's normal everything were made fast and without too much review, i really know it's a piece of shit that with work could get a little shiny, but stills a shit, sorry people...

I promise the next time do it with more time...

[Valex]

Wow I thought there was going to be reviews but instead it's just bitching about double steps. Thanks guys

Also Loki if you ever make a revised (as in good) version of Alejandro I'd love to see it because I like that song