レビュー

Beautiful song, pretty visual and excellent use of Groove Coaster aesthetic and new raster and video texture techs. But scoring it, I do have a lot of things to say. Sorry about camera angle (lucky there are not many squares in this one) but for reasons you'll soon know, I'm not intended to try 1.05M this song ever again.

0:00 : You'll not believe how evil this beginning circle is until you try to get all Perfect+. Sure many songs started this sort of still-camera way. But this one : 1. The notes are spinning towards the avatar so even if you eyeballing the avatar hard you might forgot to account for how the note is also moving. 2. The camera slowly changing to perspective and even proceed to roll (or pitch or yaw idk), so when it goes from front to back and vice-versa it screw up your eye aim. 3. Song is JUST piano with no other louder reference beat. So really feel like you are on your own, lost in vast space. The trick I can give you is focus on the shrinking circle around the note more than the avatar since that can't possibly trick you, but still... I think in 2 hours of trying to 1.05M this one I restarted here more than 50 times.

0:15 : Your mileage in music game journey may vary, but personally I always think this sort of rock band song is always harder to time than electronic-oriented songs no matter what game. The downbeat is subtle and drummer will keep doing it this way until we reach the chorus that the beat became clearer. Here, even so you only see simple 8th beats, you might magically get bad judgements. You need to continue eyeballing the avatar to keep yourself in sync. Luckily camera and rail became better.

0:21 : The 16th note gallop here can be hard to time, but I notice I didn't get screwed up anymore after 5 retries or so once I know how to time it.

0:27 : It's time to reveal an another tricky thing about this song, it loves to go emotional and beatless, very often! I mean we just came out of the intro a while ago and the beat is gone again. You need to continue focusing hard by eyes, these 8th beats are harder than they look because those sounds matches exactly to the drum and there are no other reference sounds you didn't play, making it easy to drift out if you autopilot a bit and forgot to resync by eyes. This section ends with some 16ths, quite hard without clear audio like this.

0:40 : Take a look at the "new API" introduced in this DLC, the fake notes! (As you might remember from Don't Fight the Music from Wai Wai Party if you played. It also changes color accordingly if you use different note color skin.) It is also used in M@GICAL☆CURE! LOVE ♥ SHOT!. Anyway, still need to focus hard on those squares. The transition of 4-note 16ths to dual circle is helped by the Special notes, take advantage of that so you don't have to use your mental too much for the dual circles.

0:46 : The "Ne~" line note is very easy to get bad judge. After that, it's finally time to relax as the song finally picks up! (Finally!) Still, the mixing of this song puts vocal first and drums are quite subtle, to hit those 8ths that are doing more than the vocals, you'd have to pay a bit extra attention to the drums.

0:55 : This "Wow~ Wow~" might be tricky as you stopped playing a bit before it, and the line note is not Special. Look closely at the line note's head.

1:15 : The solo is a lot of notes but not hard to time compared to many things before this. I think I never had to restart around here! It really shows how the backing track going strong really improves my timing.

1:25 : Here you will see innocent looking 3-note 16th which is quite hard due to the camera angle and the beat they started on (upbeat). It is recommended to ad-lib either before or after that dual circle that comes before. I choose to do it before.

1:29 : 24th notes skill check! This one you have an opportunity to ad-lib, there is an another one which you can't. So use this one as a practice. Similar to barrage of these in "Catcher in the Ui", because it is an even number of notes (4), if you start on dominant hand and stop on the other hand proofs you didn't over-spam them. It is also easy to get overly giddy about finally nailing this 24ths and forgot to focus the 3-note 16ths that came after. Yeah, it happened to me and I about to throw the controller...

1:34 : Here they use colored arrows to force a crossover pattern, where one side stay on the same button and other side travel large distance. If you have been playing crossovers properly, here's your reward! If you need crossover practice, try Heart Pie Dancehall.

1:42 : Now "Wow~ Wow~" line notes are painted with Special, thank you Taito.

1:50 : The last forced crossover is vertical, which is a bit awkward and it is also blue. (Most player's dominant hand is right = red.) After, you are required to do longer 16ths which you never did before in this song.

2:02 : Here's the second 4-note 24ths, but you don't have any opportunity to ad-lib and snipe the head of it. Song also goes quiet and wait for you to perform. There is no trick other than eyeball very hard for the first note. Good luck!

2:06 : Still not time to let your guard down, all that's left are 8th beats, but they are tricky because each one begins on the upbeat not down! Here's what I love about the removal of scoring ad-libs. Ad-lib is novel for casual play, but frustration on regular replays. Not thinking about the same ad-lib as the dev? Forgotten some on very good play and get NO MISS instead of FULL CHAIN? Hitting bad judges on them? Resulting in seasoned players just turning Visible and call it a day... Here, the ad-lib spirit lives on with these blank spots they left, and it is clear here that those who ad-lib creatively will have advantage but not punishing to those who didn't. So press some to those chorus echo of 輝いて (kagayaite) and nail those notes! Background is really good in this section too. Each set ends with a Special note, you can take advantage of it to re-sync if you heard the response sound early/late. You can hear the first one I definitely got SLOW but rescued by the Special note. I noticed that and readjusted.

2:19 : The song goes quiet for the last time. Bring back the extreme focus you did in the beginning. Rail is straight, highly recommended to NOT ad-lib here and only sight read.