This GD is taken from the 2019 graveyarded set, created by Itsuuki, GDed by MisakiTobisawa- with permission.
Original set: https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/918334#osu/2153031
As he is now in mandatory army service, he would only be able to fix mods at weekends.
kiai is different from other difficulties, and it is placed too often so it feels like they are out of place.
00:07:385~ this part is kind of instrumental buildup after intro, and pattern density is not that high, but kiai is used.
there are no reasons for this part to be "kiai" in aspect of musical structure, nor patterning.
00:52:559~, 01:21:338~ this part has musical intensity, but it feels like "blinking" too often because kiai is nearby, so you turned it on and off
at everywhere the density drops. this makes me think that kiai parts were put every single part that has strong drums, etc.
while it is not necessary to make kiai parts identical between difficulties, there are such problems in difficulties' kiai part, so
using other diff's kiai section instead will be highlight the chorus of the song more, since the kiai looks less overused.
The use of kiai and other stylistic effects is subjective. Using it for the highlighted instrumental section in the beginning of the song and the flashes in the chorus that reflect strong notes reflects contemporary usage of such stylistic effects (from what I have observed) and, if not distracting to the core gameplay, is not really an issue to the player.
there are some ponits that can confuse players, like 00:28:839 (1) - 00:34:246 (5,1) - .
they have 1/2 snapping but placed like 1/1 in other places.
so, throughout your map, make a noticable difference between different snaps if there's no reason.
While I have done my best to ensure that emphasised 1/2 beats are visually different from typical DS 1/1 beats, feel free to point out where else I have overlooked them. For now these two are fine in my opinion.
They are just examples, and it is against the guideline "Avoid visually similar spacing for different rhythms." for hard difficulty. And i don't think notes like 00:34:246 (5,1) doesn't have that much reason to be emphasized.
As i said above, so make clear difference between 1/2 and 1/1 snaps.
Boy, this got me thinking. When the diff gets updated, let me know whether my solution works for you.