Heya from my queue. I'll be honest. I would never picture this as a battle theme imo. It's a bit too happy for my JRPG battle music tastes lol.
[General]
01:51:607 - Kiai would be better cut off here. After this point, the song just doesn't have as much epic feel, and is mostly just carrying off of the earlier parts.
00:03:438 - Your timing should start here. Add a uninherited (red) timing point to this spot. Note that you'll probably have unsnapped notes when you do this. For more information, I suggest reading this wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacrusis
[Easy]
Eh I actually like what you did with most of this diff. I liked how for the most part, you followed the song itself here instead of using a boring rhythm. Sadly for a few parts, you kinda overmap and it felt like a chore to play instead of having said fun when I knew there was going to be an exciting note to hit.
This map feels a bit too dense imo. It could stand to lose some triplets here and there, and maybe not so many 3/4 sliders. I mention some of these below.
[General]
01:51:607 - Kiai would be better cut off here. After this point, the song just doesn't have as much epic feel, and is mostly just carrying off of the earlier parts.
00:03:438 - Your timing should start here. Add a uninherited (red) timing point to this spot. Note that you'll probably have unsnapped notes when you do this. For more information, I suggest reading this wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacrusis
[Easy]
- 00:11:466 (2,3,4,1) - (2,3) is a perfect place for symmetry with (1). Please do so here. Start by placing (2) at x488, y192, and then put (3) as a vertical flip of (1). Make sure to adjust (4,1) as needed.
- 00:30:058 (5) - For better effect, why not remove this circle? It gets boring clicking the same old 1/1 gaps over, and over, so a few 2/1 gaps here and there adds some nice variety. Also this note here isn't very powerful at all and it gives more impact when you click the one after.
- 00:49:072 (3,4,5) - For more impact, why not swap these so the crazy trumpets or whatever they are get the circles to click instead of a slider.
- The whole kiai section. I'll be brutally honest here. It's rhythm is boring. There isn't a single 2/1, 3/2, or above, and there isn't any 2/1 gaps either. The whole thing is just 1/1s, over and over. Here is a few examples you can bring some variety into it.
- 01:25:198 - 01:27:945 (1) - 01:38:086 (1) - and such. At the beginning of most measures, you could easily adapt any of these into a 3/2 slider and it will flow perfectly into the strong vocal and instrumental point at places such as 01:25:198 - This applies to most of the kiai. If you do this every 2nd or 4th one maybe, it'll be enough variety to make the kiai more interesting to play.
- 01:37:663 - since you cut off the kiai here, I like to think of this as more of a rest or preparation point for the upcoming kiai. Consider deleting (4) and using a repeat on (3) . This will let the player rest a little before heading off to the last kiai.
- 01:52:029 (2,3) - For these ones (01:55:410 (2,3) - etc), maybe convert one or two of them to a 2/1 slider starting at (2). The (3)'s head isn't a very powerful note, so it could easily be skipped over if wanted.
- 02:03:860 (5,6) - The (6) doesn't really hit anything. infact, one could argue it hits nothing at all making it borderline unrankable. How about using a 3/2 reverse here starting where the (5) is? You'll hit the key notes (the reverse part will be more important than 02:03:860 - as well btw) on the reverse and the end this way.
Eh I actually like what you did with most of this diff. I liked how for the most part, you followed the song itself here instead of using a boring rhythm. Sadly for a few parts, you kinda overmap and it felt like a chore to play instead of having said fun when I knew there was going to be an exciting note to hit.
- 00:13:156 (3) - one of the interesting parts here is how you hold the sliders to the piano's held notes. When you get to this note however, the piano doesn't use a held note here (it drowns out a lot faster than the other ones). Because of this, I highly recommend just using a single circle here.
- 00:23:508 (3) - So when I get to this part, the only thing I care about is the main melody which you've been following perfectly at this point. Then this circle shows up. I understand its to build up with the background instrumentals, but for anyone who is playing this, they'll probably have the same mindset as me and only care about following the main instruments. I recommend deleting this circle for this reason.
- 00:32:170 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,1,2,3) - This chain of 1/2 is quite a bit for a normal. 00:30:480 (1,2,3,1,2,3,4) - Maybe swap these like you did with 00:44:001 (1,2,3,4,1,2,3) - This will give a gap at 00:33:649 - at least.
- 01:04:072 (3) - This is pretty much the same thing as 23 seconds here, and for the very same reasons. I basically want to play notes I want to hit, not forced to hit.
- 01:21:184 (1) - how to win at symmetry: Spam control H on it and line up all the nodes but the middle red one. After that, move the red one to the middle with grid snap, and find the spot between where it shrinks down 1/4 and it's original 2/1. Next hold shift, and make it even more precise by moving it ever so slightly up/down until you find that sweet point where it shrinks down 1/4. You should have a perfectly symmetrical slider now! for now, try placing the first node on x136, y356 and the second node at x196, y384. Move the last two as needed (control+h helps here) and then find the sweet spot for the middle node. It's located at x256, y334 if you can't find it. Make sure to copy paste this to 01:22:874 (3) - as well.
- Note that your whole kiai is at a difficult point known as advanced. It's too hard for Normal and the whole reason for this is simply because you only have 1/2 gaps here. This whole section needs some 1/1 breaks. 01:27:734 (3) - 01:31:114 (5) - 01:34:494 (5) - are some prime examples of candidates that could be removed and not have any impact on the rhythm in whole. Notice how you don't hitsound these either. It just means they aren't important at all.
- 01:52:241 (2) - 01:55:621 (2) - 01:59:001 (2) - and so on. Try throwing a drum normal hitsound here. It at least gives it some meaningful impact with the vocals and doesn't really stick out.
- 01:58:367 (1) - I think you're missing a drum finish here.
- 02:04:283 (4) - Should honestly start 1/2 later at 02:04:494 - for the instruments. Maybe make it a 1/2 reverse or a circle plus 1/2 slider?
- 02:08:297 (3) - Break these up? (convert the head and tail to a circle) I'd rather click both of them instead of holding here since none of the instruments playing hold to this point.
This map feels a bit too dense imo. It could stand to lose some triplets here and there, and maybe not so many 3/4 sliders. I mention some of these below.
- 00:03:438 (1,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3,4) - I think you should build up to this better from the start. You go from two calm notes into a crazy cluster of notes in no time at all. I really think you should map the start of this like you do Easy/Normal (maybe swap Easy/Normal with Hard/Savage for this reason?) so it feels a bit more natural when the dense part jumps in.
- 00:47:593 (2) - unrankable. it goes off the screen. It has to be lowered.
- 01:21:184 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) - This rhythm doesn't make any sense. The triples occur at 01:21:501 - and not 01:21:290 - and such.
- 01:24:565 (1,2) - So the (2) doesn't really hit anything strong at this point, if anything at all tbh. 01:24:987 - is a lot stronger, and should be prioritized here. Check the GDs, they do this correctly.
- 01:36:396 (1) - what is this 3/4 following? The stronger note appears back at 01:36:607 - in every way possible. Same thing with 01:49:917 (1) -
- 01:38:403 (2) - Same as 1:24:565 - with this 1/4 note.
- 02:04:283 (5) - There isn't much point to this note. The 1/1 spacing makes it play a lot better.