Rubik's Cube (Lego man): I do not care what you say, the streams are mapped absolutely perfectly and flow so well with the guitar in the background. This map didn't deserve the amount of backlash that it received.
Jack-the-Ripper: The two top diffs of this map are godlike. They represent the jazzy atmosphere of the song so well, it's insane. Also, this map is just super fun to play, and the fast sections of this map always feel like an adrenaline rush.
Long Season: I found this album on Rate Your Music and really liked it, so I searched it up on osu and found this. Pleasantly surprised by how amazing this map is. It compliments the song very nicely and feels like a whole journey that never felt boring throughout its daunting half-hour length. Very satisfied with basically everything about this map, but it's a shame that it's this unpopular.
FN .380 ACP#19074: Even though this map is hella farm, it's the kind of farm map that's actually kind of fun grinding. Many of the streams, especially the larger-spaced ones, feel satisfying to FC. We need more stream maps like this that fit between the line of "generic 180 bpm spaced streams" and "ultra fast speed farm."
Kami no Kotoba (taiko): I'm not that good in taiko, but this map stood out to me for its slow scroll speed gimmick. Turns out to be a challengingly fun gimmick, and as of right now, this is my favorite osu!taiko map.
101 kittens: A not-so-serious map with a host of gimmicks that I find incredibly fun to play.
Nice For What: Never really seen a song mapped like this before, pretty cool. UndeadCapulet really knew what they were doing with this map.
XNOR XNOR XNOR: A simple comment on this map won't do this justice, but I'll try my best. This is my favorite map of all time, full stop. fanzhen's take on XNOR XNOR XNOR embodies what I like about music; it progressively tells a story, it contains many deliberate artistic choices that contribute to an overall environment, and it cleverly surprises you at every measure of the song. This dude seriously nails each one perfectly. It doesn't rely on storyboard gimmicks to look cool. What ultimately stands out to me is that THE MAP ITSELF is cool-looking, not the hitsounding, not the flashy storyboard or video, not any of those distractions. It all boils down to the basic elements of a map to look cool: the circles, sliders, and spinners. fanzhen uses these simple objects in such genius ways (for example, the introduction, the triangular prism slider animation, the whole "noise wall" section, the 2B elements complimenting the song's jazzy nature, and all of the slider techniques). Many of these mapping gimmicks have been done before, but no one has integrated each one as cohesively as fanzhen did. Each circle, slider, and spinner are artistic choices that give XNOR XNOR XNOR its technical and "Frums-like" atmosphere. It's simply beautiful to stare at and admire the journey the circles take you. And this is why this map, or shall I say art piece, is so special to me.
Boulafacet: Even though this map is pretty much unplayable, this 9* is mapped with such an aesthetically-pleasing mapping style that I had to favorite it. (also i like the song choice)
neu (Nakagawa-Kanon): Amazing song and the map holds up very well today even after 10+ years. This is one of those marathon maps that has such good pacing that it feels like it's telling a story alongside it.
Because Maybe!: Because Maybe pt. 2 was the map that introduced me to Emma Essex, my all-time favorite music artist. Just the sheer amount of effort to map this whole album and have it be challengingly fun the whole time rightfully deserves a spot here.
Whispers In The Dark: Very satisfying to hit these bursts and mapping style is also very clean too. This was the map that fed my addiction of mapping red-anchored sliders.