Monday, 19 May 2025

19/5/2025: 千年之別

中學時被教過仲夏夜是五月夜,但我只知道北半球的五月熱得讓我失眠。

「又失眠了……」我嘀咕著,一邊把冷氣打開。思緒卻沒切回到睡覺模式,只是停留在剛剛夢到某本十幾年前追過的同人作品。

那是極其稀有的、以祖世代為引子的非現世穿越同人。

大家都知道子世代本傳的漏洞太多太多,到今天我看這本祖世代同人才又發現一個。這個漏洞很容易被忽略,連我看MWPP這本親世代巨著都沒發現,不過一但發現了又令人難以忘懷:劫盜地圖的材質。

先不說這四人有沒有可能在四年級前後就探清學校「所有」結構並開始製作如此高深的魔法物件,這東西這麼好用最少也得人手一件吧?為甚麼沒有這樣做?又或者,這麼高深的魔法真的是普通物件能承載的嗎?如果羊皮紙本身是特殊的,那麼他們能做出這地圖也比較合理了。這本祖世代同人覺得這張羊皮紙說不定可以直接追溯到祖世代時期,聽上去也不是不可能。

哈利世界觀的問題是祖世代和現代中間的缺失太多了,而且中間「甚麼事都沒發生」這點就跟中學歷史老師跟你說中世紀的歐洲人混沌地混了一千年一樣荒誕。中間就沒有人有好奇心探索學校祕密嗎?就沒人成績比MWPP優秀?沒有人哪怕接近四巨頭的遺產?他們的初代學生呢?基本上本傳所有秘密要不出自祖世代,要不出自親世代,當我們就這不合理溯本追源時卻被告知中間的一千年都是混沌、不可知的,這實在難以使我這種讀者信服。

正因為如此,我才會對那些專攻舊世代的同人如此感興趣。不是為尋找「正確」的答案,而是為看別人的推敲過程,就像小市民一樣。

我還有很多問題想問。比如帷幕、比如索命咒的本質(cf那隻為課堂而犧牲的蜘蛛)……我越是用力思考,在被窩裡就更覺燥熱。即使打開了冷氣也沒用,被子裡累積的熱量可沒那麼容易散去。

……好可惜啊。

現實網絡已找不到那篇原文,再下一次夢到這文不知道是何年何月了……

Monday, 12 May 2025

12/5/2025: Ubertreffen in Osu! and DDR

Ubertreffen, or Übertreffen, A 'classic' classic from Taka. 

Along with many of his remixes, this is yet another piece sourced from the classics. Much less obvious comparing to, say V from Winter: it's Bach for sure as indicated on the composer name, but which pieces exactly? Don't be surprised if you haven't heard of it: it's prelude of Suite in C minor BWV997.

It has been one of my favourites. Not just only because it's from Taka or it's a classic remix, but also because I made a top quality guest diff for the song. I wrote in my reflection on my 10 years of Osu! that this is one of my greatest pieces, which I still think is. I took references from both the piano and drum transcription without much personal input, but it worked very well.

The reason why I mentioned the song is more than pure nostalgia though.

Remember Konami started making new challenge diffs for old DDR songs? Yeah Ubertreffen was one of them. First only to paid players, then to all players upon extra savior unlocking. 

I don't like the idea of song subscription from the beginning (just like the one from nos) so I didn't pay for the pack, and neither of my friends or whoever appearing in the same arcade did, so I had to wait. The time finally came I gave it a go immediately.


Score-wise it turned out perfectly: 860k is a top lv18 score for me and that's on first try. Won't be surprised if I grind and ended up with 900k. 

But map-wise...I am not feeling comfortable at all: tension mismatch, density inconsistency, random beats...it is as if a part time staff mapped that. A good map is supposed to be readable, where song itself provides a reasonable hint to upcoming notes. These are all basic when it comes to mapping and yet were absent in the mapper's mind.

Let's not get into the delicacy of arrow choices because it is an art in its own and works quite differently from games like 4K. Without that DDR is essentially a one dimensional sequence of beats added on top of the song. Yet that sequence sounds bad enough for the song. (From now we reference the chart and timestamps from here.)

I was not surprised on first try by the streamy part at the beginning but by the 1/1 break at bar 17:4 when the connection as be much smoother by connecting like bar 16:4 like an echo. The stream from bar 33 reflects the harpsichord section which actually started a bar earlier, so why not initiate the stream earlier instead of stuffing meaningless triplets? It is fine not to initiate long stream from bar 44, the triplet at 45:3 is also fine with the raising tension -- but bar 46-48 does not reflect that at all. Even worse, the break right before the stream breaks whatever tension left. Finally the loose beats that look almost like breaks at bar 53, 55 then 57-62, all accompanied with proper piano like a steamroller all the way to the end, and these 1/2 notes are a complete waste, especially the sliders bar 61-62.

The problem is clear: the chart is divided into separate sentences. Some properly relate to the structure (which they should), but it's the inconsistency that matters for a chart you want to conquer. The more familiar you are with the song the more uncomfortable you gets. This is just the common phenomenon of mapper patting on their head for their "idea" that turns out to be hardly understandable by players at spot. 

It is not the first time konmai making weird charts. Of course they do all the time from the time since the time of paranoia eternal, dead end and so on. It's their desire to fill the lv18 folder that leads to much worse situation in the past half year or so with the mindset of either "let's bump this lv16 worth challenge to a lv18 one by placing weird shit" or "oh shit I made it too hard let's give it an easy end". 

*sigh*

From the perspective of a clear-based player like me I shouldn't care because I am supposed to clear no matter how shitty it is -- weird pattern, odd breaks, off beats -- but it's just sad to see a chart that sounds so off.

Enough with my complaints. I have to say Ubertreffen does not represent all the recent charts added to the game. I enjoy a few of them at least...like 音楽 (STARDOM Remix). The chart is doing precisely what the song delivers with no bad taste surprises. SMASH is another map with extreme density imbalance but it works perfectly with the song.

Oh well. Time for me to go back and grind again...