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...
