I think flattening my right index finger to hit the P2 3 key to avoid hitting the 2 key with my fingertip by mistake has led to minor discomfort. I hope to learn better hand movements…
It was not a mistake to attend Mistake on the Lake (MotL) 5 last week, but boy did I come out of that exhausted. I could barely move and came down early last week with a cold that didn’t go away until this weekend. There’s a multitude of things I want to write about, but since I hadn’t the health and energy to write about anything until now.
I have a whole “writing wishlist” I’ve shared with a few folks, and ideally I’m able to go through all of them; but in the meantime, I’ll continue my feed today with another score report of my first DDR session post-MotL as share some accomplishments on Gitadora Drums and my first sets of IIDX 31 Epolis!
DDR A3
For my first session in a week, I felt awful. Warming up on 13’s felt like I was moving around sticks for legs and a stone column for a torso. My arms and shoulders felt like noodles in comparison and I was struggling to physically output anything above a 15.
Nevertheless, in playing this, Gitadora, and IIDX in a rotation at Round 1, I got in over time enough sets of DDR to set aside time to convert the Single Level-14 clear lamp on A3. To reclaim the red lamp, I’ll need to LIFE4-clear Ace Out CSP and Death by Glamour ESP, on which today I got a 3-Miss and a 7-Miss Normal Life Gauge clears, respectively.
Once I do that, though, to make progress on LIFE4 Pearl 3 for DDR A3, I need to restore a 985k score floor (before 2 exceptions), and the songs ahead of me are just… the new “usual suspects”. Ugh…
I’ll close this section by highlighting this 54/4/1 gFC AAA on Oversoul ESP. I went gold for 200 until my glasses started to slip and I got a Fast Great while adjusting them. Oh, well. Playing Going Hypersonic ESP has been helpful here. Def piffable!
And here’s the 3icecream export. Very short. Onto Gitadora!
Gitadora Fuzz-Up Drums
Following witnessing world-class talent in Gitadora Drums during MotL 5, I’m taking a more active interest this fall in learning to play Drums and spent some of my free time this week watching YouTube videos about learning to play drums and getting to know some jazz drummers, including Larnell Lewis, the drummer for Snarky Puppy, a Brooklyn-based jazz fusion band:
I spent all of my time today in the 2.50-2.99 Level Folder. After failing a 3.00 on my first song of the day, I took it as a cue to dial it back and then work my way back up. Starting at 2.50, I looked to play a song of interest; and after I passed it, I repeated this process for a song at 2.55, 2.60, etc. to 2.85!
My big highlight is that I earned my first-ever Full Combo on any Drums chart here on Okome “Rice Rock” BASIC 2.65!
Linked below is the chart VOD. Make sure to go to timestamp 4:10.
Finally, for this section, I got an 82.46% Completion Rate clear on Cheer Girl ADVANCED 2.85, closing out raising my Skill Rating by over 400 points! Next time I play, I think I can close out getting 1000 Skill Rating and going quad-digit! I’ve already started daydreaming about getting 2000 Skill Rating by New Year, but that’d be a stretch goal even if I was fully committed to it.
IIDX 31 Epolis
Finally, in my first sets of the latest version of IIDX, I’m off to the races on DP Style! I’m coming back to the game after several months of putting it away to focus on DDR, but playing DP in this game is both comforting and fun. It confuses me to hear that IIDX DP gameplay in America is rare, let alone to a high level (are there really only two DP Kaiden-rated players in America?). I’ve shared it before, but I find appealing the spread-out layout of all the keys; I’m not particularly eager to cramp and contort my hands to work through SP. I’d much prefer to shuffle my hands around and get that nostalgia hit of arcing my hands as if I were playing the piano again.
Anyway, today’s session here of the three games I played was the most rich in accomplishments, so I’ll hit ‘em all!
Career AA #1: Liquid Crystal Girl feat. echo DPN!
I got my first-ever AA-rating on any chart in IIDX today on Liquid Crystal Girl feat. echo DP Normal 2! I really don’t know anything about how the score ratings work in this game, but I know two things:
I’ve been able to roll out A’s and B’s on 2’s consistently, meaning I have competency at hitting the keys at this point at a basic level now.
AAA’s are very difficult to get in this game.
Seeing this took me by surprise. I knew during gameplay that I was seeing “Rainbow” Greats (Perfects? What do you call this judgement anyway?) a lot more often than I was used to in prior sessions and months of play, but for it to come out the other side that good was astounding.
Career Full Combo #1, Career AA #2: Violet Pulse DPN!
Additionally, I got my first-ever Full Combo in IIDX on Violet Pulse DP Normal 2! It was a more intense feeling of accomplishment compared to getting that first AA; I had gotten so used to misplacing my hands and fingers in some capacity to e.g. mix up a white key for a blue key that by the time I was racking up over 100 combo and still going, I got nervous for the first time playing this game and felt the tension to stay on the ball. Fortunately, thanks to years of learning to tame my nerves in DDR, I was able to stay composed and on a sightread convert the Full Combo!
DP Level-2 Clear Lamp!
I’m caught up and have completed all DP Level-2 charts available to me for Epolis! I wish Keep on Movin’ DP Normal was moved up from 2 to 3: the phrasing in some parts seems way too difficult to put in a 2 compared to other 2’s. I know I’ve been told “older charts are misrated” several times by now by my friends who play this game, so it’s not a novel complaint, but it’s still worth pointing out as I prepare to work on the Level-3 folder in the coming sessions.
Screenshot above is a difficulty spike early on in Keep on Movin’ DP Normal 2. The keys are keysounded to the trumpet; so, rhythmically the player is tasked to catch relatively advanced galloping rhythms on asymmetrically-placed white keys (P1 3 and 5, and P2 1 and 3). For context, most 2’s task the player to at worst handle 8th notes for a measure or two, so this pattern is the Level-2 version of throwing the book at the player.
In any case, 2’s are done, and I’m looking forward to passing some 3’s now!
DP 5th Kyu CLEAR!
Closing out today’s IIDX sets on a high note, I went straight for an attempt at DP 5th Kyu and passed! The course is:
CALL – DP Normal 2
共犯ヘヴンズコード – DP Normal 3
OVER TIME – DP Normal 3
airflow – DP Normal 3
In brief, playing this set felt nervewracking after 2nd Stage, when I ended the song at 30% life gauge (0% at any time fails the course, if I remember correctly). Maintaining that somehow through 3rd Stage and Final Stage put me on alert, and I concentrated extra hard and hitting the keys as best as I could, as I didn’t want walk off this course having failed it. In the end, I pulled through, and the I popped off slightly for it.
Passing this course while holding 30% gauge through all the 3’s told me that I should get comfortable playing and clearing 3’s before attempting 4th Kyu for the first time. As I break into the folder in the coming sessions, I realize I’m going to graduate from learning the button placements to beginning to string keys together in different patterns in hopefully simple rhythms (4ths, 8ths, etc.). Although I’ll approach that learning experience casually and passively, I do nevertheless look forward to it.
That’s It!
And that’s really it for today! As a bonus, here’s a “one-handed” (left hand on keys, right hand on scratch disc) clear of my 1st (2nd?) SP Level-4 on 怪物 SP Normal!
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