With some delay, the Ranking Charts for March 2016 have just been released and can be found here!
This month TicClick, DakeDekaane, Spectator and Evening picked the maps for the Monthly Ranking Charts.
The charts have previously been created by letting four dedicated community members select the most noteworthy maps of this month. We also reward the top beatmap in each category by providing 1 month of supporter status to the mapper.
For osu!, we decided to let TicClick pick their favourite maps.
A brilliant map that fits this melancholic, yet dynamic song. Swaying from side to side, going in circles, rising and diving, living our everyday lives, we make our way through the map and its perfectly done structure, where not a single slider is misplaced: they all work together, and work well. The mapper (both mappers, actually. Don't forget the guest, Giralda!) made the right choice - that still impressed me - of using offbeat sliders on the kiai sections, and the other thing I absolutely loved is usage of pairs of 3/4th + 1/2nd sliders spaced out; these two things reflect the vocal line with its countless accents impressively accurately. Oh, and he picked just the right background with its monochromatic lifelessness, which outlines the overall impression, reminding how unavoidable routine is and inclining you to simply accept it.
Amazing, really. During the play I couldn't help but feel like I was flying, as if my cursor has gotten into a stream of air, which whirls and swirls it on every occasion like a leaf, sometimes driving it into a random stack of notes and stopping, but only to continue its rapid flow. It's one of good, no, great examples of how 1/3 songs should be mapped! Not to mention custom finisher, which pounds loudly, adding a bit of primal vibe to the journey.
"I know you're checking me out", this map would say, together with BoA, if it was able to talk. While familiarizing everyone with K/J-pop, Irreversible keeps producing high quality maps, and there's no way anyone could stop him! The new masterpiece, "Lookbook", tightly follows vocals, resonating with my feelings and vision of the song, toying around with kiai flashes and adjusting itself on-the-fly with speed changes to go hand in hand with every accented syllable - all to impress a player, and I have to say it succeeds! Ah yeah, you should definitely try it, even if you're not a huge fan of pop.
Such a spectacular map, and not only because of its awesome, thoroughly crafted colourful storyboard, which shows you a couple of exciting ways to die in this western danmaku, but also due to its well-thought-out pattern system. During his years of mapping, Charles has developed a simple and unique way of laying things out on the grid, his mapping signature, one could say, and it matches the song really well. Hell, it even has that Freestyler part, thanks to the fellow composer! Realizing it's still not enough, Charles went ahead and added a good load of perfectly matching hitsounds: all sorts of snares, kicks, oh hey, I think I also heard bits of piano. All in all, it's really a great marathon, and were I an Undertale fan, I'd give this my heart for sure!
But I refused.
It's usually easy to judge contest mapsets composed of multiple mappers' works: there's almost always a leading difficulty, which speaks "I am the best" loud and clear. But not in this special case! The first German Beatmapping Contest brought us a whole pack of excellently done Insanes from almost every cool German mapper, a pack you cannot pick the best difficulty from, because every single one is the best and there's no two alike. And it's not only a compliment, I really can't pick a favourite among these top-notch creations, each with its own way of showing you the beauty of streams. Just look at the cast!
It actually reminds me of previous years of mapping - in a very positive sense! No cunning patterns, no mind-bending storyboard, no dozens of astonishing, hand-picked samplesets, but really, sometimes simplicity is beauty, and this map proves it. Disable its most notable feature, a cute and smooth yet awesome storyboard, and it'll still look all bright and appealing. Hey, did you... did you really turn the storyboard off? How... how could you!!
For Taiko, we asked DakeDekaane about their favourite maps in March 2016.
Since the first time I've played this beatmap(the Oni), I felt in love with it. qoot and Nardo managed to complement each other's mapping and successfully blend in this masterpiece. It begins quite simple with some basic 1/2 + 1/4 patterns, but don't feel confident, as difficulty rises gradually reaching its peak in the kiai time, with a mix of 1/4 triples, quintuples, and even some doubles and quads too. You should not be afraid though, with intuitive patterns in this 168BPM song, you'll feel like being surrounded by velvet rays.
Even if you don't like the song that much (like me), mintong will convince you to like it with this map. It would look like your typical Inner Oni with those long 1/2 patterns with some not complicated 1/4 triples and quintuples as its main structure, but the 225BPM makes it the big deal. Be sure to eat your apples to increase your stamina!
This month had a heavy load of anime songs, so what would be of this chart without them? That being said, in this month, this is my favourite map for this genre. Mrriichi did a pretty job, representing the song accurately by just focusing on the main rhythm of the song. The map consists mainly of medium 1/2 patterns with a few 1/4 triples on them at 167BPM, so you can take your time to relax from the other maps and cure yourself.
Placing second for the anime genre, we have a classic (not from Sakamoto Maaya though). tasuke is well-known for his challenging and complex maps, but he also maps relaxing songs from time to time, and he does it as good as his harder maps, this being a good example. The map captures the essence of the song by increasing its pace along with the song and following its catchy rhythm with basic 1/2 + 1/4 patterns in the chorus. It also has some surprises, be ready for them!
game rock is not a known mapper, neither maps a lot, but knows how to make a good map, and that can be demonstrated with this one. Although half of this map has Futsuu-like patterns, the other half is loaded with tricky 3/4 patterns along with a few odd 1/4 patterns at 140BPM, I'm sure this will keep you entertained for a reasonable time. Hope for the best!
Both Oni difficulties have some 190BPM stream action for you. Don't let the easy beginning of Lundlerol's Oni fool you, as kiai time is packed with a nice amount of 1/4 triples, quintuples and a few longer streams, although those are relatively easy. On the other side, MidSoul's offers you shorter, but slightly more complex streams and a wider pattern variety. Choose wisely.
For osu!catch, Spectator was the chosen one to declare the winners of the March 2016 beatmaps.
This mapset certainly deserves the first place more than any other mapsets ranked in March. Why? Among the currently ranked CtB mapsets that osu! provide, you would rarely find a map employing CS5, especially with the quality JBHyperion has managed to put in this mapset. I would personally like to thank JBH for trying something very innovative.
A great DnB mapset here! Although this is a converted map, it has well-structured jumps and beautiful streams, which makes this map as exciting to play as in osu!catch specific dificulties.
Although the song itself may be considered a bit creepy, -Magic Bomb- has succeeded to create a map with great quality. He surely knows the fact that smaller fruits can prevent silent songs from being boring and monotonous, and I definitely appreciate his delicate considerations.
First of all, I would like to salute the excellent formation of patterns in this map. Songs with repetitive sections can easily become tedious, but sukiNathan has exceptionally managed to remove boredom from players. With the proper jumps and nicely-played sliders, this map will certainly interest you.
I'm pretty sure most of you will agree that yuikonnu is amazing, and this map as well. In specific details, I loved how Tari emphasized some parts with attractive streams, and how he kept the good flow in general.
"ded liner". A decent DnB song from P*Light, welcomes the players with beautiful hitsounds and jumps, attracting them into deeply enjoying the map. On a specific note, I appreciate how xDarxen represented the Dubstep parts with his notable mapping styles.
For osu!mania, Evening was able to select their personal most noteworthy beatmap from last month.
I would say, this map stands out of the 18 maps ranked in March mostly due to the unusual OD of 10 and its song/genre choice. The choice of using OD 10 is a rather dangerous move by the mapper, but being persistent and clear about what he wants the map to bring out, is in my opinion the most important aspect to ranking. What struck me as the key ingredient that made me like this map is the cohesion of all the elements in the mapset itself. The dark Background, accompanied with slow slider velocities during breaks, the rigid jacks and jumptrills, the high difficulty setting, the violent and rapid breakcore instrumentals, all of these seem to add up into giving the player a rather unique experience (provided you can play this properly). Personally I felt, that the middle section was harder than the final run despite the last stretch of the track being the fiercest section. But everything else, including the hitsounds, made up for that.
Simplicity is the key and I believe that this map has executed this idea really well with its low BPM patterning and simple slider velocities accompanied by this really memorable track. But that's actually the reason why I find it oppressive not having this as a full version. Onto the map(s) itself, just like I said, its simple patterning gave a really good impression to me: "better do something perfect than something ambitious and end up failing at it" is what I believe. Despite the slider velocities being not that sightreadable, I feel that this is an important factor making the player play a map over and over again until perfection has been achieved. Though, here it is possible due to its very memorable track and short length.
A project I've judged for in the Beatmapping Contest and which I definitely enjoy. Rather ambitious patterns, which I'm quite surprised about since most of them worked out well. The main experience in playing this map is that it is considerably consistent and well done, and as I've said, a very ambitious and varying set of patterns seemingly keeps this map fresh every time it's played. There aren't really unprecedented difficulty spikes either which is pretty good if I do say so myself.
Let's have some 1/3 oriented swing tracks to break the ice: what I find interesting about this map (except that it's based off a swing track) is how Elementaires structured the notes which flow exceptionally well. The idea of having well connected 1/3 notes, forth- and back-wise, makes overall a prefect composition of patterns. The rolls at the end are close to hitting the nail on the head, it was a brilliant addition by the mapper even though I felt that it could play better if it relied less on control of the fingers and instead, the speed of the player by creating more broken streams, but that's more of a personal opinion! Nonetheless, I will pretty much recommend this one to most players, considering this is a rather fun track accompanied with a fun map.
I'm not writing any food related references nor any meme related things and I'm actually not even sorry! What's interesting about this mapset is, that it has 2 different styles of mapping: one that mostly consists of just long notes and the other without, which is a rather unique approach in mapping, considering most mappers tend to go with one of the two mentioned ways only, whilst ajeemaniz managed to pull off both of them quite well. Personally I feel that this can be brought up a notch by trying this out with more complicated songs for a larger variety of mapping possibilities, but of course, the difficulty of pulling both styles off equally as well would be amplified exponentially. Just a side-idea from me in case you're going for one step higher than what you've done here, in which is not bad already. Even if the track is rather simple in nature, the map caters to a rather wide audience, as it doesn't only focus on the general difficulty scope, it goes beyond that and also manages to capture those who prefer one of the two extreme nature of maps. So do not even think about being indecisive if the map will be suitable for you.
What I feel that stands out the most in this map is how Rizqy manages to pull off these 1/6 graces well in combination with jacks on the second half. I felt that this pattern emphasizes the instrumental in the track accurately and personally wouldn't feel that any other pattern would fit substantially better than that of what it is currently. Even though this unique patterning is a nice characteristic of the mapset, I felt that the track itself falls short in terms of it being appealing as it doesn't really help in providing more opportunities for these kind of patterns. But that being said, the song's simplicity is a good factor when it comes to maps that players can aim to SS/1,000,000 in which I feel is what this map is made for, and it pulled off this idea quite well with patterns that aren't too hard to nail and having a rather short and sweet track to go with it.
The March 2016 ranking charts will end on the 15th May 2016. For the next month, we will elect new community members to pick their favourite beatmaps, so stay tuned!
Congratulations to the winners of the February 2016 Ranking Charts. They receive a month of supporter status for their efforts!
Good luck with the new charts! We'd love to hear any and all feedback you have about the new format and selection process for the charts - feel free to leave a comment below!
—OnosakiHito
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