Memoirs of Final Boss Medley

CtC:

Preconceived difficulty: Pretty annoying - quite a lot of soft piano spam

The intro was actually pretty fun to do.  The buildup was kinda annoying though.  Then you hit the piano spam.  Super fast synth notes was a crapshoot but grindable.  No idea what the chords are after that section.  Not super satisfied with the transition.  I know the next song is also going to be piano spam hell.  Not looking forward to it.

Actual difficulty: Frustratingly annoying - soft synth spam is stupid, but at least grindable with slowdown.  Can’t figure out the chords in the last section


MB:

Preconceived difficulty: Really annoying - super soft piano spam

At least I already have the stuff for the chorus from before.  Next section, super soft piano spam with occasional 32nd notes is a crapshoot.  Coming up with a way to squeeze everything into two hands was annoying.  Not super confident with how I did the left hand.  Can’t wait to get out of this piano spam hell.

Actual difficulty: Slightly more annoying than expected - fitting everything into two hands was annoying; super soft sub-16th note piano spam made slowdown less effective and was less grindable; at least had a reference


MM:

Preconceived difficulty:  Not too bad - no piano spam, piano LH/RH laid out already

Parsing the piano counterpoint/accompaniment is a crapshoot.  At least there’s no piano spam.  Can’t hear left hand piano under all these freaking synths.  Can’t figure out which notes are harmonized.  Constant modulations are annoying.  Can’t figure out what all these chords are.  Can’t figure out what the left hand is playing under the right hand.  Can’t figure out how to eq up the left hand.  At least Youtube slowdown helped me sorta hear some of the left hand.  Can’t figure what the hell some of the dissonant chords are.  Hopefully there’s no more counterpoint hells after this song.

Actual difficulty: Stupid hard - can’t discern LH from under RH; can’t figure out chords - not grindable


TLC:

Preconceived difficulty: Not too hard - already have intro from before, piano spam is pretty soft but seems grindable

song turns out to be slightly different than what I remembered.  Readjusting everything is fine.  Bass is easily grindable.  Piano spam is mostly grindable but has some soft parts covered by melody.  Can’t discern piano spam from under all these drums.  Can’t figure out how to eq the pianos up.  Can’t get eq and good slowdown at the same time since audacity has crappy slowdown.  Unsure about bland accompaniment during chorus repeat

Actual difficulty: About right - besides the stupid inaudible notes, everything else was only sightly harder than expected


WoFaB:

Preconceived difficulty: not too hard - chromatic buildup, but at least chords are predictable; bass seems predictable, and at the very least grindable

Chromatic melody is super annoying to figure out.  Trial-and-error grinding takes forever.  Flute/RR counterpoint is also annoying.  Chromatic chords are easier than expected; I could figure them out by looking at the melody and rationalizing the movement.  First statement of chorus has annoying note lengths but is otherwise easy.  Second chorus is just copy paste + modulate.  Bass seems impossible to transcribe - too fast/soft/chaotic.  Holy crap after some digging I just found the miditriail!  Miditrail is kinda hard to read but bass is actually possible now.  Not super happy with song transition but I’ll live

Actual difficulty: slightly harder than expected - chromatic melody is annoying, but doable; miditrail made bass possible and everything else trivial - wish I found it earlier


LD:

Preconceived difficulty: Easy - pretty empty and simple; at the very least, seems super grindable

Main melody is trivial.  LH is harder but still pretty trivial with slowdown.  Even deciding what to fit wasn’t too hard.  Had to go out of my way to figure out a way to make song transition work and it still sounds iffy.  Probably a result of the song itself lacking clear direction.

Actual difficulty: probably the easiest one so far.


MPP:

Preconceived difficulty: pretty hard - lots of instruments at once, will have trouble deciding what to try to fit; seems maybe grindable

Main melody and chords are easy.  Spam during reprisal easy with slowdown.  I’m quite satisfied with how well I managed to do reprisal.  No idea what background stuff to fit during chorus.  Got lazy and decided to just do generic LH.

Actual difficulty: Easier than expected, mostly because I took the lazy route for LH during the climax.


TCL:

Preconceived difficulty: not too hard - spam during dissonant buildup might be annoying, but seems, at the very least, grindable;  super soft synth spam during climax seems annoying, but could just drop and fit bass instead

I never realized just how repetitive the song is until I sit down to transcribe it.  Intro chords are hard.  Musescore doesn’t handle grace notes well so looks like I’ll have to do it the ugly way.  No idea what to do during third repeat of intro.  Saw spam during bridge is stupid.  Slowdown doesn’t help as much since it also distorts the sound.  Bass during second melody is impossible.  EQ doesn’t help since clipping is covering up bass.  Bass sounds horrible as LH anyways.  Guess I’ll just take the lazy route again.  Second bridge is an exact copy-paste.

Actual difficulty: Harder than expected - Would’ve been harder if I didn’t skip bass for second melody.  Also didn’t try to fit high pitched synth spam at all.


FDF:

Preconceived difficulty: stupid hard - I’m trying to piano arrange a freaking orchestral arrange; no idea what instruments to try to fit

Melody is pretty easy.  Still unsure about some chords.  Harpsichord LH is freaking impossible to hear.  No idea what to try to fit for climax.  RH harmonies are hard to pick out during climax.  No idea how to fit harpsichord melody.  Managed to come up with a way to fit harpsichord melody.  Harpsichord melody was surprisingly easy to do.

Actual difficulty: Easier than expected - Melody is easy.  Chords are sorta annoying but doable.  Fitting everything was easier than expected, since there wasn’t actually that many unique melody lines playing at once and I abused pedal.


HGoC:

Preconceived difficulty: pretty annoying - heavy counterpoint, trying to fit everything will be hell; seems grindable at the very least

At least I know to abuse pedal to fit everything.  Melody isn’t too bad.  First section chords are freaking impossible to figure out.  Background strings are way too faint.  Harmony is annoying since everything’s dissonant.  Pretty happy with how I worked in the counterpoint with pedal and different dynamics.  No idea how to deal with all the ostinatos in the first section.  Holy crap I figured out the chord progression for the second section.  Might as well take the lazy route for second section LH.  Holy crap figured out chord progression in first section.

Actual difficulty: Around expectations -  Chords are a lot harder than expected, and ostinatos are annoying, but I’m pleasantly surprised with how well I managed to fit everything.


RSS:

Preconceived difficulty: really hard - lots of super soft spam, doesn’t seem super grindable; tons of counterpoint, will have trouble deciding what to try to fit, especially with piano spam; at least will have a reference

Chord instruments aren’t obvious, which is never good news.  I have no idea what to listen for.  Probably will have to spam pedal again to fit ostinato.  Other people have told me that BusiedGem’s transcriptions aren’t very accurate, but maybe I can rip the chords from him.  Can’t freaking hear piano spam under reed romance, and it has a irregular rhythm on top of that.  Somehow miraculously grinded out piano spam.  Can’t tell bell and harpsichord melody apart in reprise.  Seems like slowdown really helps here.  Chords are annoying so I just ripped them from BusiedGem.

Actual difficulty: Still really hard - piano spam with screechy foreground instruments is not fun.  Chords might have been annoying if I didn’t have BusiedGem to bail me out.


WNSP:

Preconceived difficulty: not too hard - LH/RH seems pretty laid out; pretty simple; might have trouble fitting everything

Chords are slightly more annoying than I remembered.  Fitting everything is kinda iffy but not too bad.  Can’t hear the freaking synth spam at end over the piano.  Bass is hard to hear and has weird rhythm.  No idea how to fit the synth.  Ended up only fitting some of the synth.

Actual difficulty - way harder than expected - The last section is the only difficult part, but god is it annoying.


PoIB:

Preconceived difficulty: pretty easy - LH/RH seems pretty laid out; no soft background notes; all the notes seem laid out

I never realized just how fast this song is.  Seems like fitting everything is harder than I thought.  Doesn’t help that the ostinato takes up so much range.  Huh, seems like I can combine the two melodies for RH.  That makes the first section pretty easy.  Some debate over how to represent LH bass spam.  Piano sounds weird when trying to emulate drum buildup at end.

Actual difficulty: slightly harder than expected - It took me a while to figure out how to fit everything.


AiI:

Preconceived difficulty: sorta hard - upper bound to craziness due to PC98; lots of piano spam, seems grindable

Melody is simple enough.  No idea if I should try to replicate spam in LH.  Spam is annoying but grindable.  Deciding what to fit is a nightmare.  No idea what to do for arpeggio spam in last section.  Guess moving LH down an octave and moving melody during last part to RH fixes crossover problems.  LH playing melody while spamming bass at the same time at the end is “technically possible”, so it gets a pass.

Actual difficulty: Really hard - As annoying as spam is, most of the difficulty comes from trying to fit everything, which is the type of difficulty that can’t just be grinded through.


SSS:

Preconceived difficulty: easy - easy melody; easy bass half the time, predictable spam the other half

Seems like pedalling a chord outline makes LH way too muddy.  Melody in third section is harder than expected.  Pretty fast and has weird rhythm.  Still super grindable though.  No idea whether to fit bass or piano spam for LH in verse 1.  Quite happy with the dynamics + pedalling.  Too lazy to transcribe piano spam during verse 1.  Leaving final part melody unharmonized because it sounds too muddy when harmonized.

Actual difficulty: somewhat easy - would’ve been a lot harder if I actually tried to fit more of the piano spam.


BoSM:

Preconceived difficulty: pretty hard - first section seems easy; figuring out what to fit in each hand will be hell; super soft synth spam doesn’t seem very grindable

First pass is easy.  Figuring out how to vary up each repeat will probably end up being the hard part.  Managed to figure out a straightforward way to do first repeat.  Having trouble fitting all the melodies because LH needs to be playing chords.  Problem is that the two melody lines play notes that require different dynamics at the same time.  Might just drop some notes from the melody.  Also the pristine bell notes are really hard to figure out because they blend into the main melody.  New chords at end of first repeat is actually really annoying.  According to Kishin Yui’s midi some of my chords are wrong but Kishin’s midi has some clear errors so I’m not sure who’s wrong here.  Rit is annoying so I guess I’ll just ignore it since it sounds fine without.  Final section has so much crap going on that I have no idea what to fit.  Synth spam is actually impossible so I’m not even gonna try.

Actual difficulty: really hard - pristine bell melody is hard to make out and a nightmare to fit.  Would’ve been even harder if I tried going for the synth spam.


TSS:

Preconceived difficulty: really easy -  I freaking have the miditrial of the original available for reference; only difficulty might be deciding what to try to fit

Some debate over whether to use 0:00 - 1:29 since it fits better or go with my original choice of 3:40 - 4:46.  Decided to go with original choice because honestly, the climax is the only good part of the song.  Copying from a miditrial is a completely different experience.  Lol wow the bass is exactly the same throughout the whole climax.  Copy-paste lol.  Oh lol even the piano spam at the end is sorta copy-pasted.  Oh god the end uses not-exactly-triplets but not 3-3-2 either.  Screw it I’ll just use 3-3-2 and fudge around the piano spam.

Actual difficulty: trivial - I spent more time staring at a paused video than actually listening to the song.  Miditrial makes piano spam pretty trivial.  Feels nice to freeroll a song between the two Wanwan hells.


OtTW:

Preconceived difficulty: really hard - weird chords; weird melody; hard-to-hear instrument frequencies; soft bass doesn’t seem grindable

Verse melody is pretty easy.  Bridge melody is freaking impossible because I suck at dissonant melodies.  Oh what the hell it’s literally just the chord outline.  Nvm it’s still hell because the melody varies each time and I can’t tell apart semitones.  Also impossible to tell which notes the bells are playing.  Nice copy-paste for repeat of verse 1.  Verse 2 melody actually has some hard parts due to weird movement.  Also having problems with some of the chords because weird progressions.  Synth spam is surprisingly grindable except for the dissonant parts.  Bassline is apparently more complicated but makes LH too muddy so I’ll just leave it simplified.  Pretty sure a bunch of my harmony is incorrect but I really can’t be bothered to go over it again and it sounds good enough as is.

Actual difficulty: pretty hard - spam was easier than expected, but weird chords and melody are just as hard.


FFF:

Preconceived difficulty: really hard - deciding what to try to fit will be hell; weird chords;  I’m trying to piano arrange a freaking dance arrange

There’s no high-quality upload so looks like I’ll have to download the game to rip the files.  Dammit Gore why is everything locked away in a .dat file.  Looks like I’ll just have to work from a low-quality upload then.  Oh what audacity can rip .dat files?!  Well that makes everything easier.  Ugh, slowing down the synth actually messes with the pitches.  Going into the verse and what the hell is this harmony.  Bass is a pain to figure out even with eq.  Oh lol it’s literally a copy-paste across the entire thing.  Maceknight must’ve been lazy that day.  Weird harmony is making the notes hard to figure out.  Also makes the harmony hard to figure out.  Thinking about pedal but decided against it in the end because it makes everything too muddy.

Actual difficulty: Sorta hard - I really didn’t expect the bass to literally be copy-paste across the entire thing.  Still, figuring out the notes was really annoying due to weird harmony and synths.


EQ:

Preconceived difficulty: pretty annoying - no Youtube slowdown; deciding what to make LH do will be annoying; at least there’s no spam (surprisingly);  I wonder if Tokiko will give me the midi?

Can’t tell what’s happening in the bass during intro.  Ugh the intro sounds super muddy but then again I can’t really think of a way to do it without pedal abuse.  At least the harmony is super straightforward.  Oh wait nvm the harmonizing notes for the melody moves around quite a bit.  Then again I guess Tokiko tends to do that, looking at his other midis.  No idea if the harmony is correct but too lazy/annoying to check.  Can barely hear bass so I guess I’ll just do LH the lazy way.

Actual difficulty: easier than expected - Harmony was kinda annoying, and so was fitting everything during bridge, but melody was pretty easy.  Also took lazy route for LH. (Blame Tokiko for not writing an audible bassline)


Taisei:

Preconceived difficulty: pretty annoying - worried about LH running into RH; pretty straightforward; spam seems grindable

Figuring out intro melody is annoying due to screechy instruments + dissonance.  Not sure on LH dynamics since it sounds either too muddy or LH isn’t audible enough.  Piano spam during climax is annoying due to screechy instruments + dissonance.  Piano spam is a nightmare to fit since it moves all over the octaves.  I’m not super happy with my solution since it sounds really messy and muddy but I can’t really think of anything better.

Actual difficulty: Really hard - Melody/piano spam is hard to figure out due to screechy instruments + dissonance.  No good way to fit piano spam.


Awards:
Most content with: RSS
Least content with: Taisei
Lulziest unintentional freeroll: FFF’s bass being the same throughout
Greatest preconceived -> actual difficulty increase: MM
Greatest preconceived -> actual difficulty decrease: FDF
Least preconceived -> actual difficulty change: LD
Biggest chord hell: MM/HGoC
Biggest fitting hell: Taisei
Biggest spam hell: MB/RSS/WNSP
Biggest counterpoint hell: MM
Easiest overall: TSS(if counting outside assistance) / LD (if not)
Hardest overall: A toss-up between MM, RSS, AiI, and BoSM, probably

Oh right, since I’m actually posting this, thank you for reading.