ive been working on this all night be nice
No, this is not a hallucination. What you are reading is, in fact, a new countdown from WheatyTruffles, and not the one I mentioned in that dumb “I’m releasing a new countdown in the unspecified future” blog. That was supposed to be produced after Cytus II was released, but guess what hasn’t been released yet? And seeing as my interest in Cytus has been renewed recently, so has my desire to talk sh*t about it. Joy!
You might have noticed that this blog isn’t titled “Top 10 Worst Charts in Cytus”, and that’s because a title like that entails an almost entirely subjective opinion. If this blog followed nothing but my opinion, it would result in the most predictable countdown on this entire site. I’d probably repeat my rant about how Chapter M marked the downfall of Cytus, how asinine of a choice it was to add Chapter L, and the alternate Freedom Dive would probably top off the list. To be honest, that’s probably how this countdown would have turned out if I made it around half a year ago. I like to think I’ve matured a bit since then.
Now, this countdown isn’t going to be entirely objective either. I would think that’s obvious, since there is no factual word on what makes a chart bad. Instead, I’m going to do my best to mix my own personal experiences with what the general consensus on certain songs tend to be. The criteria I’ll be following go as follows:
- Whether or not the chart is in-sync.
- Whether or not it feels comfortable to play the chart.
- Whether or not the song is overcharted or undercharted.
- This simply means whether the chart fits the ideal difficulty of a song or not. Conflict is an example of a song that is overcharted, and LVBNR5 Schwarz is an example of a song that is undercharted. Neither of them will be on the list, so don’t start freaking out.
- How memorable the chart is.
On top of this, there are also a few rules I’d like to add:
- Only one song per chapter is allowed on the list. This is to make the entries a little more unpredictable, and to stop me from filling the list with songs from chapters that I consider to be easy targets.
- I’m not going to be including anything from old Chapter L on the list. This isn’t because I don’t want to tear this chapter a new one (again), but rather because Rayark has already recognized that these charts were mistakes by remaking them. Sure, the old charts are still in the game, but I’d rather direct my focus toward charts that have yet to be recognized as bad.
- The New World isn’t going to be on the list. As easy as it would be to include it, its purpose isn’t to be a good chart; it’s to serve as a unique way of including credits within the game.
Starting off this list, we have what I consider to be the most underwhelming chart in the entire game. Tells you the type of ride you’re in for when we’re hitting an extreme on the first entry.
Technically speaking, this chart is actually good. It’s a solid Level 9, and lots of patterns are quite unique and even fun. Sure, some of them feel awkward and even a tad off-sync at times, but that doesn’t knock this chart down all that much. So, why is it on this list?
Well, you already know the answer to that if you’ve played this song in Deemo. Actually, the only way you wouldn’t be able to know what’s wrong with this chart is if you’re deaf or blind. This song is cripplingly undercharted. What should’ve easily been the hardest song in the game prior to version 4.0 ends up not even breaking 600 notes. It’s A Wonderful World has more notes than this pathetic excuse for a chart.
Yeah, note count doesn’t fully illustrate the difficulty of a song, but the patterns in this song merely pass off as “a little different from the norm” for experienced players. As much as I personally dislike it, look at how GENESYS charted its dubstep. Parousia should have been like that, with dense and wildly curved drag notes plastered across the screen.
“Oh, but Wheaty, they didn’t know how to make charts like that so early on!” Well, why the hell haven’t they remade it yet, then? Never mind, I already know why: because the chart is already passable. Those positive traits I listed earlier are the reason as to why Rayark hasn’t bothered tending to this chart, or any of the charts between Chapters 4 and 6, for that matter. “It’s fine as long as the charts are functional. Who cares if these chapters would be a lot less forgotten and neglected if we gave them a touch-up? Hooray for mediocrity!” What a let down.
(the cover art also sucks)
To be honest, I actually like playing this song. You know what would make me like playing it even more? If the chart wasn’t off-sync and sporadic, yet so incredibly easy.
Allow me to elaborate. A song like this could easily be given a chart that thrives off of irregular patterns and unpredictability. A chart that does this really well is Laplace. However, there’s a reason as to why Laplace works, and Zauberkugel doesn’t. Laplace was charted in version 4.0. The developers actually knew what the hell they were doing by then.
Zauberkugel, as it is now, is a mess. The beginning feels like it was charted at 2 in the morning by the pizza delivery man, patterns often feel out-of-place and off-sync throughout the whole song, and as if to mock me, this song barely even qualifies as a Level 9, at least not in terms of score. Yet again, another example of a song being undercharted, except instead of simply missing the mark when it came to charting its instrumentals, this chart lacks the vibrant energy that Zauberkugel, as a song, exudes.
Think about how other songs with this type of energy are charted. Songs like Just A Trip, which is in the same chapter as Zauberkugel, as well as plenty of examples in Chapter R, like Jump To The Future, Let’s Go On An Adventure, and Hay Fields. These songs have charts that are quick, like Zauberkugel is, but are also spacious and comfortable to play. Playing Zauberkugel feels like your hands are being squished together. It’s cramped, awkward, and it just feels wrong. This isn’t how this song should be played.
Well, I think I’ve covered everything I wanted to with this song. Let’s move on-
*misses three notes*
…Oh, yeah. There’s that.
*sits awkwardly*…You’re not getting a Christmas card from me this year, Rayark.
You might be able to understand me adding this to the list if you ask yourself this simple question: “Why is this song in the game?” This isn’t an attack on the song itself; as a song, it’s fine. But it doesn’t belong in a rhythm game.
This is reflected perfectly in the chart. Like Parousia, there’s nothing wrong with this song on a technical level. I also wouldn’t say this song is overcharted or undercharted. So what’s the problem?
THIS CHART IS SO GOD DAMN BORING.
Imagine what it would be like if you could play table tennis with a sloth. Every time the sloth hits the ball, it rolls at a snail’s pace across the table to your side. You would have to remove the net to even allow the ball to reach you. Then, when you whack the ball back at him, it finally looks like things are going to get interesting, but then the sloth hits it in a way that the ball just plummets down to the table, bouncing in place for a while before slowly starting to roll back to you again. That’s essentially how it feels to play Endless Journey.
Again, the problem isn’t that the song is too easy. LNS OP is easy. Like, really easy. Yet, it still manages to keep your attention. The chart isn’t great, but at least it makes you feel like you’re playing an actual game. Endless Journey feels more like a task than something you’re playing for fun.
Now, the question is: could this chart have been fun? If Rayark tried hard enough to make it fun, sure. You can make anything into a good chart if you try hard enough. The thing is: why bother? There are so many other songs, hell, so many other songs by Hoskey, that you could make into good charts with much less effort. Why try so hard to make a square peg fit into a round hole? Well, Rayark didn’t try with this one. They just mashed the peg against the hole a few times before simply placing it beside the hole and calling it a day. Way to entice me into buying your Vita exclusive chapter, guys.
I almost feel bad for adding this song to the list. It’s like picking on the fat kid in class; he can’t help that he’s overweight, just like this chart can’t help but be bad. But it’s also as if the fat kid’s parents are forcing him to stalk you while dressing him in clothes that shamelessly promote their own business. It’s nothing personal Mandora, but this chart sucks ass, so if you won’t leave me alone, I’m not going to show you any mercy.
Let’s get the obvious question out of the way first: why didn’t Rayark fix this chart in the 7.0 update? To be honest, the answer I’ve come up with kinda disgusts me. I think Rayark views this song in a similar light to songs like Halcyon and the Precipitation at the Entrance series - songs with charts that are clearly flawed, but who are too iconic to make any changes to now.
I’ll let you down gently, Rayark. Hot Air Balloon isn’t an iconic song in Cytus. Get your heads out of your asses and fix this sh*t, or remove it from the f*cking game, because this is frankly insulting.
What do I need to say about this chart that you haven’t already been able to figure out yourself? This chart is off-sync. This chart is uninspired. This chart is boring. Hell, this barely qualifies as a chart at all. This is a pathetic joke of an advertisement.
The only reason this isn’t any higher on the list is because, despite these complaints, the chart isn’t all that painful to play. Even though it’s off-sync, it’s so easy that getting a TP 100 still isn’t all that difficult. Basically, you won’t have to put up with this chart for long. That, and again, the chart can’t help but be bad. Like, imagine if the hardest chart in the game was paired with an irritatingly high-pitched melody with a cutesy mascot that originated from a game that wasn’t even Cytus. How dumb would that be?
The Sacred Story. Taken from the Rayarkcles. Weeaboos gather. Cyliens gather!
The stage is set. A larger than life experience. A monumental happening.
…And they f*cked it all up.
What we all wanted from Sacred was a high speed, high intensity, Level 9 chart, but what we got instead was a slow, confusing, off-sync mess. This might have been passable back when the game was first developed, but here’s where we enter Part 2 of: “Why the hell wasn’t this chart fixed in 7.0?” I might have an answer for this one too, though it’s not a very good one. Simply put, it would’ve looked a little awkward if Sacred was given a revamped Level 9 chart, while its next-door neighbour Sanctity was left with its simplistic Level 7 chart. Rayark didn’t want to remake Sanctity, so they didn’t remake Sacred, either. So now we’re stuck with a half-decent chart paired with this heap of garbage.
Let’s start with what I think is the biggest problem with this chart: it’s terribly easy. I used to find this song really difficult, back when I didn’t care about TP. Now that I’ve analyzed it and played it a whole bunch, however, this song isn’t any harder than songs like Selfish Gene or even Retrospective. It feels really underwhelming when I hear the piano going crazy in the background and I’m feel like I’m playing the equivalent of Realize on half speed.
Without a firm understanding of the chart, however, this song can be unbelievably difficult, ranking with some of the hardest Level 7s in the game. This isn’t just because the notes are off-sync at times, it’s because the patterns aren’t intuitive. Even with some of the more complex patterns seen in the game, like the click/hold rush in Area 184 Platinum Mix, you understand what’s going on, even if you don’t have the reflexes or strategy to hit every note. In Sacred, you end up getting Goods, Bads, and Misses by complete accident, because the notes are in places that they shouldn’t be. That, right there, is the hallmark of bad charting.
Truly, the gods have abandoned us.
You were probably expecting me to add something related to Freedom Dive to this list, if I chose to add anything from Chapter X here at all. Well, nope. As much as I dislike the Freedom Dive charts (primarily on Hard), it’s clear that Rayark did indeed put effort toward these charts. It’s effort that’s misguided, but effort nevertheless.
So allow me to beat the pulpy mound of gore that one resembled a dead horse that is motherf*cking Infinite Circuit!
Now, I’m not going to dispute what a lot of you are likely thinking: that me even putting this song on the list, forget putting it in the Top 5, is fueled by my negative bias toward the song itself. Sure, it may not be intentional, but I’m willing to believe that on a subconscious level I might be manipulating myself into thinking the chart is trash, too. Now that I’m taking this into account, let me give you the reasons as to why I believe this chart is objectively terrible.
Let’s start with the beginning, easily the hardest part of the song. Why is that? The pattern itself isn’t difficult, it’s just a bunch of taps in a row. Well, aside from it feeling cramped and boring me to tears, it’s the same pattern over and over again. You would think that this would actually make the song easier, as you’re practicing the same part over and over again, but this actually has the exact opposite effect. Imagine if you had to write a sentence over and over again with the same amount of speed every time. It probably won’t be too long before you make a mistake. Meanwhile, if you’re told to write a paragraph with sentences that differ in a set amount of time, chances are you won’t make as many mistakes, as your mind is flowing, and you’re not doing the same mundane thing every f*cking time.
That’s essentially the problem with this entire song, except the difficulty drops severely after the beginning, repeating the same simplistic click and hold note patterns after the middle. Like Endless Journey, this chart is technically well-made, except it feels more like you’re working than playing an intense rhythm game with this song. It’s cramped, repetitive, and worst of all, unmemorable as all hell. This is the most basic a song can get before turning into Morse Code: The Game. Screw everything about this song; I would sacrifice The Last Illusion and Q just to have it removed from Cytus as well.
Ugh, speaking of songs that never should’ve been added to the game, here we have “that song I think I heard in an elevator once”. Chapter T was nearly flawless, save for Empire of Japan being a little lacklustre, but then we got this crap.
This right here is the definitive example of trying to chart a song that doesn’t fit with the game. If you’ve played Money & Money, you might be able to tell that the chart is perfectly in-sync with the song. No joke, I’ve forced myself to TP 100 the thing, and not once did I find myself hitting a note that I felt was wrongly timed. So, why is this chart so awkward?
Well, sidestepping the main issue for now, let’s focus on the awkward placement of many of the notes. Again, let’s compare the irregularity to Laplace, who’s chart also had a lot of notes in odd placements. Laplace is an extremely erratic, incongruous piece, making the irregular patterns justified and almost expected. Money & Money is f*cking elevator music. Yes, Rayark, the tone of this song just screams “crooked” and “chaotic” to me. The Ricochet is child’s play; this right here is the sh*t that’ll melt your brain and flip your world upside-down.
Despite those complaints, Money & Money is actually composed rather irregularly, which completely combats the tone that it’s going for. And hence, we run into our main problem with the song: it’s not intuitive. I’ll pull a classic line from LVBNR5 Schwarz to reflect this: “feel the beat”. You can’t feel the beat with Money & Money; you have to rely on sight-reading and remembering the Click FX timing.
A chart should have you rely on the song first and your vision second, not the other way around. You can’t rely on Money & Money, the song is too dissonant to do so. Huh, maybe that’s a metaphor for real life…you can’t rely on money, since money by itself can’t bring you true happiness. Oh my god, I did it! I found the hidden meaning! This chart is genius!
No. No it isn’t.
So, um, there was this song released in Cytus, called The Riddle Story. You might’ve heard of it, I’m not sure, it’s pretty obscure. It’s not as if the song is infamous for having one of the worst charts in the game, oh no. It’s just an average Level 7.
*editor mumbles something*
Sorry, I meant Level 8. This chart, right here, is the definitive Level 8. It’s not easy, trust me. Lots of people tend to say that after they get a Million Master on their first try -- I mean, after they get completely stomped on by this song. The patterns in this chart are so frantic and audacious; this song totally isn’t undercharted. Like those trills in the middle of the song, that are perfectly represented by double to single taps, followed by…a hold note, and like, four more taps. Even though it would’ve made so much more sense to put eight note groups there, like what the f*ck-
*WHACK*
Ow, f*ck, I’m sorry, I’ll do a better job. So, where was I? Oh yeah, I wanted to talk about those parts with narration. They’re probably my favourite parts of the whole song. They’re suspenseful, fun to play, in-syrrrrrrrrrrrrgh. Err, sorry, I tend to grunt like a pregnant ape every 10 minutes or so. Via text on a Wiki blog. It’s a part of my genetic makeup, no lie. Let’s try that again…in-synnnngaaaaaaah. Damnit...it’s really acting up today. In…innnnn…sink. Yeah, that’s right. It’s in-sink.
Oh, did I say the narration parts are my favourite? I take that back, the ending is my absolute favourite. I especially love the drag notes that make no goddamn sense, and the uncanny clusters of notes in between the awkward hold notes, and the click note patterns that feel like they were timed by the developers throwing darts at their computer screens, that have all cucked me out of a TP 100 a thousand f*cking times-
*WHACK*
I’LL F*CKING WHACK YOU, YOU MISBEGOTTEN EDITOR I MADE UP FOR A DUMB GAG! THIS CHART MAKES ME WANT TO SOAK MY FINGERS IN ACID! HOW IN THE HOLY MOTHER OF HELL DID THIS CHART NOT GET UPDATED?!?
…Oh god, there are still two charts left…
I thought it would be difficult to choose a song from Chapter N, seeing as they’re all off-sync in some way. As it turns out, however most of these charts aren’t that flawed aside from being off-sync. A lot of them have interesting patterns, like with Night Festival and Times Difference War, and the ones that aren’t unique are at least bearable to sit through.
…All except for one.
Never before have I felt so miserable and stressed playing a slow song. Never before have I felt so reliant on my sight rather than what I was listening to. And yet, never before have I played a chart that is so completely and utterly bland and forgettable. Fantasy Hotel is truly remarkable in how un-fun it manages to be. This chart is like a black hole of fun.
Now you might be asking yourself: “What makes it so bad, in comparison to, say, The Cure of Sleep, or Choice?” Well, let me tell you.
1) The off-sync moments are a lot less noticeable in those songs. They still exist, but the pace of those songs keeps them unnoticeable, even though the scan line BPM is slow.
2) They have unique patterns. I actually found The Cure of Sleep to be a lot of fun, especially the click and hold section that requires you to follow a path and switch between fingers constantly. Choice isn’t as good, though it manages to make dense tapping patterns not feel incredibly cramped, which I appreciate.
3) They don’t have extremely awkward timing within the song and the chart separately, patterns that feel anything but intuitive when they aren’t putting you to sleep, and a triple note for no bloody reason in a Level 6 chart. That felt wrong when Stardust Sphere on Easy did it, and it was telegraphed and justified there.
I don’t think there’s a lot more I can say. You have to play this song for yourself to understand how awful it is. It’s simplistic, yet infuriatingly difficult; unpredictable, yet so, so unmemorable. However, there’s one thing it isn’t, that stops it from being Number 1.
Egregiously lazy.
There’s a good reason as to why Chapter D is my new least favourite chapter in all of Cytus. It symbolizes everything I think is wrong with the game, from Rayark cashing in on their own property, to ignoring what the fans ask for and just doing what they feel is easy, to slapping together charts without a care of how fun they are, only caring about difficulty and functionality. Hua Sui Yue, Wings of Piano, Utopiosphere, and Fable were all possible candidates for this spot, for how awkward, unmemorable, undercharted, and hastily stitched together they were. However, with the dawn of 10.0, came what I consider to be Rayark’s biggest insult.
Rayark. This was the final update of the game that made you big, and you gave us this broken-down, disarrayed, plagiarized excuse of a chart for what was your magnum opus in Deemo. Y’know, before you drowned that game in DLC and needless collaborations.
Firstly, allow me to explain a more minor problem with this chart that almost certainly comes with how it was copy/pasted from Deemo. If you’ve used Cytunity before, you’ll be familiar with how placing a note at the very end of one page will produce a near identical result to placing it at the very beginning of the next page. Myosotis uses this to trick the player, flip-flopping between having notes at the very end and the very beginning of the pages, resulting in poor TP and sometimes even Goods rather than Perfects. This is bullsh*t. This goes beyond forcing the player to sight-read; this forces the player to ingrain the absurd rules that this chart imposes on them within their minds, to only be used for this song.
Moving on from that, we have the problem that comes with translating patterns that were meant for a linear plane over to a two-dimensional space. Nothing about these patterns feel natural to Cytus, especially not the “killer”. I put “killer” in quotation marks because, despite these patterns going against everything that feels proper in Cytus, they still manage to be pathetically easy. This is the easiest song I have played that exceeds 1000 notes, bar none. The Blocks We Loved is more challenging than this sad excuse for a chart, and that doesn’t even reach half of 1000. This is because, again, you can’t just move patterns from one dimensions to two and expect it to be as difficult. The only difficult part about Myosotis is the click note that appears inside of a drag note. Yeah, that actually happens. And they haven’t fixed it yet.
Lastly, we come to the biggest problem of all. Even with everything this chart does wrong, even with all the patterns it stole from Deemo, nothing about it is in the least bit memorable. Everything I remember about this chart I remember because Deemo did it first, and better. Nothing this chart does feels unique. This chart doesn’t have an identity outside of being a clone. You cannot give this song a descriptor that doesn’t also apply to the Deemo chart. It’s completely overshadowed, and thus, we don’t remember anything that this chart might have actually done differently from Deemo’s. Did you remember that this song had a triple hold note in it? Neither did I, until I watched the chart again. It speaks volumes when a needless triple note, something that usually gets under my skin a lot, goes forgotten in comparison to the much larger faults that drown out minor problems such as this.
I’ve learned to accept the existence of extremely difficult charts within Cytus. I’ve played through old Chapter L. I’ve even played Freedom Dive’s alternate, on Hard. I got 810k. Pathetic, I know. But Myosotis is the one song I refuse to play again. It’s an insult to my intelligence, and if I could, I’d demand a refund for Chapter D in its entirety. I’m not going to stand here and allow Rayark to crap out charts and neglect what made the game great in the first place. That greatness is the reason as to why I keep coming back to this game, even after neglecting it for a whole year. And with all the extra time you’ve been given, Rayark, Cytus II better reflect that greatness in spades, or else there won’t just be a few angry people on a Wiki this time.
- Chapter 6: Colorful Skies. Not exactly bad, but just so...odd.
- Chapter 7: Quantum Labyrinth. Unmemorable.
- Chapter 8: Alive: Another Me. Unmemorable as well.
- Chapter 9: Brionac. There really isn't a bad chart in this chapter, so I just picked the one with the unnecessary easter egg.
- Chapter S: LVBNR5 Schwarz. Again, nothing bad in this chapter, so I just focused on wasted potential.
- Chapter K: The Fallen Bloom. Some climax.
- Chapter R: Dream (Chiptune Edit). Come on, this song was a lot of fun in Deemo. Off-sync, but more fun than this.
- Chapter L: L5: The Revealed (New Chart). Picking this purely because they gave it a Level 8. F*ck off.
- Chapter M: The Sacred Story. I like it, but the grouped notes are awful, and it's not a friendly chart for phone players at all.