December 31st, 2023 - IIDX 31, DDR A3, Arcaea, PIU 2023 PHOENIX, ProSeka
NOW IT'S THE REAL GRAND FINALE!!! And what better way to celebrate than getting permission to pay Round 1 a lil visit?? (Granted at the cost of paying breakfast at my workplace for my whole family during one of their busiest days, i still feel so bad...)
since i had just eaten a chocolate croissant and 1 (one) pancake, i started off slow and warmed up with my favorite game to play on a full stomach (not really): IIDX EPOLIIIIIIIIIIIIIISS (dan dan dada daan dan dada daan dan dada daan dan dan dan)
stiiiill doing the usual of practicing with RANDOM, but getting more comfortable with using hard gauge! only problem? i forgot premium time (and lost two credits to it)
meh, i'll do better next year (i think)
now, this part was the biggest part and the greatest change of plans i've probably had. originally, since the cab was empty, i was gonna go play sdvx to continue warming up and since i didn't wanna throw up my breakfast still. but then i decided, "yea, i feel fine enough. to the ddr cabs! (also i have sumidagawa karenka stuck in my head please help)"
and what i found at the cabs as a result was... a new year's eve tourney i had no idea about!! hosted by the one and only hambones!!! and (almost) EVERYONE was there to game!!!! sign ups were still open, and a friend from there was Really pushing me to sign up, so i signed up and did a warm up set at first before moving on to the qualifiers!
set A of the qualifiers consisted of Dancer in the flare ESP-13 (DDR A, banger), Like A Star ESP-14 (DDR A3, way harder than i thought it'd be), and Electronic Dance System Music (DDR A, i set my scroll speed too low). Once I did it, it was... very dissatisfying. I could've had better MA, but I struggled finding the timing window and had poor EX score overall.
set B though? KILLED IT. it consisted of Going Hypersonic ESP-15 (DDR A20, very technical rhythms), Black Jackal ESP-15 (DDR A20, more of an MA challenge), and Firestorm CSP-16 (DDR A20, chart added in A20 PLUS, hope you like shocks!), and since I'm a huge fan of uppers charts, I had a blast putting on a show for everyone waiting to get the tourney on (since i was the last one to arrive and last one to finish my qualifiers). Got an AAA on Going Hypersonic and 2g on Black Jackal, and also a really neat upscore on Firestorm!!!
when all was said and done and the tourney scores were tallied, i ended up 5th place overall; barely falling short of the top 4 that would play a new set of two 16s and a 17 that were all really fun... but i was pretty satisfied with my score regardless!!! while i waited for the tourney to end and the results to be announced, i remembered arcaea was having their new year's 100 memories promotions, i finally claimed it for the first since since i downloaded the app 5 years ago!!! ...only to find out that the memories expired 2 days after claiming them (literally Why)
as soon as i got them, though, i Instantly knew what i wanted to buy. that's right. OVERDRIVE!!!! played it three times while everyone else was playing: first attempt was a 69% gauge fail, second attempt was an almost-AA 9.49M, and third attempt was a sick 9.63M jump!!! def worth the impulse purchase
anyways, back to the tournament: after everyone played the three songs, the scores were tallied once more and the victors were called up one by one to claim their prizes. after the top 4 were announced (ambones obvs being 1st), the Hambones Award for Rising Star of the Tournament was announced; pulling ahead by 1 singular vote, it was... ME!!!! 2DKAPS DDR RISING STAR!!!! i was so happy to receive it, and even happier (sorry) when i saw the prizes, which were INSANELY COOL!!! a MAX 300 badge, a Valkyrie Bloom sticker, and some sick shades!!! (and $6 too somehow LOL)
as much as you'd wanna think this post is over now with everything i had written before, NOPE!!! the tournament may have ended already, but i STILL had time to play some extra sets before leaving!! (gotta make up for missing that banger tourney set)
also holy shit tumblr is lagging because of the sheer length of this post LMFAO so we gotta be QUICK!! ROLL IN THE BANGERS!!!
ELECTRONIC SPORTS COMPLEX ESP-17 GFC!!! (AAA Never)
Death by Glamour ESP-14 AAA!!!
HOU DSP-16 FIRST TRY CLEAR ON FLARE V!!! I SAVED THE BIRD!!!!!!!!
decided that wasn't enough and wanted to close out the session with an extra set, which i Immensely regretted (i was in no shape and no fullness to play sadly)
after all this, i went home to take my Last Shower of 2023:tm: and take it easy for the rest of the year over at my sister's house... but i still had my phone to play on and some proseka to wrap up the year with!!!
so, with all of that writing and all of this buildup, i finally present to you: my last two scores (one append score and my very last AP) of the year! a really wonky and kinda lame year overall, but there was def a lot i wanted to talk about and def a lot more i'll write in the soon-to-come year recap document (along with a 2024 goals post tomorrow!!!), but i'll end it off with these scores and come with more in the next year! thanks for everything in 2023, everyone!!!
