I've played Frets on Fire, FoFix, and Phase Shift for years, using user-created song maps, and I've also created many songs myself, back then just by clicking. After a quick keyboard calibration, the game is very smooth, and when I import my own songs, the key notes are set right away. What bothers me is that solos aren't included, meaning you're basically only playing the rhythm part, which is a bit boring. It somehow lacks a challenge.
I set the assignments as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Strangely, in-game, I only get everything from 2, 3, 4, 5 onwards. It's a bug; I haven't figured out why yet. Also, the import folder could stay saved and not constantly reset to the local music folder; all that clicking around is kind of annoying. The bulk import sounded nice at first, but it seems to only work for pre-made songs, so you can't just add a bunch of new music and then you're done. The difficulty levels were a disappointment. I thought if I switched to Extreme, more notes, or more subtle notes, would be generated for the song, but in reality, the notes just have to be played much faster, so difficulty equals speed, which is crap.
I think the game has potential, but it still needs some fine-tuning in a few areas. For example, pressing an additional key to suggest a note being played, a vibrato effect, awesome animations when reaching a high multiplier to increase the adrenaline rush, Steam achievements, a workshop with mods, importing certain song files (this shouldn't be a problem, especially with AI-generated music), and the ability to download songs rated by popularity directly from the main game.
Just relaxing after work and practicing difficult songs until you've mastered them is pure relaxation. I'll check back later to see if anything has changed.
