maps that rewired my brain

#1

Camellia - Exit This Earth's Atomosphere [Evolution]

pishi's video of this was the first time i realized, "maps have to make sense!". on the surface, this map may seem bombastic with its 170 bpm triangle bursts and cross-screen triples, but underneath is something that's actually fairly elegant. that is beautiful.

#2

Brandy - Cross Time [Hard]

during one of the very first multis i ever played, my friend (tobuu) put this map on. it really pissed me off. its low ar and strange rhythmic choices pissed me off so much infact, i would grind out EZHDFL runs of this map when i used to actually play the game. i never got a great score from that, but i can't deny it was really fun. cross time is unlike most, if not all other maps i like, however it can't be denied that it has a special place in my heart.

#3

Camellia - Exit This Earth's Atomosphere (Camellia's ''PLANETARY//200STEP'' Remix) [Primordial Nucleosynthesis]

i was blown away by this when i first saw it. genuinely! this map was THE "tech" map for me at the time. and if it weren't for this map's foray into overly pretentious visuals, i wouldn't have made my maps so explosive.

has it aged well though? there's definitely been more impressive maps in recent times with things like flashbacklog and most of aspire 2020, but with the rise and fall of some mapping trends this map sort of captures an era and discipline of visuals that nobody really practices anymore.

that, or i'm just really nostalgic for this.

#4

Camellia - Exit This Earth's Atomosphere (Camellia's "PLANETARY//200STEP" Remix) [Revolution]

no notes on this i just wanted to say that those reverse sliders are incredibly based

#5

Halozy - Kikoku Doukoku Jigokuraku [Notch Hell]

if you look inside my osu installation you can see practice diffs of this map from February of 2019. my account was only four months old at the time. the visual style of this map used to be something i copied in so many of my early and unpublished works that it has left a permanent and irrevocable impression on me as a mapper; i still know some of these sliders by heart.

this map is still strange. really, really strange. even looking beyond the obvious Long Sliders the difficulty and intensity drops so much on the vocal sections it's incredible, and the rhythm is something most people wouldn't interpret it as [02:19:397 (1,2) - ] [03:19:784] yet it somehow all still works. not to mention the last kiai has some of the most iconic sliders of all time, it's no wonder this map has such a monstrous amount of votes.

#6

android52 - super anime groove 3d world [Insane]

i still cherish and adore this map for how it uses the playfield and takes cs7 to its advantage. something about unfazed execution of it, how every slider points downwards and straight on the slow section, and how every slider points upwards and is curved on the intro, it's simple yet really left an impression on me as a young mapper.

#7

Frums - XNOR XNOR XNOR [.-- .-. --- -. --. .-- .- -.--]

duh

when i saw this, my mapping career turned into a blur right up until i made black lotus. i don't think a map has, or ever will, influence me in the same way this has; it's just too multifaceted and cryptic for anything else to really compare. fanzhen's steadfast and utmost faith in his ideas is something that really left its mark on me.

i find new things about this map even up until today. what the hell is 'Kether.PNG'. what is Kether. and apparently mife in 'enjoy your mife' was a typo of life??

#8

Silentroom - Shuu no Hazama [Rainshower] [Extra]

a genuinely demented and demonic beast of a map. it is the first and the last of its kind. from thin air it rose and to thin air it went back, this map is the birth and death of its own universe.

do maps like this exist outside of its own bubble? sure, ionwan2go exists, but patterns and ideas don't quite materialize in and out like this. from sliders furling and unfurling themselves over time, capitalizing on a sort of added dimension of mapping, to sliders that practically scream and unravel right in front your eyes, i'd be hard-pressed to see a map quite like this again. silentroom is not an artist for the faint of heart, and this map is no different.