I like the furtive pads at the beginning and the way the atmosphere slowly opens up over the first minute or so. The sound design is great - super quirky and refreshing. The texture remains a bit thin throughout, and the piece is pretty slow to develop. That said, I’m enjoying the quirky harmonies at 1:06 and the strong production quality. The composition could’ve been a bit more varied and dynamic, though, and at some point I think some stronger melodic content would’ve really helped tie this piece together. As an alternative, you might’ve done more to sell the atmosphere here with some bolder reverb/delay effects, automations, or other mixing effects. Still, you get full credit from me for both instrumentation and originality, and the mixing and mastering is also exceptionally good, if a little quiet. Composition is where you could really make up some ground IMO - I wanted to hear a gorgeous melody really capitalizing on the “point of arrival” at some point, and also more luscious atmospheric details to keep my attention later on. Until then, this is already a strong piece. Keep at it, Jedo15! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1/2
Instrumentation and sound design
1/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
1/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.5/1
Composite score
7.5/10

i'm enamoured with the atmosphere here - big dream pop/chillwave energy, definitely feeling the gold panda/xxyyxx influence. when the low synth brass comes in it's honestly just perfect. the mix is pretty decent, if a little mid-heavy. the open hihat sample is just a little bright for me. the abrupt vocal chops are cool, but the pitch is just a little too off-center to have them be that busy, like at 1:49-1:53 you can pick just one off-key/modulated high note and slather it in reverb as an accent and that's probably fine. the breakdown at 2:45 is neat but a little too busy and glitchy imo - pick your moments wisely! ending build is great. big genre bias talking here, but this is one of the highlights of the group so far. make more!

important notes on my NGUAC review process: https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1476427/18#bbspost26965604_post_text