The riser at the beginning sounds cool, if a tad unpolished and out-of-place in the context of the relaxed riffs that follow it. Nice job with the filtering on the synth line at :14. The mix is also pretty clean and well-balanced here, as exemplified by the crisp drums and broad frequency range. The piece is a tad slow to progress after :14, and the chord progression is a bit cliche. My main complaint here is probably that the piece needs more harmonic variety and a richer texture later on. The jumpy riff at 2:33 was good for some variety, but it was short-lived and was playing in a pretty minimal context, which didn’t help give the piece a sense of conclusiveness. This piece has a lot of changes in the energy level and dynamics, which is good, but little overarching sense of direction over the entire piece. As a smaller detail, it’s also bothering me that the drums are a little buried in the mix at 1:23, especially since not much else is going on there. Overall, you have a strong sense of progression, harmony, and mixing and mastering. The composition could be a tad more varied and dynamic here, though. Keep at it, OliRO! :)

Mixing, mastering, and balance
1.75/2
Structure, transitions, phrasing, and variety
1/1.5
Melody, tonality, harmony, and texture
1.25/2
Instrumentation and sound design
.75/1
Emotion, atmosphere, and catchiness
1.25/1.5
Originality and uniqueness
.5/1
Overall (how do the elements above interact?)
.5/1
Composite score
7/10

loving the mix of almost chiptune sounds and the smokey synthwave drums. and those drums POP, i love that! the non-synthwavey builds have a lot of weight and energy too. i think there are too many cutaways throughtout though, and the pacing of the buildups is often really awkward, either way too drawn out or very stunted and sudden with reverse crashes that cut off too soon or leak into the drop. generally the structure seems a little messy - really you just want one, maybe two breakdowns and the occasional, short cutaway (like 2-4 beats). the ending is very abrupt and unsatisfying. normally i tell people to add more soft percussion but there's this cool synth doing the job of a shaker (first at 2:11) so i'll accept that. stereo image is quite narrow too. pretty cool overall, though!

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

Cool 😎