| Game | Genre |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AC Nijiiro (Y5) |
 |
★3 (226) |
★5 (412) |
★7 (654) |
★9 (976/928) |
- |
185
???Normal Route
The lone overall-series-debuting Pops pick from this ending week's Nijiiro Version update is another of those songs racking up tens of millions of views in a little over a year on YouTube. Kinda funny when you really think about it, considering its title puts up the strongest Japanese wording with "Yamero" for the command of dowright stopping consumption of Internet-related services (and doubly so, considering it's a sequel to a literal Internet Overdose), but let's proceed with order!
What we have here is a song that was made as a celebration for the 1-year anniversary release of Xemono's visual novel hit from the early 2022 days: Needy Girl Overdose, with its title getting changed for the later non-Japanese releases as either the translated-from-Chinese "The Streamer is Heavily Reliant" (主播女孩重度依賴) or the more common Needy Streamer Overload for the Western releases. The title changes across the nations, but the premise is the same: the player fills the shoes of a Vtuber producer, managing the online antics and overall wellbeing of Ame-chan (あめちゃん), a needy girl with mental disorders who dropped out of school and started cultivating an Internet persona to keep her parasocietal needs as the streamer OMGkawaiiAngel/KAngel, known in JP-speaking versions by the name Chōzetsu Saikawa Tenshi-chan (超絶最かわてんしちゃん) and the abbreviative of Chōten-chan (超てんちゃん) instead. Following a 2-year development cycle, the game debuted on PC and macOS via publisher WSS Playground, who also handled out the October 2022 release of the game on Nintendo Switch, featuring more endings which were also added retroactively to the original computer-affine versions as well as the PS4/PS5 ports that were launched just last month, this time starring Alliance Arts Inc. as their publisher.
Needy Girl Overdose/Streamer Overload's main theme was titled INTERNET OVERDOSE, involving the composing talents of the nicknamed Aiobahn (Twxttxr; YouTube) and the vocal lead impersonating Ame-chan in song from Ishida Kotoko (石田琴子), stylized with the all-caps KOTOKO art name. Heavy lifting for the game's planning and overall writing is owed to the nicknamed Nyalra (にゃるら), the person in the developing team with a record of published literature works about the topic of mental illness, doubling down as the lyricist for INTERNET OVERDOSE. One year after, in commemoration of the game's first anniversary, the same ensemble was summoned to create a sequel song to it in INTERNET YAMERO, from which a few extra hands were supplied to drive the project home: Saito Daichi (さいとーだいち) from WSS Playground as the producer and IOSYS's Maron (まろん) for vocal direction duties, which also shine through a handful of the Hololive songs that are available in Taiko gaming, including Houshou Marine's Ahoy! Hokketsu Pirates.
The song got ported in a handful of games across these past years, with each of the beneficiary parties demanding different cuts from it. Besides INTERNET YAMERO's coming in Muse Dash which pretty much came untouched from the original version, the song's Arcaea port received a few significative cuts in bridges that are shared with the later foreign ports for Sega and Namco's music games of choice. Big difference between these latter two parties is that the Geki-CHU-mai cut leaves out the screaming portion after the first chorus, whereas the version we got still has the screaming bit (albeit chopped in half) and the soliloquy bits at the start and at the very end are left out. Despite these cut-wise constraints, the compound-clusters reliant charting style is enough to make of this song's Oni mode the 9* Pops on Nijiiro Version with simultaneously the highest amount of notes (Master route) and 3rd-highest (Normal route), only trailing behind the Wagakki Band's Hana Furumai.
Indeed, the final section to push for such Max Combo heights also happens to be the biggest trap for donders whi haven't mastered quick and dense mono-color clusters, as a 42-hits Don stream at 1/24 note placement is here to crush most accuracy-based feats on the song! It also happens to be on a specific branching position at the very end, similar to what presented by Ura Oni of past times like KAGEKIYO's (and more recently, the one for Scarlet Police on Ghetto Patrol 24PM): slouch on the hit accuracy on the final big Don notes streak juuust enough and you might get locked on the Normal route for the ending and being served a definitely-harmless drumroll marker instead of the 42-hits demon to call back the terrifying times of Funa Funa Funassyi...
