Fun Facts regarding "Fate Runners" (9/8/13-11/11/13):

* As depicted in the video, this is the opening theme for the visual novel
  "Eiyu Senki."  (Details on the game below if you want to know.)

* Expert and Hard were easily done early on, but I didn't mine them at
  first, which caused a major delay in production, as, despite the
  song's short 2-minute length, I didn't feel like going through those
  difficulties again just to mine them, yet I felt it had to be done to
  add some character to the song.  On September 11, I bothered, and
  wrote the other three difficulties.

* Expert is an 11, but there's nothing ridiculous about it; it's a fairly
  standard 11 (though fun) with one formal handplant and some triples.

* Hard is a 9, and again, a fairly standard but fun one at that.  There
  aren't any difficult elements to the chart.

* Medium is a 7.  It can be a bit tricky to play at first, as it does use
  some yellow 16ths in the slowdowns, but it has no mines as Hard and
  Expert do, so it should be fairly easy to catch the drift of.

* Easy is a 5, and a pretty hard one - I'd say it's one of the toughest
  5s I've written in recent history; it uses a ton of blue 8th notes,
  and a select few yellow 16ths in the slowdowns.  Novice players
  looking to step things up should not play this immediately; they
  should pick some 3s, 4s, or easier 5s to try first before attempting
  this chart.

* Novice is a 2.  It's really easy and has rolls only in prominent
  locations.  There's really nothing else to say about it.

What Is "Eiyu Senki," Exactly?
------------------------------

If you only care about the stepcharts and don't care about an in-depth
explanation about the game this song came from, ignore this section; it'd
be a waste of your time.  Otherwise, read on.

I do like to explain it, as it's not a traditional visual novel (VN) where
you read a whoooooole lot of text and make important route-based decisions.
Rather, it is a sengoku war game ("sengoku" means "Warring nations," which
was an actual real-life era in east Asia - you can seriously look it up)
similar in nature but far greater in scope than another better-known
sengoku VN called "Sengoku Rance."  In that one, you took over a single
continent, but in Eiyu Senki, you take over the entire world, so the game
takes significantly longer - even somewhat-serious players will find it
takes at least a week to beat the game.

Being what it is, Eiyu Senki relies very heavily and focuses primiarily
on its RPG elements.  You have your faction (Zipang) and, using the units
you recruit, you declare war on and battle with each faction one-by-one (or
maybe if you're feeling masochistic, you'll take on multiple factions
simultaneously?), using a well-thought-out battle system where you can
choose what type of actions to take against the units the enemy sent into
that battle.  You do this starting from Japan (naturally), and gradually
take over first East Asia, then Indonesia, the US, Australia, and South
America; after that, you finish off the map by taking over Macedonia and
the middle-east, Europe, Africa, and finally Britannia - then the game's
actually-evil faction shows up for the final showdown.

All the while, you're recruiting new people throughout the game, meeting
female versions of many of history's most prominent military and
explorer figures, some of whom are optional - up to 72 units can be yours
if you recruit everyone.  (I did mention the scope of the game is huge.)

If you're interested in playing it, I'm sure you can scrounge it up
somewhere.  Maybe ask me where if you're having trouble finding it?

Incidentally, two things to keep in mind if you're considering playing it:
* There was a team working on what they originally intended to be a full-
  scale English translation, but they got a cease-and-desist order when
  they started working on the dialogue, so all they could produce was
  an interface patch - so you'll be able to readily read the contents of
  menus, both main-map and in-battle, which is enough to understand most
  of the gameplay aspect of Eiyu Senki - but understanding the dialogue
  will require you to use translation tools.  You'd need a text-hooker
  (such as AGTH) and something that will translate the hooked text (like
  Translation Aggregator).
* Although the main focus *is* the game aspect, you do need to level up
  the girls' affection for you by doing missions related to them - it's
  the only way they can gain new item slots and learn new attacks.
  However, this *also* means that there are H-scenes later on when
  the girls' affection levels are high or maxed out.  If you don't know
  what that means, don't play the game.  If you do, or if H content
  simply doesn't matter to you one way or the other, then give the
  game a go.  I think most RPG players would enjoy it.