In general, Qwilight is a vertical scrolling rhythm game, featuring different key modes, with an internet ranking for 7k (+turntable) that requires a third party login.
For those more invested in VSRG, Qwilight is a BMS player as in, it lets you play BMS/PMS files. On the other hand Qwilight should be looked upon as a game quite different from what you'd expect from Beatmania IIDX or BMS players like Lunatic Rave 2 and Beatoraja. In fact, it's rather closer to Osu!mania.
The client feels more like an osu!mania one when it comes to settings, judgment windows and grading system (and look). Nonetheless, you can make it even more like osu!mania or make it more BMS player friendly.
First you will need to set it up. If you come from BMS you will be alienated by Osu! logic/settings and if you come from Osu! IIDX settings may confuse you. In either case recommend reading the manual first https://taehui.ddns.net/forum/qwilight/350. It took me an hour to setup without reading it, mainly because there are different menus and things I'd expect to be at one place (lane cover, sudden+, speed etc) are not. Just go through each menu and set it to suit you. Note that if you want to set lane cover, lift etc. do it while in-game not on the song selection screen.
What I like about the client is that it gives you a mania-like skin or more IIDX-like one and you can choose if you want gold notes or not. For speed you can either use the slider with both IIDX and beatoraja green number conversion or F3/F4 in-game (no possibility to change lane cover while playing?).
When it comes to gameplay you can choose from different key modes, that are either forced or native ones. For each mode you will have to set input, both keyboard and controller can be mapped. My controller is set in PS2 mode so I can play Infinitas and Beatoraja/LR2 but doesn't work with Qwilight though (I used joy2key to play).
The default windows are quite big compared to LR2/Beatoraja/IIDX. You can make them tighter (or wider) if you like or even set custom ones. You can use LR2/Beatoraja windows but your scores won't submit to the internet ranking.
EX score is missing which made me sad. What you can look at instead is a score which doesn't really say much to me. There is also percentage that can give you a better idea of someone's accuracy (which seems to be more or less a sum of Yell!, Yell and Cool, the three highest judgments). Based on that you are also given a rank. The ranks are D, C, B, A (90%), A+(95%), S(98%), S+(100%). The score is based on the accuracy primarily but it is obvious that other things affect it (type of clear for example).
The life gauge is very different as well. It is way more lenient compared to what IIDX/BMS players are used to (feels similar to the dan course one). There are several different types, similar to IIDX - very hard, hard, normal, easy and very easy (no idea how the easy ones work). In IIDX/BMS when using the normal groove gauge, you need to reach 80% to clear the song but it can go down to 0%. In Qwilight it just goes from 100% to 0%, 0% you fail.
Loading songs (if you already have them downloaded) is a breeze as you just pick a song folder containing them. Otherwise links for downloads are provided, but you still have to download the songs via a browser window that opens. I imported my BMS library of 300GB and it took about 30 seconds to load, this happens every single time the game launches (unlike in other BMS players where once you load it the first time, everything is fast).
Loading tables is easy as well. You can either enter the url of one or manually put it in Qwilight/SavesDir/Level/. The body should be named [filename].json and the header should be named #[filename].json. Then these can be loaded with few clicks. (Once the table is loaded though, you can only text search within the table)
Apart from what I mentioned Qwilight offers a myriad of settings that can make the experience better but one needs to get familiar with the (advanced) menus. I'm very happy what it provides and how well it performs.
Verdict:
Qwilight is a good game if you play it with the default settings and participate in the internet ranking. The way how Qwilight functions is unique and thus makes it incompatible with Lunatic Rave 2/Beatoraja Internet Ranking - you can't compare scores from the other BMS players with Qwilight ones.
I can see Qwilight as a brigde for player who want to start playing BMS but are too afraid to try other BMS players or find playing IIDX/BMS hard. Qwilight is easy (for a BMS player) to setup and offers a full experience right away.
I can highly recommend this to anyone who would like to explore the world of BMS but may not have the necessary skill or mindset for it. Qwilight can help beginners gain confidence. I would also highly recommend this to (7k) osu!mania players, as this is a very easy way to explore BMS without the need to change playing habits or gaining a vast knowledge about the whole BMS world prior setting a BMS player up.
(There is one negative thing I did not manage to solve. From time to time the input simply freezes. This can be a Cool gotten out of a Yell! but can also outright fail you. This may not be happening to everyone though)
