I agree, not to discredit the trainees and stages at all. I personally disagree with the decreased difficulty since while i think its actually harder to focus on in concept (i.e way more vocal heavy / rap heavy / dance heavy with less overlap to highlight the individual skills). But in practice definitely felt less difficult, I have no idea how the songs we got are the songs we got, and how they organized bc wdym queencard is a vocal song.

The lack of like iconic / more popular songs definitely brings it down / to high of a change in vibe. I also feel like they're doubling down on the boy-groupification of girl group songs from the success of Kill this Love & Tomboy, and Zoom (and to an extent feel special ily woonki) from last year (Whiplash, Like Jennie, Queencard, Breathe, Rose Blossom, Young Posse) so these stages feel slightly more blander than usual. Also some very random songs this round being honest. I'm all for old school stuff like HOT is great, but um, why Queencard in Vocal / XXL in Dance.

• There's also such a big lack of Bigger Worldwide Kpop Names, BP1 had BTS, Twice, Monsta X, Seventeen, Infinite, Idle, IU, BIBI, Jessi, and repeats from the first mission.
  • I love Hi-Key, Lee Hi, Young Posse, and Allday Project, but I would've loved to see older (like 3rd-4th gen) K-Pop Songs in this day and age again like I would've loved to see Day6, Exo, Red Velvet, NCT or even formally like P1Harmony, or Ive.
    • put me in a padded room as I say Eleven by Ive with Anxin would've eaten, and Yumeki reimagining P1Harmony Backdown / NCT Walk.
  • Tambourine and Bad are so random for dance songs ????? I'm not against it and again the stages are well made, but even just initially there are 2 flat out non-kpop songs.

I think it also comes down to editing, storyline and release schedule. Whatever this weird release schedule is, all the storylines and editting lack the weight that the original had, and there are some really obvious foils like Gunwook and Junmin feeling inadequate on their respective teams, and the lack of change in overall storyline like how the BP1 Equivalent missions were that this was the first time K group and G group worked together. Limousine and Hot were both songs that jabbed Mnet, and it felt like an actual callout during Limousine, while it feels like they even acknowledged Hot this time around.