everything about final orbit feels completely backwards to me.

the level is trying to portray an astronaut reliving their memories as they die in space, something i imagine would feel very sad and lonely, and yet it's loud and bombastic.

the level tries to show the astronaut's memories, but it's just random scenery with a loose astronomy theme. did they not remember their loved ones or have any regrets?

the level places great emphasis on the background to tell its story, and yet the gameplay is so involved it's nearly impossible to focus on it while playing.

when you lay it out all like this, the rationale behind these decisions is plain to see: the level is loud and bombastic because that's what worked in the ncs gauntlet, the astronaut's memories are solely of beautiful scenery because it looks good in the background, and the gameplay actively works against the decoration because this level was intended to be watched, not played. these decisions were made because it's what wins contests. and while I guess I can't really blame bli for prostrating himself to appeal to the lowest common denominator when it'll net him more prize money, it is frustrating to see bli (and other creators like him) who can and have made great levels self-sabotaging their work like this. i'm still hopeful for bli's next level that isn't for a contest, but rage quit is extremely popular and I imagine final orbit will be too, so maybe levels like these will become the norm.

on another note, I really dislike the trend of over-optimization bli kickstarted with change of scene. the blurry, scaled up objects combined with the overabundance of radial blur makes for an incredibly nauseating experience, because there's no detail for the eye to focus on. it's not like bli didn't have enough objects to work with—he doesn't even use half of the allotted 100k objects. bli's older levels like absolute garbage look so crisp in comparison

The fact they accidentally build the same telescope background 5 times is very inspiring and becomes the definition of "not giving up", and dedicatition. It really should be an example for creators who can only build one background once and then give up and move on. Also the fact Bli conveys his real life experience into a level is so m.

Awesome level tho 10/10

Bli is an extremely skilled creator but I feel like, despite Final Frontier being surprisingly solid and entertaining, with every release of his we get further from the possibility of him using his incredible skills to make a level with a quality truly representative of his potential. And I honestly really enjoy some of his works, at least more than it seems my peers do. Absolute Garbage is a great level that holds up really nicely, and I think Change of Scene while overrated is still a superb level regardless of what one might say about slop snd whatnot.

Watching Final Orbit, especially with levels like Rage Quit (which I don't even think is that bad) or Autopilot in mind, this level gives a strong first impression. There is a lot of awesome and intricately designed art pieces, backgrounds and gameplay objects alike, and the level follows a narrative that is easily digestible. There are so many cool little details and effects and etc. that are all expected of Bli. But the biggest issues with this level overshadow all these novel and positive aspects.

Final Orbit has basically nothing to contribute. Yes, Bli delivers a visual feast as he usually does, yes there is a lot to be impressed by, yes theres a cool cinematic intro, but as I watched this level I just didn't feel anything, which sucks because I feel like there is an extremely captivating and engaging level buried underneath the sheen this level has. Other than Rage Quit (which I barely consider canon to Bli's level-ography considering it was made for a Waboo cc 🤢), this is the most Bli has steered into that "slop" feel. In a weird way I think the biggest reason why this level feels like this is due to the amazing art.

Every piece of art is put together amazingly, everything has a nice design to it, but ultimately it just doesn't feel that nice to look at. To me this is most analagous to SamDoesArt, an amazing visual artist with loads of skill and talent but whos style feels so generic and overly polished that I just don't want to engage with his pieces. Its like the level was put through a slop filter made for mass appeal. Another issue I find is with not only Final Frontier but all levels that are widely considered "slop", is the complete disconnect from Geometry Dash. This is far from the most flagrant offender of this, as during the drop there are some very nice looking structures that utilize regular Geometry Dash designs, but this is the only time. If the only thing reminding me that I'm watching a Geometry Dash level are the orbs, portals, and icon, then I find it difficult to engage with that level. I really think integrating more traditional designs into levels like these would improve them tenfold. Even the subtle and sparse structures I mentioned being in the drop significantly raise the appeal of that part alone.

All being said, I still think this level is fine, and compared to the other stuff I've seen been released for this competition this is very far from the worst. I enjoyed viewing it and I imagine I will enjoy playing it in the future as Bli's gameplay is usually solid. I just hope that this level (especially sfter following Rage Quit) isn't an indicator of Bli levels having a drop in quality.

Final Orbit does have its merits. The dreamlike aspect of memory is captured pretty well, and the asteroid impact in the cutscene is pretty suspenseful. However, there are certainly issues with this level caused by how ambitious it is.

There is no relation between the background and the foreground in the second half of the level and theres also no middleground, making the whole level feel like one decorated an unstructured visual-focused layout and didnt fill in any of the gaps. I do like the first half quite a lot though soooo

Genuinely so tired of bli's constant trope of making a level in 4 different styles and repeating them at random intervals as if it's meant to represent some sort of "flashback". He did it in Change of Scene, as well as in the final part in Rage Quit which I found to be one of the worst endings in any big level I've ever seen. And here he's back at it.

After reading the description I guess it's meant to depict the astronaut's final memories before he dies after the spaceship crash. And I can definitely see that that's what it's going for, as shown in the photographs in the intro. However I find the execution to be inheretly flawed. The pictures genuinely look like they're taken from a ChatGPT after asking it to make "cool epic incredible fucking visuals". Wouldn't your last memories before death be devoted to your loved ones? Or at least memories with some people in them? If the memories depicted weren't just so blank and maybe included some degree of humanity I'd get it and I'd appreciate this level a lot more. But as I said they genuinely look like they're made by AI.

I think the sudden changes in style in the first half of the drop are actually pretty cool and the shaders go well with them. Would ve really cool if the second part did something different. It literally repeats this trope again and just repeats the same scenarios with faster changes to make it look complex but it's just trying to hide that beyond the "astronaut's memories" concept, they just ran out of ideas.

Now, I haven't talked about one main part about this level: the absurdly long intro that quite literally takes up over half of the level. Yeah. A minute and a half of an animation that, sure, looks impressive, but is genuinely the only thing tying this level to the space theme of the contest it was made for, because like I said the memories concept doesn't work for me. As much as you want to it's not possible to contextually separate it from the Space Gauntlet Contest, because that's the only reason it exists in the first place, and it fails at that. I really don't understand why you would want to make an intro that long. I came here to play a level, not to watch some animation that could've bern shortened to one 6th of its length. The fact that it obviously is skipped automatically after the first attempt is the conflicting factor to me. Why would you want half of your classic very detailed and well crafted level to never show up again after you get past it? It's just inheretly flawed and there's nothing you can do to fix this other than just... shorten it.

I will admit that the gameplay is surprisingly readable and fair for a level of this caliber, so that bumps up my score slightly. But other than that, this does nothing for me. It's just another level that displays bli's undeniable technical talent in the editor, but also showcases his inability to make something artistically good.

Gets repetitive towards the end, but the movement, cinematics, artwork, and tension are all excellent. Storytelling is a bit heavy handed maybe, but it's obviously not the main appeal.

I love dorabaebasic7

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