absolute kino

Fun fact of the day: Just because something is supposedly 'subversive' and 'experimental' that doesn't necessarily mean that something is 'good'. Something can completely defy your expectations while at the same time be absolutely lacking in any quality or taste. I mean, "Hurry Up Tomorrow" and "Megalopolis" are undoubtedly bold in their directorial vision, sure, but that doesn't automatically make them any less of the bloated, self-indulgent vanity pieces that they are (although they function better-off as unintentional comedies rather than actually serious productions).

I don't know what I dislike more, the level "Melody" itself or the cultish fanbase that it has amassed in recent years. I think I'm leaning towards the latter on this one. Sweetdude is a creator who's always been somewhat divisive. He has 73 CP and most of his levels are mass-produced, glowy copy-and-paste fests. Some of his levels can actually be somewhat unique and even I can admit this as a self-professed detractor of Sweetdude's work ("Zeldas lullaby" is pretty decent even if it doesn't wholly match the song and "Syobon Action" is a neat video game recreation that strays far away from the typical Sweetdude formula). On the other hand, you have dreadful bores like "With You Tonight" and eye-bleeding disasters like "Nyan cat time" and its sequel. It's a two-faced coin when it comes to playing Sweetdude levels. You either get something decent or you don't. Although I'd argue that this is a biased coin that leans slightly more towards the latter.

Sometimes, I wonder why this level is called "Melody" when "Cacophony" is a title that would have been much more suitable and apt… Visually, I don't know where to begin when describing this level. I'm normally a fan of excessively colorful and maximalist levels like "Glowy" and "Utopian Delusions", but "Melody" is one of those rare GD levels where the overwhelmingly noisy rainbows and designs just don't look good at all. Creating a rainbow level is one of the easiest life hacks to make a level that looks serviceably good at the bare minimum. Take almost any rainbow level in the game and there's a 90% chance I'll (at the very least) like how it looks. I'm sorry to disappoint the supposedly 'high-brow' arthouse crowd, but "Melody" very much resembles Skittles upon being vomited. It's discordant and hectic, and not in the good way that I'd usually like. I'd normally find messy levels like this to be somewhat charming, but "Melody" doesn't do anything but repel me.

Perhaps the messiness and noisiness of "Melody" could be forgiven if it had better gameplay, but as it currently stands… No, I'm sorry to say, it plays terribly. The obnoxious moving objects that plague "Melody" just impede any impression of fun or enjoyment that could have seemingly been derived. It's painful to look at, it's painful to play and I personally don't like it. It's the perfect caricature and embodiment of 'that one early 2.0' level that people love to complain about. It's an evidently dated level and I personally think it just hasn't aged particularly well in comparison to a large majority of its contemporaries. "Melody" may be considered 'original' in the sense in that nobody else other than Sweetdude thought blindly mixing together every color and decoration would be a good idea. But once you play other Sweetdude levels, you begin to realize how formulaic and derivative they are of one another. "With You Tonight" is a lazy copy of "Fireflies" in all but name and song. I argue people wouldn't have complained about Sweetdude if he hadn't pumped out so many levels that were akin to one another. Not only that, but if he hadn't continued to get away with it.

I may have been inclined to give this a 4 or a 5 out of 10, but the reverential fans of "Melody" may be enough to drag it down a notch. There have been pieces of media that have overbearing fanbases that are more than enough to stir me away, but I seldom come across a GD level with such a reverential and devoted fanbase that it almost seems like some modern twist on the 'Emperor's New Clothes'. People are entitled to their own opinions as am I yet I still think the lauding of "Melody" is far too excessive, to the point it's almost farcical. The historical revisionism with regard to rehabilitating Sweetdude's reputation had gotten to a point where it's ludicrous. I'll admit that I'm a little biased against Sweetdude but that doesn't mean that I can't admit that some of his levels can be half-decent, because they actually can ("time for basics" is a nice riff on "Stereo Madness" for example which I think uses the signature Sweetdude style well). I just hate how cultish the fanbase behind "Melody" has become. It being 'just a GD level' doesn't necessarily make it artless but I don't think that excuses the comically-high pedestal that people place "Melody" upon. Oh, it's a level all about embracing the creativity involved within the creative process? Well, you could actually argue that about any GD level. Any level published on the GD servers is an exercise in creativity. "Melody" isn't special in that regard. Oh, it's an overwhelmingly happy and euphoric level which encourages the player to surrender their mind to the colors flashing on their screen? Well, I'd argue that "Mujigae" is a level that tackles the theme of 'embracing the (visible) spectrum' much more effectively. Hell, "Mujigae" is another messy 2.0 glowy rainbow level that I think does everything people think "Melody" is trying to do with much more skill and tastefulness.

This is (without a doubt) my most inflammatory review yet. It might be even longer than my review of "04 In Retrospect", but I just needed to express my thoughts on this level. Just adding a brief disclaimer that this is only an opinion. This should in no way dictate your views of this level. If you want to adore and cherish the "Melody" as a 'subversive' hidden gem then you're free to do so. There's nothing I can do to stop you. If you want to hate it, you're also free to do so. Just keep in mind this is only an opinion. This isn't a fact or anything. This isn't going to hurt anyone. It's just my thoughts, okay? Don't take it personally.

I never envisioned how much I had to say about a 9* level, especially one that doesn't revolutionise standards or is insanely original for its time. Melody is arguably Sweetdude's most (in)famous level due to that Etzer video. I won't dive into that because you can watch Pocke's review on a more comprehensive history of it. I'm here to review this level and my experience with it only.

A very important note to start is that this level is not for star grinders, because you can't sightread a damn thing and expect to beat this level quick. It's a memory-oriented level and in my opinion, deserves a demon rating. In fact, I believe people would be more tolerant of this level if it was rated demon. Nine starred insanes will never escape the stereotype of being harder than easy demons. If you plan to beat this, come with the mindset of beating a memory demon. It's not an easy insane level.

Its memory difficulty mainly comes from a lot of moving objects, with little time to react. There are arrows in the level that help you with which way to go, but they blend it with literally everything else so it's not easily visible when first starting out. With the abuse of move triggers in some parts though, I'm surprised I never died to a bug. That's right, no buggy/janky gameplay! Realising this increased my love for this level tenfold. I personally love memory gameplay and I hate to see my runs disrupted by some avoidable bug, as it messes with my muscle memory and state of mind. Well done honestly.

The balancing itself is quite impressive, with no disgusting chokepoints and no section particularly too difficult. Probably the hardest part is the wave part at the beginning, but it's not that bad. Also every portal got the Niflheim/Artificial Ideology treatment so good luck if you don't know any English. Doesn't subtract points since it's a memory level. If it were rated demon, it would be a mid-high tier easy demon, if not low tier medium.

That said, its theming is unironically so good. It has possibly one of the best song representations I've ever seen in this game, which is about the unfiltered joy of making art, without a care in the world if it's good or not. Perhaps it's more fitting the decoration is "bad", and what I mean by this is that everything is the same brightness, solid object or decoration, background or foreground. Under "Objective Rules of Art 101", this would instantly fail because it's difficult to differentiate one thing from another. And I'm happy it deliberately breaks that rule, otherwise the point of this level is just gone.

I think if you watch a video of this and pause at any frame, you're guaranteed a minimal of 3 colours on the screen, with probably no complement to one another. Just like this, it breaks any rule of colour theory, a commonly stressed rule vital to a level getting featured/rated. In fact, probably the only thing done "right" is the background being pitch black to contrast the heavily bright everything (won't lie, this level will actually suck a lot more if it wasn't). Asides the common interpretation of splashing rainbows like there's no tomorrow, another way I interpret this is being at a nightclub where the lights shine haphazardly, and you let your joy out and dance the night away. The feeling of unrestrained happiness is still the same, and the frequent changing and pulsing of colours give the level a dynamic look mostly unreliant on moving objects.

At the end of it all, I can't help but feel bad for Sweetdude having to endure the negative remarks said for this level, because they're often said by those who see it on a surface level with the rate system in mind, and not for the deeper meaning it holds. Does art always have to be good? Artists who believe in that tend to be miserable, crushed by increasing expectations of themselves and their work. For a nine star level existing to simply showcase the joy of giving birth to art, I'm surprised everything surrounding this level goes as deep as it gets, from negative opinions stemming from an objective validation by RobTop in a heavily subjective rating system, to the very meaning of happiness when you simply don't care and create.

I'll conclude with two lines of the song that sum this level up perfectly.

"So take your brush, don't be afraid to show your talent! Spread your designs and drown the earth in your palette!"