(7.5)

The first level of the very renowned Element series hosted by GW, and a pretty damn good way to start it if I would say so myself! Element 1 H was released during the first week of 1.6, and for being so early, I feel it uses its features quite nicely. The level is heavily memory focused, filled with tons of fakes and blind orbs, which was pretty standard for levels of this difficulty back then. However, it stands out nicely from other demons from this time period due to it's very interesting gameplay, theming, and decoration.

Element 1 H uses super interesting structuring and gameplay choices to keep the level interesting the entire way through, with some notable parts being the first ship where you fly up and down through a tunnel utilizing ship portals to move the camera up and down, as well as the mini cube which repeats the same staircase over and over again, yet each time you get to it you have to do something different. Gameplay was very limited back then due to the much lesser amount of objects to use, but I feel that Element 1 H is able to use them in a super intriguing way that keeps the level both difficult and fun!

Now the decoration is what I want to talk about mostly in this level. It's SUPER cool for being this early into 1.6, with one of the main style choices being these really interesting block designs with 4 rotated bush objects on each other. It creates a very cool square spiral pattern and is something I've only seen used in this level. Element 1 H has so many creative decoration choices that just makes it stand out to any other level at this time, such as the pulsing exclamation parts in the first ship part. Arco used two exclamation marks and rotated them horizontally over each other to create a super interesting pulsing object that looks SUPER cool for being such an old level, this level is genuinely the only time I've ever seen this used. The other decoration choice I really like is the pathway that you follow in the ship parts later in the level. There's a line of blocks that you have to follow which when combined with the fading and entering on the sides, makes this super cool effect that I absolutely love. I'm also a very big fan of the cloud part where the gameplay consists of only orbs. It feels very open and is very fun gameplay wise!

Element 1 H is overall just an extremely cool level for being made so early into 1.6, and absolutely would stand out even if it wasn't the first level in the Element series. Very cool!! :D

first of the (i guess) iconic element series, this level is just a compilation of absolutely terrible "memory gimmicks"

most of them arent even memory, they are just having to jump into specific locations that drives you into another blind jump, and its just dumb. the whole level feels like it was a compilation of parts of stupid levels, but i guess it has its charm

has no coherence whatsoever, really inconsistent and just whatever for when it was made, but honestly, you end up enjoying it more than you would think you would.