Zariku rules man

shamefully forgotten and underrated

my favorite 1.9 level is death moon, because everyone's favorite 1.9 level is death moon, but what's #2 is this... thing. i mentioned in my lost souls review that that was my favorite level at the time, but i had actually known this level from back then too, i just forgot about it until about mid 2.1 until i uncovered it again, along the way it having left a pretty big imprint on me, something i thought, vaguely, about a lot but didn't remember the name of

zariku's not exactly the creator (actually two creators) you'd expect to release a masterpiece if you only knew their other stuff. dragon force and zirokabi are pretty well known, but beyond that you get into some of the most bizarre and uncompromising levels of the time, like swiftness having a part that's basically rng (and more notably a part that was impossible for most of 2.1!) and half their other levels are equally bizarre, many no longer on the servers often after being updated (there's another rated level by them, disappear of echo08, whose current version is literally just this level again). definitely one of the most interesting creators then but them releasing a level of this calibre feels unprecedented to me, but it's almost like they knew it with how it lists the names of most of their other levels before the drop, a move hilariously self-aggrandizing but i can't help but feel it deserves it with how much this level means to me

now i don't wanna make it seem like this is a technical masterpiece, because it's not. it's still a zariku level at the end of the day, the gameplay is really awkward and unfriendly (pretty fun once you learn it actually), and you really can tell that one of them is a much more impressive creator than the other, the one with all the art and effect chops that are a large part of what makes this level (and others, like dragon force) work. its a masterpiece in its emotional quality, a juvenile, earnest, chaotic, and spontaneous intensity in every regard, from the song to its pacing to the wild swings in quality to even the gameplay. the kinds of feelings this provokes in me are just unheard of for the time, almost reminding me more of twigxcabaret than xaro, funnygame, or woogi. it's a level i can see most people not having the enthusiasm i have for it given its flawed nature, but it's one of those where the flaws are integral to the feeling and it'd be incomplete without them for me. definitely one that at least deserves much more attention, a true hidden gem