Probably some of knots’ best art, especially for its time it’s certainly impressive, it’s too bad that the level is really boring otherwise. A lot of the elements blend together and it can be difficult to decipher what layer anything is supposed to sit on, not only does it hinder the gameplay but it just isn’t very aesthetically pleasing to look at a bunch of individual assets that don’t mix into the environment anywhere. The amount of jump indicators and typography ruin the immersion for me even further, it’s as if they got lumped together with the rest of the designs as an afterthought rather than an aesthetic choice. The level also has nothing going on aside from its visuals, the several cutscenes and the lack of player engagement overall makes it such a dull experience despite the massive volume of content cramped into every part. Although the experience is a lot more coherent when put into contrast with knots’ other work back then, I don’t think it salvages enough for me to glance past the poor design choices, it leaves a lot to be desired from it

This level is stunning, in ways I cant even describe.

the world is an unfamiliar and scary place, and this level really feels like the musings of a directionless wanderer as they say a goodbye to the old and move in new directions, as is the nature of the passage of time

An azimuth is defined as the direction of a celestial object from the observer, expressed as the angular distance between the north or south point of the horizon. A strange definition, sure, but it ties in with the main symbol of the level, that being a compass. I think that's the only consistent theming there is, everything else is kinda just "mystical mysterious whatever". It works, though, so I can't really complain.

I was surprised to find this level placed at a 6.8 overall, because I quite like it. Sure, Knots's late 2.1 levels kind of all blend together (aside from Rectangle, I might get to that later), but I think each one is special in its own way. Azimuth in particular I believe excels at song representation. Or maybe I just like the song way too much. Either way, each part flows seamlessly with the song in a way that really sort of ties everything together, despite the general "whatever works" nature of the level. The visuals aren't perfect - some areas are kinda messy or weird, some visual bugs occur, the big block compass was funny for a few months before no one gave a shit anymore. But technically speaking, it's still excellent.

The gameplay is... there. It's incredibly boring in the first half, though it does improve slightly in the latter half. The gameplay isn't particularly good, it isn't particularly bad, it just exists to be as inoffensive as possible. I can't exactly talk about the gameplay if it basically doesn't exist.

This would probably pass as a three star if you pestered Rob enough idk