It's a bit unfortunate that I'm firmly in the "Deadlocked is harder" camp, because Theory of Everything 2 is so much more convincing at being the ultimate challenge. Rob struck a brilliant balance between physical and mental intimidation with drastic swings between a bright, stark landscape littered with harsh timings and the more muted memory sections, which are often so overwhelming in their illusions of choice that attempting to traverse them feels futile even well after the correct sequence has been intuited. While practicing, this duality feels impossible to overcome. Once mastered, the two styles provide valuable moments of respite in between each other. It is this requirement of mastering both body and mind that makes Theory of Everything 2 so invigorating to play - every second surviving is a triumph, understanding is a conquest with how cerebral yet aggressive every aspect of the level and its soundtrack are. Probably the last great RobTop level.

my favorite robtop level by far. imposing and unforgiving, it truly matches the energy it had at the time of the "boss level" of the game. it truly just takes everything the game teaches you and turns it up to 11 in a final trial

i think past this point, robtop levels lose a sense of charm and self-reliance; it ends up being that the levels just kind of expect you to know how to work with the mechanics and comprehend the designs right away mostly just due to how huge custom levels became past 1.9 and how huge the scale of updates became past it. and i guess that's fair, but it does lose the traditional game design evolution the game had over its levels. i truly do miss it a lot, and the closest we've gotten since then even including custom levels is the robtop platformer levels, but those have their own faults...