For almost 5 years, I was wrong about this level.

When Future Funk released in 2018, I was 11 years old at the time. I loved the level immediately and knew I wanted to beat it someday. However, if you asked me why I liked it so much then, I probably would've struggled to explain.

Fast forward to some point in early 2020, I am 13 years old and I have approximately 2-4 hard demons under my belt, and I decide to finally go for it. Initially I was loving it, but then my feelings immediately went sour. I struggled with the level heavily, the most frustrating choke points for me included the Clutterfunk mini cube part from 25-29%, the first High Life part from 40-51%, the infamous asymmetrical from 62-70%, and the final stretch from 90-100%. I considered any attempt that reached the first High Life part a good run, and the dual in particular was the bane of my existence. Eventually, on June 28, 2020, I conquered Future Funk after 2 99% fails, and it was my new hardest as well as when I hit 5000 stars. It was a big moment for me, not just as an accomplishment for me as a player, but it also planted the seeds for the cynical outlook I have now regarding contemporary hits in GD. Future Funk was when I learned that just because a level looks amazing, it doesn't mean it plays well. In fact, sometimes the level can play quite poorly because more priority is put on the visuals over the gameplay. Future Funk was one of the most beautiful levels in the game, but at what cost? I never got to really see its beauty too much when grinding it because the level would lag on my laptop and I had to use LDM. This mindset I have now with a much stronger emphasis on gameplay and less focus on having the level that caters to the most people as possible has helped me understand my own tastes a lot more, but I had always regarded Future Funk as a 3/10 level ever since I beat it.

Fast forward again to March 14, 2025 (two weeks ago as of me writing this), I am 18 years old. I don't entirely remember what led up to me deciding to do another practice run, but I decided to replay Future Funk. This was the most odd I had ever felt replaying a level I played a lot years prior. Since 2021, I have had a much stronger gaming PC so I was able to run the level in full detail and see the level in all its beauty, and it all holds up really well exactly 7 years later. I also experienced something even stranger: I was having a lot of fun with this level. Maybe it's just that I am far more skilled player now than I was in 2020, but I really enjoyed my practice run and every part of the level felt good to play. I even somehow managed to retain my dual muscle memory (while this may have a played a part in me enjoying the level more, I am better equipped for learning asymmetrical duals now and I doubt I would have taken long to learn it if I had to do it from scratch). I decided that I will rebeat the level now just to make sure I wasn't losing my marbles during that practice run, and I'll even collect the first coin this time to assert dominance over 2020 me who didn't collect any of the coins. Yesterday, I rebeat it after a lucky fluke from 69% (but with 5 dual deaths) to confirm that I was not, in fact, losing my marbles. That's when I knew for certain I had spent the past almost 5 years being wrong about how I felt about the level.

The simplest way I can put how this level feels is this: this level is the spiritual successor to High Life. Yes, High Life is a primary inspiration for Future Funk alongside Clutterfunk, both of which are inspirations that Future Funk wears proudly on its sleeves, but that's not exactly what I mean. High Life has a very specific charm to it being a relic of its time (1.9-2.0 fusion cuisine from 2015) which makes the level's euphoria all the more powerful. Future Funk is the exact same way, but with update 2.1 in 2018. Both levels are so infectiously euphoric and powerful that viewing only them and the context of them being from their specific points in time would be looking at those eras of the game through rose-tinted glasses. Not only were 2015 and 2018 times when the GD community was very toxic, very few levels felt as powerful and happy as Future Funk and High Life, and most levels from 2018 certainly don't hold up as well as Future Funk.

While at a glance it may seem like Clutterfunk and High Life has equal amounts of influence in Future Funk alongside original parts (which are able to stand on their own two legs), the High Life inspiration is a lot more felt throughout this entire level than the Clutterfunk inspiration. Clutterfunk is a lot more of a foundation as it is automatically iconic being the 11th main level, and the main level best tailored to something like Future Funk, being the funkiest main level. When the High Life-inspired parts first start appearing at 40%, Future Funk is able to make its own creative parts off of the designs and sections of High Life in a way that is to perfectly recapture the original level's euphoria while in a completely new context and song. There are parts in the second half that are completely original, but because of how well they are made alongside the High Life-inspired parts, as well as how the completely original stuff and High Life inspiration is mixed in, they legitimately feel like revamps of parts of High Life that never existed. Future Funk would feel incomplete if it relied entirely on being a Clutterfunk remake, but it would not feel nearly as incomplete if it was entirely a High Life remake.

I don't have as much to talk about on the gameplay as I do the visuals and the elements surrounding Future Funk but I'll touch up on it briefly. It's amazing. Yes, there are choke points, like the ones I outlined earlier when talking about me playing the level in 2020, but revisiting the level has made me feel these choke points aren't as bad as I thought. The level's progression is stellar as it is more relaxed for the first half, existing mostly at normal speed or 2x speed, but as the level winds down then up into the dual, the nerves start to kick in. After the dual, the level slows down again, but you need to maintain your nerves. The level then works back up into a final high, which the song pairs with the last 10%. It settles on that high for a bit but then winds back down at 96% as every element of the song goes away leaving only the percussion as you repeat the same easy jump. Then you're hit with the 99% orbs, which has to be the most infamous 99% part in any level, and what influenced a lot more 99% choke points to come. You will die here if you can't control your nerves or if you just don't know the timings. Even if you do know how to do 99% well, it's still looming over your head the whole time you are playing the level. Everything I just mentioned works so well. Near the end there are more parts which do not take inspiration from Clutterfunk nor High Life, but they are able to properly stand on their own and be memorable because of how the level progresses and builds up. It's one of the best level endings in GD.

Despite my newly found appreciation for all aspects of this level, I would still not recommend it to players as one of their first hard demons. While it may be longer with its raw difficulty almost never being exactly at hard demon, it still has choke points which can mess up players like 13-year-old me who didn't know how to prepare for them. Otherwise, I would recommend giving this level a shot or a revisit since it's still a good challenge and just a fantastic level all-around.