the zone pirate v of mythic. for elaboration purposes, zone pirate v is probably one of the most controversial legendary rated levels due to its amateurishness and also it being generally not really being impressive in the spectacle or the creativity department. with these issues present, however, zone pirate v is generally inoffensive at best and quite sloppy in execution at worst

button masher is literally worse than zone pirate v

button masher has some parts that are actually nauseating to look at, and not in a way that serves its benefit like being hypnotic, extremely intense, or the like

the first half of button masher is an amalgamation of generally tired but alright looking styles, namely a non-stylised, somewhat flat looking art style, pixel style and this glowy simplistic design-adjacent style. spoiler: this lack of consistency throughout the level is a pretty big detriment to the level's core visual identity; it feels stuck in 3 different places simultaneously with the sum being more untasteful than the components

now, the elephant in the room -- the second half of this level takes all the comparatively minor issues of the first half, scales them up and adds some more. the glitching is rarely seen to be as messy as this lineup of creators' other works, is a nice deviation / experimentation but it is so messy and amateurish that it just makes the entire level look even more disorganised. the arcade part is ALSO completely disconnected in how its gameplay looks from every other part, with it being freefly and with relatively few inputs. nonetheless, neither the song nor decoration changes significantly in order to accomodate this gameplay change; in fact the song becomes even more chaotic and rough while you kinda just... leisurely fly through the arcade. the part proceeding this also has the exact same issue so i'm not gonna repeat myself

i've already touched on the song earlier but in summary: i am normally indifferent to mdk's music but this song has some of the most uncomfortable filtered vocals and basslines i have ever heard

points for the "hit it, slash it, slap it, ram it" part and the endscreen is fun i guess. just a patchwork of bland and extremely questionable design choices that mesh together really untastefully

as for the gameplay, no section of gameplay ever feels cohesive to interact with due to the rampant use of gimmicks, hand-holding the player with this new wave of chaotic-feeling yet underdeveloped gameplay compensating for insane effects that has emerged in 2.2, and, ironically, button mashing. i am not sure if this was intentional to fit the name, however i doubt this as this is also an issue with certain other high-tier levels as well by some of the creators in this lineup

i understand why this happened with the gameplay due to the recommendations for the ncs event levels showing off as many 2.2 features as possible, resulting in the over-reliance on gimmicks and all the other jank. this, however just makes the experience of playing it feel even more jarringly disconnected from the actual level, while the level does nothing to work around the disconnection being polished. with all the things i've said about this level the gameplay is actually not unfun to play; just mediocre. the gameplay's disconnect from the level also affects the visuals indirectly since it's very clear without even playing it that that very disconnect is there. i don't feel like my actual enjoyment of this is a help or a detriment to the level as a whole, hence my gameplay rating of 5 not contributing to the overall very much

in conclusion, the positives about this level are that i do see some merit in the deocration in some parts, especially the first half and the endscreen being quite nice. otherwise, yeah sorry to everyone who participated in this level :(

update: yeah this is no longer the worst event level lol. raising it because it is actually not as bad as i intially thought (2.5)