Review of Vam

by
, 2025-03-16, 01:11:43, Level ID: 90845382
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In my last review, we talked about a level where you could tell exactly what you were looking at, but had no idea what it meant. This level is the opposite. You know what the meaning is—the level is made as a joke, while also being a creative outlet for the creator—but you have no idea what you're looking at. We start in Chinatown. This may seem out of place, until you consider the level uses a popular song by a Chinese hip-hop artist. The creator, Flaaroni, is a popular GD YouTuber that's also Chinese. And I'm Chinese too, so I feel I have a unique connection to this level. What's interesting is the buildings appear to be run-down. This likely shows he's aware of how poorly-maintained actual cities are. This is supported by the fact that urban environments appear in all of Flaaroni's levels. (On a side note, you can see he reused the "soot-covered" effect from his 2nd level, "Protocol Seven," as well as the wooden posts from his 3rd level, "Freaks".) Anyway, you pass buildings such as a Chop Suey place, a Kung Fu place, a Boba place, a KBBQ place, and a Dim Sum place. There's also a park and a Dragon Gate. Even the block design continues the theme, as the gameplay is made of wooden posts, red lanterns are used as decoration, and the ground spikes are reminiscent of metal picket fences. And there's a reason why a giant turd explodes. It's because the lyrics of the song say, "I’m gon let this SHIT BLAM if you not vam." Next, a pink cat cube sitting on a Monobloc chair (yes, that's its name) gets locked up, and a message appears reading "OBJECTIVE: RESCUE". This is a reference to the official music video. Despite how ridiculous this is, the goal is now clear: you must rescue the cat cube. Now we reach the part that caused a lot of drama on Twitter. What is this supposed to be? For some people it looks like the "3D pipes screensaver," for others it reminds them of Rainbow Road. Personally, it looks like the Mineplex "Christmas Chaos" snake parkour (RIP 💀). The complaint a lot of people seem to have can be summed up as "I like the level, just not the song." Now, regardless of your opinion on hip-hop, I'm going to come to Flaaroni's defense and say THE SONG IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE LEVEL. For one, by the time Flaaroni built this part, I don't think he could control whether he used this song or not. He says in his video description, "I discovered the song about 9 months ago... then things just spiraled out of control from there." He made the level for 9 months with THIS SONG IN MIND. Secondly, this song holds special significance to him. Flaaroni says in the description that this song "was [his] gateway drug into hip hop". Third, and most importantly, the song builds up things later in the level. Admittedly, the rainbow part could exist without the song—but the rest of the level wouldn't make sense without it. Next, we enter a mansion. We're saving the cat cube! On the walls, there are paintings of what appear to be lizard people. There's Kevin, there's Gary, and then… there's Richard. Japanese characters saying "menacing" start rising. Who's Richard, you may ask? Well… Lyrics guide a clown emoji onto a lizard person's face, as a Smash intro introduces him as RICHARD! The bossfight continues to be supported by the lyrics. The song saying "lizard" confirms you're fighting a lizard. When the song says "dinner," Richard extends his head! You slay Richard, and the level ends with you going down a road outside city limits. Transmission towers stretch off into the distance, as the ground spikes from the beginning of the level reappear—although now they eerily have what appear to be lizard skulls on them? Flaaroni only started his creating comeback a year and a half ago, and this is only his 4th level. His levels are dark and gritty, and when you go in with that mindset, that makes them okay. He's already started work on his next and 5th level, so I recommend supporting Flaaroni as a creator, as it's interesting to see what this anime-obsessed nerd makes next. He’s creating things we've never seen in this game before.

OVERALL8/10
GAMEPLAY4/10
VISUALS3/10
DIFFICULTY40/100
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sorry about this gang