I'm not entirely sure where the myth that the "majority" of this level is constructed from assets ripped directly from Celeste originates from, cause that's firstly: cynical in a way no one really appreciates, and secondly: unobservant in a way that makes the 0s here look pretty silly. Notably, everything in this level was built by hand with no img2gd or pixel art converter to speak of, and only a handful of the parts even directly recreate assets anyways. I oppose plagiarism even more than the next person, but blind hatred for inspiration and disregard for the creator's intentions doesn't sit right with me. I see this level, more than anything, as a very flawed love letter to Celeste, not something that defiles or plagiarizes the game. I'd like to highlight both the chapters 1, 4 and 8 parts especially for capturing the feeling of the levels with original designs.

My primary issue with the level lies in the pacing of the decoration parts. It rushes through chapters 1-6 (hanging on 5 for a slight bit longer) to reach Summit for the drop, then spends the majority of the drop in Summit before tagging on Core to the drop and treating Farewell as little more than a footnote. I think it would have been so much better to push forward both Core and Farewell, so that Summit didn't take up the entire first part of the drop and so Farewell could start where Core was placed initially to make it the climax of the level and treat it with the respect it deserves. Now, as it stands, most of my appreciation for this level comes from the experience of beating it; it utilizes the progression of Celeste to emulate the feeling you get when climbing through the game, with an extended predrop (the bane of many) preceding the airy rush of Summit. Beyond Summit, the experience of the level entirely rests on the gameplay rather than the decoration, which Is pretty unfortunate, because the dual is one of my favorite gameplay parts in any extreme demon.

If I took this level entirely at face value, I could easily consider it great, but I empathize with a lot of the frustrations expressed by other people here about game recreations in general and of course my own issues with the structure of the decoration. Plus, I have to recognize my own bias in favor of the level not only as someone who had an incredible experience beating it but also as someone who was following it as it was being built, and reluctantly reduce my score to match the feelings of my critical eye.