with the honorable final, through collaboration, funnygame hands off the status of the 'crazy talented guy who makes the effect levels that look impossible' to serponge (and the goat status imo)

with love baba, through the Monsters By Krmal, zobros hands off the status of the 'uncategorizable experimental creator who makes really hard stuff and also really dumb joke stuff, and is unbelievably good at the game for his time, and likes to beat fucked up levels' to krmal

i mean i don't think zobros could make lit fuse or falling up, or krmal make acropolis or nine circles or clubstep nightmares, but there very clearly is the same kind of guy under there. and i don't think serponge or krmal have had successors, or ever really could, but they definitely built on considerably from their "predecessors". funnygame probably could've pioneered minigames but didn't create long enough to. zobros definitely could've made something like conical depression or xo but effectively retired before then. but all 4 had such an impact that we're still feeling the ripples of them today