Through the Gates is a level that was made all the way back in 2018 and was more than likely rate-worthy for the time as evident by the date of exen's original "rebeat". However it took until almost 2024 for the level to be legitimately verified by zoink and it was placed above firework on the unrated demonlist.

The decoration was good for the time it was made but it has definitely aged poorly with some of the colors clashing with an example of this being the ship at 0:29, the white and blue don't go together at all and just bring down the overall quality of that part. The colors don't clash as much in the coming parts but the overall saturation of the brightness in several of these colors and block designs bring it down a notch despite the block design not being the worst thing ever. The part at 1:00 just looks way too empty and is arguably the weakest part of the level decoration-wise and the part after that just honestly looks messy and cluttered in the block design all throughout the whole part. The last part is probably the best part of the entire level deco-wise in my opinion as it doesn't try for anything cluttered or bare-boned and it just sticks with good color usage with the neat mini-block effect and pulses in the background, if that part was extended and turned into a full level on it's own maintaining that style it would probably be rate worthy to this day.

The primary thing I can comment on for the gameplay of this is the difficulty spike from 78-100 compared to 0-78%, Septagon7 and HSW (both who are victors) have said that TTG is the modern-day equivalent of Thinking Space in regards to it's balancing which should really put it into perspective for you. Septa claims that the gameplay is super satisfying to pull off once you're actually able to string chokepoints together and honestly, I can kind of see it. This level is way out of my skill range so I can't comment directly on the matter at hand, but that's not the point I am trying to make here

I'd argue given the timeframe this level was made it should be placed on the rated+ tab, but I can 100% see why others on the rating committee would vote the opposite as it is quite dated and aged kind of poorly in some parts. Old messy levels like this from back in the day are pretty nostalgic to me though so I could 100% be biased in this.

Gameplay Rating: N.A.
Decoration Rating: 5/10
Overall Rating: 4/10