Review of Retention

by
, 2025-06-11, 22:01:42, Level ID: 18697406
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WOOGI1411 is a legend of the creating scene. Their breakout levels in 1.9 were consistently delightful, and they carried this momentum into 2.0 with the fantastic extreme demon Retention. Slightly bizarre name aside, this level is an absolute joy in every way, and feels like a celebration of everything that makes the famous creator's levels so beloved.

Retention modernises its creator's style for 2.0 standards, introducing movement, much more dynamic decoration, and even a cheesy "Yeah!" near the end. Colours in this level are always beautiful (a particular highlight is the greyscale section near the start, which is complimented by some really nice usage of muted colours to add a bit of life. It sounds boring but it works very well) and structuring is chaotic and messy, exactly what you'd expect. Handily, visibility isn't lost in this clutter. It's surprisingly easy to see what's happening at all times, even when the icon is being teleported all over the screen.

The gameplay in Retention is the true standout. It's a career best for a creator known for enjoyable and satisfying gameplay, with brilliantly creative duals, sync, and icon movement. Very few creators are able to make the icon move around the screen in a way as enjoyable as this. It's also a very fair level - there's very few chokepoints and it's largely down to pure skill, aside from the initial memorisation of some of the more complicated sections. The drop is high energy but surprisingly intuitive, and a little more difficult than previous sections which makes it feel deserved when you pass it and reach the climax. Starting just after an unfortunately difficult timing (which sticks out like a sore thumb), the climax of Retention is unfairly good. It's a chaotic and fast paced cube section, which could certainly be crowned the greatest cube section ever built. It's one of those parts you really have to play from zero to understand (perhaps akin to the mountain in Nhelv, by SirGuillester?) and elevates an already great layout to the next level. The sections after this are fun as well, albeit a little tamer in comparison.

The modern age of Geometry Dash produces so many brilliant levels that it's easy to forget levels from the past. Retention has a feeling about it that very few modern levels can capture, and it's an experience any worthy player should absolutely not miss, because it's a level that will stick with you.

OVERALL9/10
GAMEPLAY9/10
VISUALS8/10
DIFFICULTY-/100
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