blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub

This is one of those Lit Fuse type levels that has a clear artistic vision behind it that I CANNOT praise enough, but also has a couple bafflingly bad design choices that keep it from being as good as it should've been, and it's just all the more painful seeing a potentially amazing level be held back by simple problems.

First off, I'm a sucker for repeated motifs in gameplay. This has a number of them but I think the one that really shines through is the blue orbs over the spikes during break parts. You see it so much throughout the level and almost never hit the orbs, so the couple times you do just feel that much more impactful. The other motif I want to bring attention to is the sets of 4 size portals. For some reason the pattern of skip big-hit big-skip small-hit small just feels like a really natural and satisfying way to mark your progress through the journey.

The next point of interest that shows up is the 2nd drop, and I think this is where the two biggest issues, namely the sync and the lack of energy, combine to make each other their worst. The sync for the individual "OH"s is actually really good with how the background pulses and the waves make big movements, the mirror portals and the ufo are also good, but the repeated words (I cannot hear this as anything other than "blub blub blub" wtf is he saying) are very noticeably going by faster than your clicks, and the gameplay just feels so much more lifeless than the song. Perhaps it would've been too much of a difficulty spike if it was better synced? But then why not just make all of it a wider spam for the whole part instead of consistency? Or better yet just let it be harder?

Piano part also suffers from sync issues (like straight up there are more notes here you're not syncing to, did you just not hear them) yet at the same time the sync is still beautifully done there. Somehow. Idk. Conversely, the 3rd drop is also beautifully done but suffers from feeling too slow. It's not as severe as the 2nd drop but there's still way more energy in the song that's not happening in the gameplay. For as much as I dislike The Human Limit, one thing it really doesn't struggle with is maintaining the same vibe as the song. Love the box in the buildup to it though it's simple yet fascinating I wish there was more stuff like it.

The 4th drop also doesn't have enough energy. God, the 1st one is the only one that really feels right, huh? Why and how did you screw it up 3 times in a row like this? I do like the empty feeling of a lot of the structuring in it though, it feels like it's happening in a big empty room (like the song).

The latter half of the last section is great. For the whole duration of the level you've been told to hit white and avoid hitting gray, and it never lies to you once. It still won't "lie" here either, but it WILL throw the curveball of orbs with both indicator colors around them. It's only a couple orbs, but it's really a nice detail, as is the word "humans" being highlighted and the invisible slopes taking you through the gears in sync with the reversed piano in a similar pattern to how you've been raised up by some sets of visible slopes.

Is this my longest review? I don't know. I feel like it is though. Halfway through writing I got distracted by Hollow Knight: Silksong for 4 hours