Review of True Values of Life

by
, 2025-03-22, 15:42:07, Level ID: 55871633
avatar
says...

(Disclaimer: I have not beaten this level yet, though I plan to. I have only done 2 practice runs, but I feel I have played this level more than enough to write a review.)

This is one of the worst levels ever released. I'm hesitant to just call levels a "waste of time," especially because someone can always view a level in a different, more positive light than I could, however I just do not see the possibility for that in TVOL at all. I have yet to speak with anyone who likes this level, much less anyone who has beaten it who has liked the level enough to consider it a worthwhile investment. In both my two practice runs, I have felt excruciating levels of boredom.

Before TVOL even places its first block, it already shoots itself in the foot with its song choice. Snowy Roads by Horsed is not a bad song - in fact, I like it - it's just not a useable song in the context of a GD level. It is 48 minutes long, calm, peaceful, and does not progress at all, almost like an ambient piece. It strikes me as more of a song meant to be listened to in the background while doing something else as opposed to trying to build a level around it, much less using its entire runtime of 48 fucking minutes. If you would struggle to make an enticing level with this song that is only 1 minute long, how on Earth would you think making one that is 48 minutes long would have any possibility of being good? This makes me inclined to think Snowy Roads was chosen not because it is a good song, but rather because it is long enough to build a level of absurd length. This is also supported by the how TVOL just completely fails with song representation, as there is not a single part that syncs with the song or matches how it feels in any way.

This ties into my next gripe - I am failing to establish a proper justification for why this level was made. I do not like to have debates on why a level gets made in the first place, it is a redundant debate for a lot of levels, and can be answered with something as simple as "I built it for fun." I can't see how hosting a megacollab and building a level this monotonous can be any fun to do. This level did strike me as somewhat pretentious with how the levels takes itself seriously, calling itself "the 48 min collab" and "the longest GD level" on the end screen as well as directly challenging a bunch of famous people to beat, including RobTop and Viprin for some reason? Some names make sense, like Guitar and Dorami (who ended up verifying it lol), but others don't and this reads to me as a cheap way of getting a bunch of famous, powerful players' attention. If your level is good, you should automatically have their attention and you shouldn't need to add something like this. These things really rub me the wrong way and make me doubt if this level was built to have a nice product, or to have the fame to come from working on a level of such huge ambitions, and if it is the latter, thank god this level never got rated.

I'm diving into the sustenance of this level quite late into the review as there just isn't a whole lot of meat or much things of interest throughout this level. It feels like a 6* collab from 2017 stretched to 48 minutes in length (yes, this level released in 2019, this is how far behind its time TVOL is). This level starts to feel like the same slog even when you're only 25% though, because it kinda is the same at some parts. There are 47 builders (I may have counted wrong), and none of the parts are a minute long, therefore there are repeat builders multiple times throughout the level. Despite some builders having multiple opportunities, not a single part of TVOL looks good now, and a lot of them didn't even look good in 2019. They are riddled with visual errors: bad layering, awful color combinations, block designs that make it difficult to make out the hitboxes, objects with glow enabled that shouldn't, glow deco overusage, and really empty and bland parts (both glow style and modern style). The gameplay also suffers a lot of flaws: invisible gameplay, buggy parts, inverted slopes, parts where it is hard to tell the hitboxes of gameplay because of the decoration, parts where it is hard to tell whether something kills you or not, all indicators that this level did not get anywhere near enough playtesting for its size. The worst problem with this level, worse than any of the gameplay flaws I listed out, is that this level is just boring to play for its entire runtime, which is the absolute worst thing a level of this length can end up as.

I really hope I never have to write a review this negative ever again. However, I just had to go all out on this level because I feel like this level is genuinely unsalvageable and flawed all the way down to its very core. I cannot see a reality where any amount of tweaking and QoL updates to this level can make it anywhere near bearable enough to learn and beat in its entirety. This level truly should have just been scrapped in favor of something that could've had an opportunity to turn out better, I'm sorry.

OVERALL0/10
GAMEPLAY0/10
VISUALS0/10
DIFFICULTY-/100
Hyperbolus is not affiliated with RobTopGames AB or Geometry Dash
Hyperbolus © 2025
Connected via
Alakazam

GDPR Cookie Consent

Hyperbolus uses cookies and local browser storage to enable basic functionality of the site. If we make any changes to these options we will ask for your consent again.

Strictly necessary
Analytics and performance
Advertising personalization

sorry about this gang