Rating Curve

both a little aged now and a little unfinished looking when it came out but still wonderfully restrained for a newer art level. really sells the feeling of flying around and exploring some city in eastern europe/western russia in winter, realism framed in a way that emphasizes a magical sensation despite showing almost nothing you could consider ‘supernatural’, almost saying something like “i never understood how beautiful everything around me is”, a recognizable feeling distinct to serene and peaceful moods

probably the best implementation of kaizo mario world in gd (actually might be the crerro kaizo series now). not really the original kaizo trilogy kind you may know, but definitely recognizable as the later more refined and technical kind, though the patented koko silliness distracted me from that for a while. may not have shell jumps but it sure does have kaizo blocks! more gd levels need kaizo blocks

incredible song representation on a very deep level, in feeling like a level that a weird soundcloud producer would make (the song being some weird earnest internety collage hyperpop(scene)-influenced 'only slightly recognizable as a song' soundcloud shit), shader insanity of course being a great parallel to distortion and effects, but there's little samples too, obviously the well rested and congregation samples at the end (that feel like they're saying something but very unclear what, vitriol or respect or grounding or alienating) but there's a little sample of abel by dienid in the noise too (and likely other samples too, again not uncommon at all for weird soundcloud producer shit), as well as how it is an extension of out of this world by perox8, similar to how one producer may come up with a new thing and then it's the new thing and someone else does something even weirder with it (again, the subtle hyperpop influence but really glitched out/collaged), and the incredibly hostile and unfriendly gameplay not having an exact parallel but feels appropriate for a level so far outside the bounds of reality, very uncompromising on every aspect, and a definite highlight of early 2.2 for it