Rating Curve

Definitely an overhated level. Gameplay is a very good example of my favorite type of memory (adjacent) gameplay where the level doesn't just straight up lie to you or have blind jumps but instead you have the ability to figure out everything just from what's on your screen for every jump, while not just being 100% "sightreadable". It truly feels akin to a puzzle level for certain jumps, like skipping the yellow pad at 22%, while still being easy.

It doesn't expand on this that much, though, and isn't a groundbreaking level by any means, but I do think the hate for it not being "sightreadable" is unjustified as it gains a lot from that aspect (and it isn't even particularly unsightreadable for its time anyway, there's certainly much worse filled with blind jumps)

A complete joke of a level that displays absolutely no respect for the player's time. The cycles are far too slow, making every room feel like a sluggish chore, and it feels like every bit of this is designed to make it as agonising as possible and multiples the effects of every other issue with the level. The gimmick itself doesn't even have indicators for where the blocks will appear, making it so you need to wait a full cycle to even gauge where to jump, which would be fine if it weren't for the slow cycles.

None of what I've written about so far is truly insulting though, as it could just be little mistakes (I wouldn't know what exactly would be a better cycle speed myself exactly). The overall design of each room is by far the worst part; the amount of rooms in this level that feel like they are there to just waste your time is apalling, being mostly repetitive gauntlets of just waiting and doing nothing else. Room 8 is by far the worst example of this, not even requiring a single timing as you just fly with the jetpack through corridors as walls appear and disappear.

In my mind I genuinely do not believe there is a single reality in which the creator of this level overlooked these issues and genuinely thought it was a fun enjoyable experience. While I do think the block design is quite aesthetically pleasing, for platformers this matters very little as they are almost never intended for a video audience and the playing experience matters much more (especially for a 5 moon)

Level feels devoid of meaning and just feels like it's trying to show off as much as possible. The overreliance on cutscenes with a custom cube ruin the immersion as the cube doesn't look anything like the player and the weird design doesn't even make sense as a placeholder.

The separate acts being explicitly told to the player, as well as the use of a meganeko remix of a classical song, make it feel like the creator just tried applying things from Change of Scene by bli without thinking through the meaning. The acts fit in with Change of Scene due to its theatre theme, but they feel completely out of place in this intense space themed level. This, as well as other popular things just haphazardly put into this level, make this feel akin to an AI just having certain elements exclusively because they showed up in popular parts of the training data, and not because of any artistic meaning.

The gameplay is also boring but whatever

Ironically a trainwreck of a level; the aimless mess of ideas present here leaves it being incredibly dissatisfying to play or watch, and it somehow gets worse throughout its runtime. The story is seemingly completely meaningless, and the camera movements in plenty of spots feel extremely jarring. The cutscene of everyone watching the trains crashing feels incredibly random and abrupt, and is full of poor layering errors on the icons. The colours feel washed out, and the block design feels unpolished.

By far the worst part of this level, though, is its gameplay, especially in the second half. It feels like the level is just taking you wherever it wants to, without the player meaningfully interacting with the gameplay. This is especially evident with the ufo section having the player pressing green orbs to suddenly flip direction and then back again, although these issues are across the whole second half. This not only results in a poor playing experience, but makes the level visually feel disgusting to look at even in a video.

It's fairly obvious this level was rushed for the christmas deadline, being entirely proven by this level's catastrophic release, with it having several ways to skip significant parts of the level (some still remaining!) and being updated with a start position at some point, making the level completely impossible for some as event levels can't be reloaded by the player. The song is also incredibly grating, and with song representation being an important part of Geometry Dash, I understand these conditions didn't exactly help Noel Electra be a better level. Even so, just because I know why the level's shortcomings exist, it doesn't make them any more pleasant to experience, so I'm very confident calling this one of my least favourite levels of all time.

what a trainwreck of a level, trying to virtue signal over someone's death is terrible

A relatively old platformer insane/extreme demon that is still unrated to this day, but it remains my favorite of all time. The concept of this level of being a relatively long level with very sparse checkpoints seems unnecessarily frustrating on the surface, but the sense of stress this induces makes every jump feel intense and makes it immensely gratifying to reach the end of each checkpoint. As the level goes on, the feeling of being higher settles in, increasing the element of stress and making the risk of going for the coins feel like more important of a decision. This all peaks at the last checkpoint with the music fading out and the rest of the level just being ambient noise, with the gravity lowering partway through. The various gimmicks with moving objects and tight gaps make the gameplay feel varied and unique, and no part ever gets boring or annoying (except maybe the 3rd coin potentially, but I found that fine). The parts later on with invisible fading objects feel like they would just be annoying on paper, but they do kind of showcase how their use in platformers differs a lot from classics; you're not intended to react fast to the blocks appearing in front of you, or quickly remember them, but they just keep you attentive. This all culminates in an amazing playing experience that’s stressful but feels truly rewarding at the end.

As usual for Split72, the decoration in this level isn’t filled with details and is quite simple, but this is far from a negative. The solid dark rounded pillars making up every structure, being accented by more faded out pillars behind them, create a sense of isolation. Everything being monochrome and the abundance of saws add onto this. Along with the various real world city objects, like the benches and flickering lamp posts, this makes the place feel abandoned, as if you’re not meant to be there. This feeling of isolation and the uninviting nature of the dark decoration accentuates the stress already induced by the gameplay. Making the decoration have more intricate details would just serve as a distraction and I don’t think it would help, and I think this and Split72’s other levels truly show that high technical effort and intricate details are not necessary if one’s ideas are executed well. The fact this level was built in under 13 hours (editor time, not a time span) is still very commendable, and yet it feels as fleshed out as it should be and it never felt like it was lacking something. This is to be expected from the top 1 creator, though.

All in all, the way the decoration and gameplay accompany each other create an experience I absolutely loved and am happy to call my favorite platformer, and I would recommend it to anyone at a high enough skill level to play it. While it might not be seen as one of the best levels generally by the community due to its minimalist nature, and probably wouldn’t meet rate standards for anything above a feature, I wouldn’t let any of that affect my opinions on it. Hoping to see it featured someday :)