Rating Curve

so this one just takes zirokabi and completely kills it

Genuinely so tired of bli's constant trope of making a level in 4 different styles and repeating them at random intervals as if it's meant to represent some sort of "flashback". He did it in Change of Scene, as well as in the final part in Rage Quit which I found to be one of the worst endings in any big level I've ever seen. And here he's back at it.

After reading the description I guess it's meant to depict the astronaut's final memories before he dies after the spaceship crash. And I can definitely see that that's what it's going for, as shown in the photographs in the intro. However I find the execution to be inheretly flawed. The pictures genuinely look like they're taken from a ChatGPT after asking it to make "cool epic incredible fucking visuals". Wouldn't your last memories before death be devoted to your loved ones? Or at least memories with some people in them? If the memories depicted weren't just so blank and maybe included some degree of humanity I'd get it and I'd appreciate this level a lot more. But as I said they genuinely look like they're made by AI.

I think the sudden changes in style in the first half of the drop are actually pretty cool and the shaders go well with them. Would ve really cool if the second part did something different. It literally repeats this trope again and just repeats the same scenarios with faster changes to make it look complex but it's just trying to hide that beyond the "astronaut's memories" concept, they just ran out of ideas.

Now, I haven't talked about one main part about this level: the absurdly long intro that quite literally takes up over half of the level. Yeah. A minute and a half of an animation that, sure, looks impressive, but is genuinely the only thing tying this level to the space theme of the contest it was made for, because like I said the memories concept doesn't work for me. As much as you want to it's not possible to contextually separate it from the Space Gauntlet Contest, because that's the only reason it exists in the first place, and it fails at that. I really don't understand why you would want to make an intro that long. I came here to play a level, not to watch some animation that could've bern shortened to one 6th of its length. The fact that it obviously is skipped automatically after the first attempt is the conflicting factor to me. Why would you want half of your classic very detailed and well crafted level to never show up again after you get past it? It's just inheretly flawed and there's nothing you can do to fix this other than just... shorten it.

I will admit that the gameplay is surprisingly readable and fair for a level of this caliber, so that bumps up my score slightly. But other than that, this does nothing for me. It's just another level that displays bli's undeniable technical talent in the editor, but also showcases his inability to make something artistically good.

to be against geometry dash you first need to be against the world

Does some cool stuff admittedly, but the flaws heavily outwheighen that. I do like the premise behind the level, I think some parts work with the breaking screens and devices well (I like the split screen part quite a bit) but nothing can hide that this level is just eye candy visuals and effects with little to no cohesion between them just made to win a contest. The sound work is... not great, for a game clearly based on song representation.

The biggest offenders are especially the ship parts. I'm sorry, but the level mix idea has been done before, way better, way more creatively, and it a more fitting context. And if you thought the first ship part wasn't bad enough, the last one literally just does the same thing but without the level to device transitions that made the first one somewhat salvageable!

Can't deny its visual quality, but beyond that, it's mostly atrocious.

Enjoy your $1000.