Rating Curve

Admittedly the first bit feels a bit stale, with the textures being flat and the structuring being strangely squarish compared to 64x's other work. Thankfully, this is a set up as the level doesn't take long before the level turns a full 180 and gets high. You also get high, literally. You fly up into the sky. I guess that could also be ascertained given the other stuff happening on screen

Only wish it was longer as it feels like it was cut short; this level is incredibly mesmerising.

Pretty off the rails, wacky, zany, insert related adjective here. I wish more levels used this cartoony style with faces on shapes more often; I can only really recall Shapes by SirPotatoNow doing this as well and that level was also from the same time period

All-time classic.

Completely fucking surreal

God help us all (i like the angry birds references.

Normally, I would rate something like this much, MUCH lower. But this level is so overproduced, so sloppily executed and so haphahazardly put together, that it genuinely feels like an AI-generated content farm. For so accurately capturing brainrot in a way no other level really has, I have to give it credit. Completely dysfunctional structuring (but still very fun???)

Spot on pacing; spotless in its polishing like no other level of its kind

The grey-ish parts are unassuming at times, having really messy-looking colour combinations. However, they contrast extremely well with the insane-looking neon green complex biotech designs. The endscreen in particular made my jaw drop. However, the lack of complexity in the colouring across the classic core-styled parts, with all the structuring cycling through gray and green, does hurt this level a bit, although this is perfectly understandable for a 1.9 level and the end result still looks great.

Bionuclearcore only vaguely maintains its classic 1.9 feel, mainly in its structuring. While this lack of rootedness may feel like a flaw, I'd argue that this approach and execution feels transcendental of the era and its style almost, also in part due to the theme revolving around transhumanism.

The gameplay in this is an anomaly. When I first attempted this level and started doing runs on this, the gameplay felt strange. Not because it was extremely confusing or disorientating to navigate -- no, rather, it was TOO simple. Once the gameplay is unraveled the path becomes immediately clear and consists of extremely basic trajectories for the player. Almost... too basic. Almost... as if something was amiss.

Once I got the gameplay down, I played it from 0. With the path still fresh in my mind I breezed through and made rapid progress on the level, tearing through the metal foliage like it was paper. Until, it hit me. The fatigue of repetition crept in, slowly, but steadily, until the level becomes a nearly blinding, irrevocably tangled mess of edges. I still tear through the level but now, without a clear indication as to why. Every structure blends into another so much in motion with blurred vision; the visuals becoming entrancing, almost hypnotic in nature. Now, it is without a doubt in my mind that this is where the bulk of the difficulty originates:

The weakness of flesh.

stan's breakout project being this insanely fleshed out and innovative is a sign of great things to come