Rating Curve

moment copycat.

doesn't do anything more to stand out. uses a song that is very similar to moment, took every single part of moment and made them less interesting (especially the cool ship part) and the ending is too slow imo and is a total break of pace and I don't think it works for a moment-like level. so yeah, this level has no personality imo

for a level this ancient, i did not expect click sync at all but yeah this is pretty much one of the first click sync levels to ever exist and it came out 11 years ago. This level is honestly super fun to play thanks to the sync but also thanks to the varied gp that the level provides.

banger level.

if CITYFADE didn't exist, this would be the best progression level in the game easy.

Playing and beating the level is a one-of-a-kind experience that you pretty much don't get anywhere and it is easily worth the effort. Peak level in every aspect.

As a follow up of The Towerverse, I honestly don't think it works that well. This level feels like the Super Mario Galaxy 2 of The Towerverse duology to me in a sense that The Towerverse really put that focus on those grand areas that were meant to explore whereas the areas in this level feels way more linear and lose that exploration aspect that was fun on the previous level. The only thing that links this one to the other levels of the tower level series is that those levels get referenced here but that's pretty much it. It honestly feels pretty disjointed from the series and I mean, all of those levels are to an extent but I guess I was expecting kind of a stronger follow up on the story that was built from The Towerverse which is sadly not the case here.

However, as a standalone level, this level works way better than The Towerverse to me. It goes for a linear level design but 16lord made an amazing job making those levels pretty fun to play honestly. Just like the previous level, some of the areas have some kind of gimmick to them and all of them are really fun to play. They still feel very disjointed to the main area because you kinda just teleport to them without proper world-building which is honestly a missed opportunity but at least, I had fun going around these areas. I think the best thing this level does is that there is stuff you can mess around with in the main area which is completely optional but I love the fact that 16lord went this far to do this. It adds a lot of personality to the level and also adds some stuff to do in the level aside from completing the main areas, take a nap and repeat. It was honestly a really good time just doing the sidequests this levels has to offer. They're not that out of the way and they don't really take that long to complete, which is why it was this enjoyable to me.

Oh and yeah, uhm... the visuals. Yeah they're awesome. I love the artstyle and how everything looks. It looks so lively thanks to the excellent animation and it's just very pretty. Nothing wrong here.

And now I want to talk about the bosses. The bosses are... fine. They're easily the weakest part of the level though. Some of them are fun, but some are just pretty unbalanced and therefore boring (especially the last few ones). Their attacks are pretty well telegraphed honestly but some attacks are just not which is just annoying. But honestly, I don't mind them that much, I understand their inclusion because bossfights are cool. I just don't get how they tie into the main story, especially for the couple first bossfights. They don't do anything to the story and they serve no real purpose. They also didn't have any proper build-up which just makes their inclusion just questionnable and random. You only know you're gonna do some bossfights because the first thing you do in the level is get a sword but that's it. But aside from that, it feels like 16lord added bossfights because adventurous platformer level, therefore. Also I need to talk about the weapons... The katana literally gives you HP which is kinda broken and the bow does some very good damage, the others are bleh though because they're slow and not as fun.

And (SPOILER ALERT) the absolute worst thing about this level is the final battle. Literally when I got to fight that final boss when I was beating it, I was laughing at it because of how bad it was and that is definitely not how you want to end a literal series of interconnected levels. This boss had NO build-up at all. The only thing we knew about it was said through pretty vague exposition in the level, we had no idea what it was, what its purpose was, we knew nothing about the fact that it was evil. This is a massive issue when it comes to world-building because well, sometimes it works when you don't show the final antagonist until the very end but that is if it was built up properly. Here, we get pretty much nothing, and then you fight this stupid goofy ahh bat as the final boss. This feels very anticlimactic because the design is honestly very goofy and because there's no way THAT GUY want to destroy a whole multiverse when it looks LIKE THAT. And honestly here, some dialogue might have saved it a little but we get NOTHING. I don't get why the final boss can't talk, but the literal secret boss can dialogue with us, like it makes no sense. In fact, I would've loved if the secret boss was actually the final boss because it would've made way more sense than this random bat. It just doesn't sit right to me. But that is not even the worst part. This is BY FAR the easiest boss in the level, LIKE WHAT?????? The only thing it has is a massive amount of HP but all of its attacks are super easy to avoid and if you have the right weapon, you just sit there fighting an armless bat for 5 minutes as the final boss of AN ENTIRE SERIES OF LEVELS BTW. Like it's actually so laughable how bad of a final boss this little guy is. It completely destroys all the atmosphere of the level and the cool journey you had so far because all of that was to fight a dumbass animal. It's easily the WORST final boss I've ever had the displeasure to fight in a video game. And yep, that's the ending of The Towerverse series. After that you just get a GG pretty much and the series is over !

Yeah, needless to say that ending was awful and dragged down the level for me, and honestly, it is such a shame because that level had a lot of potential. It is visually amazing, it has a strong base that can easily make some cool ideas emerged, and it is just a really fun to level to play overall. But oh my god, that ending ruined everything for me and I cannot let that slide. The ending is what you leave the level with and this did not leave a good taste in my mouth.
It's so sad to see what could've been an incredible level with so much potential ruined by this stupid ahh "final boss". However I still find the level very good, so 7/10 it is. (more like 7.5 but whatever)

very interesting level honestly, i just wish the level did more with the concept. like the areas are cool but it feels like we just spend time in these areas without a real purpose bc of how disconnected they feel from each other. that one room with that one gimmick would've been better as a standalone level and doesn't justify it's presence at all and the final area has a cool atmosphere but is very anticlimactic and doesn't feel earned.

this level overall is a mess when it comes to execution of the concept, it's still a pretty good level but it falls flat when it comes to execution and story-telling

very elegant. easily zoroa’s best

one of the coolest levels in terms of visuals period.

wasn’t too much of a fan of the gp though, it’s fun once learned but learning it due to the overwhelming effects needs a lot of effort

I'm only giving it a 1 and not a 0 bc I think the original is great so I wanted to give it some respects with the score here.

However, it will of course not get anything more than that. Aleph 0 was released over 6 years ago at this point. It was a revolutionary level for its time as it successfully managed to push the boundaries of what was possible to make in this game. It might not be as impressive today due to all the stuff 2.2 brought to the game but for its time, this level had some of the coolest effects ever that blew all of our minds.
And yet, after a whooping 6 YEARS after it dropped, this random guy was like: "yo, what if we added shaders to it?". I do not like that idea at all, it completely misses the point of the level and is always gonna make it a downgrade over the original. However, I would be fine with it as long as the result is interesting.
And this is where my biggest gripe with this "level" comes.

You took Aleph 0, a level that completely redefined what was possible in the game 6 YEARS AGO and picked it back in 2.2, 6 YEARS LATER, and THE ONLY THING YOU ARE GONNA GIVE IT IS SHADERS???????????

Like, if you are going to steal a level to 2.2-ified it, at least do it correctly, make it interesting, there's so many cool things added by 2.2 that could make a Aleph 0 2.2 update. Only giving it shaders is literally the least cool thing you could've done which completely makes this version pointless. The worst thing is, the shaders they added are ugly 😭😭😭

NostalgiaCore.