Rating Curve

Fellow reviewer playeruan has cooked a surprisingly faithful 1.9 remake of the legendary 2.0 megacollab Fusion Z. I personally really appreciate how this feels like a real, plausible 1.9 level; none of the designs are outstanding, and many are reminiscent of popular creators around the time like MaJackO, Xaro, etc. The designs consist primarily of metal and other default blocks, with many flat black structures. It's a bit of a nostalgia trip, honestly, and brings me back to the days of levels like Toxin Lab II that really popularised the intense flashes and shifting of colours between shades of green and pink alternating with the base reddish orange theme. It's an easy way to add to the level's overall intensity, and in my opinion looks very nice especially considering the heavy limitations of the 1.9 editor.

Unfortunately, this is still a fairly unremarkable 1.9 level. The gameplay is fun, but ultimately pretty flat and doesn't do much to represent the song aside from click sync in some areas. I do think that even in 1.9, we saw certain creators like Millepatte making use of unique movements and repeating concepts to represent certain song elements, and that's something that really helps tie a level together with its song, so its absence here ends up leaving the gameplay feeling pretty bland. The cohesion from part to part is also spotty at best, and while it's nice that each individual part has its own style and flair from its respective creator, I would have liked to see more repeating elements like structuring, design choices and gameplay elements rather than just the overarching, vague reddish colour scheme.

It's cool seeing creators work within the limits of the 1.9 editor, however in Fusione's case I don't think it really helps the level. I would like to see better use of concepts such as creative song representation with gameplay that aren't as affected by editor limitations from modern 1.9 levels.

tridepthbear has answered the call for a classic gameplay auto, and man it's good to see someone nail this type of level again. I remember finding Jax's auto levels in particular very interesting back when I first picked up the game in 2015 for their use of movements to sync to the song rather than just clicks, making use of pads, slopes and hitbox quirks to guide the player around the screen, something that was pretty rare back then and why I think this style of level took off. I like the elements tridepthbear used to give this level a more "nostalgic" feeling; not only the aforementioned gameplay, but the high-saturation, high-contrast colours reminiscent of late 2.0-early 2.1 design levels, and the blocky, scattered structuring that spaces the designs out in a way that reminds me a bit of creators like ValentInsanity. It helps highlight the gameplay while also holding its own visually, so the level feels quite complete.

There's also a lot of small details within the gameplay itself that I think tridepthbear absolutely nailed. In particular, the portals near the end syncing with the synths scratched an itch in my brain and really works perfectly with that section of the song due to the drawn-out notes matching with the long sections of vertical movement. Many of the slopes also sync to sounds in the song that almost "slide" from one note to another, which is a really neat, unique mechanic that makes most of the slope-based sections quite memorable. The only thing I dislike about this level is that there's little to no background or effect work done; even some pulses and movement triggers would have went a long way towards livening up the level, considering the very energetic song used.

Spaghetti cyborg feels a bit flat and lifeless as is because it lacks that energy the song has, despite all the positives, so I can't recommend anything higher than a feature. However, I'm really glad "gameplay autos" are still being explored today and hope to see it done again.

meow hard is a 1.9 megacollab that's a mix between more typical 1.9 deco and some parts that really push the limits of what can be done in the 1.9 editor. Many elements in this level are either ingenious or really impressive to have been created with such limited tools. The use of speed portals near the end for the big particle wave is awesome and matches the little release in the post-drop of the song very nicely, and the circular structures around 0:18 are clean, with each one containing a different snippet of decoration from pulsing glow beams to intricate block designs and structures, and do really well at giving the part a unique identity. Generally, the structuring across the whole level is solid, and I really like seeing creators push the boundaries of each update in this manner as it creates a very unique experience that isn't really found in any other type of level. I also like the inclusion of the level title where each letter is its own structure, it's a nice way to integrate the name drop into the part itself.

My biggest complaint is that I wish this level stuck to one idea more often. Megacollabs often have the issue of conflicting visions between creators, but meow hard is a particular edge case, with some parts being quite incredible and limit breaking like the aforementioned ones, while others are very standard recreations of popular design styles from the 1.9-early 2.0 era (namely the parts at 0:33, 1:08 and 1:20). The level feels very inconsistent, which is accentuated by the lack of a consistent structuring style and colour scheme, despite how well some parts use both. I also don't like the addition of the 2.2-exclusive wave gimmick in the last part, as it feels highly out of place and would be roughly achievable with slopes and some D blocks instead.

meow hard is a decent showing overall, but has some issues typical of these types of megacollabs that hold it back. I would send this for feature.

The Plunge takes a much more art-focused direction than the norm for top demons, which is a very welcome change of pace. The light, monochrome colour palette is pretty pleasing to look at, and the details throughout each part are highlighted very well, with enough contrast to be visible but still maintaining softer shades of grey. The floating, bobbing objects in the drop go nicely with the song's reverb-soaked vocals and give the impression of a much larger environment, which is helped with the grand setpieces in the backgrounds like the mask. The use of the shattering effect into the second part of the drop is a really nice touch as the song becomes more glitchy, and I love how the level darkens and the song becomes muted when the player is "inside" the large building structure, it's a very nice touch that adds to the overall worldbuilding.

Sadly, the gameplay is extremely one-note. There is little to it beyond click sync; no care for the movements, little part to part coordination, and no care for how any specific gamemode is used. It's frustratingly monogamous with so many other projects' gameplay that I tend to see in these highly detailed, fast-paced levels, and leaves little room for creative structuring, usage of movements or other effects beyond overlays and backgrounds, as well as just being generally uninteresting to play and watch. Additionally, the level lacks much variation throughout, which I feel doesn't work in this specific case because the song changes quite a lot over the course of the level but there is little within the level that reflects those changes aside from the speed and effect usage.

I commend DolaLXM for doing something rarely seen in top levels, but The Plunge leaves a lot to be desired that I feel mostly rise from issues that are fairly easy to fix. Overall, though, this is a solid level and I'd personally send it for feature.

corrupto has quite a few things going its way, the most obvious facet being the namesake theme. The level slowly breaks apart and becomes more corrupted as it progresses, shown through broken bits of code and heavy glitching effects towards the end, as well as the long section with the cracked, inverted parts of the background. I like this approach visually, it's executed fairly well and becomes more prominent throughout the level at a pretty consistent rate (namely the repeat of the first section in the second last part, but with the aforementioned effects layered overtop). However, the song doesn't tie into this very well, and the effects used are fairly barebones and don't mesh well with the gameplay, as it remains pretty basic and the structuring hardly changes throughout the level. I wish more effort was put in to go all the way with the corruption and have it leech into every facet of the level, as this would provide a far more complete and immersive experience.

Aside from this, the actual designs and backgrounds present are pretty good. I really like the ship part at about 35% with the shifting rows of squares and the little rainbow tendrils in the background, it feels very alien and broken but every element works nicely together and there's no wasted space. The structuring is a major issue, and prevents most of the parts' designs from standing out and being memorable due to them being limited to mostly just boxes, but it's not a total deal breaker. The colours are generally rainbow-on-black, which I don't mind since it works with the corruption theme, but I wish there was some semblance of a proper, consistent colour scheme as it would help each individual part stand out massively. All things considered, though, this is a solid level and I'd personally give it a Feature rating.

StarStruck is a very endearing and quite well executed attempt at the tried-and-true space theming expected for the upcoming Space Gauntlet. I'd like to start with this level's drawbacks. There's a noticeable lack of execution in most of the designs, particularly towards the beginning, but the midsection has similar issues. The beginning has lots of very blurry, highly scaled rocks which look quite muddy and unnatural in contrast to the sharp, angular block designs, which are themselves pretty basic and don't mesh particularly well with the rest of the part due to their shape and the odd lack of parallaxing in the depth layers of this part. Making the shapes of the structures feel more natural here as well as incorporating some more movement into the foreground and background layers would have helped flesh the part out significantly.

The first half of the drop suffers a similar issue minus the parallaxing, where the angular, floating black structures with yellow/blue outlines stick out quite aggressively as nothing else in the part ties in with them thematically. Floating in place with no movement and nothing tangible attaching them to the screen borders makes them feel less like gameplay objects and more like air decoration, which is quite jarring considering the spikes that serve this purpose are simply a series of copy-pasted blue glowy outlines which are either hardly visible or have far too little variation to offer up much visually. With all of that said, I adore the effect work in this level, and much of the overall colour design is genuinely fantastic. Small touches like the yellow/blue fade effect on the outline blocks in the first part and the pulsing screen borders in the first half reminiscent of the aurora borealis feel almost ethereal, and fit in with the space theme really nicely while also looking the part. I especially love the second half of the drop, as the asteroids and bright, flashing rainbow effects make me feel like I'm zooming through an asteroid cloud at high speeds, which is a nice match to the climax of the song. Despite this creator's clear lack of experience, the things they have managed to do with StarStruck give me a lot of hope that they'll make something fantastic in the future, with enough practice. I would recommend this for Star Rate.

Merry Rizzmas is an all around decent showing for Koopazu and co's Christmas megacollab. It's nice to see a level like this that doesn't take itself too seriously, as there's a lot of freedom for each individual part to show a given creator's flair and style in how they end funny elements with ones more traditionally seen in Christmas-themed media. I do appreciate the fact that every part has a strong Christmas aesthetic first and foremost, with nearly all of them sharing things like snowfall, Christmas trees and lights, and other jolly decor as a main visual focal point. This results in an impressive amount of cohesion considering how different the styles are of many of the involved creators; for example, the way Koopazu's bright, rainbow art/design hybrid still manages to mesh well enough with Ducknorriss' following more traditional, simple dark blue/brown designs due to their strong theming.

The gameplay is also solid, well synced and telegraphed while being open enough for plenty of thematic elements to be incorporated unobtrusively, namely the snowflake structures at around 0:14 and the present blocks at 0:40. The level feels good to play and the visuals don't interfere too much while still being nice to look at. However, I feel like this level's main downfall is indeed that there's no depth to the theming beyond Christmas and sigma humour, the latter adding effectively nothing to either main element. Each creator's execution of the theme feels quite different, there isn't really an overarching colour palette, structuring style or specific visual quirk to tie each part together aside from vague Christmas accessories, leaving the level feeling shallow and very much more akin to a joke level. This holds Merry Rizzmas back from a recommendation higher than a feature from me, but overall this is still a decent level.

Remakes of classic levels are generally a contentious topic in the community, with many vastly different ideas and opinions on their validity and execution. Everything I have to say about this level comes from a place of love and respect for Ditched Machine and its community influence over the last 10 years; Ditched Machine X fails pretty badly at doing the original justice. Before I get into why, I wanted to touch on what I do like about this level. There are some spots where Jeyzor made very good use of the structuring in the original level, turning it into something completely new while also recognisable as the original, these two spots being the first and last part. The rotating pillars and the gears do a good job of incorporating 2.1/2.2 elements in a visually interesting manner while still retaining the structuring of the original layout. I especially enjoy the endscreen and I think ending within one of the part's gears is a very nice, thematic touch to end off a high-caliber remake of a classic, influential level.

Unfortunately, this is where my praise ends. I think the choice to keep the exact same gameplay and colour schemes from Ditched Machine is strange. The level is visually completely different from the original, with the only constant being the structuring in all of the parts is, to my knowledge, the exact same, but the actual decoration is far more akin to Jeyzor's modern, effect- and art-heavy late 2.1 levels. This disconnect is really jarring and places the level squarely in a grey area between the two approaches I think work best for remakes: staying faithful to the original and uplifting it in the context of its original limitations, and completely revamping it with all the new tools available to creators now while still keeping the theming and/or flair of the original. The choice to combine both for this remake is a bit baffling and causes the level to end up feeling undercooked and bland in many aspects.

Additionally, much of the decoration in the level does a pretty poor job of replicating or referencing the original despite the same colour schemes. The aforementioned pillars in the first part do look nice, but they do not make sense in the context of a ball memory part focused mostly on tricking the player with the path passing inside many of the structures; this worked in the original when each structure was homogeneous, but the new ones have a clear "surface" that feels meant for the player at the top that does not mesh with this type of memory. The following two parts did quite well with the block design and structuring, but the effects, backgrounds and saws/air deco fall flat. The nature background has no thematic tie-ins to the part and doesn't add much to the level visually, the rainbow scatter effects on some of the objects feel out of place due to the part mostly staying one colour, and the shader effects are not consistent throughout the part, making their sudden appearance all the more jarring. While I do very much like the particles in the ship part at 60, there is next to no block design and the particles that seem to represent Jeyzor's block designs in the original do not follow the structures, leaving the part unpleasantly empty.

I do like Jeyzor's approach to creating, but Ditched Machine X finds itself trying to be two things at once and, in my eyes, failing at both. I wish Jeyzor committed fully to either staying faithful to the original or completely reworking it with new editor tools, as the choice to try and do both leaves neither element of the level working with the other. I would likely recommend it for Feature because I do think it looks good in a vacuum, but I hope this provides some insight into the elements that I think make remakes work.

As cool as this level's visuals can get, I'm genuinely confused about the decision to make this a Slaughterhouse remake. This level is comprised of many talented design and effect creators, so many of the parts are visually very strong. KOCMOC's theming is strong and forefront, with a very consistent red/purple colour scheme and huge, menacing black holes and other galactic terrors in the backgrounds. This combined with the claustrophobic gameplay and the intense song makes it very intimidating to watch, which is nice due to the level's difficulty and makes it feel more like an imposing challenge to the player. I also think the second half has great effect work; it's not too obtrusive and doesn't obscure the gameplay or other visuals too much, but the spinning, flashing ring of rocks, meteors and the prominent glitching effect near the end make the level feel like it's breaking apart from within, which is a cool touch for its progression.

Unfortunately, all of this is stunted by the gameplay. Slaughterhouse (and remakes of it) have structuring that is incredibly hard to work with for anything of the style cherryteam aimed for here, due to the frequent use of huge triangles and long spike corridors during the waves. There is next to no variance throughout the level, and the structuring is basic to the point that I think it limits every single part's creative output and causes most of the designs to feel cramped and overly detailed to compensate. Many levels of this style use a far more freeform approach to structuring to allow for the creation of far more intricate objects (namely the beginning and midsection of Waterfall), but here it's so limited that each individual part's structures end up looking homogeneous and there's little room for any integration of the gameplay with the theme. It ultimately leads to a big disconnect between the two main elements of the level, and I really think this level would have been great if the creators had the freedom to work with a layout that was not so limiting in this aspect.

Aside from this, there's a general lack of cohesion and consistency in the parts' thematic execution and quality. Some parts make heavy use of art-forward elements (namely 0:34) while others do not, there's completely different effect work from part to part, and both the beginning and the end feel like they are part of a different level entirely. These two main factors really hold back KOCMOC from feeling complete in all elements, so despite the parts generally being solid visually I can't recommend it for anything above a Feature. I hope cherryteam chooses to pursue more projects like Waterfall in the future where the gameplay can be catered to the level's theme, rather than the other way around.

I'm really fond of the old arcade spaceship shoot-em-up games like Space Invaders, and Phalcron largely delivers on a similar concept. The gameplay is faithful, with the player being able to move around a 2-D space in a bullet hell environment fending off waves of enemies. It makes for an engaging and generally fun gameplay loop that requires the player to work pretty hard to survive, but the issue is it just goes on for 30 minutes straight with next to no notable changes aside from a few mini-bosses. It ultimately becomes really monotonous, which is unfortunate because the base gameplay does work well and I'd really have no issues with it if it were shorter or included some elements of variation like upgrade systems, diverse enemy types or unique environmental hazards to break up the main gameplay loop.

The decoration is pretty solid overall, with all of the background environments being clean and simple enough to keep a good level of contrast with the gameplay. I particularly like the snowy and lava areas, as they stand out from everything else and have solid effect work with elements like the snow falling and floating embers. It is very reminiscent of a more modern version of an old arcade game in a lot of aspects, but not something I'd typically expect from a spaceship shooter as you'd normally expect it to take place in space, so the two being combined into one level feels a bit odd to me. Most of the actual spaceship designs also look oddly muddy due to the glow usage rather than shiny or metallic, which could be remedied with less "smudged" looking glow.

It's nice seeing someone as talented in the editor as GDvesuvius take a crack at reimagining an old arcade-styled game, and Phalcron is overall good and has a very good base concept that it iterates on. However, the length, lack of variation and odd choice of backgrounds mean I would recommend it for Feature.