Rating Curve

I honestly feel like Enjoy could have been a great and very unique top extreme, but unfortunately it ends up being quite a letdown. Enjoy is a level by Septagon7 that apparently would have placed in the top 20 hardest demons upon verification, but it was never rated, and I can see why this is the case. I do want to first mention, though, that I appreciate this level's attempts to differentiate itself from other top extremes, mainly in the decoration. This level's style almost feels like nostalgic, 2018-2019 modern levels, but with a bit more detail and polish. I don't mind this aspect of it at all, and it's definitely eye catching compared to the rest of the top demons from around the time. I quite like the different shades of grey highlighted with splashes of green and blue, it helps the details and structuring stand out pretty well and makes it easy to "read" the level.

Sadly this is about where my praise ends. The gameplay does not match with the song at all, being primarily made up of extremely difficult, timing-based wave and ship sections somewhat reminiscent of Slaughterhouse, however this style does not work here as Enjoy's visuals and song are significantly less intimidating and do not really warrant this sort of claustrophobic gameplay. The gameplay itself is uninteresting, the only remarkable things about it being the sync, which is alright, and the difficulty. The decoration is completely static and sports next to no variation throughout the level's length, making Enjoy quite a chore to watch more than once, and there's little to no effect or background work to compliment this. I think a lot of my issues with Enjoy are pretty integral to the level's general aesthetic, but at bare minimum it needs some movement, progression and variation of structuring in order to make it a more enjoyable experience.

On a conceptual level, Enjoy lacks in many ways, but it is an alright attempt at creating a more unique top extreme, especially for the time in which it was released. I would love to see gameplay with different methods of sync (icon movement or elevation rather than just clicks), some experimentation in terms of structuring, effects, backgrounds and designs, and more progression to make the level feel more climactic and complete. Out of the current top demons, Slaughterhouse and Arcturus come to mind as the best examples of this, making use of their hellish and dark songs to craft extremely intimidating levels with pretty unique structuring and designs despite the tried-and-true "red hell" style. I would not send Enjoy, but I appreciate what it's trying to do.

Pluto is an absolute masterclass in how viscerally uncomfortable it feels to play it. The whole level is made of these pulsing, writhing shades of blue, purple and orange, meshed with a base blackness that prevents the player from getting a good look at most of the level during a normal playthrough. I don't mean this in a bad way, but rather it creates an atmosphere that's dark and feels foreboding since the player has to work to understand much of their environment. Djudjeito couples these aspects with a very trippy forced depth effect in the level's second part, using gradient triggers to make it appear the structures extend backwards forever into infinity, driving home the aforementioned surrealist undertones alongside the mask staring at the player from the background. I love how the jagged, freeform structures are briefly highlighted by the solid black background - it forces the player to pay attention to them and highlights how unnatural they ultimately end up feeling. This combined with everything else I've mentioned evokes this deep internal sense that we the player should not be here, playing the level. It's something I can only recall being pulled off by a select few other levels, such as False Noise by Lumpy.

However, my absolute favourite aspect of this level is its song representation. The dissonant, high-pitched and whining lead synths really accentuate the discomfort that the predrop creates, and I love how the level opens up into a huge, flat expanse with a city and sunset in the distance right as the song becomes quieter, with heavy reverb that sounds and feels cavernous. The quick flashes of blue and the jerky, unnatural way in which the arrows and hands move in the drop's second half are really neat touches that feel mechanical, further driving home Pluto's surrealism in its environments and helping highlight the part's gameplay. This leads into my only major criticism of the level, being that the gameplay is pretty underwhelming and little attempt was made to integrate it in with the level's theming. It feels very normal and doesn't add to the level in any meaningful way; several parts even have blocks that only appear near the player to show the gameplay, and whether intentional or not this feels quite out of place. I feel that either Djudjeito should have fully invested into this concept as he's done for so many other aspects of Pluto, as they're the only parts like this, or found a way to integrate elements of the environment into the structures, such as the huge, jagged rocks in the first drop part.

Regardless, it's incredibly rare to find a level that I feel is this close to being perfect. Pluto takes a base feeling of visceral discomfort, and masterfully applies it to nearly everything within it in ways I've never seen before, showing Djudjeito's skill in world building and visual storytelling. I encourage people to learn from how every element in this level synergises to form the final product, and I would love to see this receive a Mythic rating and stand for the forseeable future as one of the best in its class.

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.

The Depths Above is a level heavily based on the game Outer Wilds that is faithful in its approach while still adding a fairly unique spin on the "game remake" genre of levels. The choice to not make this a platformer level is interesting considering how heavily Outer Wilds prioritises a free-roam, exploration-driven approach to its gameplay and storytelling, but Bram4Real pulled this off well and it helps differentiate the level from the game. The Depths Above reuses many of the planets, environments and story elements from Outer Wilds, but pieces them together in a more linear fashion in line with the intended player progression of the game - I won't elaborate on this too much in order to not spoil Outer Wilds' story, but I would highly recommend playing the game if this interests you.

Each individual part and cutscene is recognisable as its comparative element from the game, but the way everything fits together feels like the player is watching an advertisement for the game rather than playing the game itself, which I think is a much better approach than directly remaking the game. It allows Bram4Real to exercise far more creative freedom over how the gameplay works with each individual part's theming, backgrounds, block designs and some of the transition effects like the Mask. There are also lots of little details included that reference the game itself, such as the gravity on Giant's Deep being much higher than normal and the memory rewind after running into the anglerfish in Dark Bramble, which I quite like. (edited)

I do wish that more effort was made to incorporate some of Outer Wilds' gameplay elements into the level. The aforementioned gravity trick is interesting, but I think there's plenty to be done with elements like space's natural lack of gravity, the black hole in the centre of Brittle Hollow, and many other things that feel oddly left out. Ultimately, The Depths Above feels a bit half-hearted in its Outer Wilds-esque approach because of this, considering that ultimately this is a level that is meant to be played, and I would have loved to see more creative incorporations of major elements from the game in order to better connect the two. With that said, though, this is still an excellent showing from Bram4Real and I am very happy to see some representation of Outer Wilds in GD, being one of my favourite games of all time. I would personally recommend this level for Epic and look forward to seeing more from this creator.

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.

Air Fryer has some of my favourite gameplay and structuring of any extreme demon, hands down, so huge props to razsta4ax for their awesome work on the gameplay. Many of this level's designs are metallic in line with the level's theming around an air fryer (although it feels more like a crucible or furnace), and are reminiscent of many 2.0 creators with the heavy use of highlight and 1.6 metal blocks in many parts, making for clean and relatively simple block deco throughout. However, Aimbotter makes creative use of tons of different structuring methods in order to spice up each part visually. Heavy use of slopes in the first half gives the level a pretty distinct style, and Aimbotter frequently reuses interior block deco to connect different structures as a bridge between the background and foreground, such as the metal cages at 0:30 and the tesselated triangles at 0:58. This makes the level feel fuller and gives a solid connection point between two or more structures that helps guide the eye on where the player should go, while also allowing for some crazy, jagged shapes in some parts to add a fresh spin onto the structuring. I also love the bouncing movements present in many of the parts, as these feel much more rough and mechanical than more typical ease or exponential movements and help sell the theme.

While I do like this level's strong theming, the transitions and effects are pretty inconsistent in quality and don't tend to add much aside from flashiness. Certain elements like the glow pillar following the player at 0:30 and the disintegrating effect around 0:52 are nice additions that add a bit of flair to their respective parts, but they work largely because they're fairly subtle and thematically consistent. The transitions are mostly black and white, and contain either spirals or just white flashes that either don't fit or add nothing to the parts around them, and in particular the transition from the first to the second drop part completely breaks the flow between the two parts because it feels so out of place. The level can also be overwhelmingly flashy and bright sometimes, to the point of being pretty unpleasant to play repeatedly (namely 0:39) and overutilises blue at the end with no real progression dictating its introduction in such a large amount. This level reminds me pretty strongly of Swirling Fire by Jenkins for its theming, design style and colour usage, but I prefer the way Swirling Fire integrates blue elements as the level slowly becomes more blue over time as it "heats up", ending in a superheated explosion of sorts, lacking distinct transitions like Air Fryer has. Some elements from this would definitely have helped Air Fryer feel more complete progression wise, and given it more overall cohesion.

Aimbotter is one creator who I feel is iteratively growing and improving on his style, so Air Fryer being as good as it is despite the pretty glaring issues I have with it speaks volumes for his talent. I would have given this level epic, but it's no doubt a fun, energetic level with great theming, and I hope to see Aimbotter address some of the issues I had in his future works.

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.

Script is a really interesting level that makes use of a lot of effects that didn't see much widespread use until much later in 1.9. There's some flowing, horizontal pulses (mainly in the UFO about halfway through) reminiscent of creators like Funnygame and Ggb0y that would make use of them later on, and plenty of colour pulsing to make the code scattered around the level appear more glitchy. There's quite a lot of polish for the time, especially considering how new this method of using pulses was. The theming throughout the level is strong and consistent, and there's a solid amount of song representation done using a variety of glitchy pulses which works really nicely with the theme.

One thing that does show this level's age is the part to part flow. Aside from the overarching theme, there's plenty of very sudden changes with no suggestion from the song or gameplay (namely the flappy bird section). This is something that nowadays I find quite endearing and nostalgic, but it's definitely improvable and a sore spot with the level's overall cohesion. Speaking of the gameplay, it's quite basic and freeform, lacking much structure or player guidance. This is a double edged sword, as it allows more room for the set piece effects and backgrounds to shine, but doesn't really serve much purpose in the sense that it doesn't allow for any creative freedom in much of the structuring.

Script is a blast from the past from a creator I'm unfamiliar with, and it's great to see people innovating during a time of heavy editor limitations compared to what we have today. I'd personally love to see this featured, and will be checking out some of Gamer's other works.

Demiwolf is a very odd level in Alpheia's catalogue, and a fairly unique level overall for making use of a strange mix between 1.0 and 2.2 blocks for its designs. Despite the structuring being quite standard, this does make for an interesting and memorable aesthetic, with the newer 2.2 blocks creating some pretty unique shapes within the structures as well as strong contrast between the 1.0 and 2.2 sections.

Aside from this, though, the level is quite unremarkable. There's a sideways spider section, which is an okay use of 2.2 features for the time, but it's pretty standard and doesn't add much to the level. The gameplay is basic and lacks any real depth, but is serviceable enough for an easy level and is sightreadable. The colours, effects and backgrounds are generally simple to a fault, but not particularly bad in any section and generally just lackluster.

Demiwolf serves as a pretty barebones exploration into newer 2.2 features on the part of Alpheia, and is ultimately fairly unremarkable aside from the block designs. I would want to see more care put into other elements of the level like the effects and structuring, and better usage of gameplay movements and sync to make for a more engaging level. I would recommend this for star rate.