Rating Curve

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand kataTARTARUS. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of ZBot most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also the clubstep monster's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike kataTARTARUS truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in the clubstep monster's existential catchphrase "this is my easy," which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as ULTRAHAROS' genius wit unfolds itself on their monitors. What fools.. how I pity them.

And yes, by the way, i DO have a kataTARTARUS tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid

This was Geometry Dash's canon event

In retrospect, I think a lot of the GD community at large kinda recognizes that even though Zobros' levels were super influential, they weren't really that good?? Even if visually novel at first, a lot of them kinda just do the same thing for the whole level or maybe two things if you're lucky, and even more of them just aren't fun to attempt to play in any capacity.

The former statement somewhat rings true for Zobros' inaugural level. (Atlas v2 doesn't count, SHUT UP.) Nine Circles mostly lacks air deco and there are really only two and a half distinct parts. But on the flipside, I could make the argument that that's what gave Nine Circles so much staying power - there are very few bells and/or whistles to distract from the sweet, succulent meat of the level - the simple, yet effective, tastefully colored block designs, and of course, the headliner of the level, the unarguably iconic flashing diamond effect.

Nine Circles is also somewhat of a black sheep in Zobros' catalog. This is for one simple reason - it doesn't suck total monkey nuts to play. In fact, it's very good. The entire level is enjoyable and consistent with no egregious chokepoints. The long, extended wave part was somewhat of an oddity for its time - quicker gamemode switches were becoming more and more present in contemporary gameplay as custom songs became available to use and more gamemodes were added - no one was making wave parts that long before Zobros. Of course, this would change rather quickly as the level spawned slews of imitators, some approaching the same level of recognizability - in spite of that, nothing can really beat the original. At least in my opinion.

One of the most underappreciated levels in the game. So unfathomably smooth, creative and dynamic with brilliant colorwork to boot.