Rating Curve

I have spent 6 and a half years deliberately avoiding this level, and I have just watched it for the first time prior to writing this review. A little disappointed it wasn't even worse, but it still definitely earns its "so bad it's good" reputation.

I generally hate the sentiment of "nerf it so it'll be good", "this would be great if it were a [insert difficulty here]", etc. because

1. get good

2. you are preventing yourself from getting good, and

3. this has repeatedly made top play less interesting

But with Formosa, it's different. The invisible gameplay makes movements seem awkward, comes at the cost of sync, and just feels cheap and uncreative, the last point also applying to the frame gate. Also, the fact that player rotation breaks at 20kfps makes some parts feel a lot more boring than they should be. These don't totally ruin the level but they're such glaring issues on something that otherwise could've been great so it's really a shame

A literal bad dragon

If you needed one level to represent GD in 2018-2019 this would probably be the best answer, both for better and for worse.

Super hyped up (for good reason! A top 5 GS megacollab with a unique theme and song is pretty cool!), only to kinda fade away into irrelevance after it was done (maybe being #11 when it came out had something to do with that).

Many old creators are still around but some of them are past their prime, though many others definitely still have it down (special shoutout to Viprin's part btw, underrated gem, love the rotation/circle theme he did with both the designs and bg).

There's some shockingly bad cohesion, literally every single part transition after TheDevon is an unjustified style switch, and even the dragon is inconsistent, with the whole level indicating the rest of the body to be serpentine except for when you actually get to see it in Osiris' part.

Gameplay is very much in a transitional state between 2017 and 2020, again both for better and for worse, but it does a pretty good job of conveying the song's energy so I won't complain too much (except for Osiris' part and the bossfight having noticeably bad sync).

As for the dragon, I think the design itself is actually pretty good (ingoring Osiris' part) and I especially like the texture on its scales, but man the way this thing moves around is awkward. There's a reason why the best bossfights and "level mascots" in general are either detailed but static/rigid or cartoony where they can get away with moving around weirdly. It's kinda hard to animate in this game, especially pre-2.2, y'know?

Cherryteam's best level. Good enough job at conveying difficulty, that short wave and the timing ship are iconic, nothing offensively bad, nothing super crazy

As you go through this level it gradually goes from great to pretty bad. Predrop and start of drop? Really good. Starting from the robot with the black structures it slowly becomes worse and worse until eventually TamaN forgets how to decorate and the gameplay follows thereafter

Ow ow ow ow ow this hurts to look at

Parts that don't hurt to look at are pretty good though

Above average but the camera controls break with my screen's resolution

I've kinda gone back and forth on this level over the years. It has a good atmosphere throughout and the drop really just gets better over time, but it feels a bit too repetitive and copypaste otherwise (in a bad way)

Not that bad all things considered. A lot of the people who really like this level do so because of the beach-themed background and deco but frankly I think the gameplay in the underwater section is the real highlight of the level, that being said most of this level is pretty average