Rating Curve

Aquafina is very clearly a remake of Fiji, though I don't think it shines under that lens very well. Kips does make efforts to bring more color and detail into the level, which I'd normally appreciate, but I think the darker colors and economic presentation of Fiji are too important to excuse Aquafina for neglecting them. Still, I think Aquafina is a fun time for the most part, with some very pretty backgrounds and Kips's consistently upbeat design style. It definitely hasn't held up the best, with a few bugs and performative Japanese word art assets, but I'm personally all for a level being an obvious product of its time if it's cute about it. I do think the glitch effects in the second half are very out of place, even if they attempt to reflect the vocal chopping in the song, but other than that Aquafina is a perfectly fine level even today, if you don't spend too much thought comparing it to Fiji that is.

I wish I had more profound things to say about Echo Delta but if this review doesn't suffice watch Interstellar. It's comfortably in my top 3 favorite movies ever and although I can't really explain why I think it gives a little bit more clarity to what this level has to offer over other space-depicting ones, especially the projects released for the space gauntlet contest. I've talked up less literal approaches to contest themes very frequently with the space gauntlet, a mindset that didn't really get me anywhere with Echo Delta since it is actually quite literal in that way. Space is the setting first and foremost, which is a fair enough starting point given the theme. However, Echo Delta takes the extra step to establish that setting in ways that I feel most creators are scared to, lest a boring beginning sacrifice an engaging playing experience. While I acknowledge that as a pitfall that Echo Delta falls into, the scale and texture of the slow opening carries so much weight on everything that comes after that it still feels worth it.

The whole level has a powerful sense of scale at any given point, either with zoomed out landscapes or the ever-present dead space that haunts the entire experience. When everything does come together and the intensity spikes, everything is dramatically supported by the tension built early on. Of course it helps that Serponge did make the song to be used in Echo Delta, but the transition from a serene opening to what later unfolds is so smooth that it's hard to pinpoint the moment where the intensity starts to feel inevitable, similarly to how Interstellar spends enough time building tension that it doesn't really matter that the movie doesn't yet take place in outer space. Every part past the first leg of Echo Delta has something to offer too, especially the explosive and masterfully well done effect work towards the end. The cube part before is also a highlight, where the tone is at its darkest and the gameplay itself feels just unstable enough to avoid being unreadable. I also sincerely adore the outro where the icon slowly shrinks into deep space, especially since it closes out the flow of intensity much more effectively than if the level just ended. I wouldn't say Echo Delta has a cohesive story or anything like that, but leaving the player with that image is as cruel as it is powerful.

Adding to the pile of things Jayuff is infuriatingly talented at, F Nostalgists straddles such a confounding tightrope between a really dumb spoof and arguably their most polished level to date. Jayuff levels never really reached a height where I would consider them 10-worthy without question, but they're all very good at making a point and in this case it's pretty much that everyone's been doing it all wrong. It's honestly pretty petty in its messaging and certainly overly heavy-handed, but with nearly 7 years it's funny that Jayuff was spot on this whole time. F Nostalgists isn't really the kind of level you could get away with now, and not only because the GD community has become a lot more self-policing, but I think its rhetoric regarding simplism remains prescient. Especially with how popular the 1.9 and 2.0 GDPS have gotten since Jayuff's prime, it's always worth reiterating that simpler levels and styles don't have to model or even look back on periods of the game's history when the stuff that was popular was itself simple, particularly pre-2.0 like how Jayuff seems to imply. In other words, it's unreasonable to attempt to be intentionally forward-thinking when creating, but looking back on the past emulating it as a goal needlessly misses an opportunity to stand out.

Just to finish with more thoughts about the level itself, F Nostalgists is pretty creative in its own right, even apart from the jabs it makes at Dear Nostalgists. The 5-second glitch transition that eventually leads into the wave part is immaculately well done and engaging, in the same way that walking down the stairs in the dark is for the lack of a better description. The wave itself is also fun, with a very smooth propagating effect on the slopes that probably became the template for that effect to be endlessly redone. There's not much else I feel like talking about but I do think F Nostalgists stands as one of Jayuff's best, even if you don't really care about what it has to say.

FUTURE FUNK MY GOATTTTTTTT

The 10 is almost entirely due to nostalgia but I also think there's a good reason that feeling came to be in the first place. I remember watching a certain video about the last coin of this level in around 2019, probably back before I even knew what Deadlocked was. I got curious and watched a full video of the level soon after, and although I wasn't too invested in it at the time playing the level again in 2023 when I actually built up the skill to confidently get through a practice run just hit different. Something about the simple act of having distinct parts in a level makes Future Funk incredibly memorable, even through the ~2 year period where I didn't seek out content related to the game at all. The immediately recognizable visual style, beautifully groovy song, and especially the iconic end parts combine for an incredible burst of nostalgia that I've never felt with any other level I remembered from middle school. Even now, playing the space part before the ending makes me cry a little inside, no less evocative than many other parts of the level. I'm not even sure how I'd feel about this level if not for the middle school brainworms but it definitely makes me wish that more people saw nostalgia as a truly valid way to connect with art. It may be hard to get people to relate to at first, but with enough reflection and elaboration I see it as an incredibly powerful source of admiration, even for a GD level.

I've always really liked Strange Boxes and if for any sole reason it's just down to vibes. There's a certain array of styles that work well with WaxTerk songs and Strange Boxes definitely fits within them. It's just weird and rough enough to match the song while still being pretty and colorful enough to appreciate otherwise, and it only gets better in both aspects as it progresses. It's also definitely worth mentioning all the interesting things this level does with its gameplay, particularly matching orb types to parts, but more than anything I think it just plays remarkably well anyway. It's definitely very low on the easy demon difficulty spectrum, but Strange Boxes really asks new players to think a little bit about the way forward, which I think is really cool. Although I think the level could have been better without them, the indicators throughout each part definitely help with sightreadability, as well as making some otherwise-finicky dash orb releases in the last ship much simpler. Highly recommend to anyone as a first or second demon, it's really one of the best out there!

There's always been a lot of discussion regarding New Wicked Hue as a pioneer of chill modern levels so I'll pretty much leave that as it is, but something that I find underrated is the song choice. Apart from it just being a really fun song that surprisingly works really well for GD, it's lead me down a line of thinking that compels me to argue that a lot of this level's appeal comes from its sense of maturity. Apart from just being visually ahead of its time, New Wicked Hue has a strangely perfect vision of what the more laid-back and stylized levels look like now. Jayuff always manages to seem effortless in their pioneering, and with how relatively bare New Wicked Hue is I'm sure they'd be interesting in what creators like Quazery and Split72 are up to now. Despite being really colorful and upbeat, New Wicked Hue is admirably restrained and it fits the song incredibly. Most of the reason this doesn't get a higher score from me is how blindingly bright all the glow gets later on, but I'd still say that New Wicked Hue more than deserves its reputation.

This isn't a huge part of my opinion toward this level but I do not like The Living Tombstone at all and it has never improved something that isn't fnaf

Apart from that I like the whole aesthetic this level has going on with the neon line structuring. Honestly whenever I see levels like this it's either usually in service to a more complex theme or only has those kinds of designs for a short part, so seeing it more fleshed out is very nice. Unfortunately, Rick Morty doesn't show much in the way of progression or even a shift in approach throughout its runtime, really only doing the bare minimum like speeding up for the chorus. Still, I like the way Belzonik worked in some fluid animations to go with the aforementioned design style, and it's a good example of what I mean by animations in GD being "good" in the first place. They're not over the top, and they're not threatening to push the level out of its own medium, like a lot of effect levels increasingly have been promoting. It's very laid back and I think that's more than enough for this level.

There is something very tonally haphazard about Decompiled that I'm weirdly drawn to, like a once-groundbreaking Atari game made before people really developed conventions and skill of actual game design. If you've ever played "Pitfall!" surely you know what I'm talking about. That's not to say Decompiled is remotely bad by any convention, but it has that musk of a creator seeing what each button on the dashboard was like even many experienced creators many were doing in early 2.2. All of this is to say that Leal captured this essence despite being a very established creator and the level only coming out last October. Glory to experimental levels!

The general vibe of this level along with the combination of clean and pixelated art is a very weird but welcome one, and the gameplay is similarly strange, swapping between some weird pseudo-minigame sections and relatively normal ones on a whim. I would be lying if I said it was particular fun, but in its one way I guess it works very well? I still have no idea what to think about this level but it was good I think

Surprisingly I had never actually seen or played this level until today! I certainly understand the massive collective draw to Luella just like with any of Deffie's other levels. Luella in particular has some great color work with a ton of bright green highlights, as well as a very fun, groovy, and laid-back atmosphere that meshes with the song better than any other creator could do it. I'm not even sure what it is that pushes me away from this level, since any particular aspect of it is done very well. If anything I'd say it's probably the in-game lyrics, but even those aren't obtrusive or anything less than "kind of cute." I suppose I just enjoy levels without lyrics the best, like with Zoroa's Inspirative series or even Well Rested to stay with the same creator. I suppose Kero Kero Bonito's work on the song speaks well enough for itself that any sort of lyrical representation in that level didn't need to be as literal. Luella also stays pretty tonally constant over its runtime, much more than a lot of my favorite XLs, so that could be a part of my lack of draw to it, but I still wouldn't say it's done poorly. Luella is just a very solid 7 all around, I suppose.

Presta deserves way better than to only be remembered by Congregation because they're way too good at block design and literally everything they make is awesome. Vogue in particular starts out a little bit too far in the standard neodesign direction but it picks up in variety and quality a lot around the 30% mark. Also, along with Deffie, Presta is provably a titan of everything people are calling neodesign nowadays anyway so if anything Vogue deserves to be a little indulgent in it. Not Presta's most mindblowing level or anything, but the designs are all super clean and even when Vogue drops the ball a bit it's certainly not drastically. Come back Presta please