Rating Curve

Probably the single most divinely insightful song choice of the last few years

I guess to get it out of the way this level is weird? Understatement of the year but it doesn't go without saying that Lilith is incredibly out of pocket. I honestly don't think I would be as attracted toward this level had it not been for the context it was introduced to me in. Long story short, I wrote a big thread about soullessness and empathy towards creators when playing/watching levels, and the creator ended up sharing with me a level she was really proud of, and I could absolutely see the vision and enjoyment behind it! I think we should all -myself included - make a larger effort to think about that when talking about levels, I'm always surprised at how much more fun it makes playing every level.

This optimism was unfortunately faltered since playing it, since I was constantly warned by the creator that it would be super laggy or the gameplay would be incomprehensible and terrible (she even made and uploaded an auto version at some point??) when it was honestly pretty fun. I can't really get a lot out of a level if I go in expecting to hate it. I really liked the rainbow mess of the visuals and the text structuring when watching it for the first time, and the gameplay is simple enough that it pretty much just takes one practice run to understand. Be more proud of your levels guys I promise they're probably pretty cool I think!!!

Welcome to another instance of me talking about a very specific and singular event in the level for most of the review

I should be fair, Through Air does a ton of things that make it super memorable and nice to play through. I really liked how each vertical line was slightly slanted, even in later parts. The parallax is also obviously excellent and the fact that not much is going on in the visuals or gameplay complements the song better than I think most people would give it credit for. Overall the level was a really chill time and was a nice break from playing extremes I can't beat and bad space gauntlet entries.

What really sold this level for me was, of all things, the 3x speed ship portal at around 30%. For some reason the simple act of picking up speed like this while the song largely maintains its energy level just works really well. Pretty much every level knows that speed results in greater energy, and most of those will naturally use slow parts to build some sort of tension. Well Rested comes to mind as a level that does that a lot; the first somewhat fast part is like over a minute in and the drop is preceded by something like another minute of slow gameplay. Through Air does not build any tension in its opening moments, instead being a really pretty landscape reveal that syncs really nicely with some soft guitar strums. The sudden jolt of speed in the ship is arguably out of place, but to me it just felt even more relaxing. Otherwise the level is really pretty and I wish the middle parts could have gone on longer.

This is the 7th review of this level on the site and yet the first of full length... curious...

Anyway EBL! I obviously really really like this level but I think its place in Electric's level "catalog" is a good place to start. Starting from their oldest rate Modus and some prior levels like Wasted, ElectricNJ levels have had an impressively constant rise in quality even through 2024, ignoring Generation23 since that level is phenomenal even today. This not only means that EBL stands on a long line of really great levels, but I'm always looking forward to what Electric will put out next. Their run in 2.2 has been especially fun to watch, also accompanied by some well-earned epic ratings. As such, I don't think their levels have peaked, but EBL would certainly be a worthwhile one.

Everything from the title to the bizarre gameplay to the score counter contribute to an incredibly communicated sense of uneasiness and chaos. I'm not sure if I can find a word that describes it better than "foreign" - I've scarcely seen this vibe from any piece of media out there. I would most liken it to those videos of the insane pool apps with the funny trickshots, is this a common vibe among Chinese games? Anyhow, while the atmosphere is important to why I like ELB so much, what really sold the 9 was the gameplay. I'm very much carried by high cps and timings, and I find the learning process for confusing levels to usually be the most fun part, so it feels like I've been due to find a level like this. Everything is so obnoxiously intimidating but once you really dissect the level it feels awesome. The last wave is especially absurd looking but it's actually very smooth to play and I sightread like half of it. Count on me beating this soon!!

My first review on this site! Glad to start off with a banger too. The principal ethos of SMITHEREENS is its object count, sitting at a whopping 996. I was grateful to be around for the resurgence of low object levels, since we got a lot of amazing stuff breaking the 1000, 100, and even 50 object barriers while still offering their own unique ideas. My favorite of this wave is still probably Colliderscope by Flash, having around SIXTY objects (???) and centering around the unfamiliarity of exclusively clicking a giant orb and having obstacles appear in polymeter. It's a genuinely really chill and fun level and I still love it to death.

What these kinds of low object levels have never accomplished, though, especially beyond demon difficulty, is to really transcend the challenge of just optimizing the shit out of a level's gameplay and effects. If you remember Untitled Unmastered or Ballyhoo, actually some of the more polished high difficulty levels of their genre, there's a clear issue with how repetition is exactly handled. Untitled particularly just embraces it, with the entire first half being so blatantly repetitive it killed the level for a lot of people. SMITHEREENS does such an amazing job of masking its object reuse I wouldn't have even known it was a low object level if the submitter hadn't mentioned it. It's so refreshing to play an interpretation of the 1k object challenge as framework rather than limitation.

I bring up the inherent aesthetic value of artistic limitations a lot, which is to say I don't think it exists. The context provided by a level's iteration on a low object challenge isn't necessarily what makes such levels attractive to some people, after all. Nor does a level's complete rejection of the premise, in an attempt to "outsmart" the limitation, necessarily make a level more attractive to any given person. Rather, it's the things that arise out of being low-object that make SMITHEREENS so cool to me. The decoration is economic and highly resourceful, two things I've come to really enjoy, and the gameplay is equally raw and straightforward. I never really enjoy timing levels on the first practice run, but if I took the time to learn SMITHEREENS I expect that I'd find it pretty fun.

Otherwise it's just kind of a cool modern level. I like the colors and the song a lot but my main point is that pretty much everything else is affected by the object count somehow and it's not really possible to analyze this level without the number in your head, once you know anyway. Never ask me to apply this argument to 1.9 levels it's complicated