Rating Curve

This level isn't too much nor is it trying to be, but I still really like it for what it is. journey leans very heavily on glow for its minimalist designs and the entire level is shrouded in darkness, making the level feel very atmospheric. It is some great song representation, but more in the form of an audio visualizer as opposed to the more common approach for levels to try to be like a music video. This is helped by the journey's heavy usage of color banding for gradients, which also makes the level feel somewhat compressed like an old, low-quality music upload from 2000s-early 2010s YouTube.

journey is also a level set entirely in a slow speed mini cube for its entire 7 minute runtime. When paired with the dark, minimalist design choices, it really helps the atmosphere of a level and makes it feel like you are wandering through a cold, vast, empty space. It feels a bit like False Horizon, albeit much more benign. Sometimes, the darkness can make it difficult to tell whether or not you need to jump at certain parts, but overall it is not too much of a problem. journey is a level that is definitely not for everyone with its somewhat repetitive gameplay, rather basic designs, and unusual song choice, but I was still able to really enjoy the level and take in its strong atmosphere. I would recommend giving this level a shot even though it isn't rated, my personal difficulty would be high-end Easy Demon or low-end Medium Demon.

This is a very beautiful level, but it's not quite to the point where I can consider it "amazing" or a masterpiece.

The level starts with a farm location and some mountains. I don't really have a whole lot to say about this part, it's not the best part of the level nor the worst, but it is fitting with its slow pacing and its desaturated colors to tonally match the level's song. Considering the song (and the level) are about dying, I think this part works as a sort of retrospection on life itself.

The part of the level that really stands out to me (and what mostly carries my rating) is the second part of the level with the stars and constellations. This part of the level took the wind out of me. I'm not very well-versed with Radiohead, but I have heard Motion Picture Soundtrack before playing this level. I still was unprepared for how beautifully gecko & Starky represented it. During the moment of silence while the mountains disappear off-screen and the star background fades in, you have an idea what's coming, but it still couldn't prepare me for the constellation backgrounds and lines going crazy with the harp. It's a truly spectacular section of the level and I still get chills from it.

After this part of the level, MPS makes a creative choice that, while I highly respect and see the intent, it's ultimately a decision that I feel brings down the level much more than if the level just ended after the constellation part. On the album Kid A, Motion Picture Soundtrack is listed as the final track but there is a secret, untitled song after that that starts to play after a full minute of silence, and the secret track itself is just a short ambient piece. I think something like this is great in the context of being on the Kid A album, but I feel it doesn't have a place at the end of a standalone GD level, especially when it's being thrusted upon a bunch of GD players who might be unfamiliar with Radiohead or Kid A and will be left confused at this huge gap of emptiness and the ending. I didn't feel the representation of the secret song was up to the caliber that the constellation part was, so this choice to stretch out the level to cover this extra part of the song did not feel worth it.

I should also mention the gameplay here. This is an XXL level that is only rated 3*, which may seem kinda odd at first, but it makes sense when you consider it more of something to be watched instead of played. All of the points were put on song representation and design to the point where the gameplay is very lacking. For the first half, it is a lot of slow-speed ship gameplay with a lot of open space for the player to fly around however they wish. In the second half, there is literally no gameplay. It is completely automatic for slightly more than half of a 5-minute long level, which is especially not helped by a sizeable chunk of this automatic part being just a black screen and silence. A common complaint about this level is that it is very boring to play as well as "top 5 levels to fall asleep to," and I can see where those people are coming from with that.

I'll see you in the next life.

This was my first skywalker14 level, and I stumbled upon this in a rated list over a year ago not really sure what to expect (if anything at all) only to come out of the experience completely shocked at what I had just played. This level is my favorite non-demon level in the game, and in my top 5 favorite levels of all time. I highly recommend experiencing this for yourself first before reading this review.

The way the level starts is really interesting and it is immediately what comes to my mind when I think of what Storm does right. Most levels start right before the drop or at some point in the pre-drop. However, it is very uncommon to start a level in the middle of the drop or, as is the case with Storm, right at the end of the drop. When you start the level, you are immediately hit with these loud and intense horns, strings, and drums accompanied by flashes of white with every beat and then it stops. There is a fade to black, and when we can see again, everything around is calm and quiet. This bait-and-switch that skywalker is able to pull off so well just by choosing to start the level at an odd point in the song is something I've never seen done before and it still lingers in my head constantly.

Besides that moment at the beginning, the rest of the first part is just as amazing. You're hit with that intense opening only to be thrown into a quiet, barren yet serene landscape. There is a still river, dead flowers and grass, trees without their leaves, and crumbling buildings in the distance. Later in the part, the river spills out into a great lake or ocean, with monolithic busts and statues looming on the horizon and a ship sinking. All the while, the color palette is very muted and the song is lingering on these low, droning strings. This part, like most of the level, is devoid of human life. Some divine calamity has brought an apocalypse upon Earth. We don't entirely know what happened (nor do we ever find out) but this part alone already makes me feel sorrowful and it sets the tone really well for the rest of the level.

Another thing this first part does well to set the stage for the rest of Storm is introduce the player to the type of gameplay they will see throughout the rest of the level. Storm takes the unusual approach for XXL levels where the gameplay is more spread out over its runtime as opposed to being all condensed into 1-2 minutes. This approach doesn't work with every XXL level, but it is absolutely perfect for Storm. This, combined with how the only gamemode is the cube and the level being in slow speed for most of the level allows the player to truly take in the atmosphere of this level and look for all of the nuance in this level's complex, layered backgrounds.

Next, we climb up into the mountains to find it equally in ruin. Buildings and cars in disrepair, wrecked trains and tracks, stone hands pulling out of the ground, and a statue depicting a divine soldier's final moments. However, there's one peculiar thing among all of these: a diamond road sign that reads "THE END IS NEAR." Not only that, but it is a metal sign that is burning in the middle of a blizzard. It may seem like an odd occurrence, but it's great foreshadowing (a sign, if you will) of what's to come.

After the mountain, we find ourselves somewhere beautiful. The song is starting to pick up, the colors are becoming more vibrant, and we are starting to move faster. The grass and trees are alive and the flowers are blooming. Perhaps there is some tranquility to be had during the apocalypse. The Sun is even out! The Sun is very bright and fierce, unusually so. We climb up a hill marked by another diamond road sign that is also on fire...

...to see everything else on the horizon is on fire as well. The Sun has burned an entire village to the ground and its villagers plead for mercy from the gods. In the distance, some humans are being taken into the sky, ascending into the heavens? Then, it happens to us too.

We find ourselves on top of the mountains again, high enough to see the Sun again and its unbearable brightness. At the peaks of the world, in the coldest of all places, the flowers, outposts, and an entire forest are still susceptible to the fury of the Sun. The gods made in stone look upon us and the world with shame and contempt. In stark contrast with the bleak stillness we saw at the beginning, the level is now blindingly bright and colorful as the song reaches it's screechy height. It's so hard for me to pick a favorite part of the level, but if I had to chose, it would probably be this one.

Back to the level's "story," we descend from the mountains back to civilization to find everything we once knew and loved to be gone. A great Storm of fire has completely consumed the horizon, and the world is an inferno. The ground and air are lethally ashen. We have one final diamond sign to tell us "THE END IS HERE" as we lose our ability to see in a blazing flash of red and orange and the level ends...

OK, so I got very carried away writing this. It's not much of a review of the quality of the level (of which I have zero problems with), but it's more of a description of what I saw and felt as I played Storm. If anything, the conclusion you can draw from my ramblings is just how phenomenal of a job Storm does at conveying these beautiful yet harrowing visions of the apocalypse. I'm not a fan of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, nor do I think I will ever truly be one, but I must say that this one 6-minute level is able to speak so much more about the beauty the creator of the level finds in the band and their music than any words can (maybe this is ironic to come from an over 1100 word long level review lol). It's truly, truly heartbreaking how this level got completely swept under the rug, with only a feature rating and 23K+ downloads as of me writing this. Please show this level some more love if you can, Storm is truly deserving of it.

It takes a certain kind of egotism to host an XL megacollab themed themed around yourself (after having already built many other levels named after yourself) AND to not even make it good or interesting. Under normal circumstances, I would just think a level like this would be "mid" and move on and probably not write this review, but the fact this is a vanity project makes it a lot more intriguing to me. By that, I mean the level's problems double upon themselves and leave me with a much more sour taste in my mouth.

Visually, this level isn't bad but it's not good either, it's just uninteresting. Everyone is trying to do a 1.9 style or something reminiscent of alkali but with much less polish or personality, so all of the parts blend together and no part really sticks out. This isn't helped by the fact that the entire level is green because it's themed around Mulpan. To further this theming around Mulpan, there is lots of traced Mulpan art all-around the level that looks grotesque and childish. As art itself, I don't have a problem with them existing, but because of how they are inserted into this level as an act of vanity makes me frustrated they are here and would rather them be gone from the level.

Because of these stylistic choices, the level feels like a bit of a slog to play despite being laughably short for a "travel" level at only 2 minutes and 41 seconds in length. I'm more lenient to normal length and shorter XL levels that don't have a progression since they're short enough to not need one, but calling yourself a "travel" level suggests a progression that in most cases is nonexistent. Mulpan Travel is no exception. I'm inclined to think it was called a "travel" level because "travel" levels have a sort of grandiosity and intimidation factor, and Mulpan wanted to have that as well despite the level not having enough substance to warrant it.

Despite all of these things, I would still be able to enjoy a level like this if the gameplay is fun, but it's not. It's very fast-paced with confusing structuring and is unsightreadable and infuriating to play, despite having jump indicators scattered all over. Some of the Mulpan art in the level are placed in spots that obscure the player's vision, which is really not something you want when you're going very fast (and having to see Mulpan shaking/spanking his ass every attempt makes want to quit playing the level mid-attempt). Maybe you are able to have more fun with the gameplay than I did since I know some other people were able to enjoy this level, but overall I wouldn't recommend this.

If you've talked with me a good amount or have read my Hypnotic Travel review, you would know I HATE travel levels with a burning passion. I've beaten 18 travel levels, and most of them are uninspired, creatively bankrupt levels made for the sake of being long and latching onto a trend, and as a result I get nothing positive out of my experience with them. It's the case of everyone wanting to be like someone else with a complete lack of an understanding of what made Lonely travel such a smash hit.

With that said, Lonely travel is one of, if not the best level in this awful trend. The winning ingredient to the formula that nearly every travel level completely missed was a strong progression. In fact, almost every great XXL+ level, travel or not, has a strong progression as part of its formula. This is why Lonely travel has the right to call itself a "travel" level, and almost every other "travel" level feels like a misnomer by comparison. Back to Lonely travel, the first half is completely black-and-white. This lack of color, combined with the slow pacing and sad song give the first half of this level a very melancholy feel. You're traveling somewhere to be happy again. At 60%, we see our first color with a singular beam of sunlight from the surface illuminating a flower on a rock at the bottom of a cave. It's a great, it feels like we are getting somewhere. In the next section, more beams of light are able to pierce into the dark, gloomy dungeon. Then, we are blinded and put in a new place: the sky is blue, the grass is green, and the air is fresh. The world has color again. Everything will be okay. We go through a forest and desert before the level abruptly ends at the 6 minute mark because FunnyGame hit the object limit. While the level ends here due to a limitation, I don't think there was a better place to end the level. Where would story go after the main progression is already done? Besides, the level is already around double the length of the previous longest level.

Outside of this progression being a highlight for me, there are plenty of other great moments to be found throughout this level. Namely, transitions are really well used to make high-impact moments. Two of my favorites of these are the transition from grayscale to full color I mentioned earlier, but another equally amazing moment is at 52% when the song goes silent for a moment, the screen is white, then the song goes into its chorus as the player is revealed to be in the clouds as the sun is setting. It's hard to properly communicate how satisfying of a part this is through text, it still gives me goosebumps. Two other things I really like about the level include the stuttery old film effect at 23%, as well as how well-made all of the parallax backgrounds are throughout the level. Lonely travel is a bit of a minimalistic level as it spreads its 30k objects over 6 minutes, yet it never really feels empty and FunnyGame is always able to demonstrate how talented and ahead of the curve he was in every part.

However, my main deal breaker with this level, and why I can't love this level as much I would like to, is its gameplay. I just did not have fun playing this level. If it was not for a few choke points, Lonely travel would be an easy demon. The part at 31% with the countdown and the fast yet stiff movement is by far the hardest part and where about a third to a half of my deaths were. It's so tricky to time these, and sometimes the block will fall out from beneath the player and they will need to hit an orb, so there is also some memory involved. Some other choke points I'm not fond of include the UFO right after being hard to see and not having a comfortable click pattern AND randomly deciding to go backwards in the middle of the part, the cloud part halfway through having unclear hitboxes at times, the trees in the foreground of the forest part at 85% sometimes making inputs blind, and most parts with the vignette becoming frustrating because of the limited vision. It's a good idea that fits well in Lonely travel, but it's execution comes at the detriment of the player's time to react and it would be better if it was slightly transparent instead of fully opaque. When 80% of my deaths were at the hands of a few select choke points in the level, this results in the rest of the level (and playing the first 30% constantly) to become quite boring.

Despite my criticisms of the level from a gameplay standpoint, I still overall like this level. While I hate how it spawned the horrible trend of travel levels, I'm glad that Lonely travel was the level to start the push for XXL+ levels in general. Countless amazing levels that I love today would not have existed if Lonely travel was never made. There's also the chance for you to have more fun with the level than I did, so if you want to get more into XXL+ levels, I recommend trying this level.

I don't remember who told me this first, but "devin's levels always feel like walking into a sketchbook" is a comparison I've always thought of when approaching devin levels. When I repeat this saying, I usually mean it in a less-than-good way. devin's levels are unparalleled creativity and artisticness few creators have, but it's to an extent where I end up not liking a lot of his levels because they're doing so much that they end up unfocused and incohesive. While there are times where devin is able to use this to his advantage, like in his self-titled level being a great representation of everything that makes devin so special, this also causes most of his levels to fall somewhat flat to me, namely world war and man man.

While devin's other levels can be like the metaphorical sketchbooks I just described, alika feels like walking into a sketchbook in the most literal sense. It looks and feels like one more than any other level of his. The even weirder thing is, despite this quality being the most obvious here, this is somehow also one of his most cohesive and focused projects he has released. He was able to play to what makes his style so recognizable amazingly and in an organized manner while also in a presentation none of his other levels really have.

It's easy to see the Zylenox inspiration felt throughout devin's levelography, but this inspiration is usually taken from Zylenox's Triple Six and onwards levels that are much more art-focused. In alika, however, devin is mainly looking towards Zylenox's pre-Triple Six works, back when Zylenox was mainly known for his factory style like in Annihilation Nation, as well as general influences from vintage core creators with a near-complete reliance on standard blocks the complete absence of a custom background and resorting to that one 1.9 background (this doesn't cause the level doesn't feel empty, though, because of this level's dense structuring). Despite this, the elements of devin's art-based style are still very present in this level, as alika is filled to the brim with animated factory machinery. They're crude and unpolished, but they're well-made and feel alive, just like how devin does it. It's a robotic factory of doohickeys that serve no proper purpose (if only there was a corporation that specialized in this stuff!), yet it all feels lively and sensical. All of these factors combine into a product which has its inspirations worn on its sleeves, while still maintaining that unique devin feel in the best way possible. I love it.

(Take this final part of the review regarding the gameplay with a grain of salt, while I have beaten this level, I fluked it from 58% somehow.)
If it wasn't for the visuals, the gameplay was also usually a dealbreaker for me with devin's levels. For one reason or another, I have not found a lot of his other levels very fun. alika is an exception. The structures are clearly defined and I never felt my deaths were unfair, the mechanics are simple, easy to get down, and see some good mileage in this level, and the coin placements were simple but satisfying to collect. I also really liked how this level was paced. Despite metea11's Troubles being an accelerando song, alika does a great job breaking things up with slower moments while still matching the energy of the song with the way the machinery moves. The level never feels boring or uncomfortable to play. There are some chokepoints I am not fond of, like the first wave, and some parts with dead ends you can mistakenly enter and not be able to anticipate due to how much is going on, but other than that I had a blast trying to beat this level and I would highly recommend it if you have insane demon skill level and are able to put up with longer levels.

"I've been writing about levels in some form for the past 9 years, and to this day Blue Marine has been the only one that has truly stumped me. [...] Over the past 29 months, I've come back to this level. During that time, every 3 weeks or so, I would routinely think deeply about Blue Marine and try to put on paper what it different. But every time, I would only come out of the attempt more confused than before.

Only recently, though, I've realized why I was playing this losing game to begin with, and why I will never win. Most levels have at least a few patterns or ideas as to why you like or dislike them, but when dealing with something that has no such thing, it doesn't know what that is! Then I realized through all these comments, no one else has described what they think about the level either. There's no point in attempting to engage in a mental stranglehold into something that defies intellectualizing. What we see in front of us today is a type of impassible barrier that we're not often confronted with:

It's happy."

-- Numptaloid, excerpt from "Geometry Dash's Most Unlikely Masterpiece" at 17:52

I decided to not write my own review of this level and instead plagiarize Numptaloid's words for a few reasons:
1. It's the best possible way to describe this level.

2. I have nothing to add to the Blue Marine discourse that hasn't already been said.

3. If it wasn't for this one video on Blue Marine (and by proxy Numptaloid's work as a whole) I would probably not be writing reviews like I do on this site. Thank you so much man

I've spent 2025 going through skywalker's levelography and he has quickly become one of my favorite level creators. He builds with whatever songs he really cares a lot about and he puts a lot of care into having great song representation while still ensuring his levels play well. All of his levels feel unique and I can always point out many things I like with any given level of his.

With all of these things in mind, THE LIMIT is a top 3 of his in my opinion. It's an XXL level that uses most of DARKSIDE's "The Limit." This is a song I would normally consider unsuitable for a GD level because while it does have some coherent structures and passages, there are also plenty of free-form, chaotic moments that would be difficult to properly capture in the same level while ensuring the product still plays well and is decently paced. Despite this, THE LIMIT plays the hand it is dealt with its song and hits a home run.

THE LIMIT goes through many different landscapes that are in skywalker's traditional art style, but they still feel like they belong exclusively to THE LIMIT because of how there's always something off with them. It matches their parts of the song - normal, but slightly off. Sometimes the colors pulse the wrong hues, sometimes a location just feels too empty or doesn't make much logical sense, and sometimes you can see some of the white void.

This empty, white space is a integral part to giving this level its identity. This emptiness contrasts very sharply with more muted colors of the "normal" parts of the level and is used strategically. You start in this medieval corridor, rise some, and see some empty white space at the top and to your right. It looks kinda weird, but then you enter the void, assets load/unload in sync with the percussion, and you get a title drop. Great way to start the level. The medieval town scene after that glitches out some near the end, but then the level gets into its "normal." THE LIMIT rests on this "normal" for long enough that you dismiss what you saw at the beginning.

At 52%, the cave you are in glitches out completely and you fall to the ground of the level. There's blood dripping from above pooling onto the ground. Gray hands are reaching up out of the ground. Disgusting blood cell things start manifesting in the sky. It isn't quite devin territory, but it's still one of the most grisly parts in any skywalker level and it is an unnerving sight after getting used to the first half of the level. After this strange moment, THE LIMIT sends you back in the sky and tries to return you to a "normal," but you can't overlook what you just saw.

The snowy church field is THE LIMIT's last attempt and being able to seem normal. The structuring and some of the background is right, but the scene is too empty and you can clearly see the pitch black ground. Gameplay stops after 82%. One of the custom background layers just cuts off. The level keeps getting darker. Was the level supposed to end here? What happened? Then, you're abruptly thrown into the real ending. It's the same grisly scene you saw earlier, but expanded into a full section of the level. The blocks are white on a white background, you can only see them because they're smeared in dripping blood. The section is very bright and hard to see, and it keeps getting brighter until the level ends. It's a great ending, I haven't seen anything like it, but I'm not a fan of how it plays. I haven't talked about the gameplay yet because for the most part I have zero complaints. It plays well, it's sightreadable, enough said there. This final section of the level is normal speed, normal-size cube, and these 1x1 blocks are the only structures. Because of how hard it is see with how bright it is, as well as the amount of blind jumps and jumps that you need to time properly, this part of the level is a major choke point, even after it got nerfed. Other than this section near the end, I have no other problems and it is a great way to end the level.

THE LIMIT is one of skywalker's longer levels, but if you have at least medium demon skill and are able to put up with the choke point ending, I would recommend giving this level a shot. It's a fun and unique experience all-around.

I love this level.

Before 2.0, most auto levels focused on moving the player around in interesting ways. After 2.0, most auto levels became more like mini movies instead where the player never moves and the creator focuses on cool trigger usage instead. So, it's very exciting to see a traditional type of auto level created and released in 2021, and spinchland absolutely delivers.

spinchland is set entirely in the cube gamemode, there are no spikes, and pads and portals see very little usage in this level. The way the player is moving around in the level that keeps it fresh and exciting throughout is with slopes. The level is overall a calm experience, but there are moments where the player will go very fast into a ramp and experience a lot of air time. It never feels out of place with the level as you're constantly changing speeds, but it's never done in a way that feels unnatural whenever there's a speed switch. It all works to match the calm but slightly energetic feel of the song. The one thing I don't really like is how off-putting it is to see pads/portal pulses when a player hits them since they stand out uncomfortably against this level's style.

The visuals are amazing and also represent the song very well. Sunlit Thunderscapes by OcularNebula is a chill, upbeat, and simplistic song, so spinchland honors all of these things with its gameplay I laid out earlier accompanied with these white-on-black modernistic designs of different places, locations, and concepts. All the designs look good, they're well-made, and they're happy. The level is able to capture changes in the song really well too, one of my favorite parts being when the level switches to white-on-black after the first drop then switches back to black-on-white some time later.

With all these things, spinchland has a great atmosphere throughout its runtime and I really recommend checking it out if you haven't already. Enough said.

(Disclaimer: I haven't beaten this level yet. My personal best is at 85%, where I've died twice. Also, while I am aware this is a remake of an earlier version of this level, I will only be talking about Ultimo Universo (2023) as it is the version I am most familiar with. I have now beaten this level as of 5/2/25.)

This level does not feel like an epic rated insane demon released in 2023, in both good and bad ways.

Ultimo Universo is Nacho's latest level after a 4 (or 7) year hiatus from building after Larga Espera. He doesn't have a large levelography, but he has released some very famous and influential levels, like Duelo Maestro and Larga Espera. The stakes for his return to building would be high. So, does he measure up? Well...

Let me talk about some things I do like about this level first. My biggest things I like about the level include some of the gameplay and structuring in the level. The structuring is very minimalist and there is a lot of vast, open space where there is no gameplay or structuring. This would be an odd design choice in most other levels, but it works great in Ultimo Universo. It is a space themed level, and these large, empty spaces work great because space is vast, infinite, and very empty. One of my favorite parts is the purple part halfway through where the level utilizes all of the height in its gameplay. You fell up into the cosmos, you soar higher, then you jump down, far down, back into the world. This spacious feel throughout the level goes hand-in-hand with the gameplay, which is also (mostly) very simple and you can still take in the backgrounds of this level while you are playing.

But then that leads in to this level's biggest problem: the backgrounds. Ultimo Universo's design is carried by its art backgrounds, and they are a main draw of the level in that regard. However, a lot of these backgrounds are compositionally uninteresting. Mainly, a lot of them are sterile with little movement and have washed out colors that don't pop out to the eyes. There may be one or two moving parts to a certain background, but it isn't enough to keep them from starting to feel stale too quickly. Stylistically, the backgrounds are also inconsistent. Most backgrounds follow the subpar, almost modernistic design I explained why I didn't like earlier, but some backgrounds border on attempting realism (like at 18%) or attempting to be cartoony (like at 35%). Regardless, I did not find them very interesting.

I also don't like some of the gameplay. While I do enjoy the gameplay for the most part, there are some chokepoints and unfair parts that just ruin it for me. These include (but are not limited to): the ball at 7% with the invisible spikes on the edges of all platforms, the ship at 39% with janky structuring, the ball directly after with its uncomfortable orb timings, the ball with the block & slope structures at 59% which is impossible to sightread due to how odd the structures are and how fast you are going, and the bossfight at 85% being very precise and deviating slightly off the invisible path (that you can only see after you die) makes your chance of survival almost none. While the invisible arrow path becoming visible on death does seem like a good idea on paper, it doesn't work in practice because after each attempt you only have a second and a half to see the path, which isn't enough to really process it. After this bossfight, the ship is a completely open free fly for a few seconds to remind you of how bad the balancing is in this level. There are multiple moments like these where the level jumpscares you with no gameplay (somehow), while other times jumpscaring you with bullshit. Another thing I didn't like about the gameplay was the pacing of the level. It felt much older than 2023 in the sense it made little to no sense. Samsara is an intense song throughout, but there are some moments that are beat drops and others that are the space surrounding these drops. While Ultimo Universo does thematically align itself well with the song, the gameplay does not. You are thrusted into these seemingly random speed decreases during drops or speed increases during non-drop parts, and it's off-putting every time.

Finally, I need to talk about the story in this level. This is supposedly a story, but I can't tell you what it is about. Even after playing this level for hundreds of attempts, I still have zero idea what is going on or why I am frequently alternating between outer space and Earth-like places, shit just happens. There are ways to tell stories minimalistically that give the player nuggets of information while still letting them interpret for their own (like CICADA3302), but this is not it. So much information is omitted that it feels incomplete. It is never explained where you start and where you go, you just start somewhere and go places. The unfortunate thing is, there are some great moments in this level. The rapid cinematic camera shots at 89%, the way the level transitions into the end screen as the spaceships destroy the level, and the end screen itself are all well done. They just feel out of place when the rest of this level's story lacks an equivalent amount of thought and planning put in. It's a cool ending sequence, but where is it in the context of everything else? It doesn't work as well as it could because the rest of the doesn't properly build up into it.

To answer the question I asked earlier of "Does [Nacho] measure up?" I'd say no. While it is an improvement from the original version of the level, Ultimo Universo still feels undercooked and unpolished. This level still has potential to be amazing, but considering this got epic rated in 2023, I don't think the rest of that potential will ever be realized.