Rating Curve

BER ZER KER's main flaw isn't in its relatively unengaging and unimmersive gameplay (levels such as Out of Place have minimal yet immersive gameplay), it's in its lack of theming. I love Grax as a creator; he makes unique and well-polished levels, such as Transtellar and Broken Signal, that I really like. However, this level is DEFINITELY the worst thing he's created. It's not even that bad until you compare the level with literally anything else he's worked on. Why is that? Likely because this level has no theming/direction. I can't blame Grax, since he built this level in only 2 weeks, but this level is REALLY rushed, and we can see it in how this affects the ideas and theming department. In this level, there are many random and disconnected things going on. We go from an alien drone-thing to a burning city to Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th chasing us. One must ask oneself, "What the hell is going on? What are we even doing?" when playing this level. It could be argued that doing this is to represent the chaotic nature of the song, but there are many better ways of doing this. My suggestion? Theme it around escaping the city in ruins. It would have maintained the chaotic energy of the song while giving it actual theming and progression. Instead, the level's theming feels like the "random bullshit go" meme and I'm overall not a fan of this.

Theming aside, the decoration is also very inconsistent. I actually really liked the first few parts, but right after the part with the NCS visualizer, the decoration becomes very messy and feels unfinished. Of course, if Grax had more time, he could have done this level better. The gameplay is all over the place. I think where it starts to fall off is at the drop, since the gameplay after the drop is very minimal and also very unimmersive, as personally I didn't really feel a sense of atmosphere when I played that level (some may differ though). Overall, if Grax had more time, this could have been a fantastic level, but alas, it's a shame that it had to turn out like this. Something this rushed should not have even gotten top 10, let alone first place mythic. I think it's legendary worthy but I'm sad to say that I didn't really like this level all that much.

I think it's funny how this level is parodying the over-the-top and "serious" visuals and very generic theming in Space Gauntlet entries (though Hyperastralis was the only level in the Top 20 with such theming, in my opinion). The decoration is still pretty solid, though, I must say. Still, the gameplay is designed to be as painful to play as possible. Maybe it was designed this way to make fun of how most SGCC entries had gameplay as an afterthought, but this level's gameplay is not fun to play; I hated every second of its blind transitions and awful swing gameplay. This is easily one of MindCap's weaker levels. Though that ending was hilarious. "Yo", truly words of inspiration that make me want to rebel against everything I know.

Despite having the crazy, "Is this even Geometry Dash?" visuals, this level turned out to be the most forgettable level of the NCS Gauntlet. For one, this level's only real theme is "cool visuals" which is a real bummer since the visuals are genuinely really cool; they are just tied together with a nonexistent theme. The gameplay is also not good. The "normal" sections that utilize RobTop's gamemodes are all boring with either minimal or painful gameplay, partially because of how much it utilizes the Swing gamemode, a gamemode that creators are not familiar with at the time of writing this, including F5Night. The custom gamemode, which is the focus of the level and is utilized the most, isn't bad by any means but I would much rather prefer gameplay with vanilla gamemodes than something that goes on for so long.

Overall, this is a lot of wasted potential. I think this is the worst level in the NCS Gauntlet Contest top 20. I don't understand how this won money, let alone get into the gauntlets. There were far better levels that didn't win anything.

This level isn't even that bad but it is way, way, way too tedious for a 7 star. The deco is decent for an late 2.0/early 2.1 level but the gameplay is either just alright or incredibly unforgiving for it's difficulty. If it wasn an 8 star I would like it more.

Also there's nothing wrong with the speed changes they're fine

Wow guys it's Aperture in 1.9 don't got much to say but the recreation of the 3D part is really creative

The parts with gp are actually peak but the problem is that's like 2 parts the rest of the level is a cinematic

Still cute tho

Like the deco is so damn cool but like I want to play the level. Hopefully Mato gets the memo and improves, I genuinely like his style.