Rating Curve

I think this is a very daring level; Daring to be the hardest 2-player level made to be beaten solo, and moreso daring to use the song Isolation by Nighthawk22. Considering how much the song has been associated with LIMBO already, it is risky to spin a completely new take on the song.

While I don't think Specthys uses Isolation quite that well (the colors and theme don't fit the techno style of the song too much), everything else about this level is wonderful. The decoration is stellar and not at all generic, the progression is on point, and the gameplay looks engaging and enjoyable.

This is probably one of the best 2-player levels at this time, alongside headlock. Too much ship for my liking tho

This level is really good and I think one of the best extremes of its time. The endscreen is crisp, the gameplay works well, and the deco hits the spot.

The decoration especially is everything I think a megacollab should be. Themed cohesively, but not to the point where every part looks exactly the same; we want to be able to tell one part from another. It's also not just ridiculously disjointed and awful to look at. The level is great and satisfying to watch, and to play for the most part. There are things that could be fixed up here and there, but this is a damn solid level.

and juhou's part does not sync it deadass just doesn't work wtf

Served its purpose well as the GD10 credits sequence, also highlighting the song "Stay Inside Me" and invoking nostalgia. Great stuff.

Then people wanted to play the mashup... and it got released... and featured...

Then we all realized that this works best as a trip down memory lane to watch after a significant event, and not as an actual level to play. Even putting balancing issues aside, the impact isn't nearly the same playing this level as it is watching it. I don't even blame anyone for releasing or rating the level, it was just bound to be awful.

Probably Knobbelboy's only level that still holds up visually (and quite a few parts still don't lol), but this level was a behemoth back in 2.0, breaking the object limit, and being probably one of the best levels at the time.

In retrospect, it's still a pretty good level, but the inclusion of 2.1 mechanics screwed up the gameplay in the beginning.

The visuals are very hit or miss, but the last UFO to the end outshines the rest of the level by a metric ton. The ribbon at around 50% is also the most memorable part of the level, that inclusion actually still slaps.

I love this level. Love it so much. One of the best levels in the game for sure.

And I have no true idea why. I can't fully express it.

I'll mention the song first of all, it's a remix of Fear Factory; an already great song, but this remix goes even further being one of the best songs on Newgrounds imo. I'm not musically adept enough to explain why, but the tone and instruments used really add to this level's mood.

As for why I view this level so highly, it mostly boils down to atmosphere I guess. There are a number of mechanical or gloomy levels out there, but none that capture the raw feeling and mood of this one. The level feels like an out-of-bounds area. That's my best way to describe it.

I mean; the dark and drab factory theme, the background that looks similar to the default BG but is rigidly remade, the 20ish coins that are all impossible to get, the spikes and pads that you clip through at the end, the unconventional methods of gameplay, the random numbers during the UFO part, and of course, the vertical ball that feels completely off from anything you've ever played. All of these elements go into making this level feel like a liminal space, or even like a dev exit. Some place that no soul has traveled—or was ever meant to travel.

I can't even deny, lots of the art still holds up, but THAT IS IT. The rest of the decoration is hanging on by two strings, and I know it's intentionally minimal to highlight the art, but the level can't just be a showcase. Only the part with Reaper I think still holds up very well.

Also I remember playing this in practice on my phone when it came out, and it was so laggy it took like an hour to get through

This level is honestly incredible, though some parts are better than others, this level ventures into territory I think no other level ever tried to. The monochrome style is to its advantage, as throughout most of it, the level uses illusions and masking to make the objects difficult to comprehend, and functions as decoration itself.

The second drop of this level (the dual wave) is genuinely mindblowing. There is nothing else in the game that does what this does, and I still have no clue how it even works. Most levels make their backgrounds with art, blocks, or even particles, so seeing genuine line animations in a level is quite jaw-dropping.

Looks like hell to play, but thankfully I'm not doing that

At first I really liked this level, but now I'm just indifferent about it. If I start with what's great, the gameplay concept is insane. All dual, 1x speed, NO spikes, NO saws, NO slopes, and NO wave. Those are ridiculous limitations, and I'm more surprised than anything that akun managed to make a full layout out of it. Truly unhinged behavior and I love it. Decorating something like that could not have been easy either, so I give my condolences to all of the decorators. Finally DiamondSplash must've gone through hell to verify that monstrosity. I love how absurd this level is, and how everybody involved went in on making it a reality. The cherry on top is it using the standard song Base after Base, so inoffensive that it's kind of funny.

But... upon rewatch I realized... this level's kind of ugly.

It's not repulsive, but some parts are really bad color-wise, and it does show that it probably was a challenge to decorate the layout. The deco style is unique, but it isn't all that pleasing to look at. Not to mention the jokes in the level kind of detract from it. I don't mind a tasteful joke tucked away in a level, but this one blows the text or images in your face, not acting subtle in the slightest. I think it takes away from any kind of full immersion or mood that the level brings. It's just distracting and feels like it takes away from how interesting the level is otherwise.

So yeah, now I'm mostly indifferent to the level, but I still do find it kind of fascinating.

This level was simply too grand for its own good. The purpose of this level was to make THE single perfect level, gathering notable gameplay creators and notable decorators to make an amalgamation of unbelievable parts. While this was clearly not the end result, I can say it led the groundwork to many levels that used an identical creation scheme; such as Night Rider, LIMBO, and Reanimate. So, what went wrong here?

In my mind, the hosting just wasn't perfect. Many talented creators were gathered, but they all had such different styles and ideas, so trying to wrap an entire 5 minute package in a vague "space theme" was not going to be as cohesive as they might have expected. Honestly a handful of parts still hold up very well, especially Zafkiel and Ji, both even with some great parts, the level altogether looks like a mess with no clear direction. Wrap in the fact that this level took years to be completed, with many delays and creators dropping the level (back in the day, collabs never took so long), and you have an incredibly ambitious project that lost its sense of direction and went in so many different ways.

Despite all this, I still adore this level. It uses Exit This Earth's Atomosphere quite fittingly and it looks incredibly unique. On top of that, I firmly believe that in order for megacollabs to become as polished as they are now, some level had to be the test dummy. Ocular Miracle is that level, and I feel that because of it, people became a lot better in understanding how to host collabs and avoid mistakes.

IT DOESN'T SYNC

The level looks vomit-inducing while mesmerizing at the same time, but THE SYNC BASED LEVEL DOESN'T SYNC???