Rating Curve

Viking Arena is the second level of Geometry Dash Meltdown and imo, it is the best level of this spinoff game.

First of all, the level starts with a sinister dark cube part that fits very well with the predrop of the song. At 7% you see a particle for a split second that clues you in you need to jump for a key for the first coin - I wish this was better indicated but I guess it’s fine as an example of how keys / invisible gameplay can be used.

The ship at 27% is very memorable with the dragons flying everywhere and the circular obstacles / moving walls. The cube at 45% does a good job of building anticipation for the second drop. I’m not a fan of the repeat Base After Base second coin but it does a good job of showing how layers can become visible when the player passes through them.

The second drop ship at 63% is absolutely epic and always gets the adrenaline pumping.

Then finally you have the highlight of the level - the final cube at 81%. A lava wall of dragons chases after you with additional dragons flying overhead. I remember thinking this was the coolest thing I had ever seen in GD the first time I played it.

In retrospect, Viking Arena doesn’t seem that impressive, but you have to remember this was after months of static 1.9 levels. As a result, I think this level was amazing for its time and a lot better than most of the 2.0 levels that followed

The Sewers is a nice sequel to The Tower. I like that The Tower ends with you falling in a pit while The Sewers ends with you falling through a pipe into some sewers - it adds continuity to these levels. The first half (green part) of The Sewers is more standard platformer gameplay - this time with more moving platforms than The Tower. I don’t really have much to say here other than that I dislike one of the blue coins forces you to backtrack.

The second half with the elevator bossfight is a massive step up in difficulty. I played this when 2.2 dropped (before plat practice mode was added) and this bossfight was absolutely brutal. All the attacks are indicated but there are just so many that it’s hard to dodge them all. I do like the Boom Kitty song though.

Overall, a fun sequel to The Tower. The bossfight is a solid difficulty spike.

Geometrical Dominator is commonly considered one of the worst modern RobTop levels, and aside from the memory part I’ve never understood why

Basically the whole level is a banger - this was the first main level song that was specifically composed for Geometry Dash, and by none other than the GOAT Waterflame.

First of all, this level introduces the robot. The robot wouldn’t pay its true dividends until the introduction of platformer mode in 2.2 where it quickly became one of the best game modes.

That being said, the robot is used to interesting effect in this level, with two of the coins making use of its increased jump height in creative ways.

The moving obstacles take a lot of practice to get used to (a common theme of Update 2.0). That being said, I think they’re a lot more fair in Geometrical Dominator than the average 2.0 level. RobTop did a good job of using moving objects in moderation - they spice up the gameplay rather than being an annoyance,

The rainbow effects in this level make it possibly the most colorful level in the base game, even more so than Dash. Some may see this as ugly but I think it’s done well in Geometrical Dominator.

This all leads up to the one part everyone hates - the memory dark cube part. This part gives the player very little time to react to upcoming pillar platforms, which makes every jump feel like a guess. As a result, this is commonly considered the least sightreadable part in any RobTop level, and understandably people do not like it for that reason. However, I find this part is not nearly as bad as people say it is and the blind jumps feel logical for some reason.

Everything after the blind part is a banger too, with more movable blocks, keys, and robot jumps.

Overall, this level was the perfect introduction to 2.0 for me, and I still find it nostalgic over a decade later. I do not get the hate for this level aside from the memory part.

I think most people would agree Theory of Everything 2 is the weakest of the three RobTop demons, but it’s still an incredible level in its own right.

This level really tests everything you’ve learned up to this point (excluding mirror portals). The first ship is very intimidating with all the invisible obstacles. The UFO after it requires some precise fast UFO taps which are tricky to learn. Incredibly, it’s possible to skip the slow portal going into the UFO and pass the UFO at higher speed (much harder & desyncs the song) which allows you to save time here in the speedrun, a very cool skip - unlike the Hexagon Force skip which is almost certainly unintentional, this one might be intentional, I’d love to ask RobTop about it

You have a cool memory ball followed by another UFO. This ball probably inspired the Viprin ball mazes in the Sonic series of levels so it’s worth noting. I love how the blocks and fakes correspond to the player’s primary and secondary colors

The cube after the second UFO has a few fakes that force the player to practice and learn memory gameplay - unfortunately memory mazes became a staple of 1.9 demons (not that they weren’t common before 1.9, but they certainly got more popular after 1.9’s release)

The second ship is very unique and tests the player’s ship control. Then there’s a short cube part with some unique slope gameplay.

Finally, you get to the second drop - the wave part. These waves are way tighter than Blast Processing and the higher speed can be tricky for beginners. You have another memory ball part in the middle too, which has a cool skippable platform. The second coin might be the hardest coin in any of the RobTop demons and I always have to guess it whenever I rebeat this level - in general I’m not a fan of wave coins where you have to go into the slopes

After the wave you have a cool ship part with invisible obstacles before you finally get to the break part. This break part leads into the most infamous part of the level - the 73% ship. This ship requires possibly the tightest ship control of any RobTop level (including Deadlocked) so it’s no wonder so many people have horror stories of dying repeatedly at this part. Luckily everything after this ship is pretty easy so you have a good chance of beating the level after this choke point.

You have a short memory cube, ufo, and mini wave part before you finally get to the final cube. Notably, the final cube has you end the level in the mouth of a dragon - yes, the same dragons that would be animated in 2.0 and that are present in the Deadlocked bossfight.

Overall, I love the variety of this level, but unfortunately it doesn’t have the same staying power as Clubstep or Deadlocked imo. I’d still consider this like a Top 8 RobTop level, but that’s primarily because demons are just more fun than non demons in general.

Time Machine introduces my least favorite gimmick in all of Geometry Dash: mirror portals

That being said, this level is quite solid. Any WaterFlame song is bound to make for a good level and Time Machine is no exception.

The level uses a good mix of triple spike jumps, upside down, and mirror portals to create a variety of difficult parts. In that sense I think this is the first level to provide a good variety of challenges compared to the first 7 levels

The final ship part paired with the best part of the song has to be one of the most satisfying RobTop parts as a newbie, honestly this level is great if you ignore all the painful mirror portal levels it led to

Excluding the third coin I absolutely adore this level. It is such a gentle introduction to jump orbs, probably the one mechanic that truly set GD apart from The Impossible Game

I love the Easter egg that if you die to the first spike repeatedly it gives you a tutorial on how to use jump orbs, wish RobTop would do that for more mechanics