Rating Curve

I know people off the bat are going to be looking at these numbers and going "Beckett, you're an insane person." And to that I say... yes, but you should hear me out as to why this level is better than it may look.

At the time I am writing this review, this level currently sits as my hardest platformer level beaten. It was my second platformer extreme just after The Tower XXII and playing a level this hard while not having to worry about many of the other top platformer tropes is such a nice breath of fresh air. There is no stupidly large amount of needle jumps, no slope tech that requires you bug the physics of the game, no wave dashing between hundreds of dash orbs that throw you around at lightning speed. This level is in my opinion, an incredibly well made test of genuine skill.

The main criticism this level gets is that the level is too long, and it only gets interesting at the last two rooms but I want to counter argument those points. Firstly, a successful run of this level only takes people on average between 4-6 minutes to complete. Usually, the first 10 rooms take about a minute, the 2nd set of 10 takes another 2 minutes, and then the last 2 rooms take however much time it takes. Secondly, the point that this level only gets interesting in the last two rooms is a complete joke, because trust me, while the first 10 are super easy, the 2nd set of 10 are not a complete cake walk, and some of them can genuinely give you a run for your money. For instance, I struggled on room 17, "Be Precise", the most out of any room in the entire level and was definitely the most annoying thing when it came to completing this level. Another room which can screw you over at times is room 14, "Curveball", which requires a very specific ball input in order to pass. The point is, do not slouch on all of the difficulty in this level being in the last two rooms, because while a lot of it is there, there are a few other rooms which definitely carry this level. And, if you die to this level, it is one of those levels where you can't really the blame anything the level does for why you're dying, unlike slope tech and wave dashing levels, where you can say "The gameplay feels weird / broken", which is because these types of gameplay revolves around bugs. If you die in 22 Trials of PAIN, there is only person to blame for why you die: YOU.

Lastly, a quick discussion about the visuals and the song choices. I think the visuals aren't anything particularly interesting, but to be fair, this was made right at the start of 2.2, so it's not too unsurprising to see a large amount of pixel block usage here. The songs though I think get overlooked here, and I think they really add to the atmosphere of this level very well. Each one fits the atmosphere of the level perfectly, especially the song chosen for the last two rooms. It matches the flashing rainbow vibe and the intensity of the speedrun segment perfectly. Even the short ending uses the song well, it feels like you've just overcome a really hard challenge (which you have), and earned those 10 moons.

You can hate on me all you want for liking this level, but out of the 4 platformer extremes that I've beaten so far, this one is by far my favorite, and you can't change that opinion. Sorry, not sorry.

This level stands as example of what in my opinion, you should NOT do with a memory level. I know I'm that guy who "hates everything memory related", BUT please here me out, because there are genuinely a few memory levels I like, and this is not one of them.

The gameplay is where my issue with this level mostly stems from, BUT the visuals have to do with partially why I personally dislike the gameplay, so I'm going to talk about them both together... sort of. The gameplay initially is already fairly challenging, and a majority of area 1 is extremely carried by chokepoints. There are many instances where there is an unnecessary spike up in difficulty for no reason, which isn't found in area's 2 or 3 nearly at all. Speaking of the areas, the difficulty balancing is all over the place, with the first area being WAY harder than the rest, areas 2 and 3 being way easier, area 4 spikes the difficulty up again by being impossible to tell where you have to go, and then area 5 is another extremely easy one. How do the visuals play into all of this? Well since every object in this level has a black outline, you have no way of being able to tell what is real and what is fake, meaning you need to rely on memorizing each specific hitbox to memory, which is absurd.

Other older memory levels at the time never really did this that much. Most of the time, it was just a bunch of blocks placed into very weird structures, and you would have to learn which route to go, kind of like in Extreme Park by Rabbitical. This level upped the meter of unreadableness to a 10 instantly by adding the black outline, and it also doesn't help that this level is infinitely more cluttered than any other old memory level, at least that I can think of. Visually, I don't think that helps it, and the fact that the visuals screw around with the gameplay does not help. That being said, the structuring and designs in some of the later areas do look a bit better, so I don't think it's a complete train wreck, but the first area and a solid amount of the second struggle with overflowing your brain with as much random unnecessary object spam as possible.

Lastly, the song. Obviously it's just Time Machine, but I've never been a big fan of the fact that the song just... ends before you're done with the level. Since the song ended, the level should have just been over too at that point. I genuinely think I would have liked the level more if it HAD ended at that point. It's all just kind of boring to be listening to silence and the ringing in my ears for like 40 seconds straight.

I know a lot of people like this level because it was the first of it's kind to really define this specific kind of memory level, but IMO people have taken a lot of the bad things from this level to apply to their own memory levels. If you want to take advice from a memory level, I recommend using Maybe Possibly Thing for reference. Leave this level to rest in the era it came from.

In my opinion, this is the peak of 2003devin's capabilities with the level editor.

The gameplay is solid throughout, and for the full 5 minute duration, has a minimal amount of bugs, a minimal amount of chokepoints, and it's extremely creative while still remaining very fun. The dual gameplay, which I'd like to think is devin's specialty, plays surprisingly well and is quite consistent so long as you know how to play them. My only tiny nitpick with the gameplay (and with the level as a whole), is that if you have to use the LDM, the 1st user coin literally turns into an invisible gameplay challenge, because the background associated with the robot part disappears and prevents you from seeing the black slabs. I know it's a minor nitpick, and I wouldn't have noticed it either, but at the end of the day, it shouldn't exist like that.

The visuals here are the strongest out of any level devin has released up to this point in the entire game. The shading, the art, the colors, everything comes so well together in each part. Even though there isn't really a distinct theme, which is the point of the level, it is incredibly appealing to look at.

Lastly, the song and the way it is represented here is incredibly well done. Devin using Crow Song unironically got me addicted to the other music made by Sanguinarius, and this song is definitely a top 5 favorite song of all time for me. It is represented to perfection in this level, with the energy of the song matches the level perfectly.

Easily my favorite unrated level in the game, and definitely one of devin's best works. :)