Rating Curve

Fairly interesting way of doing a remake, I think the idea of the earlier parts being minor touches and it gets closer to a complete overhaul as you get to the end of the level is cool on paper. In practice, this level doesn't differentiate itself enough from alpha cosmos to justify its existence as its own work.

This level sucks ass but I honestly found it so funny. Like just looking at the straight fly parts I'm picturing in my head BOTC copy and pasting those spikes over and over again with an evil grin on their face and it's a delightful picture.

I remember playing Scarlet Surge in the Chaos Gauntlet about 8 years ago and playing it day after day. As a younger kid who was awful at video games, it was exceptionally difficult and took a ton of effort, yet I continued to come back. Why? I can point to many things, from the constantly active, vibrant, pulsing structures that gave the level its unmistakable identity, to the well-crafted gameplay designed to keep you engaged yet still insatiable for more even through the second minute of the level, to the honestly electric, raw, energetic song that perfectly matched what was on screen. Between all of those things, it added together to something greater than what was seen at face value.

So when one of the best creators of the era, someone I considered one of my favorite creators ever, posted a remaster of Scarlet Surge, it should've been a dream come true! That was 5 years ago, and I remember downloading the Scarlet Pulse and pressing play with high hopes. At this point, I had gotten a lot better at the game, so relatively speaking, it should've felt just as challenging to me as Scarlet Surge once did, and therefore just as special of an experience. However, when I ran through the level a few times, all I felt was... indifference.

Indeed, the designs were more detailed, it was much more polished, and it had brand new gameplay more befitting of its new desired difficulty range. But this time, it felt different. It felt as though the soul was sucked from it. The once completely dark background that provided so much to Scarlet Surge's vibrancy and contrast was now just another pulsing unit of the level. Gone was the dual in the original, the most iconic gameplay swapped for something straight out of the featured tab. Bright, vibrant colors that once permeated the level were dulled down, partly to accommodate the new details that were tacked on to make the level more conventionally good. Worst of all, the gameplay could've been extremely fun as a standalone product, but instead was littered with weird transitions and click inconsistencies.

Scarlet Pulse is still a perfectly fine level. I just wish it were so much more.

I understand there wasn't a lot to work with but that just means there's supposed to be a huge base to work with that can expand in any direction. This level just feels like Stalemate got black mold or something.

Whoop de doo we made Extinction a design level! This doesn't really build on any themes from the original super well aside from some scattered candles and bone objects, but it tries. The gameplay is honestly quite nice and replicates a lot of the feeling of Extinction while simultaneously being significantly less infuriating.

Remaking cartoon bees as actual bees feels pretty distasteful and strikes the uncanny valley pretty hard. Like what on earth are the bee pencil things or whatever they're supposed to be in the first spider part? The big bees all look really stiff too, they don't really feel alive. Just feels weird all around. Extra points for pretty lighting though.

While a fun and somewhat charming level in its own right, the whole point of super probably level was that it was super silly and didn't take itself seriously at all. This level tries a little too hard to be conventionally good to the detraction of the intended energy.

Why are there so many remakes of specifically Sonic Wave man. There's nothing interesting about this level.

I mean I guess this exists. It's the same level with a new look, but the look is nice and has enough neat little details, and still keeps a similar energy as the original.