Join my Discord server: Level Song:
"Old Fashioned Brawl by DreamEater (Insane 8*)"
yay i'm fucking tired
-sees insane daily
-fuck
-sees 1.6 styled
-double fuck
-actually plays level
-thank fuck
Seriously though, I would never have thought a non-current level would make it into the top dailies of the year. And while some people might be rolling their eyes right now, I have my fucking reasons. I was just as doubtful upon my first impressions.
It started out with me thinking, "well at least it isn't fucking 1.9 or 1.0". All of that fake nostalgia bullshit where they make horrible levels on purpose under the guise that it's "suPPSOED to be like THAT". But I was quickly proven wrong with this one, and the reason for that is that the level looked very...not fucking bad. There wasn't any of the crudeness, the emptiness, contrast, or any of that. Matter of fact, I thought it was a fucking 2.0 level almost, obviously with none of the actual 2.0 features. I'd go as far to say it unironically could be considered on par with current levels, which is either a great feat of creation by this creator, or a fucking sad statement about current-day levels.
Additionally, "insert era" levels a lot of the time have very fucking janky, badly flowing, and sometimes just outright terrible gameplay. Often times, the forced movement contradicts the natural movement of the gamemode, and it causes really fucking weird movements and lots of dying awkwardly. Not here. There have been maybe at most five times where not only have I had no complaints, but also have considered a level to excel in all areas. I don't really like the word "perfect", because all the kiddos fucking overuse it, plus that implies nothing can ever be better. But even with this only being 1.6, this is one of those """"perfect""" levels to me. Obviously, gameplay weighs in heavier in determining that here.
There was not a single dull moment in the level. Every single part, you had to do something. That includes the ship and UFO, with actual fucking diagonal movement. Not only that, but the motions were repetitive enough to help with flow, but varied enough to not be fucking boring portal taps and straight sections. There were a few large UFO taps, followed by a mini UFO that required tapping in between portals, but also not just oscillating between the same exact points.
The cube is the biggest improvement from the normal. Not only is the cube always moving through a very balanced mix of jumps, orbs, and portals, but it's moving in a very smooth way, sort of like a pendulum. There's no ridiculously sharp changes in direction or huge launches, and it just feels nice.
One key factor in the gameplay was the integration of "hold to keep jumping". That is criminally underused in levels. So many fucking hard levels turn the gameplay into fucking spam click hell, but in this level there was a challenge, but at the same time I could feel relaxed. No artificial difficulty, no bugs or fucking cheesy parts. Just nothing but fucking doing the thing, and if you fail that's on you.
The fakes were another thing done extremely well. First of all, they were simple. If you die to a fake one time, you know that the only other option is the other one. Don't tap instead of tapping, and vice versa. They were spread out enough to where they weren't just all fucking memorization. Maybe the only ones a bit close were the last two, but it's mostly fine. I really don't know how to describe it, but some kinds of memorization are just easier to get a hold of much quicker. I don't know what the fuck makes the difference, but what I do know is this is the good type. Consistency was key. All of the fake portals had one thing in common: orbs above them. That is likely one of the factors that really fucking helped with the easier memorization. Rather than being a blind guessing game like other types of fucking atrocious memorization, you had criteria to be looking out for, and generalizations could be made much easier in order to avoid these fakes.
As I said before, the level FELT like a 2.0 level despite actually being 1.6. I think a part that really helped is that the gameplay was so fucking engaging, that I wasn't too focused on the decoration. And even if that weren't the case and I had a higher attention span, there is clearly thought put into placement and colors to make an overall clean look.
Not only is the level great in execution, but also in ideals. It's proved that with all the fucking bullshit "nostalgia insert era" levels, that it is possible to make an actual good one. They focused on making the level good, rather than assigning its value to some number, and letting that number dictate/ruin everything. And that is why I believe that this is one of the best of Year 3.
#geometrydash #dailylevel #oldfashioniedbrawl
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