The End.
As 2.1 is soon coming to an end I felt like this would be fitting for my final upload of the update, as it's one of my favorite levels of all time by one of my favorite creators, and the level has a fitting name too. How convenient.
I've felt quite nostalgic for a few days now so I decided to write some of my thoughts about the game, 2.1, and my journey overall. The update came out when I was just 14 with my first extreme demon under my belt. Within the update I went from that to being the number one player in Finland for a brief time, to having the country's hardest demon, to slowly falling of the top to give way for the new generation of players. Nowadays, as a 21 year-old young man I don't play GD (or games overall) that much any more, but that doesn't take away from the impact these years of playing the game have had on me.
2017 was the first year of the update, and the year I managed to become one of Finland's top players - something that I would hang onto for many years to come. I started the year by beating Cataclysm as my first extreme demon and went on slowly picking up harder levels and also streaming them quite a bit. During this year I got more involved within the community, especially the Finnish GD community, and met some amazing people. I ended the year with beating Bloodbath and Athanatos as my hardest.
2018 was probably the peak of my "relevancy" if you can call it that lmao. I spent the first half of the year beating lots of extremes and doing other stuff. This is a time that I hold close to my heart as I have great memories of it. Carelessly playing GD in call with friends, mainly MirQ, and just having a great time. During the spring I beat Subsonic, which would stay as my hardest demon for a long time. I also made some real progress on Yatagarasu, which would have been the hardest demon in Finland at the time (shared with MirQ who had beaten it earlier) Despite the good memories, by the end of spring I had grown quite frustrated with the game and started having issues with my hand. Therefore I decided to quit the game forever...
...until I came back in the latter half of 2019. Who would have seen this coming lmao. After the year-long break I soon beat Artificial Ascent as my new hardest and started becoming better at the game again. I ended the year by beating Black Blizzard and started the next year with more motivation than ever.
In 2020 I was having a lot of fun with the game again playing, creating and meming around. After a rather rough start in terms of extreme demon completions, I managed to finish off Yatagarasu and also beat Erebus, finally securing Finland's number one spot on the demonlist stats viewer. I only held the spot for a while after MirQ took it back, but I'm still really proud for having it at one moment, if only briefly. After this I entered a period where I didn't beat anything hard for multiple months. Instead I spent my time mostly grinding stars and demons, beating every single easy demon in the game at the time.
2021 started with one of my favorite memories in the game, the Finnish Bloodlust race. Multiple people, including me, Artsi and RpgRaketti were racing Bloodlust and I remember having so much fun with the friendly rivalry. In February I got 95%, and although the race stalemated for a while, I managed to finally beat it in June and it became the new hardest demon in Finland. Beating Bloodlust is probably my proudest achievement in all of my gaming years and I still hold the moment of completion close to my heart. The summer of 2021 was probably the peak of my skill and motivation in the game and during the year I beat most of my hardest demons, including Zaphkiel, Catalyze, Sonic Wave and others. The year ended with the beginning of the Demon List World Cup, in which I participated. It was really fun and I kind of hope to partake in such an event some time again.
In 2022 I had noticed my motivation for the game had started to decline and although I beat a few more hard levels during the spring, this is the last time I have played the game constantly almost every day. In 2022 I went through a lot of changes in my personal life, including starting university and since then I haven't really played the game seriously.
As 2023 comes to an end, I haven't beaten a single extreme demon this year. In January I made a gameplay part in Flamewall and recently played Aftercatabath for a while, a level that I'm still intending to finish one day. But that's about it for the year. Currently my only list points are from the Bloodlust completion, and it seems like that's where it'll stay.
What a journey. Lots of great memories and moments I'm glad to remember and hold dear, lots of amazing people I've had many good times with. I'm beyond impressed and excited with what the new generation of players are capable of, and I'm happy to have been a part of this community for so many years. Let's see what 2.2 brings, maybe I'll become more active again, who knows.