[Extreme Demon] corrupted volume by CybayaGD
Had to manually turn the volume up for this video because OBS is acting up for some reason, apologies if it is a bit loud... also, new icons, kinda. I'm still messing around right now so it may take a bit to find something I want to settle on.
Anyway, I saw this level a while ago but because it looked really annoying, I decided not to go for it. But then I decided to go for it recently after seeing some people really enjoy this one and it kind of was annoying... but maybe not as much as I though it'd be.
I think the main issue with this level is just that it's extremely chokepoint carried. I don't even know if this would qualify as an extreme if you nerfed them to consistency. That being said, I don't think this is too difficult of an extreme, maybe a tier beyond entry level around Myocardia, but not far past that, which might be kind of a hot take depending on who you ask. Again, there really isn't anything very difficult outside the chokepoints, but some of the chokepoints are REALLY inconsistent. Besides that though, I think the quirky gameplay actually usually works and flows pretty well, it's unfortunate that this flow is kind of ruined by the often really awkward chokepoints. But regardless, to the overview...
First ship (0-11): I really hate it. There are some invisible spikes that are really easy to miss and it just felt all-around super awkward, I honestly never got consistent at this and even toward the end I felt like most of my attempts still ended here, despite playing this for more than 90 minutes from 0 at this point. This part just never vibed with me.
Uncorrupted Volume (11-44): This part was alright. The thing that annoyed me the most was definitely how hard it could be sometimes to see what could and couldn't kill you, and the fact that a lot of the timings were really difficult to gauge (often for the aforementioned reason), which made some of them awkward, but every wrong click here did feel like my own fault, and I was able to muster up some consistency toward the end. Although I didn't feel this way at first, I think the robot at 30 is definitely the hardest part of this, some of the clicks feel very awkward.
Corrupted Volume Part 1 (44-64): This is where the chokepoints really start to carry. Before then, there were definitely chokepoints, but the difficulty was still pretty consistent. The entire drop, however, is basically a mid-end insane demon carried up by a load of chokepoints. The first chokepoint is literally just the very first blue orb at 46 which you have to time oddly precisely, although this timing isn't horrible if you pay enough attention to it. The wave at 46 is also somewhat challenging, but not too bad. You then get a really easy UFO/wave, then a HORRIBLE ball section at 51 with two clicks that I died to about 70% of the time. I have no idea why these clicks gave me so much trouble, maybe my brain is just wired wrong. Then you get some really easy gameplay pretty much all the way to 64, except the wave release at 59, which is bugged if you release too early and also surprisingly easy to mistime.
Corrupted Volume Part 2 (64-81): This section is hard carried by two chokepoints for me. The first is the blind wave release at around 67 in the middle of a speed change, that is EVIL. Especially for the tightest wave timing in the level. Second is the ship immediately afterward at 68 which has a speed change to screw with you so you really need to correct yourself quickly going into the straight fly, which is actually quite hard. The rest I wouldn't say is as easy as the easy sections of 44-64, but it's still pretty chill, outside the spikes being a bit hard to see sometimes.
Ending (81-100): Pretty evil ending that I died to twice. The first green orb you just have to barely not buffer (which you can actually do most of the time but it's not worth the risk), and the blue orb at 86 is really awkward. The last 10% is REALLY evil, there are a ton of timings involved, but the worst part is that many of the timings aren't readable because you can't really see what kills you if you mistime something, so really, you have to memorize exactly how to time every orb. And that last red orb is horrible, it's a completely blind timing that you have to just hope you didn't hit too early/late, but you can mitigate the risks a bit by timings the blue orbs before it in a certain way. I'm really glad I didin't die here, even though I did have a silly death at 94 because I forgot to time a blue orb late.
Overall, if levels with quirky gameplay is your thing, go for this, but otherwise, I don't think I'd recommend this, it's too heavily carried by chokepoints which makes it very frustrating and feel somewhat luck-based. But remove the chokepoints, and in all its quirkiness, there is a solid and pretty intense/engaging experience underneath... this certainly isn't boring.
Gameplay: 5.3/7
Deco: 2.7/3
Total: 8.0/10
Personal Difficulty: Slightly harder extreme demon (5B)