[Extreme Demon] Deception Dive by Rustam
Took a break from GD, and now I'm probably going to take another... but anyway, I noticed that I was close to 900 demons, and I wanted to do something a bit special, so I settled on this hunk-a-junk!
This level is pretty awful haha, pretty much all the rumors you hear about it are true. As usual, with levels I pre-expected to be awful, I lowered my bar and I didn't have a totally miserable time, but really, I didn't have a great time with this either and the balancing made this pretty stressful to play from zero since the ending felt so luck-based.
Unfortunately, contrary to my belief, the first 70% of this level is NOT free and actually contains quite a lot of chokepoints in and of themselves that make it so that I wasn't really getting past it consistently. But, also, to my relief, the last 12% IS free, so that actually does kind of make up for some of it. Anyway, I'll just get into the gameplay details, since there's not much else to say besides the fact that the level is obviously awkward and unbalanced.
Predrop (0-38): Yeah, this part is actually not that easy. Firstly there are a lot of tricky and awkward timings in Rustam, so that took a bit to get consistent with, then you get a break with Zober, who I assume got the memo that they were making an 8*. Zenthic ramps up the difficulty a bit with some janky but otherwise still easy gameplay, but then we get AmoraMC, whose part I really dislike, mainly because everything seems to be moving around and it's actually quite hard to see what kills you. Then there's Platnuu with the exact same issue, where the gameplay isn't actually particularly difficult, but it's so stuffed with random decoration that it makes it somewhat hard to see anything clearly. Plus there are some awkward transitions with the yellow portal at 26 and the wave at 28, although the wave itself is fine. Then, we have sharks, which is another really easy part, so not much to say there.
Drop 1 (38-66): Not hard, but again, not easy. The first wave is chill: the timings can be somewhat tight but it still feels very fair. The next ship section is also very fair, but for some reason, there was a period of time where my brain turned off and I could never get past it, despite it not being very difficult. Then we have the part from 48-57 which I'm pretty sure is made from the guy who made Enantiomorphs. Anyway, this part is super easy and consistent, though the timings can feel somewhat awkward, especially toward the end. At 57, the level gets much more rough around the edges, firstly with a REALLY awkward spider section at 58, followed by yet another kind of awkward bit at 63-66. These sections did get consistent, but they always felt uncomfortable to play, and whenever I was getting somewhat exhausted and losing my edge, I found myself dying there more and more often since muscle memory is just generally unreliable with awkward gameplay.
Drop 2 (66-100): So here is where most of the difficulty in the level is. Really, the difficulty isn't even with all of the gameplay, but with very specific clicks and small chokepoints that are just scattered throughout the ending; the rest of the level is still not very hard. The first chokepoint is the wave at 71, and specifically, the very last release of that wave, which is kind of a goofily difficult timing involving an invisible slope which actually makes it quite a lot harder to read. Then you have the ball timings at 74, which are actually not very hard but are VERY easy to goof up because they're so hard to read and feel so unnatural. Then we get Krampux's famous section, where there are four major chokepoints. The first two are just the first two blue orbs as the ball, especially the second one, which I died to three times. Then there is this absolutely idiotic wave at 79 before the level decides to turn into an insane demon for a bit before throwing another idiotic wave at 86. Once you get past these two waves though, the last 12% is really easy, but it's surprisingly easy to choke on still especially because it's not always super clear where you have to click. Then voila, GG!
So overall, yeah, this level is pretty bad, I really just wanted to beat it because it is a classic 2.0 extreme (meaning I'll also beat Night Party soon, maybe even next), but I really didn't get much out of playing this. I wouldn't really recommend this, especially not as a first extreme, even with some of the falsely alluring "easy" gameplay, but it's also not as hard as some people make it out to be. I think playing this really relies on first getting consistent at the first 70%, then just praying that you pass all the random chokepoints after it.
Anyway, I'll be out again for a bit, so no more GD content for my beloved fans. I know, I know, it's quite a devastating moment for us all, but I decided I wanted to maybe touch some grass so I'll be out for a bit. Hooray!
Gameplay: 4.8/7
Deco: 2.4/3
Total: 7.2/10
Personal Difficulty: Very easy extreme demon (5A)