[ti]Demon[/ti]Green Criminal. Song: Smooth Criminal :P

Level: Green Criminal
Creator: Elzeko (Elzeko)
ID: 34573426
Song: Smooth Criminal - 8-bit by Thislebrush www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/274382
Video (Provided): www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYBu7LxH92g


Gameplay:
First of all, the gameplay in this level is pretty unbalanced. The first 21% is pretty easy overall, but after, it has a huge difficulty spike. Okay, let's break down each part. First of all, you come in quite unexpectedly. It's not terrible, as there's no immediate obstacles, however, the sawblades are still pretty close and it's also easy to accidentally hit the Low Detail Mode. Now, the gameplay isn't too interesting in this part. You are just flying through moving spaces, really. Also, the moving aspect to this makes the gameplay slightly bad, it's not terrible for the slow moving platforms, however at 9%, the moving platform is pretty unexpected, at it took me a while to get the hang of it, even with the arrows pointing to the correct spot. The fact that you have to collect the heart I believe can mess people up, as I can see some people possibly thinking it unlocks a coin and they just ignore it. Also, it's a bit weird to get up there, you can't go right away, you have to time it right, which feels unusual and doesn't offer nice gameplay, especially since it is hard to see what is going to kill you. When you enter the wave part, since the slope moves up, it is pretty hard to get over it without crashing at the tip, as the player doesn't expect it. Try moving the first slope out or hvae the moving stop alltogether. The spamming in the next section was pretty difficult for me. I often found myself exiting too late and then I can't make the next jump, also it's possible to skip a couple of these orbs, try having less or replacing some orbs with pads so the player can't skip anything and it is a bit easier to time. Also, the shaking is terrible, all it does is add unessesary difficulty and it is not fun at all to play. The moving objects later on were confusing and the timings were awkward, honsetly. In the ship section, the timing on the green orb is weird and you give no indication that the trap is coming and how to avoid it, which offers bad gameplay. The spider is very buggy due to the screen scrolling, it has terrible and confusing gameplay because of this. The later sections have bad transitions, due to the fading effects between them, 54% being the worst, very unexpected. It doesn't even have good gameplay in general. The dash orb to straight fly doesn't really work out well at all. The following gameplay is boring. The shaking blocks bounce you up, making it auto, but it can trip people up unfortunately. At 75%, make the mirror portal visible, or else it just makes the gameplay unexpected and bad. The last spike jump is unneccesary with the speed portal and the shake trigger. Seriously, the shake trigger is way too intense, you might want to lower the intensity a bit, but I suggest removing it completely.

Overall: There's nothing too fun about this gameplay, it's filled with weird transitions, awkward bits, and a couple of bad shake triggers. 4/20, -5 for all around issues, such as the shake triggers and other minor issues. -2 for some bad transitions. -3 for a lot of awkward timings. -2 for that bad spider part. -2 for unneccesary moving objects. -2 for some boring parts as well.


Block Design/Decoration:
This level's design is far better than the design of the last level of yours I judged, but it still has a long way to go. First of all, the block design in this level wasn't too great. In the first section, the pillars aren't really interesting, not much to them, but I see you were actually thinking about block design here, as you had some added detail to the blocks. However, it is still pretty empty all the way through. In the first UFO section, I thought the obstacles looked unusual. The rainbow aspect doesn't really fit, although it's not terrible. The spikes didn't line up very well in some places, either. One thing I suggest doing is flipping the spikes and having a whole 'nother row of spikes along the underside of the previous ones to make the rows double-sided. I think that would make it look better, if you understand what I'm trying to say. The wave part didn't have any added detail to the blocks. After this, most block design is lost, however, you did add some spikes underneath the block for some design, so I can't say you completely neglected it. At 73%, the design looked weird, it feels like it's a 1.5 level, despite just using faded blocks. Let's move onto the rest. The bacgkround in the first section wasn't interesting. It was primarily white with a lot of copy-paste. Deco was lacking, although you added a little. The section at 22% just felt like deco spam. paired with all the rainbowness, it was just an eyesore to me. But I can tell you really thought about it as they are clearly purposefully placed, not just random copy-paste, which makes it slightly better. 34% was empty, barely anything to look at unfortunately. The background during the spider section is pretty bad, to be blunt. It looks like pulsing objects all set to rotate, it does not look good, really. Also, it is paired with fading, which makes it worse. Always make sure to set custom backgrounds to "Don't Fade". The section at 58% is really empty, add more to it. The pulsing objects at the top seem out of place. At 74%, you focused on the custom background clearly, but it is all just either uniform deco or randomly placed deco, which isn't too creative or detailed.

Overall: Needs better block design, and a lot of focus on backgrounds and other decoration in the later parts. Everything needs a big improvement, unfortunately. 4/20, -4 for little or no block design, -5 for very little decoration overall. -3 for lack of other detail such as custom backgrounds in the later parts, and -2 for very little detail when you did add something. -1 for some spammy-looking and cluttered parts and -1 for some visual issues and mistakes with everything.


Sync:
You had sections sync up well, but not really much gameplay sync. Gameplay sync only appeared to start at 25%, where you synced the orbs. However I liked how you did sync the orbs. After that, not much gameplay sync, apart from some bits. You did sync portals and sections very well, though. Design sync was lacking, I didn't really catch much apart from the pulsing objects, and like I always say, they do it automatically, so it is not much.

Overall: Sync needs to be improved a lot overall. It only had good sync with the sections, but not muh else, but you did have some bits where some other stuff synced. 3/10, The deductions are pretty much self-explanitory. I left you with 3 due to a bit of deco and gameplay sync, but a minimal amount, along with the syncing of the portals and sections.


Originality: 0.9x
This is definitely the hardest section to judge for this level. One thing I can say, it is definitely not generic, however, from what you did have, it is not too original, as a ton of aspects are found in some unrated lavels, but usually never found in rated levels. The Michigun spike is unoriginal and the overuse of the shake trigger is definitely unoriginal and unneeded. The song is original, though. I'm giving you 0.9x on this, mainly because while it has unoriginal aspects, it is certainly different from the levels being rated today.

Conclusion: 3.96/20 (19.8%) Needs Improvement
Overall, you need to work a lot on everything for this level. I have not much else to say, really. Although, I do think this is more High-End, honestly. I thought this had potential to get in decent at the start of this review, but unfortunately the score did just not work out when I broke it down. This is definitely better than the last level of yours I reviewed! I think you have potential, but there's still a long way to go.

Moving to Needs Improvement.