Generation Retro
12107595
ArathhSA
Generation Retro is a 2.0 Harder level by ArathhSA. It is the fifth and final level of the Poison Gauntlet.
Description
Generation Retro begins with a decently easy cube section. A red alien says, 'Welcome!' A robot section follows during the drop, where the villain alien says 'No!' followed by a wave segment. After a while, the player turns into a mini-wave. After the wave segment, the player enters a ball section where the aliens serve as platforms. There will be a sign pointing downwards, indicating that the player must go down, where the villain arrives and tries to attack the player; however, a blue alien defends them, saying 'Hey!' Then it transitions to an easy UFO section where the player must follow the arrows on the screen, followed by a boss fight against an alien.
The alien then shoots a projectile in the middle of the screen before moving up to shoot another one. A collectable then appears in the middle of the screen; the player must collect it. Once collected, the player fires several rounds of green ammunition at the alien, draining half of its health. The alien continues to shoot a projectile in the middle of the screen, then fires a column of three projectiles; if the player goes below the column, they receive the second coin. The alien then moves up and shoots another projectile column.
The Blue Alien shoots a laser at the first Red Alien, which then fades away as the Blue Alien leaves. The words 'Level Final' then flash a part of the screen before transitioning into the final boss fight. Afterwards, the player fights the main boss, who shoots laser beams and causes spikes to appear. A green appears as a shield to protect from incoming attacks. The boss will now attempt to ram the player. After the player dodges the second set of attacks, the rest of the level continues as mostly an auto part with dialogue.
The Red Alien then summons a spike wall to kill the player. Suddenly, the Blue Alien from earlier appears, and it shoots a laser at the spike wall, destroying it. The Red Alien and Blue Alien shoot a laser towards each other. Unfortunately, the Red Alien's laser overpowers the Blue Alien's, thus killing the Blue Alien.
The player shoots a laser towards the Red Alien, defeating it. The level then ends. The third coin is available in this part, a 'free coin' requiring no extra effort to obtain.
User coins
- The first coin is located in the wave sequence at 22%, requiring the player to fly up after the first obstacle and go into the block to get the coin.
- The second coin is located at 57%, requiring the player, as a ship, to fly under the alien's attacks.
- The third and final coin is located at 98%, which is granted free upon completion. Unlike the last two coins, it looks like a coin from Super Mario World.
Gameplay
Trivia
- The aliens are from the famous Taito game Space Invaders.
- Most of the pixel art is made from 3D objects instead of actual pixel blocks.
- The red alien says 'Jajajaja' ('Hahahaha' in Spanish) and has somewhat broken English. It is likely because English is not the creator's first language.
- If the player stays on the ceiling at the end of the level, they will die at 98% because the wall that the alien used to stop the player suddenly stops moving to the right at that moment.
- If the player flies into the ceiling rather than staying on it, they will die at 99% because the wall stops moving prematurely.
- The player shoots three laser beams at the alien, but only the first two are shown, with the third bullet being invisible.
- At 17%, if the player flies off the structure or misses the second green orb, they pass by a weird circular object with decorations (and an eyeball not present when skipping the orb) with no group IDs attached to it, and it is not a coin.
- This level used to get a lot of hate when initially added to the Poison Gauntlet due to the unfitting theme and long boss fight. It still gets a vast amount of hate for its difficulty, poor playtesting and decoration according to the community and other reasons.
- Colon released a video in 2023, where he explained his reasoning on why Generation Retro was the worst level in the game. He explained in the comments that he did not hate the level but rather hated that RobTop put it in the Poison Gauntlet.[1]
- ArathhSA, the creator himself, commented on the video, confirming that he made Generation Retro when he was 13.
- This video prompted users McMiner3244 and SpaceMagicGD to create a remake of the level Retro Generation, fixing most of its problems. Another Generation Retro remake, created by the user ZenyXcz, was called 'Retro Legacy'. It also fixed the original level's flaws, alongside improved visuals.