What's this? A contest-based episode that hasn't had a comment since February? Why, this is perfect for me to review!
Naturally, even though I know the levels were made by different people, I'll still hold AirShip responsible for all of their flaws.
AirShip wrote:CreamShot:
Ha, nice pun. Anyway,
My review of Super Mario Quest Infinity:
To begin, I would like to point out a pretty huge, glaring error in the, *ahem*,
ENGLISH version of this episode:
There's some text still in Portugese!
The least you could do was copy the text into Google Translate and let us try to interpret the imperfect translation. Forcing the player to translate the text himself/herself breaks the flow of the episode.
And yes, I have screenshots from each untranslated level. I'll admit that, for this one, I had to go back and take a screenshot in the editor because I forgot to do it while I was playing the episode.
For this one, you need a space between "visto" and "mini" for it to translate properly. I don't know if that's also improper grammar or not.
AAAAGH! There was an English version of this level in MAGL X! There's no excuse for it not to be translated here!
Moving on: I assume that each section represents one contest, as you said this was a compilation of three, and there are three sections. In the first, each level entrance is a floating LOL circle. This makes it annoying when trying to replay levels because the player has to jump to reach the warp rather than simply being able to hold up to retry. There's a similar situation with the ? cirlces (it doesn't help that Macarraum's ? circle is after the level's warp), but unlike the LOL warps, being big actually prevents the need to jump. Either way, these are things I'd like to see fixed.
Also, I feel that there should be a quick and easy way to access each section from the Lobby's start point. Not only is having to run through each section just to get back to where I was boring, but being forced to scale the mountain in the first section on top of that is just tedious. I understand that you were trying to hide a secret, but that's why I feel like you need to add a quicker way to access each section. I eventually decided to Shadow Star through the mountain to save time, and I just moved the start point entirely when I made it to the final boss.
And another thing about the Lobby:
There isn't any water here. I know that there should be water here because it's indicated by the water background objects, but there's clearly no water here. You can tell that there isn't any water here by the fact that I took a screenshot of me spin-jumping, something that can't be done underwater.
Finally, under Settings for the World Map, you should indicate the number of stars to avoid nonsense like 10800% completion
The first level, Icepower Ability, is obviously a joke level, so it is undeserving of a review. However, I feel the need to mention that, if you are warped to the screamer, there's no way to escape that room, as there's an event that paralyzes you. I know it looks like you tried to block off the screamer, but the instant warp can still be hit. I recommend removing the warp entirely, or at least replacing the bottom red coins with more blocks.
On to Franzir Forest: This level had three stars: one was the main one, and another was indicated by a star sign. However, the last one was very unintuitive to get. I feel that this screenshot adresses all of my problems with it:
To begin, you had to jump down this cliff which had no indicator that you could jump down it safely. Heck, the sign even points in
the other direction! You could argue that the single visible slope on its side was an indicator, but it wasn't. If you had put a coin on the slope, then it would have been an indicator that there was a secret there. Next, as you can clearly see from the screenshot, you can't make it back up the wall (too steep to be a hill); this star might as well be a level-ending star due to the amount of backtracking you force us to do after collecting it.
Also, I'm pretty sure this level didn't have a midpoint.
On to Armada Attack: other than it missing a sprite swap for one of the fish's effects, I didn't really see any errors.
On to Leafage Passageway: This level was looooooooong. I'm pretty sure there was no midpoint, either. On top of that, there were plants on moving layers; jumping on one of their spawn points harms player. Also, the berries had npcblock=1, which caused minor oddities.
Moving on: In Urbano, the orange sizables are slippery, and there's no indication that they are until you start sliding on them. Also:
This squid was in just the right position for it to end up on land, unable to move. I don't know if this was intentional or not.
On to Nightly Grassland:
Um, okay?
On to Bones in the Way: This level feels like the creator wanted to cram too much into just one level. The light blue rotating bones were used exactly one time. This was also a looooooooong level, but at least it had a midpoint. Also:
If the platform is activated, then the player decides to activate the switch needed to progress, he/she will end up stuck down here with no way of getting back up except by starting the entire level over again.
Um, why?
On to Entrance of the temple of Devocation:
I'm pretty sure this level is b--wait, what?
Er, anyway, as I was saying, this level is broken. Everything outside the temple works, but inside the temple, there's a block that's blocking the way forward, and the player has to enter a nearby door to hit a skull switch. However, this skull switch does NOTHING. I tried twice, then just gave up and used Shadow Star to beat the level. Don't believe me? Here's a screenshot showing that it does nothing:
How did this win the second contest??
Moving on: I thought the gimmick in Frost Dimension was kinda neat, but it wasn't fully fleshed out.
And now, my review of Feijut's Vulcan
First, a bit of advice from one level designer to another:
Always put the warning sign
before the trap it's warning you about.
Because of that, this happened to me:
I swear, I'm not using God Mode in the above screenshot. I was big, then the deadweight sprite swaps fell on me, which caused me to take damage, but not die for some reason. I feel that this can be fixed somehow. Also, this:
Anyway, this was a good level until this part:
Notice anything missing?
That's right: those platforms of yours don't show up in front of the background images! Because of this, there's literally no way to tell where the platforms are, especially in the rising lava section. When I first made it here, I thought that was intentional, and was going to complain about you not using more background images as indicators. I also had to use God Mode to get past the rising lava section because of this. Another thing: Solar Man's song sucks, no matter what remix. Just don't use it for anything.
Also, bad AirShip; the secret star should be an SMW star so that people who get it first don't have to play through the entire level AGAIN to get the main star. First, Franzir Forest, now this; what's with you and forced backtracking?
On to Grasslands:
For starters, this tree graphic that I threw my boomerang at looks like a crappy resized version of the tree at the top-left. I'm pretty sure I see 1x1 pixels, too.
In this secret section, as soon as the player comes out of the warp, the Koopa Paratroopa damages you, and it is unavoidable. Just move it off of the pipe's path.
Finally, these background images make it look like I should be able to walk on it, but I can't, as indicated by the Koopa shell. Also, I'm pretty sure that third waterfall-top is a placement error.
On to Chemical Cruise:
If a certain switch is pressed, the midpoint can be gotten early. If the player dies shortly after, he/she can skip at least half of the level. I know the screenshot isn't representative of this; I was just surprised to see the midway point so early.
Also, the Mother Brain sprite swap can be killed quite quickly by simply holding a bob-omb next to it, as it doesn't hurt you. Plus, I can just stand here and avoid most of the event hazards.
On to Spectral Skyfall:
Why do you say "Ouch!" if I'm not actually damaged by this? You should know that there's no fall-damage in Mario!
Literally five seconds later:
Wow, how incredibly convenient!
Both of my issues with Valhalla Night were addressed in the MAGL X playthrough: not being able to bypass the toad ghost without talking to it, and the nonsense secret star, so I'm moving on to the final boss:
Why do I...have to walk...
all the way...through this hall...
every time...I am killed...?
Also, some of the stars in the background get cut off; you probably shouldn't have sprite swapped a parallax background.
By the way, you know that introduction sprite, the one you have in your own screenshot?
Well, once the walking event stops, control is given back to the player. This is what happens if I continue to hold right, or even jump expecting to skip the oncoming text quickly:
Yay, I won!
Anyway, the boss: I actually really liked the idea you had for your final boss, especially the pointless poses in between attacks. My main issue is that the only difficult part is also the only time he's vulnerable: having to spin jump on boos to get the blocks to damage him is one thing, but trying to pick one up without falling on another boo and dying is another. On top of this, he's a Mother Brain sprite swap, meaning I'd have to hit him
10 times to win, unless I exploited a glitch to where I could just hold it by him to cause multiple damage (which is what I did, by the way). I think it would be better if he was a layer boss instead: keep the boo generators shown until he's hit, then activate the next set of events that make up his pattern, and then show another layer that represents his second hit point, etc. Not only would this prevent the tediousness that comes with fighting a Mother Brain sprite swap, it would also allow you to change his pattern up a bit each time he's hit. After all, you shouldn't make "exploit a glitch" the optimal way to fight your boss.
Another thing about the final boss:
On this part, some of the circles go behind the pillars. That's just a nitpick, though.
What's less of a nitpick, however, is the inconsistency with the circles and the boos (can you figure out which one is in the wrong place?):
Finally, I'd like to point out inconsistency. Can you spot it?
AirShip wrote:Total Stars - 27
I also had to go back in the editor for this one.
This episode was...okay. It wasn't bad (except for some of those bad levels), but it wasn't very innovative, either. Then again, it's a contest episode, so there's not much it can really do to be innovative.
AirShip wrote:I have plans to redo the whole episode, levels and graphs, one by one, but I will not do that now.
Well, now you know some things to look out for when you
do decide to do that.
However, I regretted going to that pipe with those red coins.
