Mario Prime v. 1.2

[Reign]

I uploaded a fixed version.

@Sednaiur, very glad to hear that. Hopefully you'll enjoy it all the way to the end!

[MECHDRAGON777]

Original link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D3Frgh6t3I

There is only one way to fix the third boss to name it so peach can。 It get in

How do I rate this game five stars

What all did you fix in the new version? Do I need to replay this one as it is an update, or do I need to just sit it out?

[Reign]

No need to replay, just fixed a few grammar things and added a wall to the fortress. Nothing major. Thanks for the rave review.

[MECHDRAGON777]

No need to replay, just fixed a few grammar things and added a wall to the fortress. Nothing major. Thanks for the rave review.

Add a wall to the fortress? Can you show a screen shot of that then? Specificly the fortress! I can tell if it is possible from that or not! If I think it is, I will download it and show exactly what I mean! I congratulate you on solving every bug I find though!

I also see you watched the video I the beta ten times since you are the only one with the link to it!

[Sambo]

This is a really good episode. It has a new sort of game play that I don't think I've ever seen in an SMBX episode before. Nice work.

[Reign]

Add a wall to the fortress? Can you show a screen shot of that then? Specificly the fortress! I can tell if it is possible from that or not! If I think it is, I will download it and show exactly what I mean! I congratulate you on solving every bug I find though!

Spoiler: show

[MECHDRAGON777]

Graphically, would it not be better to make a green block barker over it instead? It is possible with co-op tiger peach in there though! I will congratulate you on peach-prodding the boss though!

[Imaynotbehere4long]

All right, I finally got around to playing this episode, and wow, this is incredibly ambitious! I remember thinking that I was the only one who thought of this idea, but now I see that you've had the same idea since freaking June! And, apparently, there have been two other projects like this that Emral was a part of, so I guess my idea wasn't that unique after all. Oh well.

AND NOW, MY REVIEW OF MARIO PRIME:

The first thing I'd like to point out is that the episode's in-game name is shortened to "Mario Prime - The Saga" so that it doesn't go off screen, and that's something I haven't seen until now.

So, like I wrote earlier, this is ambitious, but it's also a bit disappointing. The entire episode is styled after Metroid and Castlevania games in that it has a few large areas that are interconnected and contain multiple save spots, but unlike those two games, the episode is completely linear. Sure, the Metroid and Castlevania games are also linear to an extent, but those games also reward exploration. A good example would be the Screw Attack in the first Metroid game: it's probably the most iconic power-up in Metroid, but it is absolutely optional in the NES Metroid; the entire game can be beaten without it. In this episode, not only are all of the stars required, but they have to be collected in a specific order (with the exception of one pair of stars that can only switch places with each other). If the path splits, then either the player is unable to reach one path and must go the other or the player has already explored one path and now has no reason to go though that path again (unless it contains another split path that hasn't yet been traversed), meaning he/she will go to the other path. Heck, the only power-up in the episode is the mushroom, and that alone eliminates quite a lot of potential possibilities for exploration, even if the power-ups were just guarded by star doors like a generic bonus level. In other words, it's just a linear episode wearing the skin of a nonlinear episode, and I believe that much, much more can be done with the concept than what this episode demonstrates.

Anyway, the episode begins with a really well made introductory level which does a good job at establishing the story and the world, except for one minor plot hole I came across:

Spoiler: show

What do you mean "the sun is not rising anymore"? The sky is blue! IT'S OBVIOUSLY FREAKING DAYTIME!

Also, "cannot" is actually only one word, not two. By the way, why is the Maleficent Mask a saw blade sprite-swap? Saw blades make that annoying "tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik-tik" noise constantly while on screen, so the least you could do is make the text boxes appear instantly after the previous one instead of giving them that short delay.

Anyway, after the story part of the introductory level is the mandatory-tutorial part of the introductory level, which is quite annoying for those of us who already know how SMBX works. Yes, I know that hitting a switch block will turn dashed blocks into solid blocks, and I think that anyone can figure that out pretty quickly even if you don't explain it. To be fair, I would not have realized that the glowing pots were actually ? block sprite-swaps or that the golden pipes have Allow NPC = No if it weren't for the explanations. Also:

Spoiler: show

You mean "one of the most important things," right?

After the mandatory tutorial, the episode proper finally begins, and the player is greeted with the usual combination of grab-able SMB2 enemies (even the giant Shy Guys can be picked up). Not long afterward, the player comes across Bot sprite-swaps which, although they have playerblocktop=1, they cannot be picked up because...why can't they be picked up? It's unintuitive for a basic enemy in an SMB2 styled level not to be pick-up-able.

Something else to note: all of the world map levels say "Return to" or "Back to" whatever area. I find this quite in-concise since, in the episode's own canon, my character is already in said location. This isn't like ordinary SMBX episodes where I can walk from one level to another; I have no choice except to "return to" the area I just "left" (even though my character never really left in the first place). It would be better if you removed the "Return to"s and instead used various adjectives to describe the locations of each world map icon, even if it's something simple like "Perky Pastures (East)" or "Hushed Hollow (Depths)." Adding these minor details would also help to give your world more life (I think that's the right word).

Something that I'd like to point out:

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Okay, so this NPC's sole purpose is to let the player know that collecting the all of the cherries in the section gives him/her a star...

So why does this NPC tell the player the exact same thing? I suggest removing the previous one (or at least changing what it says) since this NPC gives more details about the subject.

Some other things I'd like to point out:

Spoiler: show

This note block sprite-swap is on a layer moving horizontally, and that will cause Toad (and the other playable characters, I believe) to get stuck on top of it instead of bounce until the jump button is pressed. This is a minor issue, but I thought you should know about it.

Now this is something I don't understand: you have seemingly random player filters scattered throughout the early sections of Hushed Hollow (I know that you have reasons for the ones in some of the later sections). Even as foreshadowing for the later player filters, it doesn't really make much sense because the sections would only need minor, if any, adjustments to be completable as all characters. They just pointlessly break the flow of the episode more than anything.

Speaking of pointless, this part:

There are much better ways you could do the "foreshadow a later section" than warp chains. In fact, using a warp chain is probably the worst way you could have gone about doing that because the player is literally forced to go through multiple warps in a row just to get from one spot to another when one warp would have been much more streamlined; it was tedious when NSMGX did it, and it's still tedious here. What you did in Section 1 was better since the player is actually doing something on top of getting a glimpse at a part of the level further into the game. I recommend removing those little areas and move the gold pipe straight to Section 4.

Speaking of the first section, that key-wall part just seemed like a lazy attempt at recreating the key-wall segment(s?) in Super Mario Enigmatic; that part didn't really add anything to the level.

Behold, my first sequence break:

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So, when I made it here, I realized that I could bounce on the rainbow shell sprite-swap to make it into the top pipe. At first, I was really exited because, since that's actually where the player is supposed to go and the sections are built that way, I thought that I had come across a legitimate split path and secret.

Of course, when I went back to see what was in the other pipe, I was met with a subcon, a Ninji, and a dead end. It was then that I realized that my sequence break didn't really accomplish anything.

By the way, Section 8 in the third level is practically useless; the Ninji can easily be moved to somewhere in Section 4 and the other part of the section is basically just another warp chain.

Not long after that, the player comes across the Garden Guardian, and there's something...familiar about it...

Spoiler: show

Wait a minute, this boss is just a rehash of D2 from Super Mario Enigmatic! LAME!!

Listen: it doesn't matter how popular your custom boss or previous episode was; rehashing a boss just comes across as being lazy. It seems like you had a bunch of good ideas, but then you got tired of working on the episode and just reused stuff from SME as filler.

So, at this point, I was just over halfway done with the episode, so I still thought that the episode might have a secret...

Spoiler: show

So I decided to phase through this wall, and I ended up stuck in that little decorative area and had to restart the game. As a level designer, you need to make sure that players can't get stuck to the point where they have to quit the game entirely; I recommend lowering the opening by one unit.

Speaking of decorations, some of them don't quite work properly:

Also, why do you have a pipe graphic here if it doesn't warp anywhere? It's not like the mushroom block needed any more indication than simply being there.

Moving on: this part is quite tedious:

Spoiler: show

In fact, it reminds me of something else that's tedious in a similar way...

AHA! I KNEW IT! Man, this has more in common with SME than I previously realized!

Another sequence break (I think):

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In case you didn't know, if the player throws an item directly upward, then climbs a vine, grabs the item in mid-air and throws it up again, he/she can bring items up vines, like so. If you didn't intend for this to happen, you may want to change it.

Also, this guy should really be moved to Section 9 in Hushed Hollow because that's where the poison mushroom sprite-swaps first appear, and first time players probably won't realize that they're poison mushrooms until after getting hit. By having the message here, the warning is too late for first time players.

Something else you should know:

Spoiler: show

The text events for this dialogue don't paralyze the player, so I can jump around like this. Also, you mean "hero of the Mushroom Kingdom," right?

Also, once the dialogue is completed, the chancellor isn't replaced by a duplicate NPC, so speaking to him again will trigger the entire dialogue again.

I have quite a few issues with this part. First of all, why can't the mini Shy Guys be picked up? Second, why aren't the mini Shy Guys used anywhere else in the episode (the Garden Guardian doesn't count)? Third, the first two mini Shy Guys are grey, so that means that first time players may mistake the mini purple Shy Guy's spiked helmet as just another grey Shy Guy and take an unfair hit (they are mini Shy Guys, after all).

For this part, the Panzers are placed just high enough that they activate and begin throwing fireballs but the player can't see or react to them.

Spoiler: show

The only reason I got past them is because I was big and took a hit. I recommend lowering them down a few units.

And now, for something completely pointless:

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Do I have to explain this? There's literally nothing for the player to do here except wait. The lack of hazards of any kind in this section just makes it boring, but the ship is moving too fast to make it feasible to avoid hazards if there were any there. I recommend either scrapping this section entirely or slowing the ship down and adding some hazards for the player to avoid.

This is also unintuitive:

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Until this part, the player has to hit the switches as quickly as possible, but then suddenly, the player has to take his/her time and hit the switch at the right moment to proceed. First time players may not realize the sudden shift and end up taking an unfair hit.

Plus, for this boss, the buried rainbow shell sprite-swaps are set as a projectile generator, so whenever the player grabs one, he/she is launched into the air. Changing the generator to a warp should fix this.

Oh no, it's...it's...

AAH! THAT NOISE! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOOOOP!

To be fair, this part isn't as bad as the ones in SME, but it's still annoying.

In this section, the pointless player filters strike again!

Spoiler: show

Seriously, why do this? The filters are so close together that it just becomes annoying having to switch between the different characters so frequently, and it's not like the areas that the players go through are built around said player characters (except the one after this section built for Peach).

Also, you have a Subcon here, but it doesn't say anything; it's just sorta there. Was that intended?

And now, I'm going to take a moment to complain about the most difficult part of the episode:

Spoiler: show

This freaking section...there are so many snakes and generators spawning at different rates (some snakes shoot bullets) that it's practically impossible to get past those parts without getting hit. If the player does manage to make it past all of that, he/she makes it here, where there's a Chase AI jumphurt=1 Para Shy Guy. Remember: Peach can't spin-jump, so she's defenseless against this foe; not only that, but I swear you built this part of the section around SMBX's Chase AI because it's practically, if not completely, impossible to get past this NPC without taking a hit. The only way I was able to get past this part of the episode was by bringing the snake pot with me to kill it, but that wasn't much easier to do. Not only is this a completely ridiculous difficulty spike in the episode, but it's so difficult that I was disappointed with The Grueling Grotto and even the final boss because they were just so much easier than this part. You really need to tone down the difficulty in this part if you want to keep a steady difficulty curve.

I knew this already, but I just wanted to let you know that you put the message a bit too late in the episode; you should move this guy to where the silent one is (in the previous section).

Moving on to the final level:

Spoiler: show

Although you have a message box appear when the event is triggered, it's triggered by an invisible ax, and the mask is too close for first time players to be able to avoid it.

Also, I recommend having two mushrooms here instead of one; it gets a bit tedious having to go to the world map then back into the level just for an extra mushroom.

Plus, that red S-Switch can be difficult to see with the HUD in the way. I recommend lowering it by one unit and changing the color.

Finally, although you had shell-riding sections before, you never had it so that the player had to short-hop to avoid running into walls, lest the shell would leave the player behind. I recommend adding a warning of some sort for first-time players.

And now, the final boss:

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So, the final boss's grand strategy is to try to push me off the platform with blocks? Well, at least you tried to make something unique and original instead of resorting to using the editor's pre-programmed boss AI--

Oh, nevermind.

The events should hide the "Spawned NPCs" layer, because since they don't, I'm going to get killed no matter what I do.

The puzzle part right after that was well done, though.

Okay, this is the part where it gets to be a bit unintuitive. The dialogue does hint that I need to shell surf, but it also directly states that I need to destroy the vases, which are clearly right there.

Well, I threw the shell sprite-swap at the vase, hit it directly, then I tried to grab it again but I missed and it fell into the pit. Then I saw the vases change, and I realized that they weren't vulnerable until right then. You should add a better warning for first time players, or maybe not have the vases show up until after the Panzer platform has situated itself and the player is forced to shell surf.

Actually destroying the vases merely takes knowledge of what's going to happen as well as patience so you don't jump right into the mask. It's not that difficult.

Also, why did you have this statement in Drow? I don't know what you're referencing, and neither will plenty of other people.

Once again, the NPC isn't replaced with a duplicate, so talking to it again triggers the entire dialogue a second time.

I was also a bit disappointed that the other elders don't say anything; only the main one gets dialogue.

Maybe now that I'm back at the chancellor's room, they will say something--HOLY CRAP, I JUST KILLED TWO OF THE ELDERS! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THIS WOULD HAPPEN?? NOW ALL OF SUBCON IS DOOMED, AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT! Wait, maybe I'll be able to redeem myself in the sequel: "Mario Prime II: The Elder Stomper."

The rest of the ending was really well made; you managed to tie up all of the loose ends nicely, almost as though this were professional.

Before I conclude, I have something that needs to be said: your custom songs aren't labeled! Did you learn nothing from Super Mario Enigmatic? Come on: music is just as important to levels as graphics, especially when making cut-scenes. Where are your custom songs from?

IN CONCLUSION:
This episode parallels Super Mario Enigmatic quite a bit, and not just because this episode stole some of its design choices from it: both episodes are uniquely designed, and both episodes have some flaws in their execution. I wouldn't be surprised if this gets featured soon, but I do recommend that you at least change the Garden Guardian to something more original.

[Reign]

While you have a slight tendency to focus on the negative parts, I really appreciate the detailed review, because it's easy to see where improvements can be made. Thanks!

The second boss (Garden Guardian), I realize this might be a bit annoying for people who made it to the very end of SME. My reasoning is:

a) Those people are very few, as most only made it to the ice world because of the high difficulty. So it's a new boss for them.
b) There are quite a few games where a boss from a previous one makes a new appearance (for example Mega Man 3 includes many bosses from Mega Man 2). You could of course argue that this game only has four bosses and thus 25% of them are recycled, which is a fair point.
c) The boss is not one hundred percent similar to the one in SME. I'm not trying to deny using it as a base though.

The second thing - the linearity and lack of power ups

a) I had the episode more free originally, but while watching a video from the very first testing of the game (not the one Mech made), it was too easy to get completely lost and having to backtrack a lot. There is more linearity now, but I feel that there is definitely a need for guidance in this sort of an episode. There could obviously be more options, but there's also a fine line between fun exploration and frustration for not progressing.

b) I originally intended to include power ups like fire/ice flower and use them as items that you need in order to progress. However, if you happened to hit anything on your way, you'd lose the power up and would have to return all the way to get it again. I could combat this by having some central area where you could always get that power up again if you had enough stars, but in that case you would always have to include a star with the power up and it becomes almost pointless. The second reason is, I wanted the episode to feel like Super Mario Bros 2, and the only power up in that game is a mushroom. And a star man of course, but SMBX does not have that currently.

The rest of the things I'm actually going to own up to, and upload a new version of the episode this weekend.

All the music in the episode is from Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (Nintendo 3DS).

[Imaynotbehere4long]

The second boss (Garden Guardian), I realize this might be a bit annoying for people who made it to the very end of SME. My reasoning is:

a) Those people are very few, as most only made it to the ice world because of the high difficulty. So it's a new boss for them.

Are you sure that wasn't just a highly vocal minority? Maybe you should add a poll to this thread so that we can see how many people actually finished SME.

b) There are quite a few games where a boss from a previous one makes a new appearance (for example Mega Man 3 includes many bosses from Mega Man 2).

Yeah, but most of the time, those rehashed bosses aren't part of the main game and are just bonus extras (and even then, there's usually SOME major difference, like the player having new or different abilities that the sequel added). Even with Mega Man 3, where fighting the reused bosses is required to progress, you have different weapons to fight the robot masters with, and because of this, you had to think of slightly different strategies to progress. With the Garden Guardian, the player is literally doing the exact same thing to defeat it as D2. They may not be 100% the same, but their differences are superficial at best.

The second thing - the linearity and lack of power ups

a) I had the episode more free originally, but while watching a video from the very first testing of the game (not the one Mech made), it was too easy to get completely lost and having to backtrack a lot. There is more linearity now, but I feel that there is definitely a need for guidance in this sort of an episode. There could obviously be more options, but there's also a fine line between fun exploration and frustration for not progressing.

b) I originally intended to include power ups like fire/ice flower and use them as items that you need in order to progress. However, if you happened to hit anything on your way, you'd lose the power up and would have to return all the way to get it again. I could combat this by having some central area where you could always get that power up again if you had enough stars, but in that case you would always have to include a star with the power up and it becomes almost pointless.

I'm going to address both of these points at once: if you have blockades that are power-up oriented as opposed to star-door oriented, the player will be able to remember them better, and that could decrease the amount of backtracking. It's easier to remember a wall of frozen coins as opposed to just how many stars the door required. Also, I was thinking that you could combat the issue by having star-doors in various sections that lead to a power-up generator somewhere else in the section as opposed to having a central area. Plus, if you have the power-up blockades on a single branch of a split path, then it wouldn't require as much backtracking as having a path dead-end at a power-up blockade. Not only that, but you could have power-up blockades in earlier sections that contain secrets.

Example: if you have a downward facing pipe in one of the first sections of the game, but the player can't jump up to it, he/she may think that it's a come-from and ignore it then, but later, when the player gets the Racoon Leaf, he/she could continue through the main path by flying up to a previously unreachable ledge near the power-up's location, but if the player remembers the pipe, goes back to the earlier section, and enters it by flying into it, he/she would be rewarded with a secret. If you ever played through Super Metroid, remember how the Grapple Beam blocks make an appearance in the large pinkish room in Brinstar above where the Charge Beam is, long before the player actually gets the Grapple Beam? If the player remembers those when he/she gets the Grapple Beam in Norfair, he/she can go back to that section and get the missile expansion (or whatever is there; I don't quite remember) as opposed to going straight to the Wrecked Ship; it's that same concept that I'm trying to propose.


By the way, I forgot to mention this in my review, but there was a ton of lag in multiple sections of Hushed Hollow (most notably in Section 11, where it takes five full seconds for Luigi to exit the pipe and fall to the ground). I tried removing the rest of my episodes from the worlds folder and even removing the screenshots that I had taken, but it was still extremely laggy. None of the other levels had any lag (and if they did, it was hardly enough to count), and I didn't have anything else running on my computer, which means the cause of the lag is the level itself. Does it not lag on your computer? Either way, I recommend removing some of the NPCs, even if you're removing friendly NPCs.

[dslkfm231]

I'm going to play it soon I'm downloading it now or already have if you see this later

[Reign]

Behold, version 1.1 is here.

Changelog:

Spoiler: show

- Added duplicate NPCs to layers to prevent repeating storytelling
- Corrected multiple spelling/grammar errors
- Changed the level/section titles on world map to be more fitting
- Minor positional changes for enemies/items
- The spinies should now spawn slightly less frequently in Level 2, section 13
- Peach can no longer reach the Mushroom block by flying in Level 3, section 3
- The buried npcs will no longer launch the player to the sky when grabbing them in Level 3, section 11
- The floating subcon NPC can no longer be thrown through the warp pipe in Level 4, section 2
- The boss will no longer unfairly drop on you in phase 5 of Level 4, section 8. He has found two mysterious vases to use, instead.
- A flock of birds and even floating rocks have appeared on the route of the flying device in Level 5, section 2. The device unfortunately has to slow down now for the player to avoid them.
- Numerous other small corrections

[Sednaiur]

I am now done with playing though all of it, and I like to say that it was sure challenging at the end ^^.

I did die quite a lot to the Mask of Mastema, but also sure a lot of times in the final section with Luigi. The second Boss (the garden guardian) was a good challenge too.
What I have found to be funny was that there is a subcon named Mechdragon that is an inventor of some sort.

In conclusion I like to say, that this was for me the most interesting Episode that I have played so far, and I do not like to exaggerate with stuff like that ^^.
I didn't play too many episodes so far, because I just don't have enough time for that, but I played around 15 episodes (many of them count as the best ones of their kind), and your episode is for me the most unique and fun one, in terms of gameplay and design. It always felt like a very nice RPG with elements from mostly Zelda and Metroid combined with a nice SMB2-feeling, what I really like. Thanks for entertain us in this way :-D.
The only thing I think is sad, is that it is too short, but of course it is very hard to build an episode like that.

Since you already did an update, I think to mention the problems I encountered is useless now. I think I play it one more time in the future, to see what changed to the version 1.0.

But one suggestion I can give you.
I really would remove all the unused GFX (like all the ice graphics, unused overworld tilesets, unused NPCs and blocks, etc.), since it would greatly reduce the loading time in your episode, and also the size of the folder itself of couse. I know that most people dislike that, so it would help for sure ^^.

Hopefully you will do another episode like this one in the future.

[Reign]

Thanks a lot Sednaiur!

I already removed quite a bit of those graphics, but I think there are still some unused ones. I doubt I'll create another episode like this, as it is a lot of work, but an expansion later on (like Super Mario Enigmatic was to Koopa Reign of Terror) is possible.

[bossedit8]

Playthroughs (or should I say, a Let's Play Co-Screen Deal) Made:



Original Links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BErTYbOFZ4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIuG0_Oinls

Very fun SMBX Episode...

[Grounder]

How do I get back to the pyramid I passed after defeating Firebird?

[JeffTheSpiny]

Very nice smb2 styled episode

[underFlo]

Very nice smb2 styled episode :D

Please be a bit more constructive.

[Reign]

How do I get back to the pyramid I passed after defeating Firebird?

Sorry for the late reply.

After defeating the firebird you should actually get back to the caves and look for a key that's surrounded by red switch blocks. I won't reveal more at this point.

[Reign]

An expansion to this episode is in the works after all. If everything goes according to plan, two new worlds and two new bosses will be added and the previous ones will be expanded. Thanks to Sednaiur for updating the graphics pack to 7.0.

Not giving a schedule yet, but this should hopefully be out in summer.