PixelPest (39 | 24 | 17)--80/100: I just want to start by saying that the work that went into this level is tremendous and gush over the fact that it has 12000+ lines of custom code, because I just find that jaw-dropping (though doesn't factor into the score directly just to make that clear). What was also jaw-dropping is that this level managed to keep me intrigued for almost all of the approximately hour and fourty-five minutes it took me to play this from start to finish...without dying. There were a lot of gimmicky ideas in this, such as the tank treads as a method of defense and transportation across lava, which were expanded on pretty effectively. There were also a lot of little subtle details, such as a large ship slowly approaching from the background. A lot of these 2.5D effects were quite stunning. The ship yard part was probably my favourite, where you encounter a bunch of battleships that attack you one by one, which provided lots of variety and some interesting challenges. However, some of the areas were slightly cramped and the robotic arm part was super cool but a little janky in terms of its interactions with the player. The bossfight took me about 45 minutes to complete, namely due to me not realizing that I actually was not really damaging the boss...until about 15 minutes in. All of the subtleties in this bossfight were amazing, such as the ship slightly tilting as you bust its motor on one side, however it did seem to go on for a little too long and as the phases began repeating it became less and less exciting and just a little dry to be completely honest. The aesthetics in this level were pretty crazy in the latter part of the level, however in the earlier part of the level not all of the components seemed to fit really well. Despite this, the atmosphere was pretty nicely put-together with the noticeable specific elements that developed the different scenes, such as the different sets of recurring enemies, such that it wasn't completely disjointed, however at some points it was slightly noticeable. Beating this level was extremely satisfying and if I don't play the whole thing again, I definitely want to play some bits and pieces of it.
Spinda (35 | 26 | 20)--81/100: Oh man, this was a long one.
So, first of all, the best thing about this level is the presentation. Not only are there some really amazing effects at work (the final boss showcases most of them so if you do check out one thing about this level, it's that), and I can't overstate how good some of these look, but one thing I really liked is how this whole level you're going along with the development of bombs, tanks and bullet bill blasters, among others, and it's super cool to see how you start out with the ore, then melt it down into bombs and apply the fuse, and almost every step of the way comes with an appropiate gimmick. My favorite would probably be the amount of bullet bills being pressed into a bullet bill blaster. This whole location seemed so fleshed-out, which is especially impressive considering that a lot of assets used to build it are vanilla graphics, and it still manages to look believable and cohesive.
This level has been created over the span of over a year, and it shows. Not just in the amount of detail and cohesion, but also in less positive ways in the level design. I believe that the creator got so intimate with all the mechanics that the level as a whole suffered because it became too difficult and too clustered. For instance, the Mouser boss you fight early on leads to there being about 10 bombs on-screen at any time, 4 bullet bill blasters right in your way and about 10 blocks you have to stack while they drop onto conveyers which you have to control using switches while the bombs can also trigger the switches. Stuff like that is just too much and not fun anymore.
A similar fate applies to the level as a whole: I started playing at 10:52 pm, and was only finished at 12:58 am, and that was with using donthurtme after I died a bunch of times in a section. There are plenty of checkpoints, but tackling such a long level just ends up draining you, which is a shame.
The level as a whole has a lot of moments where things get too clustered. For instance, there's a few times where you've got about 3 torpedo ted blasters aiming at you at once, and while the tech behind them is impressive, it just becomes overbearing, especially when you also have to tackle Hammer Bros. and Snifits that aim at you at the same time, or even the Jelectro sentries that are pretty cool in concept but ultimately end up being too much as well.
The final boss is super impressive from a technical side and has some neat design behind it, but it ends up taking up such a long time and you also have to go through so many phases of the boss being in the background without you being able to retaliate that it also becomes pretty draining - 30 minutes of my playtime were with the boss alone.
Ultimately, this review ended up sounding rather negative but the core design that is used is pretty well-executed in isolation. Stuff like the final gauntlet before the boss preparing you for it and even stuff like a ring of rinkas that expands first being destroyed by automated bombs and then you having to do that yourself in the boss are pretty impressive design.
bossedit8 (44 | 29 | 20)--93/100: Oh... my... lord... this was probably the longest level I ever played... ever in my SMBX history! Like damn, this took me way, way longer than I even think it would be. The story as of how the whole, and I do mean, the whole level has been going with is very neat and amazing although, if you are a regular Mario player, being more impatient and didn't expect this to happen on your way at all, you're highly likely going to feel tired of it due to the level being this surpremengly long like that. I do love what you did with legimitely everything though like tank treats riding over hazards with multiple ways as of how it's done, factories with respawnable blocks that can be either interacted or not, outside and inside areas of the factory area with newly created enemies you've never seen in the Mario universe, slight gravity appearances during conveyor belts in the far later area where you can't jump high at all, laser pointers for targets on the player, a power up that's quite amazing to like play with, and many, many more I would like to list up but let it not spoil everything. There are at least a lot of checkpoints along the way and also secret discoveries are cool too. These bosses though throughout the level, I do find a lot of them clever but I think the Mouser fight was probably one of the weirdest Midbosses there is I would say as of how to fight him and such. I like how you even make Birdo more of a threat than she already is. The rest is pretty much super custom I would say, like damn, those bosses are really cleverly designed, and it just gets better later on! Like seriously, I would never thought of doing something like that especially for a very lengthy level like that. I do would love it more if these levels are more split up appart so the lag isn't as much of an occourance and also that trucking through everything will take a long while to complete it all especially for newer players... but yeah, it is a single level and for a contest only one level is allowed so yeah that does make sense. So yeah, took me a lot of tries for sure but even so, this level is simply amazing! Sometimes I do feel that the projectiles are a biiit too much for the players to handle especially the final boss and since you can only have 2 power ups like that, it can be quite frustrating (I know that you get power ups during bosses but still). What I do like what you did though is that the power ups immediadly jumps to the player once dropped which is very neat.