Spoiler: show
77. MECHDRAGON777 - Sanctuary Fortress 2 (3.26/10)
- Bomber57 (4.0/10)
- I thought that I would eventually complete this level. I told myself I would, but I lied. I couldn't. I spent an hour wandering around this hellish maze and didn't get any results. This is true madness, knowing that there might have been some minuscule detail you overlooked. Trapped forever. No seriously this level has two maps, and then a dark world with another two maps. Your first goal is to get the morph ball so you can climb around and get lost some more. So when I finally found it I felt I was in the home stretch, but that was only the beginning. You then have to go all over the level and get items (bombs I guess) that destroy walls. You don't know what destroys what wall and where, so it's a huge toss up. You also gotta find the missile so you can go into these red doors, but I got what I believe was the missile and none of the red doors seemed to let me in. I went down paths expecting progress and instead got useless collectibles (and not the good kind). I just, went in circles forever, and when I finally found a new zone it said "collect the 3 dark keys to enter the dark temple". I groaned, weary from my journey, ready to collapse and give in. So I explored for another 10 minutes. Finally, in a desperate attempt to get some progress, I went through the door at the very start of the level, which ended the level. I stared at the screen in disbelief of what had just happened. An hour of my life, wasted. I'm going to imagine that Mario walked in the level, took one look at the maps, said "A-fuck this a-bullshit." and then turned around and left through the door. At least that gives me some securing thoughts. Other things to note: This level was crowded with enemies, and had a lot of low ceilings around spikes. And by low ceilings I mean LOW.
- Ufff... this level drives into the limits! For sure it was well designed like the atmospheric part of the whole level but as for the rest like gameplay wise, some enemy placement and such is just overkill. On top of that, it's a maze where you easily can get lost in this area... and no, the map in this level doesn't really help all that much even though it's kinda cool that you went through the effort to make one for both the light and the dark sections for each outside and inside of it. Enemy choicements were ok but sometimes they're getting kinda cluttered with it like some of them are just hard to avoid on a small area, some of them you have to be quick to realize after you exit from a warping position or else you gain a hit and there's even enemies that are offplaced and others looks like that they're walking in the air inside the floors... what's up with the spammy enemies inside the walls anyway? I do know for the fact that they're here for solely eyecandy but sometimes they're also so strangely placed that leads me to questions as of how they even survive inside these blocks... oh well. Coin placements were ok but sometimes they're relatively difficult to collect them all. Your midboss, although it's nice how it was done, this entire midboss section can be laggy at times and there's even areas where you can glitch through the wall if done correctly. During the 3rd phrase of the midboss, this is the point where everything gets incredible laggy like even for having a high powered PC like me, my SMBX lags just because of looping events throughout the rest of the level until I die just once and then it doesn't lag again. That's tecnically a bad sign right there. Gimmicks were ok. The boss as the level calls is unfinished but also this overexceeds the limit of SMBX if you put the boss right there and even you can jump over the wall without hitting the switch and then you can get stuck at the bottom of the area. After that you have to evacuate this place, basically and then the whole level is done with some rewards on your place to get. Overall, this level was nicely designed with the whole atmosphere but the gameplay, some enemy placements, the lag and the length was just incredible overkill!
- I really have to admire the effort and massive amounts of complexity and detail that went into this level, but... it's beyond unreasonable. I spent a good hour and a half on a single attempt, aimlessly going from door to door (in slow-mo due to lag), grabbing the three keys of unexplained purpose, before I finally gave up because I couldn't figure out where the end was. I'd beaten the miniboss (which is largely a waiting game) and enabled myself to climb the spider ball tracks fairly early into my experience, but every area looked very much the same and every door practically felt random, so finding my way around seemed useless. There is a map (which, if you ask me, should never be needed in a Mario level), but I had such a difficult time memorizing all of the different areas in the level and how they connected that it was basically meaningless to me, especially with so few places to access it from. The switch-like events were unhelpful as well, because they triggered things that were completely unindicated and I wouldn't even have noticed what changed when I reached the relevant areas. The only thing I can really appreciate is how it looks visually, which is fantastic but doesn't make the experience fun at all.
- Oh boy... I'd like to start by saying that I can really see the amount of love you put into this level. It's obvious how much work went into the design and aesthetics of the level. I have to give you major props for that. That's where most of the praise ends though. This level is too big. It's ridiculously easy to get lost and there's even a map to help you, which I only found vaguely useful in finding the Dark Temple Keys, which you aren't actually told to get at all until you happen to come across the area where they are slotted in. I've played Metroid Prime 2 and didn't even notice which might have been bad play on my part, but I'm sure a lot of people playing your level haven't played Metroid Prime 2, so some indication that there are keys to collect would have been nice. The portals were a great idea, I liked the variety between the light and dark sections, but one thing that was super frustrating was that when you entered a portal, you weren't able to go back if you happened to be warped to an area you had already been in. The missile and green missile features were also annoying, as you had very little indication to what they opened up. It wasn't fun running around in circles trying to find which red door had opened, it's complete bullshit. If the boss was finished, that would have been interesting to see, though it just would have added to the level's frustration. The SMW Star that lets the player no longer need to find the keys is useless as you get it literally at the end anyway. The escape sequence was pretty poor and seemingly rushed as it was over very quickly. But boy was I happy when this level finally ended. It took me about an hour to complete this level. Half of that was spent backtracking. This did help familiarize myself with the level so I had a rough idea what led where, but it was still pretty confusing. Overall, your idea was awesome but executed poorly.
- The level is based on Metroid Prime 2 where the planet Aether is divided into two dimensions, Light Aether and Dark Aether, that the player has to constantly switch between during the game. This gimmick opens interesting gameplay mechanics but can also make the level extremely confusing. This level unfortunately did the latter. I could not for the life of me find my way out of the level. This is a type of level that REQUIRES constant hints as to where the player should GO. The level meritoriously tells the player what to DO, but where to GO, the player has to figure by themselves. Exploration works in Metroid Prime 2 as the different areas are highly distinctive making navigating a lot easier. In this level though, the different rooms are too similar and telling them from each other is tough. The level also has BGOs that look like blocks and that's confusing, too. I do like the graphics, though. And the fact that the level is compatible with all five players.
Here is my CC11 level that sadly got 77th place, but do you find it hard?
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Fwd: Re: Community Contest 11 Version 1.5
Date: 14 Aug 2015, 17:34
From: MECHDRAGON777
To: Frozen Boo
MECHDRAGON777 wrote: -------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Community Contest 11 Version 1.5
Date: 03 Aug 2015, 20:24
From: MECHDRAGON777
To: Valtteri
MECHDRAGON777 wrote: Subject: Community Contest 11 - The judging has begun!
Version 1.5 https://www.mediafire.com/?taokkccp2c4ul7r
here is my Tower specific level for Tower of Bias where I fixed all of the bugs I did find after I sent it to you!
=== UPDATE ===MECHDRAGON777 wrote:Speed Run of my CC11 level in 8:47.07
Version 2
https://www.mediafire.com/?9fudg20i5i12bld
changelog:
Version 2
Fixed the Mid boss again
Version 1.5
Fixed Graphics
Fixed the issues bossedit8 found (except length)
Version 1
CC11 Judging
