For starters, I highly recommend you use Mediafire to transfer files. While I have nothing against RPGMaker, I can't exactly say that everyone would like their services. Just a note.
My Review:
Atmosphere [5/5]
A simplistic water-sand hybrid was quite a nice level style you chose here. I would say you pulled it off perfectly too, aside a few problems in the design portion but that comes later.
I would say though, I was pretty sad to see that there was very little use of a fully underwater section using the underwater version of Beach Bowl.
Level Design [2/5]
While I loved the level, there are quite a few flaws that can be fixed with a little work. The underwater portion is completely optional up until the last portion of the level. I feel like yu should incorporate the water portion of you level a bit more outside of being completely optional. Nobody likes water levels, but that doesn't mean you should give the player the ability to completely ignore half of what this level was offering.
Secondly, the water portion is incredibly dull. The sections are very clustered with coral and fish while already being a tight space to begin with. This is only doubled by the fact that they are optional, making me feel like they served no purpose other than to fill space. <- This feeling is what hurt you the most. A level's contents should feel like they are just there to take up space. Make every piece of a level feel immersive and fun to be in. Likewise, if it is meant to be difficult, make the areas both fair and challenging, but this is unrelated to you and is directed to the readers.
The level is very linear, only possessing one side path, and another at the end of the level. This ties into the part of my review earlier where I said you should've built onto the water sections more. You could've easily made a second second that was primarily underwater and created more pathways for the player to traverse your level.
Section 4 feels entirely out of place. We are underground yet somehow there are palm trees and a mole? I loved the way you used this mole, but it feels really out of place for this level. Additionally, this section's exit warp did not work for me while I recorded this level. I believe it may be due to the slope being right in front of the pipe and didn't work due to SMBX's wonky programming. I recommend just placing a regular by the pipe to alleviate this issue.
I found it really cool that you used layer movements in order to create a sense of depth in the level. However, you used only one set of moving layers. This made the level feel incredibly dull and mechanical, which really hurt your score here. I recommend making about 4 or 5 more and just using their movements at different intervals and randomly. This way the level feels a bit more active other than just the enemies.
-For example, create a "wave" of sizeable blocks. Completely useless, but would look cool right?
Finally, your first star coin. This exists on a weird mountain, but this isn't the problem. You used resizeable blocks to give it depth, which only looks awkward once you really look at it. I recommend just placing on sizeable block behind it to give it depth instead of five. On top of this, that slope right behind the coin can be glitched into if you do it just right. While utterly pointless to do so, it still exists which isn't looked upon favorably.
Graphical Continuity [2/5]
Ok, this took me a while to actually figure out since this level has two "versions" of itself, with water and dry areas.
First we'll talk about the dry areas. You stopped using clouds in the second half of the section, which I found incredibly weird. On top of this, I find the goombas are out of place graphically. I legit have no idea where they came from, but they are ugly. I recommend just using the regular SMB3 goombas or galoombas. On top of this, the tileset's grass is light green whereas the bushes and trees are darker in comparison. While the trees are fine, I find the bushes to be much too out of place to disregard. I recommend recoloring them to fit with the level a bit more.
Then we move the the underwater sections. I have no idea what these extra BGOs are, but I do like your originality in wanting to use new graphics. However, the shading on both the ...ship?...and...I don't know what the hell that pink thing is, but both of the shading don't seem to really match the rest of the level. Especially when you place them right next to coral pieces...it just looks so weird.
BGO Placement [5/5]
While I do not agree with the way these graphics look, I will happily say they were used well. No further comment.
NPC Placement [4/5]
The tiny enemies were incredibly cute, I will give you that. However the underwater sections can be a giant cluster-fuck sometimes. I recommend reviewing your underwater sections a little bit more before passing them, as fish overload can kill Italians world-wide.
Difficulty / Replayability [4/5]
The level was fun, and easily one of the few hybrid levels that pull off its atmosphere without blatantly copying Nintendo's formula. However, the reason you lost a point was actually because you level was too short.
You had a lot of potential and a lot of resources to use, yet the level only goes on for 2 minutes. And this is while taking my time to soak in the area. I HIGHLY recommend you re-vamp this level to be a bit longer, perhaps a fully underwater section is in order.
Granted, if you did revamp this level to such a degree, this topic would have to be re-reviewed and thus sit in limbo until an LJ other than me would review it. So, do as you wish.
Overall Score: 22/30
Final Score: 7.33/10
Judgement: Pretty Good
Video:
I'm didn't use mediafire because I don't have an account and I didn't want to make one, but I guess I will do it! I'll probably add it as a mirror though.
