Postby Chad » Mon Mar 28, 2016 6:43 am
Air Armada: Official Review
Well this is certainly a cool level. The airship designs are really jagged and complex, with tight and engaging block placements that cleverly influence your abilities and hazard interactions. The platforms with circular movements are interesting inclusions, and obstacles like cannons/Dry Bones/sizables work pretty well off of one another. I particularly enjoyed the levels of intricacy surrounding the switch blocks yet not requiring a ton of time and attention from the player, and how this area also gives you the option of split paths with two very different executions. Spike bounces are a rarely-utilized idea, but are put to great use here as well. Midpoints are also placed pretty nicely, because the first one cleanly cuts the main part of the level in half and the other two come right before major changes in gameplay.
However, I didn't care for the Bob-omb generator near the Mother Brain glass, because they increasingly crowd the platform and make it harder to squeeze into that small space. I think you could have just disabled cliffturn on those enemies. I also found the diagonal ceiling cannons to be a bit of a pain because they activate before you can see them. The steel block getting pushed by your dash move is an impressive mechanic, but it's given seldom inclusion. Outside of the boss and green switch, it's more flashy than useful because all you really do is get it out of the way. The green switch instance is better because the obstacle and its impact as a barricade is clearly noted to the player, so it feels rewarding once you clear it away. It's also a little weird if your dash has you land on top of it and it still gets pushed. It's mostly harmless, but felt like it had more potential than it was given, aside from the boss anyway.
The moving ship segment is a pretty fun gimmick. I'm not sure why that isn't done more often, because it's pretty simple but effective to make. It's mostly a single centralized moving layer passing by a bunch of strategically-placed stationary hazards, but it creates a really challenging setup. The pacing's great, with a nice alternation between intense but fair evasions, as well as the occasional brief period of rest so it's not just a constant assault. Any deaths suffered here are minor thanks to the midpoint close by, although it's weird to have it floating in the air as the ship leaves it behind rather than just hiding it when the event starts.
The boss fight is incredibly dynamic. It starts out pretty easy because most of the radial projectiles don't even go near you so about half the fight is sort of a free window to do a lot of damage, but this also means that the mechanics of the battle are really smoothly introduced. It definitely becomes legitimately difficult for the last few hits, and remains readable amongst the chaos as long as the player is attentive and coordinates movements properly. I didn't care much for the red alarm, though. The flash doesn't need to be so bright and sometimes completely obscuring, because that made it particularly awkward to avoid dangers happening during those brief moments.
As far as presentation goes, it's pretty impressive. The parallax clouds are really neat and create a more immersive sky chase atmosphere, and the music is intense and pumped to match. The graphics are primarily SMW and I didn't find the other custom elements to be invasive despite being completely different. I do think a little more visual effort could have been placed into the Metroid-y segments, especially having the floor of the boss fight be more than a simple metal bar, but the meat of the level does really well visually. I did occasionally confuse the rope ladders for sizables given that's their origin, but this wasn't a problem too often as they don't play a significant role. They probably should have remained as such for consistency's sake or just had them connected to a ceiling of some kind, but they do make the areas in they're in look great.
Overall, this was quite a ride. It's cinematic, the design utilizes a lot of potential for spacing and hazards in different ways, it has a wide variety of gimmicks and obstacles that never feel excessive or unfair, most of the level fits together nicely, and the boss fight is creative and well organized. I found a lot of small issues, but none major enough to deter the fun and cleverness by much.
I give it an 8.5/10. Pretty Good.
