Old thread
Tower of Biased: http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... 202#p33202
Results
Please don't post your level until it's appeared in the results.
Tier 1
Places 68-80
Spoiler: show
80. Knux - Block Bollocks (0.284/10)
- castlewars: 0/10
Don't play this level unless you want a runtime error.
Chad: 0/10
This is ridiculously unplayable and terrible-looking. I can't even begin to do anything in it and everything's just thrown about randomly. There isn't even a star.
Firespike33: 0/10
This level was bollocks. The ground is shaky, it’s full of clash and random objects fly across the screen. Clearly a joke level, so I have no reason to give it more than a 0.
Quill: 0.42/10
spam100
Valtteri: 1/10
Brilliant gameplay, fantastic aesthetics, so much fun. Try it out.
- castlewars: 1/10
For starters, this isn't even a level by the standards of the community - it's just a massive empty space and a vertical swim with absolutely nothing to interest the player, and the way this was even designed makes it seem that it isn't even a serious level. No BGOs, no NPCs, nearly no blocks, and I doubt that the author even wanted to gain a place in the higher tiers with this level. It seems that they were bored and just wanted to participate for the lulz, without a care about winning, and the result is usually something like this. However they do get points for the background and the fact that there were no graphical clashes.
Chad: 0/10
It's just a long upward swim with nothing in it but the background, the floor, and a star. Not giving any points for the complete lack of effort.
Firespike33: 0/10
A two minute swim to the star. Actually pretty funny.
Quill: 0.5/10
MAGL X had Proud Sky, we have Shameful Ocean, because why not?
Valtteri: 0/10
What a waste of time.
- castlewars: 0.8/10
This level was just awful and looks so rushed that a person might have just speed-created it in under an hour just for the sake of taking part in this, and I have a feeling that due to its rushed nature and how little effort and skill it would take to make this, Amphituber might have made this one. For a puzzle level there really wasn't any puzzle solving whatsoever apart from the fact the player is just using the idea that the section uses wraparound and that they have to wrap round to the other side in order to complete the level, and this idea was badly executed. Also, this level is horribly bland, there was no background at all and the level was so ridiculously short. I mean, it takes only just a few seconds to figure that idea out and then before they know it they've already completed the level, which kinda ties in with the ideas behind the level name. There really needs to be more difficulty like adding more blocks so the player has to travel back and forth between both sides of the level and navigating through a maze of some sort.
Chad: 0/10
It's just an empty room with a star, and all you have to do is wrap around once. I'm not giving this any points because it's practically the smallest amount of effort that could possibly be put into a completable level.
Firespike33: 0/10
Hardly even a level. It literally took me less than a second to figure out the “puzzle” (walk off the edge of the screen).
Quill: 0.1/10
Genius.
Valtteri: 1/10
Pretty much what the name of the levels says... Clearly the level was made in ten seconds. The puzzle is really lame, you just go around the screen and you win. Absolutely no effort was put into this level.
- castlewars: 0.6/10
There is no contest in discovering that this level was made by Knux, or at least an avid supporter of his forum. This is true when you see the words "Heil Knux" in section 4 of this level written out with blocks. Even so, this whole level was just so ridiculously horrible, uncompletable and poses almost rushed design, and I'm not impressed by that even if it was intended, as well as the ludicrous placement of a lot of NPCs, a lot which appear to be just spammed everywhere for the sole purpose of trying to kill the player, such as that egg containing the SMB1 Bowser NPC at the start of the level. It's as if this level is forcing you to die, particularly as there are loads of areas in which you just enter by accident, and then you can't escape, usually because of hidden blocks, such as the 3-Up pipe. And no, you didn't even put any effort into this, and you've just been relegated into the bottom tiers.
Chad: 1.2/10
It's a ghost house with an incorrect starting point, an invisible-water entrance, invisible floors that trap you and force you to die if you fall through the unseen gap, an arrow that points at lava, a kill room, an underwater section where the player is encouraged to break bomb blocks to enter doors that don't go anywhere special (including to the ceiling of that area where you're forced to quit), a door leading right under a Thwomp, Bowser in an egg, a switch with an invisible block beneath it, and I'm pretty sure the level can't even be completed because nothing warps to the exit tape section. What isn't a mess in terms of gameplay is a mess visually, and the entire level's full of things that troll the player. The only reason I'm giving it anything above 0 is that it at least creates an illusion of legitimate gameplay for a bit.
Firespike33: 0.5/10
Unfair traps, bad visuals and ridiculous design. Obviously a joke level. I could go more in-depth but I honestly don’t see a point in reviewing any more it. Unlike other joke levels, however, it was actually funny. I almost laughed at loud at:
Toad: “Yoshi pooped an egg! An evil egg!”
Yoshi: “I made egg!”
When I cracked it, Bowser came out.
Quill: 0.2/10
I like my beans warm with no ketchup.
Valtteri: 2/10
Filled with instahits and door mazes with too many doors to memorize, I find this level to be a pain to play.
- castlewars: 1.25/10
OK, I really didn't enjoy this level. It was too random, to be honest, and apparently it feels more like a joke level because of the randomness of the placement and the fact that it's really short. What's more, most of it was just out of place when you take into regard the theme of the level. I mean, what is it with those random castle and Zelda BGOs in the level? I don't even see why people submit joke levels to official community contests - this is the seventh contest and there are still joke levels being submitted like this one and Block Bollocks? This is really starting to put some of us on our nerves now.
Chad: 2.25/10
The title of this level is a fitting summary of it. It's a super short run of just that and not much more, although I'm giving it some credit for at least offering a brief gameplay experience.
Firespike33: 0/10
BESts LEEVL EvVAR!!!11!121@1!11
0/10 (perfect)
Quill: 1/10
i dont even
Valtteri: 2/10
This level looks like it's missing custom graphics... And it's ridiculously short, maybe three screens.
- castlewars: 2.44/10
This level was pretty damn hard and abrupt, and most of the difficulty comes from the placement of the blocks and NPCs, and I really hated the way they were both placed. One of the Firebars was so horribly placed that it's nearly impossible to even get past it and the ridiculous placement of the spikes replacing the lava can result in many an unfair death, which ultimately renders collecting the Kuribo's Shoe in one of the sections a fatuous task. The Mother Brain boss at the start is ridiculously easy because the player can just toss the shell to and fro 15 times without much avoidance of the Rinkas, while the "form" boss slightly is too hard, leaving almost no space to dodge the Rinkas and other NPCs thrown at the player. The warp placement was really awkward as well and for the most part, the only way to move on through the cement blocks is through just guessing whether the warps are without prior knowing, which isn't a good idea.
Chad: 2.8/10
Honestly, this level is just... really not good. The whole time, it felt like the level couldn't decide what it wanted to be. It has a sudden Mother Brain battle, a small lava room, minibosses that are mere Goombas, a projectile dodging room, an instant warp maze, lava spikes, and climbing a structure. Hardly any of the sections felt related and the shorter ones didn't feel very purposeful (like the desert one for example), and the instant warp maze is an entirely luck-based challenge that just leads to a reward room that ruins your chances of getting the star until you restart the level. The lava spikes are the worst part, though. They aren't indicated in any way beyond the fact that they have choppy animation (which is on purpose as the message block points out). That doesn't even indicate they're lava, I actually thought they were just on a layer that moved very slightly. I thought crushing physics kicked in somehow when I died from them while wearing the Kuribo's Shoe. Avoiding them in one section requires perfect movement, and then players are supposed trust the downward spikes that are required to stand on. Granted, I will say I enjoyed the general layout of the blue structure and the projectile dodging room was an interesting challenge, but there wasn't much more that I liked about this. When making a level, try and keep a consistent theme and set of obstacles. Make each part meaningful, reasonable, and fitting with the rest of it in a way that makes sense.
Firespike33: 0.5/10
Obviously a joke level, this has few redeeming qualities. It starts out with an actually okay Mother Brain fight, and then you appear in grasslands (for no reason) and have to get past a huge firebar with a tiny gap between fireballs. The rest was clashy and badly-designed, and a part where you enter a bush called “Boshy” has lava that looks like spikes. Cruel. If you go the other way, there’s an unpolished puzzle with no end. It wasn’t even possible to complete. I could review more, but that’s not really necessary.
Quill: 1/10
The secret star is impossible to get, dumb! You're also a jackass for using 10 minute mp3s when the level has about 7 of them and most of the music only plays for 5 seconds. THIS IS EVIL! OH MAN BUT THE MUSIC IS PRETTY COOL THOUGH OH WELL
Valtteri: 2.5/10
This level doesn't have much consistency... It's okayish for the most part but the projectile bosses aren't fun at all and way too crowded with Rinkas. The second half was pretty tedious with with the random instant warps that you had to look for.
- castlewars: 2.3/10
*snorts 494564 times in 1 second* - why are people obsessed with entering levels that are so brutally difficult into community contests? It's about the design and atmosphere, not about the difficulty. This level is one of them that demonstrates this principle. No gimmicks, no custom graphics, clash, and the whole level is just so bland. A lot of the NPCs are out-of-place as well like the Piranha Plants which really should be in pipes. Also, Piranha Plants should not be placed in warp pipes because the player can die when the Piranha Plant is in the pipe during the warp, causing a runtime error. The rest usually involves forcing the player to spinjump over spiked NPCs for about 45% of the level, which is an indication that the author didn't even want to get into the higher tiers but just wanted to participate for the lulz of it. There are some parts in which it's nearly impossible to dodge a hail of Bullet Bills and Roto-Discs like in section 3 without getting damaged either. If you want to make good levels, you need to seriously look towards design and atmosphere - the difficulty for the most part will get you nowhere.
Chad: 5.3/10
This level isn't really much to look at, and it has a lot of objects that don't really fit with one another, floating around in a way that feels random. However, I really liked the intense challenge provided. Each section is unique, the difficulty's pretty balanced, and the length is reasonable. It got a little spammy with the projectiles sometimes, though. Also, it's a bit cruel to have things like nigh-unavoidable P-switch Spinies, invisible vine blocks, surprise Thwomps triggered offscreen, a secret star based on falling in a random spot, and the possibility of getting yourself stuck between sky cannons and being forced to quit. The section containing the midpoint doesn't really make thematic sense, either. But overall, I like what you did with most of the obstacles and how you've created a tricky gauntlet of dodging various deathtraps.
Firespike33: 3.5/10
A semi-kaizo level. It obviously made few attempts to look good, so I’m not going to bother talking about the abundant clash. The first section was okay, and the second was a lot harder. Enemies were spammed everywhere, projectiles flying all over and trial-and-error is required to progress. Frustrating. Then things get really crazy with enemy spam, floating spikes and piranha plants coming out of the air. There were some more parts, but I found out one time that if I fell in the right place, I’d be dropped in front of Bowser and given access to a star that ended the level. Even though it’s painfully difficult, I’m still determined to finish the rest of the level legitimately. Anyway, I got to the end, and actually enjoyed it, but it was horribly unpolished and didn’t feel like a serious level. I don’t know if it was supposed to be a complete joke level, but some of it was actually enjoyable.
Quill: 1.5/10
I didn't enjoy this level. Parts of the level made no sense at atll and overall it was nothing but enemy spam. Not fun at all.
Valtteri: 3/10
I don't like the general concept of airships inside a castle. Or lava in a Toad house. The level plays pretty okay but there isn't really anything special to it. There are way too many projectiles. The vine block at the beginning of the sky section shouldn't be invisible as it's required to progress. The level isn't constructed in a very appealing way.
- castlewars: 3/10
I honestly didn't enjoy this level. Sure the mutated plant idea was interesting and using the idea of having to use certain buried NPCs to create interesting gimmicks such as holding a Firebar flame and using it to destroy the plants was great, but that was the best it got. The level is overly decorated with vines in a way that makes it look too artificial, and in many cases, the buried NPCs are too...random - I mean, what is it with burying a...Koopa Clown Car in one of them? Most of the time there wasn't any thought put into where the grasses were placed - it was just plonked here and there, often creating a cut-off. The poison in the second area was interesting but was placed under the tileset in a way that makes it look cutoff-ish and the masks on the poison Blarggs looks off. Then there was the problem with cramped areas such as the area at the end when you had to use the bombs to get to the star. There is a high chance the player will get hurt as a result of this crampiness.
Chad: 7.5/10
This is a fascinatingly unorthodox level. It feels like a savage jungle where everything's gone wrong, and mutation idea gives some sense to the ground-based Piranha Plants and buried randomness. Normally those things don't really work, but this level provides explanation for them, although a lot of the buried choices are really silly like bosses and whatnot. Still, I actually had fun digging up all the weeds, since most levels just use standard veggies and those aren't very enjoyable to dig through when you want a powerup or something. But here, I looked forward to what was going to come out next. This level succeeds at making a totally unique experience using these elements. It made the bomb part at the end really interesting, too. It's very cramped in there and the Swooper generator is difficult to avoid, but it's a fitting end-level challenge that works well with precision and strategy. However, the buried fireball at the start is a problem because upon throwing it, it moves at almost invisibly fast speeds across the screen for a while. I also disliked the lava cutoff in the laboratory section, and the raft part was very empty and full of broken Blaargs that look awful.
Firespike33: 2/10
The first part is way too clean to be a jungle (neat rows of trees. Riiight). Also, you went a little crazy with the buried objects. I even dug up Wart and Mouser at one point. The whole level is really spammy, and the Piranha Plants and weeds on the ground created a lot of cutoff. As for the design, I know this sounds mean, but there really wasn’t one. It just looks like you spammed random objects all over the place. Plus, I died from water that you couldn’t swim in, so there’s that. Overall, it’s just too messy.
Quill: 1.5/10
Seems legit.
Valtteri: 2.5/10
This is an odd level... The gameplay is simplistic, and rather repetitive. And I got stuck at the end of the Skull Raft ride on the green lava. The Blarggs are really glitched. I don't personally like how every spot is filled with an (unclimbable) SMB2 vine and a palm tree.
- castlewars: 4/10
This level smells very much like D4rknova. I wasn't particularly impressed with the way this level was designed, to be honest. It was mainly just a spamload of enemy NPCs coming at you, and a lot of them seem to have been placed without proper thought and forward planning, such as the massive shedload of Cheep-Cheeps the player is greeted with in section 2. The level would have not been good if it weren't for that blue coins gimmick, in my opinion, as they require the player to do a bit of exploring in order to seek them all out. However, there are way too many, particularly in section 2, and a lot of them are placed in really risky spots that can result in death. Also, failing to collect all the blue coins in section 1 effectively renders the level impossible to complete as it's impossible to backtrack. Also, there was one part in which the only way to move on was through a random jump, particularly as the NPC platform lines end with a snap-off that just launch the player into empty space without warning. Finally, the backgrounds used were 1x1 pixels which seems out of place in SMBX.
Chad: 3.5/10
Honestly, this isn't very good. The whole thing feels very empty, and the landforms are very flat and barren. The gameplay doesn't offer much either, it's mainly just one set of enemies after another. Encouraging a coin hunt is a good idea, but if you get to the end and find you haven't gotten all of them, you basically just have to kill yourself. Not too fond of the surprise Thwomps at the start either (or their blue coins with not a lot of room to reach), or the Jelectros hiding above and below the screen boundaries. The background's also way too detailed to the point of being really out of place. I kinda like how you placed the Jelectros that can actually be seen, but other than that, the level frankly doesn't have a lot of enjoyable aspects to it.
Firespike33: 3/10
As I play this level, I am reminded of the emptiness of the human soul, and of the entire universe. The music and almost surreal backgrounds remind us of the vastness of the universe and fragility of our existence. The pettiness of things that we cling to make us forget that ultimately, we journey through life alone. What I’m getting to is that it’s creepy, and I’m taking a point off.
As for the level itself, there were many flaws. The level has a severe lack of scenery, and the color scheme is not very nice. The question blocks have a pretty weird animation. The level was very linear and boring, and the blue coin thing didn’t help much. The underwater section was just annoying because you take damage from touching the bottom. Also, that water background is giving me nightmares. Overall, not only was I not impressed, I’m also having nightmares. I’ll kill you once I figure out the meaning of life.
Quill: 3.5/10
This level happened. It's super basic and it's kinda random too. It's not too fun, as it's just running around a bland level jumping over enemies and doing nothing exciting. Some enemies are kinda out of the blue such as the thwomps who at the start of the level can catch you off guard. When you enter the water section, the amount of fish can cause you to die too.
Valtteri: 2.5/10
I can see work was put into this one, but there's a lot to improve on. Most of the level is just plain land and random enemies, usually in large, tight groups which isn't very good. The concept is okay but you should provide a way back from the underwater section. I missed the coins that were way above the start point and got stuck in the last room. The tileset looks dreadful and the backgrounds are blurry but they kind of give the level a unique looks.
- castlewars: 0.7/10
Thislevelstinksofdeadfish.lvl
Chad: 4.6/10
I get this is a joke level, but it's still a complete mess. However, the actual gameplay and layout of the level are fairly decent. I had a little fun with the platforming, and it actually has a bit of story to it. The secret star has okay placement, but it catches you in an instant warp loop.
Firespike33: 3/10
A simple, straightforward, completely linear level with easily-obtained Dragon Coins. It wasn’t bad, but not very good either. The scenery and graphics were just odd. The boss was actually pretty hard. I seriously don’t know what the whole thing was supposed to be about.
Quill: 3/10
Oh my god I was crying so much at this level. Crying with laughter. deadfish I love you. It's a silly, but basic level. It's nothing too special about from the graphics. I'm not even sure if I should judge this a joke or a serious level. Wow.
Valtteri: 6/10
A pretty casual level with an... extraordinary set of graphics. The design is kept simple and it's charming in its way. I recommend you place water half a tile lower than the surface of the water graphic as otherwise the player will be affected by the water physics when standing on an edge of a water pit. I like what was done with the tileset in a few occasions, the coral-like structures. Also, the boss is actually really good. It's a piece of shit Ludwig in a pool of water and it can actually be pretty challenging. Good job!
- castlewars: 4.96/10
The design was OK-ish, particularly in the first section, which captures the feel of the SMB1 style and levels, with scrolling in all directions in a lot of the sections. However in terms of gameplay, I kinda didn't enjoy it. Despite the scrolling in all directions, there's no special gimmicks, the level is just one path, and there are no powerups until the player gets to the boss battle, making the level more difficult than it is. The rainbow tileset and styling that comes afterwards is actually very stylish, in my opinion, but I have been saying this several times, and it's even in my sig: it's not about the custom graphics, it's about how you use them. Because the second section, despite the stylish tileset, is more of a maze because the rainbow BGOs mean the player won't be able to see the footholds and there could be a pit lurking around the corner, and at least the NPCs don't hurt the player in that section due to the near-complicated path the player is expected to find, and at the end you fight a Bowser-based boss which is actually interesting because rainbows appear every time the blocks are destroyed, but there's a reason the star is in a different section: when the player collects the star the forward momentum they have can carry them into the lava, causing an unfair death considering how far the player has got.
Chad: 4.8/10
Starts out as a decently built SMB1 overworld type level, no real complaints in that area, but then it just becomes an absolute mess of broken tile placement. Granted, the rainbow effect is amazing, but a little hard on the eyes. I really like the boss's shockwave effect, but the fight is otherwise generic and empty. This level could have the potential to be something really incredible if the main rainbow section made any visual and gameplay sense, and the boss room had more populating it.
Firespike33: 1/10
A very simple SMB1 level followed by a fountain of rainbows (eyebleed) and a Bowser fight. Seems like a joke level.
Quill: 1/10
WHY IS CAT PLANET EVIL?!
Valtteri: 6/10
That was trippy. The level takes a really weird turn in the midway. You touch a rainbow cat and end up in a rainbow land that is a sore to the eye... I find it hard to take this level seriously. But great job on the normal-looking parts, and what I do like about the rainbow segment is the parallax effect that the foreground creates together with the background, it's rather neat.
- castlewars: 3.7/10
This level was rather meh, even if there were no custom graphics. It was structured like your average castle level with castle enemies, and the gameplay was simple and Mario-esque, yet some of the level was a bit random to be honest, such as having to enter a door and then handle a long drop while trying to avoid a fury of Roto-Discs, which seemed out of place. The level was too easy as well because there were too many powerups, and the Hammer Suit is too overpowered if you ask me because you can just collect the Hammer Suit and blitz the rest of the level killing enemies. The boss fight did have a bit of ingenuity as well in which you're pitted against three Boom Booms one after the other, but they just appear without warning and the player isn't expecting it until it appears and drops into the arena. Creative concept, but not pulled off well in my opinion.
Chad: 3.35/10
I dunno, the whole thing felt kinda bland to me, honestly. The general appearance is very empty, and there's a lot of things that don't fit very well together, like sizables in lava and several of the block placements in the cloudy section. The design is rather flat and generic, but the general gameplay works for what it is and the fence part is somewhat interesting. The luck-based Roto-disc fall was kinda unnecessary, though. Three Boom-Booms also got a bit repetitive, you could have had a Goomba generate from one of the pipes during the second part and both pipes during the third to change it up a little. Frankly, it just wasn't very appealing. It's really mimimal and not much stood out.
Firespike33: 3/10
A fairly linear level with a lot of clash between games. The climbing part near the start was fun, but the gimmicks felt random and the level design was very straightforward aside from that part. A lot of enemies were easy to bypass, and the whole level just felt like it was assembled without a plan. Random power-ups are thrown at the player as well. The boss is quite easy, especially with Yoshi.
Quill: 5.5/10
This level was really weird and all over the place, but I thought it had some cool moments. The first section set some nice atmosphere, but that was abandoned in Section 2 when there's a huge drop and lasts forever and the roto discs can kill you easily if you move! The checkpoint is unbalanced in my opinion as it's only at the quarter mark. The Boom Boom fight was pretty... bland, especially as you had to fight three of them individually. But man if I have to applaud you for something it's how over the place this level is, it kept me on my toes and added some interesting variety.
Valtteri: 3/10
I'm sorry but this level just felt like a pushover. The Roto-Disk part at the beginning was pretty much based on mere luck, but getting hit in the entire level didn't really matter as it treated the player with powerups very often. The Dragon Coins were nowhere near a challenge to obtain. And with the Tanooki and Hammer Suit and Yoshi provided at the end of the level the Boom Boom fight wasn't much of a challenge, and quite boring to be honest. The level looks pretty all right for the most part, it's SMB3 inspired pretty much, but the boxes don't really fit inside the castle and I wouldn't presonally use a cloud background in the Roto-Disk room.
- castlewars: 2.8/10
This level was just so unfairly difficult it took me more than 10 attempts to complete it, and all of these attempts involved the use of cheat codes. The way that this was designed, including its difficulty, gimmick use, and decoration, make this seem it's come from a beginner who's new to the SMBX scene. The level lacked a lot of decoration for the most part, and there were no coins, gimmicks, and the powerups were placed too far apart from each other, so the level was really bland. The water would have been a nice addition but for most of it the water boxes weren't placed properly and going too deep will just force the player to fall as if there was no water there. Then there are other cases when the player can get trapped in the water because there are no blocks placed to allow escape. The only good thing about it was the Toads riding the small fire-propelled airship pieces as the player reached certain points in the level, but the player can use one of them and skip the whole level with it.
Chad: 6.1/10
This level's rather average, but I do like the risky platforming involved. The blocks and enemies are very strategically placed in a way that makes you take extra caution with every jump, and it really gets tricky once the Hammer Bros. get involved. I'd recommend adjusting the first one though, because the height difference and how close it is to the edge almost require you to take a hit unless you have fire or perfect timing/movement. The Lakitus and Thwomps at the end are a pretty intense difficulty spike, but you make that part really short and still doable if you keep moving. Thwomps in a grass level don't really fit though, and could probably afford to be removed. The town and meadow parts are kinda unnecessary too, although the Toads are amusing. The level has some poor visual choices as well, like the house designs (something like sizables with windows would be better) and the unnecessary black tiles beneath the meadow (they don't prevent cutoff and still look bad on their own, just uncheck auto-align for the bushes). It's also not good to leave the bottom parts of water unswimmable, and there are a lot of falls that result in forced suicide if you land in the water but can't escape. Overall, I like what you did with the gameplay and difficulty, but the decorative and swimming setups are a little questionable. You also forgot to put a star.
Firespike33: 3/10
An okay level with a pretty plain design. There was quite a bit of clash between games (mostly SMB3 and SMW). The plants that look like Spiny Bombs tricked me into spin-jumping on them, so that was cheap, and there were other strange things like Toads on airships colliding and enemies that didn’t move. I found a bonus area with the electric owls which I decided not to slide into, and some 1-UPs that annoyingly slid off the screen before I could grab them. There were some cool parts like the Tanooki Suit on a mini-airship and the not-so-secret area you access by jumping on a Nipper. Dodging the Hammer Bros. hammers was a fun challenge. There was a section with some Lakitus and finally some misplaced Thwomps at the end. Overall, it was okay.
Quill: 3/10
This level needs a lot of work. It's completely random and all over the place. Many parts are repeated over and over and it wasn't fun at all. There were also some parts where if you fell into the water, you couldn't get back up.
Valtteri: 4/10
This is pretty boring... and not very appealing either. The tile choices are pretty bad in my opinion. And why have water at the bottoms of the pits when you can't jump back up from there. You have to drown yourself.
Places 54-67
Spoiler: show
67. lucasandrianogb - Ghosted (4.1/10)
- castlewars: 1.75/10
I did not enjoy this level as much as I thought I would. Even so, the whole level's idea is quite original because the player is required to complete this level using green P-Switches that freeze time, and the idea of being "possessed" or being pushed left constantly, is also original, but as stated earlier, this idea was not pulled off well. It just resulted in a cryptic and difficult level and it requires a great deal of skill in order to beat. In terms of "skill" this level is really just testing how well the player knows the SMBX player character physics and applying it to this level instead of solving in-level puzzles, because there are so many deceptively difficult bits, and it took me 10 failed tries to get the meaning of this "blue first, green after" message before one of our fellow judges pointed out the solution on the IRC, and the player is expected to do too many tasks before the duration of the green P-Switch ends, and then they're pushed left again, and that carries another flaw: the fact that standing too close to a block can get the player stuck in the level.
Chad: Ghosted: 5.75/10
The gimmick in this level is amazing. It is nothing short of genius and it uses stopped time in probably the best ways I've ever seen. Combining it with the P-switch is also something to behold. You really handled checkpoint deaths terrifically as well. But this level is enormously unforgiving. Learning your way past the switches and final puzzle in the sky takes a ton of trial and error, and the instant warps for the final part are a really unnecessary pain. They really aren't at all reasonable to figure out, you can't even tell where they are without looking around in the editor, and I don't understand why that area needed to be cloned twice anyway when all of the doors apparently lead to the same place. I also wouldn't recommend having the player get pushed back into an "enemy" at the very end of the level after all that, a simple sign would have worked. But still, once I understood the puzzles, I have to say I was really impressed by them, even if they are sort of unreasonably complicated. The shortness of the level was pretty helpful though, because each death wasn't enormously punishing.
Firespike33: 6/10
This is...different. A very tricky level, with lots of puzzles. I’m not going to go into detail about their complexity, but it was extremely clever and I had to think a lot. The outside area had lots of time-stopping and spin-jumping off of things, which was a bit frustrating if you had to play through it repeatedly. Also, the level had little to no aesthetic appeal. Overall, it was pretty creative and I had fun with it, but the spin-jumping parts could get frustrating and the visuals and overall polish could use some work.
Quill: 5/10
This level is really something else. It's INCREDIBLY difficult. I can say I didn't manage to complete it sadly, but I did manage to get pretty far past the checkpoint (which oddly only worked one time for me and then just reset me to the start every time after). Honestly, I really need to give you amazing credit for this genius puzzles. Not everyone else is going to have as much patient as I had to try this level. I only had to stop as I had to go at the time. I spent literally 2 hours trying to do this. Man, this level is amazing though. The intro replaying over and over again can be really tedious especially after countless attempts. The only reason I'm rating this low is due to slightly due to the difficulty but mostly to how annoying it is to get back to where you were if you died. It requires some amazing willpower to attempt this level over and over again but man, holy cow.
Valtteri: 2/10
This is an original and very creative concept, but there's a big problem with it. The puzzles are really hard, and there's not enough time to solve them. You have to watch the intro and solve the puzzles from the beginning over and over (and it's hard even if you know what to do) until you figure what to do, and then you have to do it again with the next puzzle. This is a serious design flaw, but I get it's pretty hard to work around. The puzzles shoudn't be this difficult, they should be easy enough to solve in the five seconds the player gets to think before the Stop Switch expires. Now it's a trial & error nightmare and not very pleasant to play.
- castlewars: 5.1/10
This level had a quite nice atmosphere in terms of the way it was designed. It felt like your average SMB3 level and is quite a nice change from the nonlinear levels that are overrated, if a little on the short side. There is a lot of variety in terms of the enemies used and it even went as far to use minimal gimmicks such as the diggable dirt, which was interesting, but some of the enemies were placed in some weird spots such as the Podoboo in the pipe, because the player can actually see it in front of the pipe, giving a bad feel, and the Pile-Driver Micro Goombas were an interesting enemy but the problem is that you don't know when they're going to explode. The Wart-based boss at the end of the level was quite cool as well but the spawn of the Ice Blocks takes too long, and the Ptooie that the player has to avoid can mean that the boss battle can take more than a minute considering it takes six hits.
Chad: 5.5/10
Fairly good linear run, although super short. The boss is abrupt, and can be beaten just by waiting at the edge of his projectiles for a considerable amount of time until you can throw enough bricks at him. Enemy choices are a little odd too, like a flame that crawls on the underside of a pipe, a Podoboo inside a pipe, Piranhas on the ground, and a Chuck that just sits there. The basic design isn't bad, though.
Firespike33: 3/10
Aesthetically, this level was very displeasing. The scenery was spammy and all clumped together, and the pipes had ugly dots on them. The bonus room’s background clashed with the quicksand, as did the water with lava. The level design was also uninteresting, and there were some strange things like Goombas standing on pillars and Piranha Plants coming out of the ground. The boss was pretty boring. There was an ice block (coming out of the bridge, of course) every 15 seconds or so, and the rest of the fight was just me jumping back on Yoshi after a bubble from Petey knocked be off. Overall, it’s very clashy, linear and not very interesting. Sorry.
Quill: 4/10
More like The Small Desert. Man, this level could have been much better if it was extended. I really liked the start, but the level went nowhere with it before it throwed you at a boss. The boss is super easy and just takes time and patience to really kill. A shame, I really liked the vibes I was getting at the start!
Valtteri: 5.5/10
It's a cool level but doesn't really live up to its name as it's very short.
- castlewars: 5/10
This was built around a really interesting gimmick - a "chase" level, in which you're chased by some weird creature made out of blocks and avoid getting injured by the spikes, trying to keep a good distance using whatever you can, including NPCs. This gimmick appears to have been pulled off well and some of the enemies like the flying Hammer Bros. were quite creative. However the death effect for the Sledge Bros. is missing and as soon as the level is completed the right hand side of the Giant Gate foregrounds itself against the blocks. However, the biggest flaw was that it's actually possible to sit in the tiny area in the "mouth" just to the right of the spikes and skip the whole level with only minor injuries such as losing the upgraded form you started out with. However all in all, this was quite a clever level, but it still needs a bit of work expanding on that gimmick.
Chad: 3.75/10
Eh, I don't really care for this one. The concept is neat and you did a good job of representing moving jaws with the layers, and I rather like the hurried feeling and difficulty that the level has. But the level itself feels very minimalistic and empty. You jump across some platforms, ride a skull raft, climb a fence, and there's not much more to it than that besides a lot of difficult enemies, which I will say are decently placed. Also, after I beat it legit, I noticed you can break the level by spin-jumping on an early Thwomp and spend the entire level riding safely on Godzilla's head from there. If you do this until the end, he'll actually take the exit tape with him and you can't beat the level.
Firespike33: 4/10
Meh. It’s a cool idea for a level, and it was a pretty good Godzilla, but it was too spammy and clashy, and just felt rushed further in.
Valtteri: 4/10
That's a fun little level. :P It's really short and isn't very challenging but I kind of like what you did with the Godzilla concept, I guess. He looks pretty bad to be honest, you could have done something amazing with custom graphics. The blocks you chose to use as platforms were pretty random in my opinion. You should probably get rid of the clouds and lava and find something more fitting to a city setting.
- castlewars: 2.75/10
I don't think this level appears to be finished. In the first section it's impossible to escape because there's no warp that leads to the second, and then after that the player is greeted with a checkpoint that doesn't even work. Even so, the idea of having Used Blocks actually contain items is quite a good addition to this level, but it wouldn't be a special gimmick because it's still the same as whether you're using any other blocks. Also, there are way too many enemies in this level in that this level automatically becomes really hard and dodging isn't easy particularly as there are so many Volcano Lotuses in this level, and a lot of the placement is really random without any thoughts about clashing or out-of-place items, as Fishbones and Skull Rafts don't belong in a forest, and then there's the Ptooie that tries to make a jump near-impossible. If you want to make a good contest level, it isn't even about the difficulty. It's about the style, gameplay and design. Just because the level is difficult it doesn't make it good.
Chad: 6.4/10
I rather liked this level. It's a unique form of difficulty that relies heavily on precision, and although it was suffocatingly cramped at times, I still found it neat how the level tests your skills at working with hitboxes. I do find the falling Spinies and false midpoint to be kinda mean, as well as some questionable visual choices (Paratroopa flying inside the tileset, question blocks with nothing in them), but I still enjoyed the unusual narrow design and creative challenge.
Firespike33: 5/10
This level does not have good aesthetics. Scenery is spammy and crammy, and there are very random things like pools of water and skulls in very strange places. Some of the grass tiles weren’t connected properly. There’s even a part where you can stand on a bush. The gameplay was actually pretty good--the enemy placement kept things difficult (although a bit too difficult near the start) and things were fairly well-placed. There was a puzzle where a pipe was blocked off by colored switch blocks (and you have to go over the top of the level) that was obvious, but still cool. I didn’t find the music to be very fitting. Anyway, I know it’s shallow, but would like it more if it was more polished.
Quill: 4.50/10
Ladies and Gentleman, I give you the level with the most unfitting music ever. Gerudo Valley, in a grassland level. As for the level, it's nothing special. The enemy spam is horrendous, please cut down on that. The level itself needs some work too as some areas are cramped and annoying to progress through.
Valtteri: 5/10
Feels really crowded. I'd do with about half of the enemies gone. And the level is unpleasantly cramped as well. I kept taking unfair damage. Other than that, it's nice.
- castlewars: 5.32/10
Just how many joke levels have been submitted into this contest? This is only the tip of the iceberg - and once again, it plays out like a regular level. The whole thing is entirely based on Octodad and the combination of both desert tilesets was quite interesting, but if it weren't for the NPC placing this would have scored higher. Most of the time you had to jump on their heads to cross large gaps, but the problem is that retracing is very difficult for this reason, particularly as you need to collect all the Dragon Coins to collect the star. Then the slope placements weren't done well. If the player slides down the slope without stopping they'll fall into the pit, especially as the Ninji-like NPCs weren't placed very well; while some were placed on slopes, others were placed in tight spots forcing the player to duck. Also, decorating pits is a bad idea because it's as if they're luring the player in.
Chad: 6/10
Heh, Octodad level. The level construction is average, but the NPCs (barring the giant friendly ones) look and function pretty good, and have rather nice placements. Good locations for the collectibles that reward you with the star too, although a little notification at the start would be helpful. There isn't too much standing out about this level other than the joke nature of it, but it isn't badly built.
Firespike33: 4/10
Because of the clashy graphics and goofy music I’m assuming this is a joke level. The start is annoying and the rest of the level is okay (although the things with hats look like they can be stomped). The terrible aesthetics made it hard to take the level seriously.
Quill: 5.5/10
I honestly have no idea what to say about this level. It's just cute. In all honesty, the level design was fine but there needed to be more variety. Some scenery would have helped too. The transition between the beach and desert tileset was also really dumb, man.
Valtteri: 5/10
A basic level with Octodad reskins. With a bit of humor in it. Besides that, nothing very special. It could use a bit more scenery, it feels really empty now.
- castlewars: 6.4/10
This level was quite well-designed, and looks fitting for a world 1 level due to the music and carefree nature, but with a good level go the spoils. The red coins idea was interesting in that you had to collect all five of them to get a star, and that gave this simple linear level a small twist of exploration and backtracking, but the problem is that some of the coins are placed in dangerous and risky spots, so the player is unlikely to get them without dying. Everything in the level is distributed evenly, including the coins and enemies, but only in the overworld sections as the water area appears to have too many enemies meaning it will be hard to navigate without damage, and the water boxes stretch out beyond the water. Also it appears that this level was rather short and there wasn't really much to cram into this review for this reason, and it's also hinted about 48 stars, suggesting this level was originally going to be in an episode.
Chad: 5.9/10
This is clearly an opening level to something given the messages, and it functions very well as that. It's nice and short, it has simple and decent design, and doesn't demand much of the player. However, it's over really quickly and doesn't provide much more than basic platforming. For a project's first level, that's not so much of a problem because it relies on related levels to deliver a better overall experience. But for a contest or standalone, it doesn't hold up as well. It's not a bad level, just an adventure that feels incomplete. Also, two of the red coins are impossible to safely collect given the way that they're over pits.
Firespike33: 5/10
An easy level, indeed. It’s pretty short and linear and lacks enemies in some places. There’s really not much interesting about it aside from the red coins. I could get the first one in the pit, but the second one seemed impossible. Am I supposed to drop a Koopa shell and then land on it after getting the red coin? Anyway, it was decent.
Quill: 2.5/10
This level was shorter than your average Great Empire 2 level. Man, it needed lots more of everything, especially hilarious toad dialogue. That first and third red coin was pretty much impossible to get too without a leaf. Also, the second toad is a liar!!! There aren't 48 levels in this contest! Maybe in YOUR game! :)
Valtteri: 6.5/10
Nothing much to say about this one. It's simple, really easy, and I was able to pretty much run though the entire level. I don't particularly like the layered placement of the ground, but overall it's okay and would do pretty fine as a world 1 level in a project.
- castlewars: 3.2/10
I don't think this level was designed pretty well to be honest. Well it's OK for a newcomer, but it wouldn't be that good if a seasoned level designer like reghrhre or Kyo made it. Sure the moving airship gimmick at the end of the level was interesting but it wasn't really pulled off well because the player can just jump down to the ground, and the ridiculous number of Cheep-Cheeps at the end causes serious lag. However, a lot of design faults are found at the start: a lot of the warps aren't even placed in pipes so it's up to the player to just guess where the warps are, so a lot of the first part is just guessing the locations of the warps. Also in section 6 there are too many vine NPCs so that it appears they were just randomly placed without a care about positioning, and in the next section the player can just slide through the small gap as an upgraded Mario and skip the whole cloud maze, which was interesting, as was the idea of having to throw away your Yoshi for a useless item in order to progress through the level, and I particularly like the idea of a frozen castle where time is stopped and nothing is moving, but a lot of gimmicks weren't executed well including the poorly-executed Lakitu boss which leaves no way to hit him unless the player has saved some Galoombas from the first bout, and without them it's impossible because the amount of NPCs and the Fire Mario won't let the player gain enough speed to take off.
Chad: 5.35/10
The story in this level is deep and humorous. It has a lot of connected and varied parts, and there are a fascinating amount of ideas at work here. This level is a valiant effort at being huge and interesting with a bunch of unique elements, especially for a first level. However, for me, it failed to deliver. I frequently saw a lot of irregular things that served a seemingly unknown purpose or one that is completely different than the objects involved would imply, and without indication. The only clues I had for some parts were in the readme, and while I do appreciate that you provided such a detailed and complete one, the fact that it's almost necessary might mean that the level itself doesn't explain things well enough, if at all. Like, why would I have guessed that I'm supposed to hit certain spikes on the giant vine to make items appear? It's a really unusual block to give contents to, and only random undisclosed ones even have anything. Question blocks would have been fine. The cloudy maze is unique, but forcing the player to take damage isn't nice, although the maze can be cleared big by duck-sliding/glitching anyways. The flight path just before the (broken) checkpoint is longer than the player's flight limit can actually reach, at least if you follow the coins directly (which is what players would expect to do). I also dislike that the entrance in the castle is an arbitrary wall tile that's only revealed by Tanooki powers contained in blocks normally not associated with containing items. Even then, the arrow doesn't make it clear, it could suggest something new on the left side of the island for all I know. I also can't imagine why a player would walk on lava expecting to live. I will say though, that the idea of a figurine collection is rather interesting and the Lakitu boss is well made. However, it isn't clear that you can pick up the Mario figurine, and you can't be sure the 1ups will hurt until you try one. It looks neat how everything in the castle is essentially frozen in time, though. The Dragon Coin reward is nice as well, with a lot of comical references at the end, but no information is present on them being necessary. I can tell that you have a lot of creative ideas, and I believe you can work on presenting them better if you keep practicing at designing levels, but this one had a lot of unorthodox and strange things to the point of confusion. On a side note, a Mario filter at the start might have been wise as well.
Quill: 8/10
What an awesome level! I love the whole story to this level, it really adds to the charm! The design has lots of variety although it's pretty basic, but overall I think this was a great level! Man, I really wish people would make these types of adventure levels more often. There's two in this contest which is great, it's a shame people don't make more! My only real complaint about this level is entering the sky castle is kinda tricky to find and it doesn't make much sense.
Valtteri: 5/10
Runtime error 13 because of the decimal values in the custom NPCs. I had to get rid of them in order to play. This is quite an interesting Jack and the Beanstalk adaption. It's pretty fun to play. I actually like how the beanstalk looks, that's a great way to use the vanilla stuff SMBX provides but it and the whole level would have been so cool with custom graphics. Anyways, good job.
- castlewars: 3.3/10
Now I clearly don't read TAoK so I don't know which characters of the SMBX community are being used as enemies. The level had an awkwardly unique concept in that it was set in the war that took place between this forum and Knux's after Knux took revenge and deleted this forum, and it bears so many similarities to Knux's Tournament Level Entry in CC5. Even so, the level was really bizarre in that they've just screenshotted this forum and using its icons and design as blocks, which were placed really sporadically. Then the weird-looking TAoK NPCs replacing standard SMBX enemies was a strange concept, but some of them were misplaced and poorly executed like the gun-wielding characters at the start - they fire too quickly and it's difficult to dodge them without suffering from damage. However, the level seems to get better as the player progresses, and I liked how you can actually choose to fight for Joey or Knux and then the blocks scroll depending on what side was picked. However, there's no ending as the warp is missing, and I don't have to explain that this is a joke level after reading this review.
Chad: 6.75/10
Really neat concept, and you pull it off well. The first half recreates the Mario Bros. battle setting in a cool way, and the little Knuxes and Joeys shooting at each other are a nice touch to capture the feeling of conflict while also making a unique hazard for the player. However, once you climb high enough, the pattern becomes too difficult to tell and you just have to count on lucky timing. I like how the background changes depending on where you are in the level, though. The second half is really creative too, in which you have to choose sides both ways to get both stars. The dialogue is humorous and the general progression of the level functions great, but the tanks have wonky physics. The moving layers combined with the tanks' natural movement makes basic platforming very slippery and unstable, which makes it all the more difficult to avoid the variety of projectiles being thrown at you at once. There's also a lot of visual blandness given the general lack of scenery and cutoff where background tiles end.
Firespike33: 5/10
Actually a pretty good level. It has a winding tower with some enemies and TAoK characters that shoot at you, then a tank level once you get to the top. Everything was pretty well-placed, and it was fairly difficult. When you start fighting the tanks, the level goes downhill. Because the blocks on the ground are moving, as well as the tanks, the momentum of everything is messed up. This got me killed a lot. Also, there were some 1x1 pixels and no scenery in the tank section.
Quill: 7/10
This level was super creative! Good job on that. The ascend up I didn't have any problems with. I loved the bit where you switched sides, but I thought heading to Joey or Knux would make you join their team, not the other way around. It's no big deal though. Having to play the level twice to experience the other side was pretty cool and a nice way to put two stars in the level, but I felt that there could have been more variety between the two second halfs.
Valtteri: 5.5/10
That's a silly level. I love the little Knux and Joey sprites coming out of the ground and firing at each other. I like some of the aesthetical solutions in the level, too, such as cutting the battle walls at the columns in the background if you know what I mean. That looks pretty cool. I didn't quite follow the story, though. Who exactly won at the end? Me? And what did I win? And whose side was I on? But yeah, the idea is pretty good and the execution is fluid. The part with the tanks is pretty boring and the story is confusing but it was somewhat enjoyable.
- castlewars: 6.7/10
This level is good, I must admit, and I like the atmosphere in that it was your average SMB3 airship. Having different projectiles shoot out of cannon pipes is quite interesting, as well as the Bullet Bills that sometimes are fired from unknown sources and the autoscrolling which further enhances the SMB3 feel. The Mecha-Koopas were an interesting enemy in which you could use the stomped versions to kill the Rocky Wrenches, which were another fitting airship enemy. However in terms of design the level was straightforwardly linear with no real quests such as the Dragon Coins and there is powerup overuse, making the level all really easy, and very few places in which you can choose the upper or lower route, which was used in SMB3, and the decoration needs a bit more work as well as it appears too plain, although the airship windows were interesting. The boss fight adhered well to the SMB3 feeling and the conveyor belts and Rinka spawner were interesting, but as a whole it still appears to be quite bogstandard and something like a block that reverses the direction of the belts can make this more interesting than it already is.
Chad: 6.2/10
Decent airship design, it's reminiscent of the original ones. Cannon placement is, for the most part, pretty good. However, the autoscroll is very slow, there's several places where I could just stand near or on a Bullet Bill cannon and wait for the scroll to go a lot further. There's also a lot of areas with no enemies at all, and then you have the superfast cannonballs that are massive difficulty spikes and unreasonable to react to. Although, you did a good job at adding some gimmick to Ludwig's fight. Conveyors and a Rinka are a nice combination.
Firespike33: 5.5/10
A classic SMB3 airship level. Unfortunately, it was generic and had a very slow pace. Waiting for the screen to catch up was annoying. Anyway, the design was pretty good, but I really did not like waiting for autoscroll (or whatever else you used. I’m starting to think you just moved the entire level) and it was pretty generic. The boss, Ludwig on conveyor belts with Rinkas shooting at you (that is what they’re called, right?) was all right.
Quill: 5/10
Man, this level had lots of great potential. It's a shame it wasn't so great because of small issues. Firstly, the auto scroll was far too slow, it needed to be sped up a heck of a lot. It made the level drag and that made the level boring. The obstacles and enemies were the same over and over again and there needed to be much more variety. Fix these two issues, and this level would have scored a heck of a lot higher for me.
Valtteri: 5/10
A generic airship level. I would like it more if it didn't move so unnecessarily slowly.
- castlewars: 4.47/10
The designer's ideas are just plain weird - what is it with them using Valtteri's cover of Let It Go as the level music as a way of trying to mock him? This is quite clearly a joke level due to the comparably short length, music used, and other hints which I'll keep mentioning in this review, yet still playing like a regular level. The level uses the SMB1 style, which appears to have been used quite well considering the fact it's underused nowadays, and the gameplay appears to capture the feel of the SMB1 levels, in particular those in world 5, and the snow eyecandy was a nice backdrop for this level even if the level was really well decorated. However, there are more clear hints this level isn't serious as a lot of the NPCs were placed without proper testing. Kicking a Koopa shell towards a row of blocks can cause them to ricochet back in the player's direction if the shell hits them, and mistiming the green Koopa Troopa's movement above a pipe can result in unfair damage.
Chad: 6.75/10
This level is pretty standard length and design, but the graphics are really nice to look at. The falling snow fits really well with the dark sky, and the level's decorated really well and decently constructed. The sizable placements in particular give it some extra depth. Not sure about the music choice, though. It's very serene and fitting, but hearing an actual voice is somewhat distracting. I get that this is "Frozen" hills, but lyrics don't mesh with Mario for me. I'm not really taking off any points for that, but it's worth noting. Still, fairly good and ambient level overall.
Firespike33: 5.5/10
Decent. The graphics were all right and the design was solid, but as a pretty typical level with just a couple of secrets, none of it stood out.
Quill: 6/10
Overall a decent SMB1 level that was fun to play. It's just your normal Mario level, but that's still pretty neat! Many of the enemies in the level fell into the pit before they could even attempt to fight Mario. The best part about the level is the music though. I mean, holy shit, how did you find something so glorious?! You know, that explains the enemy issue. They found the music so awesome that they killed themselves as they didn't consider themselves worthy enough to listen to such a heavenly song.
Valtteri: 5.5/10
Oh no you didn't... What a great music choice! Not much else to say about this level, really. It's casual and has a snowy theme. I like it for what it is, but again, it's nothing special. The slopes are used pretty randomly.
- castlewars: 5.1/10
*sniff*...this level is literally extremely sad! I liked the fact the player can choose their character at the start of the level. However, this level appears to suffer from the fact that if you choose Peach or Toad the level becomes impossible because they won't be able to clear some of the jumps at the start of the level. This is also the case in the airship section playing as any character because if they end up falling into the NPC generators it's impossible to escape. The Dragon Coins were a nice concept but it appears a lot of them were placed in awkward spots, and one could only be collected through a random jump, while one particular one in Bowser Jr.'s room can take nearly three minutes to jump up to, and speaking of the bosses, they were a nice concept, but some of them were unfairly difficult due to the spamming of other NPCs, in particular the Larry Koopa boss. I liked the fact that the final boss was a.....play the level and find out. However the projectile bomb generators in the boss room can actually kill the boss themselves without the player's input.
Chad: 7/10
What a neat little story! I really like the added characterization you gave everyone, and it's often humorous. The level concept is handled well, with each part of the ship having a different purpose that's set up nicely. The variety of methods that must be used to escape your cell are creative, and the bosses all have something slightly unique about them. I especially like how Birdo's arena gets gradually more perilous over time. Powerups are rather scarce, but most of the level is easy enough that you can get by if you're cautious and each powerup feels rewarding, and I like that balance. The Light Yoshi section is creative, although the light detaches from him if you take damage. There are a few other issues, like very basic room design (mostly empty box layouts), Sumo Bro's instant warps looping you back and forth, using the ghost house background for an airship doesn't fit all that well, you don't tell the player that wrapping is possible in the Grinder section, crabs generate way too fast in Larry's room (even after he's beaten), Yoshi is easily killed by the ceiling bombs, and it'd be much better to offer a midpoint after a few locks have been destroyed. But other than that, I had a lot of fun with this.
Firespike33: 5/10
This level starts with you trapped in an airship, completing various objectives to get out. The first section has you ascend multiple cells and read funny dialogue, and then there are several doors you can enter, each with a key. The aesthetics in the level were okay, but there was a lack of scenery and the ghost house background didn’t really fit, in my opinion.
The first had a boss that throws bombs at you. Pretty simple. If you climb up into the arena and fall down before getting one block above the entrance, you die. You might want to fix that. The second had an okay area with grayish blocks and a yoshi that gave off light. The yellow light didn’t illuminate anything and actually made it harder to see, so the only purpose is to throw it at things. There was also a SMB3 Bowser boss. The third had an underwater section that was a bit hard, but nothing too bad, followed by another simple boss. It was easy to kill using vegetables.
The fourth had some saws you have to spin-jump on. This was a bit tricky, but getting down was pretty easy considering you can jump past almost everything. Getting up was easier. The Birdo fight that followed wasn’t too hard, but I’d give some warning that the metal barrels are going to fall, as it’s pretty hard to react if you’re standing in the wrong place. The fifth door had an area with hungry enemies and a chef that tried to cook you. The fight was pretty hard when crabs were running all over the place, and it was even harder not to get swarmed when trying to get the key.
Finally, there was a battle with Yoshi. It was hard not to get hit, but he died in a few seconds due to being in a terrible place for fighting (a room with cannons that shoot bombs). I’d make it so you can at least bounce off of the eggs, because it doesn’t make sense that you take damage from landing on them. You get to ride on Yoshi afterwards, and it would have been nice for Toad and Peach players to get to ride in a shoe instead. The next section was an airship and then the star. Overall, it was an okay level, and had a cool idea, but nothing in it was very interesting or well-designed. At least you made me write a huge review.
Quill: 6/10
Man, what a cute level! I really liked the interactions between the player and the characters, it was silly. The level design was alright, I think you should have made the warp back after a boss take you back to the main room with all the locked doors to save time and avoid back-tracking. Back-tracking through the second room was glitchy. The bosses were mostly generic and there could have been more to them. Oh man that plot twist in the end!
Valtteri: 5.5/10
This is an interesting kind of level. There's a story. The dialogue is kind of a bore to read and makes me feel uncomfortable sometimes, but maybe that's just me. I'm not exactly a fan of some of the aesthetical choices in the level, such as the pink pipe cutoff and the weird mixes of Mario blocks.
- castlewars: 7.5/10
This was quite an interesting level, both looking at it and playing it. It has you go in all sorts of directions around one single section, visiting other sections in between. The level exuded a nice atmosphere and a lot of enemies and stuff blended in with the overall style of the level, although some of the Goombas and Koopas were too light and didn't go well. The interim boss fight was interesting as well, but it's actually a lot harder, and actually unfairly difficult, than the final boss of the level because you can't jump on the Boom Boom, the Rinkas spawn constantly and then spikes on the ground try to prevent much movement. The final boss was actually easier because of a fatal flaw: the player can just grab the shell and hold it in front of the Fire Bro. boss to end it quickly. In terms of design, the level was rather flat, and the slope placement was really awkward and not showing that it was not flat. It went from 45° slope to shallow slope in the other direction, and that tampered with NPC movement as well.
Chad: 6.3/10
This level is interesting, and you capture the essence of a magmatic cave rather well, but the design feels very empty and flat for the most part. I like that each section does something a little different, like how one has chains and rafts and another has pipe maneuvering. The bosses are pretty cool too, they're hard but fair. However, the secret stars aren't done very well. I like what you're going for with the rising lava one, but it's broken because it rises all the way to the very top of the section, making it impossible to enter the room without dying. It cuts off considerably at the bottom, so I know it's going way higher than it should. If it just stopped where it was supposed to, it would have been great. The Toad rescue one isn't very good either because it basically relies on you hitting an invisible vine block by sheer chance. Not fond of the blind jumps in the checkpoint room, and you should actually seal off the post-Boom-Boom path before beating him so players don't just run all that way only to be disappointed with a dead-end. Other than that, the level is still fun and the graphics look nice, but there's not very much populating most areas and the poor gimmick execution waters down the experience somewhat.
Firespike33: 5/10
Most of this level was fairly uninteresting: long, flat expanses with occasional enemies. One interesting part had repeatedly rising and lowering lava and a star to collect. It was easy if you went on top of the level (not sure I was supposed to) and impossible otherwise.
The first boss was pretty hard, but actually a good boss. It required skill and reflexes and was satisfying to beat. I had to keep running back and forth, dodging everything, and nailing the boss with ice blocks. The spikes were a bit annoying because their hitbox is too big, but it’s not like you can fix that. After I beat him once, doing it again was easy.
The second boss was a nightmare. Sometimes I died before even being able to move. The most annoying part is having to backtrack through half of the level everytime I died. Give the player a few seconds of breathing room before launching a bunch of projectiles in their face. Anyway, once I got my bearings, the boss wasn’t too hard. It was a good boss, too. Unfortunately, the fact that the rest of the level was pretty plain reduces the score.
Quill: 5.5/10
I thought this level was pretty average. A lot of the level had basic, bland parts that weren't much fun to go through and there wasn't much variety either. I liked the two bosses you had to face as they were unique and were creative too, although they took too many hits to kill in my opinion. This level had its moments, it mainly needed more level variety in my opinion.
Valtteri: 4.5/10
Runtime error 13 because of the decimal values in the custom NPCs. I had to get rid of them in order to play. This level has clever bosses but the other parts are pretty bland and boring to be honest. And that tileset looks bad.
- castlewars: 4.8/10
This is quite an interesting take on SMBX - a GTA V-type level. The concept and reasoning was unique in the regard that the player can choose to play as Mario or Luigi at the start and the player has to do certain tasks to claim the star, and I liked how some of the blocks and NPCs were used as a way of creating challenges for the player and advancing the level plot, but the problem was that it's one of those levels which starts out with high hopes but they slowly go downhill over the course of the level. In some spots the NPCs were almost spammed while scarce in others, such as the Grinders and Bowser statue, and in the bank the player can get the key stuck on the other side of the door if Yoshi spits it out when too close to it. Also, a lot of the level can be skipped and the player can just get the Hammer Suit and break the glass to get a full-on 5-star Wanted rating, then after a lot of the NPCs were just misplaced and if the player still had Yoshi at that point they can just swallow one of the Blue Paratroopas and fly to the other side unscathed.
Chad: 6.6/10
Well this is certainly something different. This level actually has Mario running around committing various crimes and avoiding police in order to unlock the way to the end, and that's rather original. The level is designed fairly well to represent a small city, but the layout is kinda average in quality. The events related to the crimes are well executed, although it looks like you could skip the 3-star one if you Yoshi-jump onto the store. I like how the police are divided into various difficulties depending on the size of your crime spree. The level isn't aesthetically great though. The forest transition is abrupt and sticks out badly, and the insides of the buildings don't have very good graphic choices either. Just using more city brick tilesets could work in both instances. Still, the originality of this level is interesting and you handled it well.
Quill: 6.5/10
Man, this level was so silly. I really liked the idea behind this! It was a creative way of playing through a level that wasn't going from Point A to B. I was kinda sad when it ended though, it should have been longer! There could have been some more areas to explore too.
Valtteri: 5.5/10
That's an obscure idea for a level, and it kinda works but not really... The execution could have beel a lot better. I was able to skip four stars, and get it after getting five stars. Killing the blue Koopas somehow trigger the glass event. The level is really short, too. I'm not a fan of the graphical execution, either. You shouldn't mix few custom graphics with unchanged default ones that much, it doesn't look good. It's a creative idea but the execution is lacking.
- castlewars: 7.5/10
OK, this level has the best starting cutscene that I've experienced in SMBX - perfectly transcribing the player's physics and using them to create the idea of the player running into the level - and then on, the autoscroll idea is used to provide a layer of difficulty like having to get the Dragon Coins before getting crushed while also having to dodge enemies being hurled at them. Then after that I like the idea of the transition into a burning forest, and this idea is not often used in SMBX, but this section wasn't designed well in comparison to the autoscrolling section as it appears too artificial (the trees have straight vertical edges) but I like how the player can choose Mario or Luigi at that point. The bossfight at the end was particularly interesting in having to dodge some artificial creature made out of blocks and destroy the glass, but there is sometimes little room to dodge the fireballs particularly as the bombs drop down as the fireballs appear, and then the bombs will explode before the player is about to throw them. Still, this idea was executed in an OK fashion.
Chad: 7.3/10
You did some pretty cool stuff with this level. The autoscroll is quick but doable, and the area's crafted nicely around the speed demanded of it. The lava obstacles posed a nice challenge as well. The boss is tricky, but the pattern of fire can be determined by crouching long enough, so I won't complain about the really fast projectiles. Normally I would, but they're nicely predictable in this case. I really like the theme that the forest setting has, too. However, the amount of waterfalls are excessive and the forest section's camera pans too low needlessly. The forest part could be extended more as well, perhaps to replace the first section as an autoscroller because the waterfall theme doesn't feel related.
Firespike33: 3/10
An interesting level. It starts out with a big waterfall where you run from the autoscroll, and in some parts it jumps for you (confusing). You run away for a while, and it was sort of interesting, but nothing amazing. The rest is a burning forest (no autoscroll) with some weird cut-off trees and pretty plain design. Overall, it’s nothing amazing.
Quill: 6/10
But... but the chase wasn't in the forest and the forest had no chase. Adherence to the level name? 0/10. Joking aside, this is a decent level. The auto scroll was fast which increased the difficulty but it could have been a little slower in my opinion to make things more fair. I was wondering why they didn't use the huge ass waterfalls next to the forest to deal with the lava. What an environmentally unrealistic level! The second half was pretty cool but had no unique qualities, but it was pretty decent overall though. The boss was silly and neat, but the flames were kinda too fast and didn't give the player much reaction time. I predict one of the judges (Valtteri) will complain about the Toad's 1x1 pixels.
Valtteri: 5.5/10
I think the first half and the second half could have worked better as separate levels. They don't match at all. :P The beginning of the level has the perfect way of starting a fast autoscroll level, good job on that. It's ingenious. The rest of the level is actually pretty innovative in a way.
Places 36-53
Spoiler: show
53. Drluigi - Retro Tour (6.03/10)
- castlewars: 7.4/10
This, in many ways, was a greatly-designed level. The best thing about it is that this is three levels packed into one as a way to relive the nostalgia of the original SMB1 levels, which also gives the level good theme variation and it adheres faithfully to the design elements of the classic SMB1 levels, and it was a good idea taking the original SMB1 NES graphics and restyling them to suit SMBX's palette, even if this was originally done by Catskart, because it further develops the idea of faithfulness to the SMB1 levels. was of an average difficulty despite the fact that there was no checkpoint and the player would be forced to restart this very long level. Also in the underground section the player can just skip most of the level by running over the brick blocks and the overworld section felt rather flat and not very decorated, even if it goes well into the theme of the SMB1 levels.
Chad: 6.75/10
Really impressive revamp of the classic SMB1 themes! It's just too bad that the design is mostly made up of remakes, give or take a few minor changes. The gameplay and enemy placements are good, though.
Firespike33: 5/10
A level based off of SMB1. It’s well-made, but there’s nothing very interesting in it. I’d go more in-depth but there isn’t much to talk about.
Quill: 5.5/10
I like the idea of this level! It's simple, but effective. The gameplay is pretty basic, but really gives that classic Mario feel. The first section gets a little repetitive, and the second section platforms should be generators as otherwise it's difficult to cross and annoying too as the platforms will spawn at different times and you might not be able to make the jump. Also, Peach is incorrect. You won't be going up any biased tower. I might have to correct that ;)
Valtteri: 5.5/10
A SMB1 styled level. Very simple, but enjoyable. I like what you did with the backgrounds, the glowing coming from the under.
- castlewars: 7.8/10
This level was interesting. It started out as an ice level, but then it transitioned into a castle and then the rain is added to enhance it. The transition was executed pretty well, and the level was designed quite well, if a little on the long side - actually, the level was too long and the checkpoint is misplaced, and the player can choose which route to go at the checkpoint. However some of the gimmicks are difficult to get hold of, such as the projectile shells in section 2 - how do you get past them? Also, the screen scrolling vertically in section 15 as well is nearly impossible to get hold of because the player cannot make the jump onto the second platform. The frozen water was an interesting gimmick as well but the gravity blocks were positioned in such a way that the player is stranded if they are misplaced. The bossfight was interesting as well because the player is required to use the pillars, and finally the gimmick is explained because the idea of using POW blocks is really unique in a way.
Chad: 6.85/10
I really admire the amount of effort and creative endeavors put into this level, as well as its focus on difficult puzzles and elaborate design. It certainly has a very intricate layout and a lot to offer in terms of gameplay and innovation. It tries a lot of really cool things like antigravity blocks, building your own ice bridge, and layers attached to held items, to name just a few. I especially like the pillar linked to the blue platform, you really aligned that part well with the stationary surfaces around it. The vertical autoscroll works in an excellent fashion too, along with the carryable layer in it. That part especially is visually stunning and feels very cinematic in a way that almost goes beyond 16-bit Mario without feeling out of place for it. The boss fight is really original as well, using POW blocks in such a manner is quite unusual but interesting. However, this level tried to do too much. Don't use this many stars, don't use all 21 sections this extensively, and a lot of its gimmicks could have been utilized better. Indicate to players that they need a Fire Flower before you make them cross a really long lag-filled bridge of freezable projectile shells, not after. That part was really interesting on its own, but the level's much too large for it and the area is too long and too punishing for simply not knowing what's next. If you can actually enter that pipe, you're blocked off by hammer blocks in the next area that you didn't know you needed to prepare for, which are only removed by falling down a random undisclosed pit in Section 1. The gravity block star is tedious and you're likely to get the spin-jump timing slightly wrong at least once during the countless times you make the player do it, there's no indication that the sleet and water are painful or that the P-switches remove the sleet, there's too much reliance on falling down pits to change areas (only one is even confirmed as safe, the rest are just leap of faith), and the boss could very easily beat you just by having a POW block mess up a jump unpredictably. Again, I really like the things that this level tries to go for and the kinds of ideas it has, but it's just highly excessive, not very well handled, and too easy to get lost with no idea where to go or what to do.
Firespike33: 4/10
I went through an okay snow level and upon reaching the checkpoint was teleported to a tower area with pillars. The rain was cut off and was done very strangely. The fact that it followed you was even more odd-looking. This was pretty easy and sort of fun, but slow-paced. Going back through it because you died on the boss was immeasurably tedious (yes, I actually just said that). The boss at the end was pretty easy. Just jump over the magic and it’ll eventually hit POW blocks, killing the boss. Overall, nothing about it was that good, and it was short.
Valtteri: 5.5/10
This level starts out pretty well but then I get the checkpoint and have to deal with a very, very slow autoscroll part where I have to make precise jumps on tiny platforms that are SLIPPERY for some reason, and I still don't understand why I had to carry a weird mushroom that holds a ceiling that apparently protects me from the rain. Wouldn't it make more sense if the rain was, like, fire or something? Is Mario made of sugar? The boss is weird, I didn't even need to use the POW blocks, I was able to just jump on Lemmy like normally. The first half of the level is good but it gets goofy after the midpoint.
- castlewars: 7.6/10
This level had quite a great atmosphere to it, and it was almost quite gimmicky due to the way the events were used, and I liked the idea of having to collect Moon Coins in order to accomplish tasks such as killing a Boo or making a platform appear, and some of the tasks you had to do were explained pretty well. And speaking of Boos, I liked the way you used the first Boo at the start of the level as a mere obstacle rather than an all-out enemy and the way in which you had to bounce on Thwomps in order to gain rewards and the way spinjumping doesn't need to be spammed unlike in a few other levels. However there are some areas where the design was a bit rushed, such as the Boom Boom interim battle, because you can just skip the boss entirely by entering the right-hand pipe, without affecting the level, and the room with the secret star is missing a pipe segment. The cramped tunnel before the final boss is another minus as well, particularly as the Goombas are walking straight at you, but the level still has great design and gimmicks despite those flaws.
Chad: 7.2/10
The theme of the level is really neat, it actually feels like an arabian take on a normal Bowser castle infiltration. The gameplay is short but sweet, and the level's nicely built around caution and strategic movement. I like how you have an easier and harder star, although the pipe leading to the easier one's kinda random (and floating on the exit end). I kinda expected it to be the one that vanishes by the midpoint as you collect Moon Coins, as I got those first. Enemy placements are pretty good too, the Thwomps and Lotuses were particularly interesting to make my way past. The bosses are nicely made too, but slightly broken at the same time. Boom-Boom is entirely skippable, and he might line up with the leftward bullets at the start in a way that forces you to take a hit. I like Dry Bowser's little vehicle, but he can very easily jump off of it and you can enter the room past him without beating him.
Firespike33: 4/10
This level felt pretty uninspired and had very simple design through most of it, including many lines of Thwomps. It was completely linear, too, and the Moon Coins were way too easy to find, especially considering that you can get a 3-UP. The first boss was actually harder than the main one, because of the Bullet Bills; the best strategy was to stand on top of the pipes and jump on Boom-Boom whenever he got up. The main boss was pathetic: because you gave the player a Mushroom earlier, they can just do the Kamikaze Ninja maneuver (I just made that up) and run straight into him, before grabbing the axe. The visuals were okay, but there wasn’t a lot of scenery, and some of the green blocks clashed. Overall, it was mediocre.
Quill: 5/10
Decent level. There was nothing extraordinary about it, but it was fun to play. I found it too short and it could have had a lot more to do. The Section 7 goombas can be hard to avoid if you're big and can still be a nuisance if you're small. The player needed more room there. Section 9 was stupid, why were there so many lava lotuses? Getting the Star Coin at the end just to go back for the star was kinda pointless too.
Valtteri: 6.5/10
Runtime error 13, this time it didn't have to do with custom NPCs. The .lvl file itself had random decimal values all over. Rounding them up worked and I was able to play the level. This is an enjoyable level, I think. Dry Bowser jumped on the ledge with the axe and didn't die when I grabbed it, you should probably fix that. The aesthetics of this level need some work.
- castlewars: 6/10
This level may not look like it, but it was unfairly difficult. A lot of sections were incredibly cramped and then an enemy NPC might just come in the player's direction, and then it's almost unavoidable. Nevertheless the switch puzzles and Ice Block puzzles were interesting and there was a lot of variety in the gameplay, ranging from swimming, to platforming, and then going into a flooded cave, all involving hunting down a secret star, but in terms of decoration the red palms don't fit into the environment, but even after that, that is the only flaw with it - the level is actually decorated quite nicely, if a little sparingly. However the NPC placement was not so good and the player is often not expecting the Bullet Bills to come at them, while there was Snifit overuse in certain parts, particularly around the green switch in section 2. At the end, the player is expected to use a Piranha Pipe to clear away a flood of plants, but it seems that even then it shows the player has to be on the alert and kill every single one as they progress because missing one can result in damage and possibly losing the pipe.
Chad: 7/10
I like what you did with this level. The layout is nice and the design feels unique. There are a lot of interesting jumps with all the sizables, pipes, and note blocks. The pipes and waterfalls give the level a fascinating waterworks feel, and I enjoyed how the blue bricks and carryable plants are used (although the latter was over too soon). Great star locations, too. I would have preferred if the first one was more than a luck-based invisible block, but the actual location of the star room is fine. The P-switch based star is very clever and there are no issues with its execution, although the P-switch graphic is buggy because it vanishes when you carry it. As for everything else, difficulty, length, and design are pretty normal and you have enemies and items placed well, so good job on this.
Firespike33: 5/10
It was okay. The design was pretty simple and the aesthetics weren’t great. The underground area in particular felt empty, and the water areas had some cutoff. There were two secret stars, one relying on luck to find and the other on basic brain operation. Anyway, it was an okay level but the design wasn’t amazing and there was little very interesting about it.
Quill: 6.5/10
Decent level. The design was okay and the level was fun at places, but it was nothing exceptional and my interest wasn't always at its peak. One thing I did like is how much variety you had in your level, every section was different, which was great! Good job on that!
Valtteri: 6/10
It's a quite decent level. The gameplay is nothing special, just a few Switch puzzles. At least they weren't tedious. It was pretty fun in its simplicity, actually. The moving coins are pretty cool, too. I would like to point out a few graphical flaws. The upside-down rocks kind of just float in the air which isn't very good. The waterfall doesn't connect to the water pool correctly. And I find the red palm trees and rarely placed mushrooms random and just unfitting to the setting. And the tileset has the same colors as the background which is something you should avoid as otherwise they don't appear to be in front all that well. The black outlines help but the contrast is too big.
- castlewars: 7.65/10
This was a very interesting castle, using the overall SMB3 gameplay but then throwing in some SMB2 elements such as the Shy Guys, which the level is based around. The addition of interim bosses was interesting, such as the Mecha-Guy a quarter of the way into the level, but on that particular boss, the player can just hold a Shy Guy in front of the boss for a quick kill, even though it requires having to dodge the chaotic movement of the boss or else get crushed against the wall. I also liked the interesting idea that the player actually has to remember what they've seen in the level because they are tested on that, as well as on SMBX in general, with dire consequences just because the player doesn't know how SMBX works. As for the General Guy boss, that was an interesting boss but it's quite difficult as the player has to dodge a hail of Rinkas and the conveyor belts as well, but the main problem and flaw with this level is that there's no star, nor exit of any kind. This means that this level cannot be completed, but I presume it was a mistake on the designer's part.
Chad: 7.5/10
This is a very unique level. The layout is nicely straightforward, although with too much emptiness (especially in the skull raft room with its lack of walls and a ceiling). The story is interesting and there's a lot of creative enemies that work really well. The Mecha Guy fight is especially original, but the generator's timing should be adjusted because the Shy Guy's likely to pop out as you're jumping over. It is possible to find a rhythm between avoiding it and attacking, but it's not as clear as it should be. The quiz is really impressive, and the wrong answers give fair punishments. I like how they decide the difficulty further ahead. The level is still doable even if you get all three wrong. However, the first quiz question isn't accurate. You put the correct answer as 8 Para-Guys having been encountered before that room, when there are actually 10. I felt like there were more than 8, so I counted after beating the level and I was right. Great job with the General Guy battle, though. It's really tricky, but fair. Interesting use of the Bowser bricks and Pwnhammers. The escape sequence is well done because although it is entire-level backtracking, it's also not very long and it's different enough to not feel repetitive. Don't make the fire insta-kill though, use something like a non-solid and hurtful Donut Block. Also, you ought to make the warpstar an actual star since the level doesn't have one. Overall, I'm pretty impressed with how this level is executed, and most of its problems are minor.
Firespike33: 4/10
A lot of this level felt like it was uninspired. The section after you enter is very basic and flat, with some uninteresting enemy patterns (also, I died a cheap death because I jumped on a propeller guy. Might want to give a warning, as in Yoshi’s Island they can be safely stomped). The rest of the level isn’t much different, and I really didn’t find any part of it very interesting, aside from the bosses.
The first boss was pretty buggy. First, the pipe doesn’t synchronize with his animation. It looks like it’s floating. Second, he starts spazzing out if you stand on the pipe on his head. Third, he can go inside walls and ram you and enemies inside them, which is pretty weird. Aside from that, It was an okay boss.
The second “boss” was just answering easy questions, and the third was a General Guy replacing Bowser, with some Rinkas (that’s what they’re called, right?) to make the fight harder. I do not approve of how the Bullet Bills cannot be destroyed or stomped, and I think you should add actual Bullet Bills or make them look like something else. General Guy himself looks like he can be jumped on, but apparently his hat is extremely dangerous and not to be landed on. Other than that, the fight was actually fun, but the rest of the level felt uninspired.
Quill: 6.5/10
Oh man the first section has no music!!! Anyway, this level was neat. I liked the progress through the base and it had enough variety to keep it interesting as I ascended. The first boss was simple, but the idea was clever. The question guy asked questions you had to guess apart from the last but it didn't really change much. The boss was alright, it was a bit annoying to get the Billy Gun though. I think you wanted to change the music during the escape as it changed after you beat the boss but reverted when you started to backtrack. When you were escaping, the level needed more to it to make it more interesting. The lava wasn't enough. It also wasn't clear that the area was self-destructing until that dude said it.
Valtteri: 5.5/10
It's an okay level, but I could do without the instakill fire, honestly. It's pretty mediocre for the most part. The bosses are pretty cool, although the Mother Brain one is kind of lame and you can just hold a Shy Guy against it for a few moments and it's over. Was it really necessary to have every single graphic replaced with a half-assed SMB3 recolor in the graphics folder? The level takes forever to load and not even half of the graphics are used. I would also like to point out that despite the fact that everything in the level is a SMB3 recolor most of the stuff just doesn't fit together, it looks pretty messy. But it's still pretty fun to play, maybe a bit too hard but I kind of had fun playing it.
- castlewars: 6.5/10
I don't know what it is with the German level name but the level appears that a lot of time and effort has been put into it, and the level requires the player to do most of the exploring themselves in order to unlock hidden secrets, with varying rewards depending on which direction the player went, and I liked the way in which the events were used to create gimmicks such as a fist propelling the player forwards into the checkpoint and the two atmospheres of desert and pyramid going well together. The boss fight was rather ingenious as well and the way events were used was quite interesting, particularly as the music delay was used to an advantage as not starting until the first block appears, and the way different weapons used creates a feel similar to that of bossedit8's "form" bosses. However most of the time a lot of the text was in German and the player won't be able to understand most of it (unless they are German) until they've pieced the idea together themselves and discovered the reasoning behind the messages.
Chad: 7.3/10
Rather good level. The layout is an interesting alternation between linear and slightly complex. The red coin hunt is nice, in which none of them are too time consuming or difficult. The question block lifts are interesting as well, although they'd make more sense if you could hit them like actual question blocks. You could probably accomplish that with layer attachment if the blocks were normal-sized. I enjoyed the gameplay during the inside sections as well, where it provided room for exploration and the big stone fist is somewhat creative. The coin formations are nice looking too, and the moving block part has a lot of bullets flying at you in ways that feel fair. The boss is certainly interesting, although the darkness is unnecessary. It doesn't look very good and creates a ton of lag. The lag actually comes and goes immediately and in severe doses along with the darkness. Not a big fan of the giant blue fireballs either, as avoiding them just comes down to not being at the wrong place at the wrong time, so it was nice to see them disappear for the latter majority of the fight. The sudden pits are a little unfair, as there's nothing telling you to stay away from those spots and you're going to be focused on the projectiles. Just have those pits be there from the start. Other than those things, the boss is rather well made. It's considerably tougher than the rest of the level, but fair and with a clear set of attacks. The horizontal fire that keeps you from jumping too high is a unique danger, and you use the Rinkas and Lotus fireballs really well. The level's supposed to end in a star, though.
Firespike33: 4.5/10
A desert level that starts out with a very easy red coin challenge before going underground. Some of the SMW elements clashed, and the bushes looked quite out-of-place in the underground area. The scenery was pretty spammy, too. The level had a pretty simple design and was really pretty uninteresting except for the part where you dodge Bullet Bills on the moving platform.
I didn’t like the boss very much either. It looks like a Phoenix, but the boss doesn’t do anything--it just summons attacks out of the air, which are sometimes hard to dodge. I even got killed because something I couldn’t predict without memorizing attack patterns appeared in my face. The fact that the ground disappears at one point can lead to even more cheap deaths. It wasn’t really too bad after a couple of fights, and I beat him pretty easily.
Quill: 6.5/10
This is a really decent desert level. Getting the red coins at the start was easy and going through the indoor section was too. Overall the actual level itself is decent. Where this level really shines is the boss. I really like it! It's pretty simple but creative enough to keep you on your toes with a fair difficulty. My only complaint about it is the large flames it fires are kinda hard to react to in time.
Valtteri: 6.5/10
This is a pretty great level, actually. It has a couple of creative elements. The ride before the boss could be a lot harder; I counted maybe two or three instances where I actually had to jump a bit in order to not get hit. Otherwise it was just crouching the entire ride. I like what you did with the moving coins. :P The boss was awesome, although some phases simply made jumping up impossible, like the random fire spawners that appeared for a while every now and then. I'm not quite a fan of the appearance of the underground area. The chains look ugly in my opinion, and the quicksand shouldn't fall on edges, it looks pretty bad. But that's a minor thing, great job on the level!
- castlewars: 6.89/10
Thank you castlewars, but your review is in another castle! Haha, I'm only joking. This level felt, in many ways, like your average SMB3 castle level, with all the gimmicks loaded in. The gameplay was rather interesting - hitting switches to progress was one part, but then there are other parts such as fetching a key and using it to open a locked door, or even trying to negotiate a lava maze as a fairy! All but one of them were executed very well - the fairy one was worst for wear - if the player waits in the small tunnel for too long they'll lose their fairy powerup and automatically die, and also the lava maze is really tricky, even as a fairy. The keys puzzle was OK, but the problem is that if the player uses the key to open the keyhole door in that same section instead of the locked door they'll be stuck and unable to progress, having used the key on the wrong door. The locked doors in the following section decorated the level nicely, right up to the boss fight. However, going too far right can cause Larry to fall into the lava, killing himself and ending the level without much player input.
Chad: 6.25/10
A good revamp of the standard SMB3 fortress style. The layout's interesting and the variety of obstacles is great. The design does a good job of making players move cautiously, and the propeller block and vertical stairs sections are nicely constructed as well. However, the rolling Bob-ombs are a bit of a problem. They roll too quickly, generate too frequently, and bump into each other unpredictably, which make avoiding them almost a matter of luck. The chomps are the same way during the boss fight, which made that unenjoyable too. The fairy part is problematic as well given the disorienting two-way instant warps that warp you back and forth just by holding still, and the pixel-perfect precision of the lava tunnels is also a pain. Overall, this level is rather decently put together, and the first half is somewhat above average, but it would have more pleasant if some things were more spaced out and slowed down to become more manageable.
Firespike33: 8.5/10
This was a very good level, and I would give it a nine or higher if it had fewer flaws. I really like how Dry Bones and rolling enemies kept spawning, meaning you had to stay on the move to stay alive. It was a little spammy in parts, but still pretty fun and interesting. What I didn’t like was the section where you turn into a fairy. The precise movement was frustrating because if a tiny part of you touches the lava, you die. Also, if you move into the area with the lava maze slowly, you get teleported back up, and then you can bump into a floor which reverses your fairy form and dumps you into the lava.
Still, I really liked the other parts. The Ace Coins are pretty easy to get to, except for the one trapped in green blocks. I couldn’t figure out how to get to there from the switch. The blue SMW Koopa near the end clashed a bit.
Finally, the boss was really hard, but that isn’t a bad thing. I beat him by luring him into the lava at the edge.
Quill: 6.5/10
Pretty good level! The castle is unique and has lots of awesome gameplay. The enemies coming out of the doors is a need idea too. The trap part was also pretty awesome and unexpected too. The fairy part greatly ruins the level however, while it is very creative, it's impossible to do when big as you'll often glitch. More room is needed for this idea to work as it's also stupidly difficult anyway. The boss was funny, I just tricked him into the lava.
Valtteri: 3.5/10
Runtime error 13 because of the decimal values in the custom NPCs. I had to get rid of them in order to play. I really liked this level until the Fairy part. That is just so unfair. I can't beat it. The corridors are too thin and it's almost inevitable you will touch the lava at some point, and if you don't, you can still die at the hole that leads out by accidentally touching the floor and turning back into Mario and instantly dying for some reason.
- castlewars: 4.63/10
This is essentially just a minecart level because the idea is that the player is standing still yet is moving along an invisible track. Even so, as it turns out, the idea was not executed very well because the level's gameplay and aesthetics are really bland - it's just watching the player ride an invisible minecart and the gist of the level doesn't require skill but memorising the SMBX player physics and using this to figure out the jumps, which need to be done almost perfectly - one miscalculation can result in a fiery death in the lava pits, and this isn't helped by the fact the level is too long despite the checkpoint. Then there are also areas in which the player is forced to duck and this gets really common as the level progresses, alongside having to get the jumps accurately, as they have to do it for around 25% of the time. The other 75% is just watching the player move and judging the jumps, but the instant warps were used pretty well at the checkpoint, though.
Chad: 7.6/10
Really nice idea! It truly recreates the DKC Minecart feeling and gameplay without literally being it. The level is extremely well made for this kind of purpose, and the concept behind it is humorous. While it may be a little long and unforgiving, I also found myself extra eager to try again because it's the kind of difficulty where you know what you just barely messed up when you die. Usually minecart gimmicks are just rainbow shells on tracks way too complicated for them, but this felt very authentic and I felt I could react to each jump. However, I found it a little annoying that Toad tells you not to jump when doing so is pretty important for the entire level. I got crushed into the first wall a few times because, heeding his advice, I thought maybe the level would do something on its own. Of course, that's before I knew the level would be a minecart sort, but it's still misleading.
Firespike33: 7/10
A really cool level reminiscent of Mine Cart Carnage. It was really fun and had a lot of tricky jumps. Hard, but very satisfying. Unfortunately, the graphics are far from polished--clash is everywhere and scenery is nowhere be seen. You can also get an insane amount of 1-UPs near the end because a rainbow Koopa shell kills dozens of Podoboos in a row. It was fun, but not polished.
Quill: 7/10
What a silly level! It was super creative! The concept was brilliant! It wasn't executed to perfection sadly, as there were a few glitchy moments and some points in the level where you didn't have much time to react. I would have liked to see the checkpoint put further into the level, as it was literally right at the start. Overall, good level!
Valtteri: 6/10
The concept is fairly original and it works well but the run is way too long in my opinion, even the half after the Checkpoint. It gets really frustrating. Or maybe I'm just bad.
- castlewars: 7/10
This was a cool blend of both ice and airship level combined, and seems to pull off both ideas pretty well. It's as if this level was partly inspired by the Invasion levels in TI2, and I liked the way the airships were used to create some interesting gimmicks such as having to jump on the head of a chasing Koopa Paratroopa in order to gain height, but the thing is that the player is forced to jump in order to force a spawn due to the height and if the player waits too long the area will get congested with chasing Paratroopas. However, needless to say, the airships coming after the player was interesting, and the fact the player is rewarded by difficult tasks like getting a jump perfected before the airship flies away is a cool addition. However, the level, as a whole, starts downhill at the bossfight, in which a giant Boom Boom is an interesting boss to have, so kudos to that, but the thing is that the boss is too easy as the player can sit on the sizable and drop into its head, then bounce back onto the sizable, then repeat, without suffering any damage.
Chad: 6.35/10
It's decent, with neat presentation but somewhat average gameplay. The design isn't bad, but it's mostly simple platforming. The difficulty's rather inconsistent, as it's a little bit challenging around the ships but pretty simple and uneventful away from them. The tanks are a little glitchy sometimes, and the boss is also kinda generic given that Boom-Boom's hitbox can't actually be altered. I like how you required the player to bounce off a chasing Paratroopa (or use Luigi) to get past that one jump in the midpoint room though, since a very slow generator lets you try again if you fail without swarming the place with flying turtles. I really like how you hid the secret star, too. You saw an opportunity to pick a creative spot for it that the nature of the level made possible, and you took it. It isn't a place that you'd normally think to look at first, so excellent job, there.
Firespike33: 6/10
A pretty good level. The player is bombarded with enemies and explosives while they navigate the area. The aesthetics were good looking (snow, mountain and wood) and background objects were pretty well-placed. However, it was very short and very linear, so there’s just not much for me to review. It didn’t feel satisfying because it lacked length.
Quill: 6/10
Nice level! It had some interesting moments in gameplay and the airships was pretty cool. The tank in section 1 glitched for me when I played it and the switch in Section 3 was completely useless and so was the springboard. Section 4's first area is hard to get up to with Mario as you'll have to koopa jump with a chasing koopa, which is a bit annoying. The boss was silly, made me giggle. A lot of the level also lacked scenery which I think would have helped the level's atmosphere. Overall it was a nice level! Good job!
Valtteri: 7/10
I like this level. There's nothing to complain about. It's just really simple. The set-up is kind of unique, but gameplay-wise it's nothing extraordinary. I'd use less grayish colors in the trees, and maybe get rid of the outlines at the part with a large sizable with tiny ones placed onto it, they don't look right.
- castlewars: 7.83/10
This was quite exciting to play, but as a whole it's your vanilla contest entry with the overused vanilla gimmicks such as the switch puzzles and nonlinear design, complete with backtracking. This would have provided a layer of puzzle-solving but the player is doing nothing but hitting switches, so gameplay quickly becomes bland and repetitive. In terms of NPCs some of them are misplaced, in particular the Koopa Troopa riding Dino Rhino. It looks harmful on paper but put a couple of blocks in to hinder the jump and then place it where the blocks are and the player isn't expecting it to appear, so some warning signs might do and sort out this problem. As stated earlier, switches are the main focus of this level, and a lot of the gimmicks involve a switch of some sort, whether it's removing a barrier or making a platform move, and that was it. No other special gimmicks or additions that make this level unique, although it does require the player to have some skill to reach the last two switches
Chad: 7.25/10
Good design and use of switches. I especially liked the moving elevator and vine parts, and the Bullet Bills are well-placed for good dodging. The general mountainous theme is interesting, and the whole level had a good length and difficulty. However, the Dino Rhinos are way too fast, especially for only being triggered when you're stuck under item blocks. Also, the lone Hammer Bro is a little unreasonably placed, and the last three Dragon Coins aren't really possible without the level's only leaf.
Firespike33: 5/10
First off, there were some problems with this level’s graphics. It has a simple “orange sky with clouds” background that sort of fits with the rest of the level, but it could be better, especially in the enclosed areas where a cave background might be more fitting. I also didn’t like the black bumps on upward slopes and the overlapping scenery, or the strange angle of the Bullet Bills. It had few nonlinear elements besides occasional backtracking and (sort of) hidden areas, and overall wasn’t too interesting and didn’t have amazing design. The climbing sections were sort of fun, though--espcially the parts where you have to dodge the Bullet Bills.
Quill: 6/10
Overall a decent level. The gameplay was pretty bland and the switch block gimmick was just an excuse to make the level longer. I did like the parts with the moving layers as they added some variety to the level, but overall it needs more improvement for some better gameplay. The ending sequence was clever and fun, but it didn't last very long.
Valtteri: 6.5/10
A decent level with a few switch puzzles. I don't think it's a good idea to have the note blocks that lead to the red switch invisible, I was kind of confused what to do at that part at first. The slopes have glitched masks.
- castlewars: 7.2/10
This was a nice, casual and linear level - a nice reprieve from the amount of nonlinear levels the community gets all the time. The gentle, rolling hills make it seem like this so the level isn't too flat, and the bubbles were interesting as well, as I haven't seen them used that much before. As well as providing some interesting backdrop, they can also hinder the player's jumps as well because if they strike an enemy they'll be damaged, and I also liked the use of the Skull Switches, so that hitting one triggers the other. There were a few SMW items placed into the mix as well, but they clash quite badly because they're too vibrant, which doesn't fit in with the darker SMB3 items. However, still talking of this, the tree bark provided a nice backdrop, and some of the bark can hide secrets, including stars, but they require the player to figure out where to jump because the Jump Blocks aren't placed where the player is expecting them to be, so there is a small deal of guessing in this level, while the rest is just in the player playing it like a Mario platformer.
Chad: 7.1/10
The design is pretty good and has enough variation to keep things interesting. The terrain is constantly changing and there's a lot of underwater obstacles mixed in with the platforming. It looks rather nice as well, although I think more effort could have been put into the interior decoration. Great focus on bubble enemies/items above and fish below, as they made for interesting maneuvering through those areas. The stars are placed well, but the necessity of invisible note blocks for one of them isn't good, as it makes it luck-based. Nice application of the skull switch, though. This is a relatively standard level, but I really like how it's laid out.
Firespike33: 6.5/10
While linear, it was a pretty fun level. The enemies were well-placed, the music and graphics were pretty good, and my favorite part was looking for secrets. They were pretty well-hidden, utilising things like hidden blocks, and I felt smart when I found them. There is a bit of clash between SMB3 and SMW elements, though, and it was still really a very simple level.
Quill: 5/10
What a cute little level! I actually quite enjoyed it. I didn't like how there were invisible note blocks in some places and they were required to find to get a star, I found all of them by complete luck. It'll be annoying for other players since there is no indication like a coin that they're there. The star in the tree should have been a SMW star, as it was right near the end and having to play the level all again would be irritating. I also felt there was a lot of enemy spam towards the end. Overall it's a decent level, nothing spectacular, but I still had fun playing it.
Valtteri: 7/10
Level crashes on load with error 13. It's because the blue Koopa has speed=1.5 applied. By removing that I can play the level just fine. This level is simple but fun. I didn't find enything in particular to complain about. It isn't very original but it's still pretty enjoyable. The design is reminiscent to that of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World.
- castlewars: 7.45/10
This level was rather good for a castle, and it has various puzzles to keep the player interested, including a Skull Raft ride, a race against rising lava, and flicking switches to proceed. Even after the gimmicks have been plugged in and loaded, it didn't really make a super-excellent level, but you still got your average castle level. Why? There wasn't much variety and it was really just a simple SMB3 castle level despite these. Even so, the rising lava was interesting in one of the sections, in that the player had to run against it, and the rising platform that followed it was interesting as well, and so was having to force an artificial stairway to appear from flicking a switch, but if the player jumps off they've missed the board and will be stuck, and the lava will declare their fate. The Skull Raft ride would have been interesting if the wrong direction as well if the wrong direction hadn't been assigned to it (it goes left instead of right), suggesting that this level hasn't even been tested enough. We get further evidence of this in the boss room because the music starts again as soon as the player enters the actual battle, which was quite boring considering the puzzles in this castle. But despite all this, the level had a good atmosphere and actually felt like a foreboding place.
Chad: 6.8/10
This is fairly good, I like the dark setting you have for this level. The layout's a decent mix of linear and explorative, which is an interesting way of changing up the experience. This level has a few cool things, like the rising and sinking lava rocks, the chasing lava that repeatedly moves and stops, the switch that creates stairs, and a coin block that gives you a Fire Flower if you hit it enough times. I like how the level uses both solid ledges and platforms hanging from chains to vary up the kinds of surfaces you work with, and the Dry Bone elevator is cleverly implemented. However, the gameplay is otherwise kinda standard, and the boss is anticlimactic and undeserving of having a midpoint so close to it, which makes the first half needlessly long. Also, the raft is backwards, making the level impossible to complete unless I switch it myself (which I did), and the Podoboos during it blend in with the waterfalls a lot. I also found that this Magmatic Castle spent a lot of time being not very magmatic after the raft room. The whole second half of the level felt generic and bland, honestly. I'm not sure if time constraints had anything to do with it, but it was still a little disappointing.
Firespike33: 7.5/10
Had some really good gimmicks like the rocks that sink into lava, the elevator that picks up enemies, the platform on lava (I had to fix this in the editor for it to go in the right direction) and the lava that chases you. The design was solid and secrets well-hidden throughout the level. Aesthetics were pretty good, portraying a charred look, but it could use a little more scenery. One part of the level changes the music and mostly abandons the lava theme, which is the part I found the least interesting (because it lost the lava theme). The boss at the end--Wario, I believe--was not very fitting for the theme, and the coloring was very strange. It wasn’t very new or challenging, either, and felt like a letdown after such a good level.
Quill: 5/10
Alright level. The design was decent and it was generally pretty fun. In section 4, the skull raft went the opposite way, rendering the level pretty much impossible after that point. I fixed this myself though to continue the level. The rest of the level was decent, but I felt it dragged on a little too much. The checkpoint was right before the boss which is normally okay, but the boss was so easy that it would have been better if the checkpoint was before the level.
Valtteri: 6.5/10
This is a decent level. It's really simple, yet charming. The bricks on the lava at about the middle of the level move to the left and you'll be stuck, you should probably fix that.
- castlewars: 6.7/10
This was quite a neat level, that was really simple and linear. The Dragon Coins posed a nice underlying quest that the player had to carry out, and the whole thing appears to be a homage to the NSMB series, with the graphics, music and even the powerups. The moving pipes made the level feel less static, and I like how in the cave section the pipe breaks away to allow for the Dragon Coin to be collected. I even liked the interesting idea at those moving pipes in which the player can enter a thinning of the wall and collect a secret stash of Coins, executed quite fairly with layers and events, but not as well because the player can get crushed as the pipe rises. The level was decorated rather well and a lot of areas did not show any lack of any item such as an NPC or a BGO. However, the Propeller Block's frames are a little off when it is in the item box, but it is OK when it's being released, but that can't be fixed because it's taller than the Super Leaf. The gentle and sloping nature of the level feels quite nice as well, so it doesn't feel as flat, and it can belong in world 1 of an episode.
Chad: 7.25/10
Pretty nice level. It's a fairly standard grassland run, but the design feels very polished and item/enemy placements feel proper and strategic. The graphics look rather good, the pipe-breaking part underground is cool, and the fake wall is nicely implemented. Although, I'd use different music for the red coin part. Maybe Hammer Bros. battle, or a P-switch event. Also, the propeller shroom looks bad in the reserve box.
Firespike33: 6/10
A pretty simple and linear level, but not badly-designed. The aesthetics were good, but Mario wasn’t too well-animated, Ice Mario had incorrect coloring and sorry, but Propeller Mario’s animations were a trainwreck. I could NOT find the third Star Coin, even after searching in the editor. Still, the design was good, enemies were well-placed and I couldn’t think of any other flaws.
Quill: 6.5/10
Man, what a nice level! It reminded me so much of a normal Nintendo level from NSMB but in SMBX and I thought that was neat! The Propeller Mushroom was cute although it's glitchy when you fly, but that's not really to do with the level. Overall, it was your average 1-1 level and you can't really go wrong with it, although some new mechanics and more variety would have been awesome.
Valtteri: 7/10
Nothing much to say about this level. It's okay, I had decent fun playing it. There isn't much of anything special to it, though.
- castlewars: 7.31/10
This level appears to have been ripped straight off an episode due to the storytelling nature of this level and the fact other levels are mentioned as well. Even so, for a simple grassland, I like how the player can go inside the grass and explore the area below, facilitating nonlinear gameplay, and I like how the holes were decorated as well, with enemies, and the player can explore varying environments on the way to the exit, such as a cave, and even a secret bonus area which was sealed off pretty well. However, there is an empty area at the end of the level, and a few parts of sections as well, that serve no purpose whatsoever, and don't even do anything aside from let the player explore it. In the secret bonus area the use of wraparound in a horizontal stage has been used well, and so is the vertical wraparound as well, executed using instant warps. However, the digital doors don't go in well with the tileset, and for the level's nonlinear nature, the level doesn't really have much nonlinearity as the main brunt of it is just one straight path and the other routes only conceal bonuses, which don't show much variety, but it can still fit in world 1 of an episode.
Chad: 6.5/10
This is a nice little grass level. I'm surprised at how elaborate and multi-leveled the grass placement is, it almost feels 3D if you think about the lower portions being in front of the upper ones. Nice job with the detailed block placement in the cave section too, and I like the layout and wrapping of the Whoa Zone-based area, although the area itself isn't related to the rest of the level thematically. The warp to it isn't very well hidden either, it's just on a seemingly random tile of grass that you may find by accident if you happen to notice the pipe alignment below. Pretty much any other level that uses the same setup doesn't indicate anything special, so there isn't much of a reason to check there. I also think you could have cut down on the reliance of warps in the grassy parts too, considering most aren't needed to actually reach the main star and they felt like they were just taking me to random places for no reason. The optional ones should have at least some item of value in them or other reason to go down there. Good place for the Whoa Zone warp, perhaps. Other than that, the gameplay is fairly normal, and that star block at the end looks great.
Firespike33: 6/10
A good-quality level with an unusual theme: it looked like Super Paper Mario. The level was pretty nonlinear, which was good, but it sometimes was difficult to explore everything, and not being able to backtrack through pipes was frustrating in parts because you don’t know what you missed out on. It lacked anything too unique other than the friendly spot at the start, which didn’t really add much to the level. Also the fact that you can hit the top line of blocks when standing under them is a bit weird (when you’re below the main ground level).
Quill: 7.5/10
This level was pretty cool! I liked the alternate paths you could take and the level design in general. The level seemed a bit short to me and it felt like it just needed more to do it. The scenery in the grasslands could be improved as there were only trees. Some more variety in enemies would have been greatly appreciated as well. I really like the atmosphere and design of the cave section though, it's really cool! I was kinda sad when it ended, it was neat. The red coin room also lacked music for some reason and it took me a while to find but when I did I found the way you enter really cleverly hidden.
Valtteri: 8/10
This is a well-executed Paper Mario style level. My only complaint would be that the ground being both solid and BGO gets confusing sometimes.
- castlewars: 7/10
This level was interesting, with its very dynamic layers and events usage. It was a bit short, though, and could have a bit more expansion on some of the gimmicks used, such as the lava-water idea which is slowly creeping up in popularity. This idea is OK enough, but the lava-water switch is automatic and the player doesn't know when it's about to change, and housing Red Coins provides a small element of exploration. However, as well as the level being a bit short, the exit warp is missing. This means the level can't be completed, and the player will have to commit suicide. Also, there is a certain water pit next to a Bill Blaster in section 3 which is impossible to escape if entered in the wrong section. Despite this, the level boasts good decoration, which is the icing of the cake in this level, but on a completely different strand on NPCs, the player is required to spinjump on Grinders at some point, and I don't really like seeing and having to do it in levels.
Chad: 6.6/10
It's not often that a sweets level comes around, and this is a rather good one. The level has some quality design, with lava and water that are nicely implemented. The Grinders and cannons are nice obstacles, although a little out of place in a land of desserts. The crusher layers are used pretty well, although the moving candy canes near the start will crush you without indicating it. The swimming section that alternates to lava is really interesting and creative. The red coins placed in bubbles look nice, but you really don't allow a lot of time to swim through. There's just barely enough, and the first line platform takes a long time to actually give you an opportunity to enter the water. A midpoint there would have been nice, too. I like the switches that create new line platforms, though. The section with the sinking lava that becomes water is also neat, but results in a blind jump after hitting the switch, and entering part of the water in the middle will get you stuck and force you to die. You also can't complete the level because the final pipe is missing a warp. Overall, the level is very well designed and creative, but the lack of midpoint, missing required warp, and several poor executions of gimmicks hurt its score a bit.
Firespike33: 8/10
Hey, Sonic Colors music. You don’t see that every day. Or maybe I’m thinking of the wrong game, and you don’t see it at all. Wait, the music file says it’s from Sonic Colors. I was right! TAKE THAT!
It conveyed the “candy” theme well, with giant strawberries in the background, icing on the cake ground, and molten chocolate for lava. I’m getting hungry.
The level had good design and a focus on moving platforms and giant smashing blocks. The parts where you turn molten chocolate into liquid vanilla (or it is milk? It just looks like...white-gray paint, or something) were pretty creative as well and you had to be really fast to get through sometimes. Overall, it was short but sweet.
8/10 (tasty)
Quill: 6/10
This level gave me a sugar rush. It was all sorts of crazy. Good crazy. The first section was neat with some basic gameplay, but it was a good introdution to the level. Section 2 had some issues. The lava/water gimmick was cool, but there was almost no warning to when they would change. Some indication to tell you to get the hell out of the water before it morphs into lava would be greatly appreciated! The time it takes to switch back into lava could be extended too, as at times I felt like I barely got out in time. The last pipe that would lead to the star didn't work sadly.
Valtteri: 6.5/10
I believe you forgot to place a warp out of section 3, I got stuck there. That aside, it's a pretty great level, although some switches confused me. One did nothing that I could see and one made yellow ! blocks appear for a moment, and then I got stuck. The water/hot chocolate toggling thing is pretty clever, although unnecessarily dangerous in my opinion.
- castlewars: 7.6/10
OK, this level was a pleasure to play through, I must say, and I like how the Used Blocks are used in the overworld section to give the impression something is concealed off when there isn't, and even if it's the section leading into the cave, that section was well-decorated as well. In the cave, the sunlight gimmick was well-used and provided nice decoration, and so did the vines, and they provided a layer of transparency, but then some enemies like the Gloombas can be camouflaged behind it and the player can get unfairly hurt. Also the idea of a main shaft running down from the top of the level to the bottom can provide an easy faultless way of getting down to the bottom layer, including hidden secrets like 1-Ups, and the player having to get a key into a keyhole is getting rare nowadays, and I liked the fact it has returned, but the problem is with the section itself - there's no way out, and the player is required to bring a springboard to the keyhole, where the player needs to accelerate before taking off, but accelerating too far can cause the springboard to disappear and go back to where it was. Also, if the player throws away the springboards out of the level, they will be stuck there.
Chad: 6.6/10
Interesting level. It's a good revamp of the SMB1 underground setting, and the sunlight is nicely placed. The multi-level climb that has sunlight pits connecting all of the floors does a great job of giving the feeling of ascending upwards while setting a natural atmosphere. I like how the layout is a winding road of ups and downs, too. Black Yoshi's kind of an odd reward though, especially since you can't take him with you unless you deliberately leave some Koopas alive before you even see the block. You also forgot to end the level in a star.
Firespike33: 6/10
Aside from the sunlight theme, this was a pretty basic SMB1 cavern level. The graphics and scenery were actually pretty good, despite this, but there’s some cutoff when light hits a block (doesn’t enter cracks) and some of the water also has cutoff. You can’t stand on light-colored blocks (the sign lied to me!) but I only saw this once. While not very unique, aside from the sunlight aesthetic, it still has a solid design, and its one secret is hidden in an interesting place. You can get Black Yoshi, but you have to find a shell to fly him up. I liked this, because it made it meant that you had to think to keep going with the game’s most OP Yoshi.
Quill: 6/10
Decent level. I like the light in the cave, it adds to the atmosphere beautifuly. The design is good, but parts fell repeated at times and there wasn't much variety to keep things interesting. There's one part on the left side of the level where a rock is floating and a goomba just falls into a one tile gap hole which I thought was odd.
Valtteri: 7/10
This is a pretty simple level, it just kind of meanders through the cave area, which is pretty cool. Please don't place BGOs that look like ground on bottoms of pits, they confuse the player and he/she'll end up jumping down and dying. The Toad actually has a legitimate point. The way the light spreads doesn't make any sense and it doesn't look very good either. The transparency effect is something I like to avoid as it looks quite dreadful. But that and the sloppy tileset aside, it's a rather solid level.
- castlewars: 7.11/10
This level is quite literally...covered to the teeth in oil. The music would not be fitting for a Mario level unless the level were given a name like this, and with a weird and out-of-place sounding name, the level is quite OK-ish with design. The oil smearing the ground was an ordinary-feeling gimmick and it can prevent the player from gaining traction, but that was the only gimmick there was. The oil that replaces the lava, though, was used quite interestingly, but the problem was that it was placed in a lot of areas, including on the ground, so it's insta-kill if the player makes the mistake of thinking it's ordinary ground - you might need to distinguish the difference for this reason. The oil actually decorated the level quite well as well, and the Chargin' Chucks were interesting, but they're really easy to kill, because the player can walk towards the oil and/or the many pits and kill them that way.
Chad: 7.2/10
Now this is an example of a joke level that's really well made. The joke doesn't have much to do with the level itself other than the title, and it does get a little old after one or two music loops, but that's not too bad since this is a shorter level. The design is still very solid the whole way through, the graphics look rather nice, and the difficulty is moderate and balanced from start to finish. Nothing to really complain about, nice work.
Firespike33: 5/10
A decent level, but nothing very original. I wasn’t a fan of the color scheme, nor of the gray on blocks didn’t look like oil to me. There weren’t too many interesting gimmicks or design ideas, but at least everything was fairly well-placed. Also, I died because I thought you could swim in the “oil” pools. The song was so funny that I could hardly focus on playing the level.
Quill: 8/10
I really enjoyed this silly level. The gameplay was fun and I never got bored of the level as it progressed. The graphics were lovely, creative and worked well with the level overall.I found the difficulty pretty fair too. The oil is kinda weird as it looks like water you can swim in, but it's actually death. Some parts felt a little repetitive and some more variety in obstacles would have been gladly welcome. Also, dying interrupted the awesome song and made it start over! What's up with that?!
Valtteri: 7.5/10
This is a really solid level. It plays simply and nicely. It looks a bit weird sometimes with the vines and the sizable boxes, their colors don't seem to match the rest of the level's color scheme. But that's fine, I like the level very much.
- castlewars: 8.05/10
Very, very nice level indeed - it was like your average castle contest submission, and the amount of uses you can get out of a Skull Switch is really well executed here, and it's been spun around in various ways to create cool gimmicks such as having to remove a barrier to proceed or mend a broken bridge. The level's atmosphere was very well decorated as well, but the Skull Switch gimmick appears to have been exhausted a bit much because most of the time the player is just finding Skull Switches and hitting them, mostly to do either break a barrier or form a bridge. However other things are thrown into the mix like the interim Boom Boom boss which provides a nice change from hitting Skull Switches, and the section after that is where the player is required to do most of the exploring - it was very nonlinear and the player can choose whether to go up or down at first sight, but the player is forced to go up, and this is a good idea as it makes the backtracking easier after the key has been retrieved. NPC placements are almost near-perfect as well, particularly with the Ninjis, in which the enemy physics have been captured and transcribed perfectly. The boss fight at the end was interesting in having to hit a stationary boss rather than hit a boss that runs around, but it can take too long as the Ice Blocks need good timing - it's a make or break scenario, and then there's the Goombas trying to attack you and the Bullet Bills in the second phase. However the Goomba's death effect is missing.
Chad: 9.4/10
Excellent castle level! The gimmicks are clever, and great job on giving each switch a clearly obvious result. Enemies are tricky, but strategic and reasonable to plan around. The fortress ambiance is dark and ominous, and has a really creative layout. I really like how the key section told you that you had to go up first too, because guessing down first and being wrong would be rather punishing. I especially like the boss fight, that is a super innovative use for Larry! It's neat having to stay beneath the brick generator and then act quickly once you can catch one. However, there should have been an extra powerup right before him because of the second phase. You should also move the midpoint to the start of the key section, because that's where things begin to become more difficult. There isn't much distance between the key section and boss, but dying there gives you a lot to redo. The Munchers ought to be replaced with something that doesn't cut off on the bottom, like the 3D Land spike blocks, but overall this is a pretty incredible level.
Firespike33: 6/10
Hey, Castle Crashers music! Cool. This was a castle level with pretty typical castle aesthetics to go with it, although this had outdoor areas that you don’t see very much. The aesthetics were good, but not very visually interesting. The gameplay and design were also decent, but nothing extraordinary. The vertical part with the chain climbing was probably my favorite part. The first boss, a recolored Boom-Boom, was typical for a castle, and the second boss (Koopdorf) was more interesting. Even though he stands in one place, getting the ice blocks and hitting him was pretty fun. However, you do something truly terrible: floating munchers! The horror!
Quill: 5.5/10
This level was alright. It's fairly simple, some of the back-tracking sections were kinda annoying and the level itself was pretty lengthy. The checkpoint was right before the final boss which is easy but it's difficult to get the projectiles to throw at him as they are projectile warps.
Valtteri: 6/10
Pretty neat. Nothing special. It's a tad too easy, power-ups are placed too frequently. I don't think the graphics chosen for this level work very well. Why are the ? blocks red?
Places 21-35
Spoiler: show
35. Kep - Treacherous Temple (7.02/10)
- castlewars: 8.4/10
This is a fairly great level, and combines SMB3 elements with the overall SMB2 gameplay to create a nicely-designed level. SMB2 and SMB3 actually go really well together, and the idea of a forest temple isn't completely original, but the setting comes attached with some nice gimmicks, such as the idea of turning lava into water by the flick of a switch, which isn't really that original but was used here quite well. However, the message still persists if the player hits the switch after the transformation, but the idea of having to make a block from the lava provides a use for changing water into lava. This gimmick continues into the third section, but the second one doesn't feature it, but extends it with the rise and fall of the lava and vines, then new additions are introduced such as having to break away a wall using a Bob-omb, and the broken pillars which give way as the player stands on them. It's all good and proper at the start but the level's quality starts deteriorating as it progresses, as some gimmicks are "tired" or overused, and the first phase of the boss as that leaves no margin for error, and jumps are heavily restricted by the Bullet Bills in that it's nearly impossible to dodge them. The second phase was actually easier because there were no enemies to dodge, and the player knows when the ground will give way.
Chad: 6.7/10
Interesting level with a sort of cryptic design style. It's very nicely decorated in a way that suits an overgrown temple, and the lava/water gimmick is unique. Good job on giving the level a tricky difficulty, and the moving lava part is well executed. However, I think you put too many stars, and the boss was disappointing. Both phases are incredibly repetitive and time-consuming, there's way too much unnecessary dialogue, and the brick wall part was rather long and boring. The second phase had lots of periods of time where nothing would happen at all. The boss would have been interesting if the first phase was all there was to it and the bombs generated faster, because I enjoyed the bullet dodging and precise maneuvering with the bombs. But other than that, the boss wasn't satisfying. The rest of the level is good, though.
Firespike33: 7/10
A treacherous temple with terrible trials and tormenting tiers of trickiness. Aesthetically, it portrayed an underground forest/temple area, and the remix enchanting yet creepy Forest Temple theme from Ocarina of Time. I didn’t like the grass/trees growing on bricks, although this could be fixed by having moss or grass grow on them. Apparently there were five stars, and I only found two of them. The section with the Donkey Kong music (you get bonus points just for using it) has a possible exploit where you jump on top of the level while holding up, and go over everything. You might want to add a ceiling to circumvent this. The rest of the level was good and had a gimmick involving the switching of lava and water.
And then there was--blast!--the boss battle. Boring, bad, Bullet (not Banzai) Bill bonanza, with bona-fide breaks in the battle, bringing Bob-bombs to blast some butt, being better than “block bollocks”! Okay, I’ll stop. Really, though, I didn’t like the boss. The first phase has you dodging Bullet Bills (an easy task, here) and doing the tedious task of throwing bombs up Metal Mario’s metal “buttocks.” The second phase was even more annoying, because bombs barely spawned and all the enemies were easy to dodge. I was so bored that I just spawned bombs on his head with the real-time editor. Pretty good level, but with a tedious and easy boss.
Quill: 6.5/10
What on earth did I just play? Man, that final boss was so weird, yet so slow to beat. You had to wait ages to get your weapon to attack him, and considering he had 10 hits, it just dragged like hell. The boss really needed to be sped up. Anyway, onto the level itself. I liked the water/lava gimmick a lot, but I felt like more could be done with it. I feel like it wasn't used to its full potential. It's a shame, as this level is atmospherically beautiful too!
Valtteri: 6.5/10
This level is all right. It's pretty fun to play. It lacks something that makes it stand out among the rest, though. Yeah, that's pretty much all I can say about it.
- castlewars: 7.04/10
I can safely assume from what I've just played that this is a Mega Man level. Sure, the idea of a Mega Man level is rather original, not seen that much, but from what it's in this level in terms of gameplay this is more of a level made to showcase the Mega Man graphics than anything, because the level has quite a few flaws, considering I didn't enjoy this level. First of all, when the player ducks under certain blocks at the start of the level they'll be forced into the tileset and die, but when speaking of tilesets, putting the fiery background inside the tileset is quite clever, and so is the idea of having to stand on a moving platform when heading to the boss level, with parts dropping off, and having to fight away dropping enemies I don't know the names of. But back to the cons, and it can be found that the level is quite short despite the switches that trigger interesting events such as changing the path, and the death effect for one enemy is missing (it still shows the original effect-7, the red Goomba death) and the Flame Man boss fight was quite boring because it's just a matter of waiting for the switch to appear and striking it for an abrupt ending after about 30 seconds, and some of the platforms that appear serve no purpose because the enemy above Flame Man's head can't be jumped on.
Chad: 9.15/10
Very impressive level! I love the fiery doomsday atmosphere, and the whole thing is quite tricky and relies heavily on precise moves, but there's still a nice amount of room to decide how to get past the projectiles. The level's mechanics feel very controlled and fair even with the high difficulty. The generators and layer attachments are unique, with the cannons all working in very specific ways that work for their specific placements. The boss is equally innovative, as all three phases of attack are clever and difficult, but there's still room to evade. The raft section is a bit much, though. The hazards in it could afford to be toned down slightly, or the midpoint could be placed right at the end of Section 1 so dying to the difficulty increase would be less costly. The raft shrinking down to three blocks is also a little excessive given all the dangers above the place that it happens and the complete lack of indication. I think it was enough at five blocks, but it's still a really cool gimmick on its own.
Firespike33: 7.5/10
I liked this level. It had a good design and some good gimmicks involving cannons and (of course) fire. The aesthetics were a bit weird--I didn’t like the gradient background and the sandfalls were just odd (I don’t care if you took them from Mega Man). The moving platform section was pretty cheap because the player has no way of knowing that the edges will drop off, requiring superhuman reflexes to respond in time. Also, I wasn’t crazy about the boss. It didn’t feel like I was “fighting” the boss. It was more like “dodge and hit a switch until he blows up.” He never moved and rarely attacked, and the floating thing you stomp to hurt him was really weird. Overall, I liked the level, but not the boss.
Quill: 5.5/10
Overall a decent level. The graphics were nice and it had some interesting gameplay, but unfortunatly the level was let down due to how unpredictable the enemies were. It was at times almost impossible to avoid getting hit and dying. In the raft section, the part I was standing on fell down and I died which was incredibly unfair. The boss was pretty cool, but some of the enemies spawned were sometimes unfair too. It also took me a while to notice the switch that destroys the boss, so I kept hitting the blue one a lot.
Valtteri: 6/10
The creator of this level clearly knows what to make out of SMBX. There are tons of impressive technical stuff and the level looks gorgeous, but it's very, very hard. The lava ride is purely based on trial and error. The platform breaks and parts of it sink in the lava and the player just has to know which part will stay over the lava until the destination. I think something went wrong with the boss, I kept killing the random blue switch on top of the boss and it went on for over five minutes. Nothing happened. I thought the tileset was confusing at first, I couldn't tell solid blocks from BGOs. I figured maybe the blue parts are always BGOs but that proved otherwise later. I got used to it, but the level is still too challenging.
- castlewars: 9/10
I don't even know what to say...this level is absolutely awesome! This level's underused Metroid theme was used extremely well to allow for so many special characteristics to be displayed, all under the shadow of outstanding level design - perfectly nonlinear and packed with a range of extremely creative puzzles which result in unlockables that you'd normally see in a Mario-styled level. All the Metroid enemies (many of which I don't know the names of) were used perfectly and did not help or hinder the player's progress in any form whatsoever, although the chasing Metroids in one of the sections makes that part hard unless the player's got speed and skill, and this is required because the player is required to beat the clock before the layer disappears, resulting in an insta-kill. But then the player is required to be extra-fast, and there is no indication that the clock is running out or when it will run out, but the explosions in section 19 did amount for some nice decoration, although the level was a bit long and lacked a checkpoint.
Chad: 7.9/10
Great-looking Metroid level, and a really expansive one at that. I really enjoyed the design and aesthetics in every area, and the level is pretty challenging. The bomb-block and giant Metroid sections are especially interesting. However, most of the enemy placement in the second half is unreasonable. You can scarcely do anything about the Metroids unless you have a Hammer Suit, and even then they're usually combined with copious amounts of Rinkas. The Mother Brain fight, though very technically impressive in the second phase, has way too many sudden projectiles flying around wildly. The powerup generator helps a lot, but the fact that it's actually needed says a lot about the boss being somewhat overkill. At least I could jump in place on the platform with the cannon to detonate bombs just as they come out, because I couldn't find a safe opening to react to anything else. I also found it hard to see where I was going in the escape sequence because of all the explosions, and putting an invisible timer that deletes those sections entirely, even if indicated, is a really bad idea. I admire the effort put into this level and it's visually stunning with a great layout and set of gimmicks, but there are just too many things that can't reasonably be dealt with. I also noticed the player start was towards the end, which is probably a sign that it's too long.
Firespike33: 5/10
A level with many inaccessible areas. The main path has you fight Mother Brain in a pretty well-designed boss fight besides the boss not moving and just shooting at you and having bombs come out of its chin. It wasn’t too hard with the regularly-spawning energy spheres (AKA custom Super Mushrooms). The part following where you had to escape was okay (nothing amazing) but I didn’t like how the aliens were inconsistent. The ones replacing Hammer Bros. could be easily stomped (and disappear. NOT CHEESY AT ALL) but the ones replacing Birdo damage you when stomped. This kind of inconsistency can lead to a cheap death. Anyway, the escape part was kind of hard, but not too bad. Nothing that interesting besides being a speedrun. There was some more to the level but I couldn’t get to it.
Quill: 6.5/10
This level was a really cool adapation of Super Metroid in SMBX. Unfortunatly, the gameplay wasn't exactly superb. Many parts were pretty repetitive and I experienced some super lag at parts, but that might have been my computer. Overall though, good effort!
Valtteri: 7/10
Moved the player start where it probably belongs, it was next to the Mother Brain fight. I appreciate the effort that went into making this. Here's something you can improve on. Have the background change at the escape sequence. Have more variations of the explosion effect, use them less frequently and don't place them in the air. It looks pretty bad. The second phase Mother Brain fight is a cool concept but I hate how I have to run-jump in order to hit her once. It's slow and pretty hard.
- castlewars: 7.64/10
That's quite a nice casual forest level we've got there. The graphics were really good, if you ask me, and the trees growing from the bottom of the screen makes the player feel they are actually in a forest, and I liked the background changing as the player gets higher, and the background wood was really decorative. There wasn't much NPC variety but there was variety in all the sections, in which one section starts out linear, then adding vertical movement, before requiring the use of the Propeller Block, which has been well-executed to the idea of gaining momentum before jumping, although the player can just use the Paratroopa to bounce up. The boss actually felt quite casual and laid-back, and I wouldn't say it were a fully-fledged boss because it doesn't come with its own special gimmick or music, and it was actually pretty easy because it was a matter of turning off the current, although the player is required to get the right accuracy and trajectory for the stone. Also, the "error" message was pretty useless and served no purpose.
Chad: 8.4/10
Rather unique gimmick. The forest becoming blue was a bit of a surprise, I thought maybe I'd experience multiple dimensions of different colors, but the level surprised me again by combining the two. I like how destroying the machine solves the problem too, it suggests that the blue dimension was "infecting" the green one and you had to put a stop to it. In general, the construction of the level is really good in all places and the visuals look great. Nothing really bugged me about this level, it's just pretty good.
Firespike33: 7/10
Pretty good. This level had excellent graphics and visual themes--there was no clash that I could see and I thought the blue/green theme and the wooden platforms were cool. Gameplay-wise, it’s all right. Nothing very interesting about this fairly linear level, although I did like the part where you fly while running away from the Koopa Paratroopas. You could probably remove half of the power-ups because I think the level would still be too easy. Overall, a decent level, but there’s little about it that’s noteworthy.
Quill: 5.5/10
This level was... strange. It's pretty fun, but strangely half of the enemies in this stage don't move. I'm not sure if it's part of this gimmick I'm not realizing but it makes things far too easy. I liked the aesthetics of this level though, the two colors contrasted well and added to the atmosphere. The flying section was pretty cool especially as the screen wraps, but missing the next platform by a tiny bit was a bit annoying. Overall, it was a fairly decent level.
Valtteri: 7/10
This is a neat level. The dimension thing is pretty interesting but doesn't actually affect the gameplay in the slightest, it's merely an atmospherical factor. It looks neat, though, and the places where you mixed the two dimensions look great, too. You should probably fix the rocks' death effects, they're Buzzy Beetle shells now.
- castlewars: 7.98/10
Someone here appears to like Bowser's Inside Story. This level was greatly designed with a range of gimmicks depending on which way the player went, and the gameplay was a mix of linear and nonlinear sections so the player doesn't get too bored with it and so it doesn't turn into too much of a maze. Also I liked how each section takes place in a different environment of the volcano and that the player is required to do something different in every section so they don't get bored; the POW blocks made for an interesting gimmick in section 7, and the rising lava in most of the sections seem to bring the area to life. The bossfights against the Blarggs were interesting as well but the first one was poorly executed because of the awkward rate of the Bob-omb spawn and rising lava, yet the final one was a lot better and appears to have made up for it because the idea of having to catch the Bob-ombs and hurl them at the Blargg, and the Podoboos chasing the player, were both unique, but for most of the time the Bob-ombs require near perfect timing, but then again the Blargg only needs to be hit twice to proceed.
Chad: 7.8/10
Pretty good work here, this level has a great volcanic ambience and excellent construction. The platforming is enjoyable and enemy placement is pretty good, I especially like the strategic locations of the Lotuses, and the way the lava moves up and down without actually getting in the way most of the time. It sort of serves a neat decorative purpose. The bonus and checkpoint rooms are pretty helpful, and I enjoyed the first phase of the boss. However, after that things started getting a little tough. You did a good job at giving the POW block section a reduced difficulty in order to compensate for the jumping problems, but that doesn't mean they aren't still present. The escape section was good, but the final area is an issue. I didn't like having to make my way around platforms with invisible lines and unpredictable movement, and the final boss is kinda broken in that the Bob-ombs don't even reach the main platform and often get cancelled out by the Podoboos. It's rare if I can catch one or it lands on the moving platforms, and even then it's likely to get cancelled out by a hammer thrown by one of the many Hammer Bros. that will have crowded onto their area by then. I know the boss doesn't have much health, but most of the difficulty is just the player being put in a helpless position. If the main platform was just a single space lower and perhaps the Podoboos were gone, it would have been fine.
Firespike33: 7/10
A fiery level with well-used Bowser’s Inside Story music. The design is pretty simple near the start, and only gets a bit more interesting underground, but the secrets are fun to find (although hitting secret blocks sometimes seems luck-based). The first boss was okay, but lasts about 3 seconds if you still have the Hammer Suit. The area where the ground shook was fun because you had to time your jumps, although the enemies always died before you could get to them. The section with rising lava was cool as well, but the lava was too slow and I almost never saw it. I didn’t really like the part where you ride moving platforms, because you can’t see the line that they move on, so dodging the Podoboos feels like trial and error.
The second coming of the boss was a lot harder (although it still lasts 3 seconds if you managed to keep the Hammer Suit this entire time). The spawning Super Leaves kept it beatable, though. Overall, the level had good quality, although there were some parts I didn’t like.
Quill: 6.5/10
Decent level. I really digged the start of the level, it really gave that volcano feel and I greatly enjoyed it! The level began to slowly decrease in quality, sadly. The first boss was alright and nothing special and the erupt sequence was kinda cool, but there wasn't much to it. The Lakitu throwing podoboos was pretty neat actually, but when it got to the final boss it was very frustruating. The bomb was almost impossible to pick up as it would end up being killed by the podoboo at times and it wouldn't land on the platform on others. If it landed on the skull ride, it would explode by the time you actually got to it. That Lakitu in the fight should have been made killable to make the boss less annoying.
Valtteri: 6.5/10
Runtime error 13 because of the decimal values in the custom NPCs. I had to get rid of them in order to play. This is a neat level. The bosses need some improvement, though. At the first boss I died due to the lava consuming me unexpectedly. And the second part is just unbearably difficult in my opinion. The Hammer Brothers keep killing the Bob-ombs with their hammers and I rarely get to hit the Gargantua Blargg. But I guess it's kind of okay since he only takes two hits.
- castlewars: 7.75/10
I don't know why there are so many levels that have got "sick ass" in their names but they are all very different, and this level isn't really that "sick ass" as it appears. The whole level revolves around having to use bombs to proceed, which was quite interesting, but the whole level is based on the use of bombs, and there could have been some more variety in the gimmicks used, but the bomb has been used to make various puzzles, such as running through before the floor breaks or (most of the time) breaking a wall. The player is just doing that for the majority of the level so the level is just about the right length for it to house one or two gimmicks. The Bullet Bills were interesting as well but they can start hindering jumps if the player waits for too long, and as for the boss battle, I haven't seen it take place on cracked ground before, so the idea of having to wipe out the Mousers before they destroy the battlefield is an interesting idea that I've not seen at all.
Chad: 7.15/10
The design in this level is fairly average, but I like the challenge involved inside the ruins and during the bomb descent. The boss is rather unique as well, and the stone tiles are placed in a detailed and natural fashion. However, the difficulty is really jumpy, alternating between simple and very tricky wherever bombs and fireballs are involved, but at least the level length is reasonably short to accomodate that. I really like the ambiance inside the ruins, and the level feels nicely decorated for the most part, although kinda empty around the boss. It's a fine level, but with a few minor issues and inconsistencies.
Firespike33: 7/10
This level was okay. Most of the gimmicks are based around blowing things up, and sometimes you have to use bombs or shells to break into secret areas. The aesthetics were okay, but it lacked trees and vegetation as a “jungle” level. There was an indoors part with moving platforms and Venus Fire Traps which was hard without a Fire Flower, and some other outside areas that were mostly nondescript. I did like the section where you have to get a Lakitu to throw bombs, although sometimes it was hard to get him to do so. I really liked the boss because you had to keep dodging bombs and making sure the whole place didn’t get blown up, as well as that one didn’t explode in your face.
Quill: 6.5/10
Decent level. I liked how bombs were used in this level, they were used creatively and were fun to play around with. The design for this level was fairly basic and at times the difficuly soared oddly high and it felt like some enemies were being spammed a bit. Section 3 had some odd things happening, for example, there were background objects above sizables which made it look like Mario was standing on thin air. That part as also slightly cramped. The boss was actually really neat as you have to defeat the Mousers quickly as otherwise they'll destroy the floor.
Valtteri: 7.5/10
This is actually a very nice level, except it has unclimbable SMB2 vines, so disqualified. No but I like how bombs are used as a gimmick throughout the level and how many different things you made out of it. I had a lot of fun playing this.
- castlewars: 7.93/10
This level's design and aesthetics make it seem that this level has so much effort put into it, including the tiles being placed inside each other. This level was rather expansive and nonlinear, and the gameplay mainly requires the player to find some sort of switch in order to progress to the next section, which required a great deal of exploration. The moving pipes in most of the sections was interesting and stopped the level from appearing too static, and I liked where the player could choose to take an upper or lower path, and the two paths meeting at the end. However, there were a few useless areas such as the warp after the red switches which just led to an empty space just above, and the gameplay was really bland despite the switches and the Yoshi eggs, and it gets repetitive after a while and finding some of the switches, such as the green one, are fatuous tasks. Also, the coins that spell out an arrow in the last section can mislead the player into thinking there's a hidden warp, when there's nothing underneath apart from an abyss and death.
Chad: 7.1/10
This sure is a pleasant little run. It's really nice to look at from start to finish, with good decoration and multi-layered tile placement. The design and gameplay are fairly normal and don't offer anything unique, but they're still enjoyable. The layout offers some room for exploration, and the level's difficulty and enemy placement feel very compatible with the provided Yoshi, as well as just Mario by himself. I don't even have anything to nitpick about, really.
Firespike33: 5/10
A really simple level with a green theme and some boring music I didn’t really like. The design was decent, but also pretty uninteresting and mostly linear. There were some Dragon Coins, and they were pretty easy to find too.
Quill: 8.5/10
Man, I really loved this level! It captured the essence of Super Mario World beautifully! My only real complaints are minor. It could be a little bit shorter and the checkpoint is a bit too late into the level in my opinion. There's also a warp that disables Yoshi for some reason. Some more variety in enemies would have been cool too.
Valtteri: 7.5/10
I like this level. Except it uses recolored SMB3 Venus Fire Traps, that's sin. No but this is a very fun level. It's not super complicated and that's great. The background shares colors with the tileset which isn't something I'd do as the background should be easily distinguishable from the foreground but that's not an issue in this level. The only thing I'd complain about is the formations made of the sizable BGOs or whatever you want to call them. Some of them look very odd.
- castlewars: 7.3/10
Building a whole level out of a single group of three tiles seems to have been the main idea here, and this allowed for a nice level which eventually encourages exploration, and I really love how the idea starts out with simple linear sections before going to vertical scrolling, before incorporating all directional movement in the expansive last section. The amount of uses you can get out of a Super Leaf is evident when it is seen that you have to use it to collect all the Dragon Coins, and this is a near-perfect use of it, and the Bullet Bills provided a twist of difficulty as enemies go, even though the Firebars were out of place and could have been replaced with a more fitting sky-based enemy, and even in the linear sections it wasn't too flat and it was as if it was easing the player into the nonlinear area, with the ground decorated with slopes. However the main concern with the level is, wait for it...the star is invisible. This can mislead players into thinking there's no exit until they see the twinkling effect above the pipe, and it turns out that it is a star. If in doubt, place the original star graphic in the level folder.
Chad: 7.35/10
Pretty unique level here. Giving the mushrooms angled and branching parts certainly gives them a lot more detail and originality, and the pipes are modified to match as well. You even have a bunch that are tilted on their side or twisted in complicated ways. The gameplay in this level is rather nice, although I would have liked it if the enemies weren't so close together in the wrapping section. The wrapping makes it difficult to tell where it's safe to land around them. I'd also have preferred if the giant stalk wasn't mostly a blank sheet of one solid color, and the pipe at the very top should have something at the end if you make it possible to run across it that far, although the giant stalk in itself is very interesting. As for the star graphic, I think it bugged out because you only defined gfxwidth and gfxheight, not also width and height, but at least it's easy enough to tell that it's there. Fine job on this overall.
Firespike33: 6/10
The level has a simple but effective design. As far as aesthetics go, the mushroom platforms are cool-looking and the level has a classic feel. The design is pretty solid and non-spammy. The Lakitu is a bit easy to kill. I didn’t think the second section was quite as good, mainly because the design doesn’t make much sense (giant mushroom tree) and I’m not a fan of the look. The enemies in that part were pretty sparse, too. Otherwise, it was a pretty good level.
Quill: 5.5/10
Decent level. The first section was nice and offered some interesting gameplay, although the second section seemed to be pretty pointless as it was just entering pipe after pipe doing pretty much nothing. The third section was strange at first due to the background until I realized it was a super large sizable. There was some exploration here which was nice, but it wasn't anything special. The Yoshi Coins seemed to be dotted around randomly and it's impossible to collect them all without flying. Overall, decent level.
Valtteri: 6.5/10
This is a unique level, I think. I haven't seen many SMB1 mushroom levels like this. It's enjoyable to an extent. The large section with the ginormous mushroom filling the entire room looks really bland, I don't think it was a good idea to have the completely textureless mushroom stalk cover the background completely.
- castlewars: 6.87/10
The level's name appears to be generic, but the actual ideas are far from it. The idea of mixing the two opposing environments: ice and fire - is really interesting and seldom done, and the player has to be Luigi for the duration of this level, which can make a slippery level harder due to the lost traction after Mario transforms, and then it appears the whole level is designed around Luigi's physics, and what was interesting was not using special graphics to create gimmicks but using already existing default SMBX graphics to make the gimmicks, such as the player riding a Rainbow Shell in one of the sections, although it is really rare and it's really hard to get it right, and tossing too many can cause unavoidable lag. Cramped tunnels in the volcano section is another minus, and quite similarly there is a section in the volcano in which it's hard to avoid the Hotheads when they appear without damage if they are upgraded. The use of instant warps is actually quite good, but the player isn't expecting them to be there and they're required to use them to gain Red Coins and they don't know they're there until they walk through the warp.
Chad: 8.75/10
Very creative level! It has a really nice ambiance both inside and out, I like how every star has a completely different and complicated task centered around it. The way you handle each one is splendid and involves different gimmicks. There's a lot of exploration and backtracking, but this level makes that a lot of fun to do. Every section is connected in unexpected and unique ways that feel realistic. This level has a sense of mystery about it that makes it fun to spend time unlocking the secrets, so each star feels particularly rewarding without asking too much. But between the eruption and red coin stars, only one will count because they're in the same section. The red coins and switches have very nice placements, but enemies need some work. They're mostly good, but you have too many around the warp exits and midpoint. The ones behind snow bushes are a little mean, too. You also don't give a lot of notice that instant warps are present, so I often didn't think to check the level edges and pits. There's also a background glitching problem by the main star, and there's some issues with how the player interacts with the upper boundary in the main underground section. Other than that, I was very impressed with this.
Firespike33: 6.5/10
A half-ice, half-lava level. I really didn’t like being forced to play as Luigi, my least favorite character, but I guess that isn’t a big flaw. Not much of the background is visible, and the part that is shows only dull shades of gray. The snowy music wasn’t my favorite either--the original Shiver Mountain was better in my opinion. The underground lava music from NSMBWii would probably be more fitting for the lava sections. Anyway, it has some decent design, although most of it was pretty simple and straightforward. On the plus side, it does have some hidden areas and red coins to find.
Valtteri: 7/10
I kind of like this level. It has objectives, but it's pretty simple. I personally don't like the looks of the lava and the ice together, the colors don't mix very well.
- castlewars: 7.8/10
A near full-on Zelda level for this contest is quite an interesting concept, and the idea and gimmicks appear to have been pulled out rather well for an underused level style. The combination of two tilesets in the overworld section is masterly here, and I liked how you had to go into a dungeon to advance, which is where a lot of the gimmicks start showing up - the idea of having to go back and forth collecting keys and using them to open doors as a means of level progressing was quite interesting, but the problem is the player is nearly just doing that for the majority of the level, which starts to make it feel repetitive, but other gimmicks are thrown in the mix as well, such as the skillful use of having to become a fairy to proceed in one particular section, and I like how the player can't just skip the remainder as a fairy as blocks have been placed to prevent this. However, some of the Mario-esque enemies like the Roto-Discs and Bullet Bills don't fit well with a Zelda environment, and the idea for this is that the player is almost expected to remember the cheat code that turns the player into Link, as using another character will either get the player trapped in a section or ultimately render the level impossible.
Chad: 8.35/10
This is a great Link level! The design and gameplay are highly enjoyable in every area, there's a lot of detail to the outside parts. Nice job on the mazelike temples, too. I particularly like how the first one loops around, it's a really neat illusion. I didn't even realize I wasn't in a completely different place until I saw the door I came in through again. The secret star is also placed very well. However, it'd have been better to use a Link filter at the start since this is going to be played from a hub. I really enjoyed this though, excellent work.
Firespike33: 7/10
Once I thought of playing as Link, this level was no longer impossible. It has pretty good design with a bit of exploration and backtracking, and you get to play as Link, which isn’t seen too often. The graphics and music were true to Zelda II (except for the music--all of it--but it was still Zelda music. That still counts, right? Guys? Right?). It was a pretty simple level, but I still enjoyed it. One complaint I have is that the jumping guys with knives (I’M NOT GOOD WITH ENEMY NAMES, OKAY?!) appear on top of the pipe, meaning you can die a cheap death because one spawned in your face.
Quill: 8/10
This level was really cool! I'm pretty cool too as I read the readme asking me to play as Link!!! I liked the tileset, it was simple but worked surprisingly well with the idea of a Zelda level. I liked the exploration in the dungeon areas and I found them fairly fun to play as well. I especially liked the loop in the first one. One thing I didn't like is that you had to play the level again to get the second star, but since the level was fairly short, it wasn't much of an issue. A bigger variety of enemies and scenery would have been nice to see as well. Overall, great job!
Valtteri: 6.5/10
There should probably be a Link filter at the beginning of this level as it's impossible to any other characters. For a Link level this is pretty fun. It's quite diverse, it takes place both in the overworld and in a palace. I think you should get rid of the SMB3 stuff like the pipes and Bill Blasters, they ruin the otherwise perfect Zelda 2 environment. The tileset isn't very appealing in my opinion, it's all flat and looks too simplistic.
- castlewars: 7/10
This level was really interesting. It's one of those levels that makes you go in all sorts of directions, doing a lot of exploring, in order to unlock some secrets. As a result, this level's gameplay is nonlinear, and I like the transition from a ship journey to a small overworld fragment, and then finally a cave where most of the action takes place. I also liked the idea of having to talk to certain NPCs in order to progress the level's plot as it gives the impression that the ship is moving, even if it really isn't. The amount of exploring that the player has to do in the cave section is really immense that it can keep the player on the edge of their seats, seeking out the best way forward, but the problem is that it has the wrong ideas. It wasn't nonlinear as such but a giant maze, so it's easy to get lost. Also the gameplay was really bland and there were little special gimmicks to keep the player interested and it was just following a path, although the chasing lava at the end was a really interesting gimmick, but was probably the only one, and cramped tunnels can cause probable death with enemies on the way.
Chad: 9.5/10
This was an amazing adventure. Honestly, I wasn't expecting much going into this considering that the starting areas are a little generic and the ship is mostly talking and going in and out of doors. Then I got into the cave and I was immediately impressed by the cool, gloomy atmosphere. As one of the adventurers said, it is like a maze, and it's a really good one at that. It has a lot of dead-ends, and it's difficult to do a convoluted layout like that without it getting tiresome for the player, but not once did I feel like I was wasting my time. Spending it exploring every corner of the cavern was honestly really fun. The level tells a great story as well, I love how it's executed the whole way through. I don't care what Link says, I actually think the level length was perfect for this. The checkpoint's in the perfect spot too, where you don't have to redo the opening story bits, but you also aren't severely punished by dying in the cavern. My only nitpicks would be the surprise Koopa and a few noticeable missing blocks, both at the far upper-left corner of the largest cave section, and that the fake star is going to mess up the star counter in the hub, but this is a fantastic level aside from that!
Firespike33: 6/10
An interesting level. I like how it had NPC interaction and a story. Gameplay-wise, it wasn’t an especially interesting level, except for the lava chase section, but it was somewhat nonlinear. Not the best level ever made, but I liked the story and nonlinearity.
Quill: 8.5/10
Wow. I loved this level! You nailed the atmosphere perfectly! The different characters were nice to talk to and learn about and by the end I felt sad that some of them had died. I loved the exploration in this level although I was wondering if we would ever find out what those signs actually said. The characters teleporting all over the place as you progressed was a little weird, but I suppose you can't do much better than that. In the top left of Section 3, you can see some blocks you've removed and there's nothing there. That trap was highly unexpected and actually scared me a little, haha. Overall, an awesome level! Some level design could be improved in parts but to conclude I really like it!
Valtteri: 7/10
This level starts with a sequence were you run around some places and talk to people before you get to the actual level, which is a cave. It's a lot of fun exploring the cave, although most of the friendly NPCs feel kind unnecessary. I like the ending, it's rather hectic.
- castlewars: 8.64/10
I really dug this one. It was so brilliant and it appears so much effort has been put into it. Normally, SMBX levels would tend to stick with one style, but this one is unique in that it was a massive collaboration of nearly all level styles and environments thrown into one level, starting out in an SMB grassland-type level, going through various environments such as an SMB3 plains and finishing in a Metroid section with an interesting boss battle. This idea is further enhanced in the SMB grassland by an interesting and special gimmick in which the background changes when the player crosses a point in the level where all the Piranha Plants and Spinies are. Each section carries its own game-specific gimmicks such as the red potion warps in the SMB2 area and making a bridge out of Jump Blocks in the SMB3 stage so it doesn't get too repetitive, but some sections weren't executed pretty well such as in the forest - having to spinjump on Fuzzies was one thing, but the player has to do it for 97% of the time, and I don't really like it when that's the case. Also, if the player saved the Yoshi in the SMW section and enters the instant warp in the cave by means of the blue shell they'll come back down and die. This is also the case with the Coin Heaven area in the SMB1 area. Another problem was that the level was too long despite a checkpoint, and 20 out of the 21 sections are filled up, and then lives are really cheap as well, particularly in the SMB3 section. It's possible to get over 20 lives when playing through this level before the player has even reached the Metroid section.
Chad: 7.4/10
Very interesting revamp of all the main games SMBX is based off of. It's also really challenging and does a good job of testing the player's skills. The enemy variety is unique, especially in the SMB2 areas, and the invisible note block and pipe arrow indicators are helpful. The design is pretty good in all areas, and the graphics greatly represent the games they're from. However, the giant Metroids are too much. Something that big should not move that fast, and there's barely any room to get around them. The level as a whole is a bit long for this kind of difficulty increase. I also found the Boos in the Rupee room to be excessive as well. Good location for the hidden star, but you should allow it to take you back to the main route, especially since a keyhole exit is meaningless for this game and there's a lot of level to redo.
Firespike33: 7.5/10
This level had SMB1, SMB2, SMB3, SMW and Super Metroid sections. A problem I had with all of them was the scenery--there was too much. It had a spammy look, with everything overlapping. The graphics were okay aside from that, and so was the music, but I think you should use a different theme for the underground sections. It’s a very long level, but pretty easy, and the checkpoint near the end is in a good place. I liked the design and some of the level’s unique elements like brown jumping Porcupos. However, it was WAY too easy to rack up lives. There are easily-accessible coin chambers and lines of enemies that can generate 1-UPs and 2-UPs. You can gain seventeen lives from coins alone.
However, the Super Metroid section was very hard and it was incredibly annoying to backtrack to it. The giant Metroids were hard to dodge, and the Mother Brain boss at the end was easier than most of the section before it. I’d make it easier or move the checkpoint closer.
Valtteri: 7/10
I was expecting something like the SMA4 e-reader level... This is pretty good, too. The level is beautiful, except for some of the SMB3 recolors. It's a pretty simple concept, done in a pretty simple way. A sidescrolling level that goes through all the games SMBX is based off, except Zelda 2 for some reason. It's fun, although you should probably done down with the enemies and some areas feel unnecessarily cramped.
- castlewars: 7.67/10
This level exudes a great atmosphere and the gameplay was fairly nonlinear. The design was great, involving mixing and matching the different ice tilesets, and the Phantos provide good decoration, while items on the ground decorate the level even more, and I liked the different coin formations which seem to fit the player's trajectory of jump, but it is in terms of gameplay where the level seems to suffer. The whole level, despite scrolling in all directions, only has one direct path, and the level lacked originality in terms of gimmicks, although the Dragon Coin quest was quite interesting. However, as the player enters the dual-Mouser battle, the axe can still be seen, and the checkpoint bars create a cutoff-ish effect on the pipe, which hints that this level isn't intended to be as serious as it appears.
Chad: 7.6/10
Interesting level. It's very atmospheric and looks really nice, as the icy recolors fit the theme quite well and multi-layered tile placement adds a lot of detail. The gameplay has a lot to offer as well, as it goes from a linear run to a vertical climb, then exploring a tower at the top. The boss is a little basic in concept, but it's still fun and mildly challenging. My only real nitpicks are that the water doesn't need to be so bright, and the Dragon Coin beneath the midpoint requires you to wait a while for the platform to make a full trip back to both ends.
Firespike33: 8/10
An ice level. The graphics and theme were good, and the music was fitting as well. I was not a fan of the frozen wood, however. It’s just odd. Some areas are a bit lacking in scenery too. Anyway, the first section is pretty basic, but it gets more interesting in the vertical ascension areas with tricky platforming and enemy placement (Ice Bros keep hitting me because their snowballs blend in so well). There were some Dragon Coins, and they weren’t too hard to find. The design was definitely solid.
S’ now we get to the boss: two Mousers. Not too hard, but not too easy either. I could actually win the battle just be killing one, and collecting the star turns the other into a coin (what a cruel fate). Other than that, it was good.
Quill: 8/10
I really enjoyed the level! The first section was neat and a good introduction to the level and I really loved the second section. There was a lot of variety in gameplay in these sections. Section 3 felt a little rushed to me although it did have some nice parts, it just needed some more polish. For the boss, the left mouser isn't on the correct layer, so you only have to kill the right one for the star to appear. Overall, I really enjoyed this level a lot!
Valtteri: 7/10
I like this level. It's diverse and fun to play. At the part where you had to ride a platform on top of the vertical section, I recommend placing Munchers on the floor, because I fell off and had to wait a million years for the platform to come back down and then all the way back up. I'd rather die than wait. Or maybe it's just me. The Phantos seem out of place to me. You should probably get upside-down slopes for the wood tiles instead of using corners for the bottom parts of the wood structures, it would look nicer. And I think the wood tileset recolor is awful. But those are minor things, good job overall!
- castlewars: 6.9/10
A Kirby level probably has been done before, but here the Kirby idea has been used to make a level like the Mario-based regular contest levels in SMBX contests. The idea of using Kirby graphics is quite interesting, and a whole level appears to have been built out of this, and a lot of the enemies are used really effectively, such as the SMB2 bomb-like enemies which explode upon contact, but there is one area in which they just rain down on the player and it's hard to avoid them, so the level becomes unfairly difficult. This is also the case in some areas, but different enemies clog up the screen and make the level hard. Even so, the tilesets and powerups are unique and used very well, and so was the boss battle, which was quite interesting in the idea of stars being fired at the player and the use of an invisible Mother Brain attached to underused NPCs, so the same idea can be reused twice, but still it was pulled off very well. However, there wasn't much exploration or special gimmicks that made the level stand out and it was just following a path to the boss, and stomping the enemies. A special gimmick might have made this level better.
Chad: 8.8/10
This is without a doubt the best Kirby level I've ever seen done in SMBX! Fantastic job with all of the graphics and the Kirby atmosphere, as they look breathtaking! I really enjoyed the attention to detail in how specifically the level was designed around its difficulty, with great strategic enemy and item placements in all areas. All of the jumps and evasions felt specifically planned. The bosses are really tricky, but excellently done, and putting the checkpoint before them is certainly generous (in a good way). However, I do wish the bosses had a little more evasion room, and that the Bronto Burts and Shotzos were slowed down. They're tough enough on their own even without all of the careful movement you have to do around most other obstacles. I also found the Bomber generators in the area with all the Gordos to be excessively frequent given that it's really easy to jump on them by mistake, and you don't warn about jumping on the Bombers even though you do about Scarfies (some of which are nearly required to jump on closer to the boss).
Firespike33: 7/10
Dread indeed. This level is HARD. That isn’t a bad thing, though. It had a Kirby theme which you don’t see too often. It was fun and had good (but hard) enemy placement and was mostly linear, though sometimes you had to go out of your way to get to a power-up. Sometimes all the enemies felt impossible to dodge, but with a boost from FTL Rockmen music I got to the boss. He was pretty hard until I got a good strategy: stay near the top, then kite him down while shooting stars. The second boss was actually easier for me. Anyway, a challenging and fun level.
Quill: 8/10
This level was really cool! It was generally fun to play, although it was sometimes difficult identifying what enemies replaced what, but that's probably because I've never played Kirby. Overall, it had some great level design. The boss sections were silly, I wasn't exactly sure what was going on but things eventually died with that awesome Star Rod at my disposal.
- castlewars: 7.64/10
This was quite nice. The way this was designed meant that this level could speak for itself how it was decorated, because the decoration was excellent, and the gameplay was fairly nonlinear, having the player go in some kind of direction in order to seek out some of the puzzles that lay within, but the problem was that despite the puzzle solving, there was just hitting switches as the only actual puzzle to be solved, and the rest after that was just following the path, although the player can choose to explore the sections for Dragon Coins. However it does get a bit hard at some parts, such as the enemy that looks a bit like a Lanturn just before and after the checkpoint - that's hard to avoid if the player starts swimming. However, the biggest problem was that at the end, at the run-up to the level's exit, the axes can still be seen, giving a hint that an event is going to trigger. This can suggest that the level might look unfinished at graphical level.
Chad: 7.6/10
Great level! It's really short, but it does a lot of good in the limited space it's given. It's visually stunning and offers a lot of interesting platforming obstacles. The precise swimming parts are pretty cool too, although a bit too narrow after the midpoint, and the giant fish are a little large for their environment. I'm impressed by how the level implements lava, water, a forest, and bridges in a way that all mix well with the cave theme. I do wish the level was longer, but I really enjoyed what I got.
Firespike33: 7.5/10
A cool level with an interesting color scheme. It’s light blue, like ice, but has grass growing on it. More green is added later, so it has a blue and green theme mainly. I did think some things were inconsistent: the background rocks were darker than the midground ones, and the grass growing on top of the ice/rock was darker. The giant fish with glowing bulbs (don’t know what they’re called) have oversized hitboxes that made me take damage just by being above one. You might want to fix that.
Anyway, the level had some decent ideas, and kept it varied with the dangerous Podoboos (where there’s a low ceiling) underwater sections, and the block chunks that fall when you step on them. None of these were very developed, mostly because the level was pretty short. It was still pretty fun, though, and there were some Dragon Coins (though they weren’t very well-hidden).
Quill: 8/10
I really digged this level! It was short and sweet and I absolutely enjoyed it. The graphics were beautiful and helped create a calm and relaxing atmosphere which really fit the level well and made it very enjoyable! You forgot to make the axes at the end invisible, but I won't subtract points for such a small error as that would be unfair. My only real complaint as it was kinda over before it began. Overall, great job!
Valtteri: 8/10
This level looks absolutely fantastic. At its core it's just a regular switch level, though. But it's a very good switch level, that has good variation in the use of NPCs, decoration, environments etc. Great job!
Places 11-20
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20. Dragonmaster146 - Bowser's Magma Empire (7.83/10)
- castlewars: 8.4/10
This level had some really neat design all the way. This was like an above average Bowser's Castle-like submission - brutally difficult, complicated puzzles, and the like. There weren't really that many complicated puzzles but the level had a bit of unfairness in it - in a lot of the sections the ? blocks contain Thwimps which harm the player, often in a small space, and climbing up steps often leads the player into getting hit by an offscreen Thwomp. However, I liked the idea of having to beat interim bosses all the way through for the sake of powerups and was the red coin quest, although some of them were placed in dangerous spots in which there's a slim chance of escaping safely, and entering a certain door in one of the sections inevitably causes the player to get hit by a Thwomp, and some jumps are really difficult because they are surrounded by lava. Then the level ends with your average SMB3 Bowser battle but with the Rinka-like Bowser statues spawning flames, and it's difficult to even jump over Bowser when the flames fill up the screen.
Chad: 7.25/10
This level is aesthetically stunning. The dark clouds and volcanoes background is really nice looking and you made the tilesets do a really good job of mixing together. The design is also impeccably complex, which really makes it interesting the whole way through. The difficulty is intense, which would be a really fun challenge... except for the numerous enemies and passages that are way over the top. I'm not fond of all the unpredictable surprise Thwomps that get triggered offscreen, which are bad enough with the normal ones but you do it with the giant ones as well. You also don't indicate in any way that you can't burn the Piranhas or jump normally on Hammer Bros (yet other type allows this), or that the red cloud hurts. Those things are very easy to forget while focusing on everything else too, and they're just icing on the cake for a level that already has a ton of difficult enemies in every place and constantly requires near-perfect maneuvers. The focus on precision is impressive, but it's much too restrictive. Also, having powerups be given to you by minibosses is certainly interesting, but a bad idea for every single powerup, especially in a level of this caliber. The Bowser fight is also really problematic because even if you can avoid the huge and fast fire, the smaller generated flames pretty much cover the remaining space you have to do so. Overall, this is an amazing level both visually and in terms of layout, but it constantly demands more than the player can reasonably give, especially with how long it is.
Firespike33: 8.5/10
Has good aesthetics that transition from fiery wasteland to castle/empire. The music is all fitting. There are some cool gimmicks throughout like the use of Podoboo’s Shoe, giant Thwomps and throwing rocks at things. I like how you have to fight for power-ups. Most of the level has a good design, but there are some ways to get a cheap death. First, the red clouds look like they can be walked on without taking damage, despite the face. Second, there are many times when you jump onto a platform and are crushed by an unavoidable giant Thwomp. These can usually be avoided the second time, but are frustrating nonetheless.
Then we have the boss, which is cruelly difficult. I moved the starting point of the player to the boss entrance because I wouldn’t have a chance otherwise. If this was in an episode, I’d highly recommend moving the boss to its own level, because playing through part of the level to get back to it is painful. The difficulty isn’t bad, though; I enjoyed the challenge. You should fix the fireballs with IHD (inflated hitbox disorder), however. Anyway, it took me nearly forty-five minutes (I’m not exaggerating), but I finally beat the boss, and it was extremely satisfying.
Quill: 8.5/10
Oh man, this level was SUPER fun. It really reminded me of something you'd see in Super Mario 64 and I loved that. It had a lot of exploration and finding the 8 red coins was generally fun. The big thwomps were a cool idea but a lot of times they came down when you didn't expect them and it was easy to get hit. There were a few other unfair parts dotted around and the level could have possibly been a little bit shorter but overall, great job!
Valtteri: 6.5/10
There's a lot good in this level but there are some aspects that bother me. It plays well and is creative in its way of taking the player through the level, but some parts are pretty unfair with Thwomps surprising the player when moving upwards, clouds hurting the player without warning and there was one part where you had to move up in a thin corridor and dodge lava and those hurtful clouds. That was pretty difficult to pass without dying or at least taking hit. I think it's pretty unnecessary to have most ? blocks contain Thwimps, too. The idea of having minor bosses hold the power-ups in the level is pretty clever but turns out harsh in my opinion. About the appearance of the level, I personally don't like the color scheme. The bright red tiles don't look very good. The lava is formed strangely, too, and the middle pieces don't really appeal to me. Taking advantage of the few parallax backgrounds in SMBX always pleases me, though! The volcano background is pretty cool, although a bit, well, patchy.
- castlewars: 8.77/10
This is quite an excellent level, and it seems that a few ideas were taken from Bowser's Dark Castle, bossedit8's entry in CC5, in particular the extensive Propeller Block exploration, which the whole level is based around, and while it wasn't extensive enough in Bowser's Dark Castle, here it's been stretched to its absolute limit. The player is required to use it to search every nook and cranny of the first section in order to uncover hidden secrets such as switches or even a hidden star. The use of the Propeller Block also includes opening new paths with switches, which can then be explored with the block, although at the start of the level it's just an empty space and could do with a bit of section expanding, and even in the following sections the exploration is hindered by enemies, and the Banzai Bill at the start of the level is rather unexpected, as are quite a few of them, but this is easily outweighed by the stretched and skilled usage of the Propeller Block, and the arrows are quite helpful to the player as well. The level was really atmospheric as well and it felt like a sky level and Ghost House combined, and I like how you had to pass through a Ghost House to proceed.
Chad: 7.4/10
I really like how this level feels like there's two different dimensions existing in the same spot, one being a ghost house and one a haunted cliff. The ambiance is pretty neat as well, and it's really interesting to see everything around you instantly change when you hit switches. They do so in a way that feels pretty seamless and comfortable, and manage to be very abrupt without being a problem. The layout of the level as a whole is pretty nice, but I felt like I spent a lot of the time on the cliffs just flying around aimlessly until I saw something new. It wasn't always clear where you had to go, although the many coin indications are certainly nice. The ghost house areas are easier to follow, and I enjoyed their mazelike qualities and how they're shaped. The background tiles have really nice patterns in there too, although they blend in with the solid ones a bit. Overall, this is a really neat and explorative level. There's a constant sense of mystery and an ominous feeling, and it both looks and plays very well.
Firespike33: 7.5/10
This was an interesting idea for a level, and executed well. The eerie and mysterious theme came through, especially with the music. The aesthetics were good in other areas as well...although I don’t approve of the overlapping scenery. The level was very nonlinear and there was a lot to explore. There was so much that I couldn’t even figure out how to explore it all. Fortunately, it was easy to know where the main path was. Most of the level involves jumping with propellor blocks and navigating ghost houses, which were cool because they would construct themselves and teleport to different areas of the level when you got to the end. The enemy placement and everything was pretty good, too. The boss wasn’t the best, as it was quite easy and typical. The extra Boos didn’t add much challenge.
Quill: 9/10
What an AMAZING level. I really loved the exploration and gimmick in this level, it was superb! It was crazy and kept me interested all the way through! I enjoyed it a lot! The boss kinda sucked though and I don't think he needed. The star could have just been at the top of a large interior ghost house part in my opinion.
Valtteri: 6.5/10
This is a pretty cool level with interesting concepts, but pretty simple still. I don't like the overall looks of it, I think it lacks variety.
- castlewars: 8.11/10
OK - who just loves placing Mousers all over a level? Why, Nien, of course. Even so, this level has some quite nice design, including the idea of a space factory theme in which the space tiles are combined with the industrial-looking factory tiles to create a complex blend in terms of texture. The gameplay was very nonlinear and it had you go all over the section, effectively making the most out of one large space. The frequent Mouser bosses were quite interesting but the problem is that the level is full of them, and it's possible to get caught in the crossfire and go up in smoke with the bombs. Also, making a mistake in this level can be quite devastating, particularly in the higher sections, because the player can get sent crashing down to the bottom and being forced to redo everything. The rocks were quite a nice idea as well and in some cases the player could use them to make a tower to hit some blocks. However in the small alcove with the Dragon Coin and Fire Flower, after the floor has been drilled, it's not easy escaping because the player has to get the perfect formation of rocks and that the height will make a jump difficult unless enough momentum is built up, which is hard in a small space. Also, despite the nonlinearity there were no special gimmicks that stood out despite the Mousers, which served no purpose whatsoever, and it was all about following a path, so the gameplay was really bland and the Mouser idea tires out after a while, although the hammer-throwing Lakitu was interesting.
Chad: 8.9/10
Amazing cosmic level! The outer space atmosphere is brilliantly captured in all of the graphics and decoration, and every landform is shaped very naturally to resemble a meteorite or machine. This feels like something out of Galaxy with all the floating cannons, drill machines, and exploration. The design is excellent, and the gameplay's fairly difficult. The random Mousers, though odd to have minibosses as regular enemies, reasonably add to the challenge of the level. Except the one by the cannons, that's too much, especially since it's right before the midpoint. I also would have liked it better if the ending star didn't require a blind jump. The big drill and general shape of the area are kind of indicators, but I still would have appreciated coins in the pit or something. Great job on hiding the second star though, it requires a clever method to reach and a slight difficulty increase to match.
Firespike33: 8/10
I was going to put a pun about this level being a pain in the...asteroid, or something, but I think my spacy puns could be a bit meteor. If you think they suck and are totally void of humor, don’t even comet on them.
As for the level, it was pretty good. You fight Mouser many times which was sometimes tricky, mainly because you had to worry about a bomb hitting another and blowing you up. The level was somewhat nonlinear, too, so that’s a plus. Enemy placement and about everything else was good. My biggest complaint would be that sometimes the metal bars look like they can be landed on. I enjoyed it otherwise.
Quill: 8/10
What a really cool level! It was creative and was generally fun to play. I'm not sure why there were Mousers literally everywhere, but it was still pretty cool! It's kinda hard to see what's a block and what's a background object, and it was difficult to realize that the climbing fence was actually climable as it looked like a background the way it was used.
Valtteri: 7/10
Not bad. It's neat that there are a lot of areas to explore but I legit got lost for a while. That was mainly because I didn't realize you could climb the fences at first, though. It was kind of fun but kept missing the one-block jumps and falling to my death / three miles backwards. You could tone down a bit with those parts. The drills are awesome. What are all those striped pipes about? The rock tileset lacks contrast in my opinion.
- castlewars: 8.11/10
If I had to guess who made this level, I would probably assume Darkonius Mavakar might have made this. The whole level is built entirely out of a tileset based on a couple of special blocks, and is centred on varying puzzles such as sniffing out the switches and then using them. The switches were used really effectively and weren't overused just to make nearby paths appear but also to re-open earlier paths already switched off, and they collectively form a path to the level's boss. Even with those thrown in, the level remains faithful to the original SMB3 fortress levels, in particular the first fortress in world 3, which has only one true door, and the rest lead to a water pit. Something similar has been done in this level, but in the lava section where all the wrong doors lead, it's quite hard jumping because the player is surrounded by lava: one false step can result in a fiery death. That, with the addition of the switch puzzle, and having to open doors, makes the level an interesting blend of overused level ideas which have been used in rather original ways as to not tire out already overused gimmicks, but the level is a bit long despite all this, and the switch gimmick does get a bit repetitive as they're just doing that in the latter part of the level, aside from the Mouser boss, which was quite enjoyable, in that there was a lava pit separating the player from the boss.
Chad: 8/10
Excellent fortress. The design and gimmicks are mostly standard for an SMB3 castle, but they feel very polished in terms of construction and are handled really well. The firebars, conveyors, skull raft, switches, keys, and door maze all make up a great variety of dangers and puzzles to put the player through. I especially like how you handled the doors, as each wrong door isn't super punishing except for having to redo a certain small room. Great second star location too, and I like the shortcut warps that are placed after certain objectives. The tileset and background tiles look nice as well, except it might be good to darken either the background tiles or background itself, as their thin edges make them blend in a little for me. I also think the midpoint should be moved back a bit because Mouser by himself doesn't really make up a full second half of the level. The greater distance to throw the bombs certainly does add some challenge, though.
Firespike33: 9/10
Well-designed and very polished. The graphical theme is good, being smooth, clean and fancy (looking a bit like a palace). It’s fairly linear, but the elements of repeated backtracking are actually pretty satisfying. There’s a hidden star that honestly isn’t very well-hidden, but you still have to be clever enough to find it. I like the hall of doors, where all but one send you back into the lava-filled room. The other parts of the level, while not super original, were amazingly polished and well-designed. There are few secrets and little free exploration, but it was still good.
The boss was Mouser. It seems impossible until you jump onto the platform he’s standing on. After that, the fight is easy: just drop his own bombs next to him until he’s blown up. Overall, it’s a high-quality level.
Quill: 7/10
Neat level! I really enjoyed the variety in this level. The design was fairly basic, but it was interesting enough. I liked the maze and it took me a while to figure out the Dry Bones indicated which door to take (at least that's how I think the maze works). Some indication to how the maze works would have been nice. The boss was kinda weird as most of the time Mouser just threw the bombs into the laval, but overall this was a nice level!
Valtteri: 8/10
I enjoyed this level, except for the door maze, that was mean in my opinion. But other than that, it's a really solid level, and I kind of like how it mixes switches and the lock gates, it feels new somehow.
- castlewars: 8.3/10
OK, who is this somebody who makes really difficult Touhou bosses that only pros can beat? bossedit8, of course. This level, despite the number of powerups bestowed upon the player, is incredibly difficult and is more of a boss rush than an actual level. The ideas for the boss are quite ingenious in that the boss takes on different forms that try to attack the player, which are often incredibly difficult to avoid because it's just a massive number of NPCs being thrown at the player at high speeds, and most of the time the player has to be of the right form to beat certain bosses, or in other words, being as the small form will make this level near-impossible to beat. Sure, there is genius in the layers and events battles, and it's more of dodge and survive, rather than attack and defeat. I've seen this in a lot of your Touhou levels, bossedit8, and your mark of this seems to have been left on this level (it's difficult to replicate the bosses as exactly as this), but even if it's insanely difficult, the ingenuity actually shows you've got a natural talent at boss designing, hence your name.
Chad: 8.6/10
I really like the dark modification of the SMB3 grass/forest theme and the projectile spawners are placed quite well. The level as a whole is designed and decorated with a lot of quality, but it would have been nice if you put down the midpoint just before the first spellcard area. Those are difficult, and I'd rather redo those than the first two platforming sections, and the second half's technically shorter than the first. The spellcards are really technically impressive, though. No complaints about how they work, they are quite amazing.
Firespike33: 8/10
This level has one of the longest names I’ve ever seen. As for the level itself, it started out pretty simple with weird red circles dropping projectiles everywhere. The first “boss” was actually really hard because it felt like bullet hell (except less intense, of course). The section after that I really liked, because there were projectiles everywhere that you could avoid by running and jumping constantly. The second boss was even more reminiscent of bullet hell and dodging all the projectiles was pretty fun.
Quill: 8.5/10
Man, what an amazing level! It's beautiful and very fun to play. So much creativity was put into this level, it's absolutely amazing. The level design is pretty basic, but it's still fun at the same time. Where this level really shines is the boss sections. Although at times there are points where the player doesn't have much time to react and things are unfair, it's mostly just nothing about creativity and amazingness. Wow, great job on this! It's kinda obvious who made this, but it doesn't matter as I can safely say this level deserves this score.
Valtteri: 7/10
I like this level. It has a couple of expertly designed projectile-dodging parts inspired by Touhou, and the transition parts are nicely designed as well. I personally find Touhou bosses boring to play but they are interesting to watch. The eyeless BGOs are a pretty cool idea in my opinion, too. Overall, it's not a very complex level and focuses on the Touhou gimmick, and does a good job at it.
- castlewars: 8.42/10
This level was outstanding to look at and outstanding to play. The amount of uses the author has gotten out of the Skull Switch is masterful here, ranging from lowering a platform, to destroying blocks and even modifying the conveyor belts, although to the player it might seem they've done nothing because no sound effect is playing. That aside, the decoration and aesthetics are excellent, and this idea of a burning factory might have been done before, but not at the standard this level is, and I liked the fact that the player can take an easy route or a hard route, both landing at the checkpoint. The lava decorated the level very well but they can hinder jumps, and one jump to collect a powerup can get the player inevitably killed by the lava. The level was also a bit too much about timing as well and some of the Rocket Engines after the checkpoint become unavoidable when on the Skull Raft as the player can't see them flaring up. The boss was quite interesting as well, and it felt, in many ways, like the penultimate Bowser boss in Super Mario Star Expedition, but the player is expected to find the spawned bombs themselves and the boss takes too long as there are two Bowsers.
Chad: 8.4/10
Really good level! I really like the deep red, hellish boiler room theme you've got, and the various gimmicks are great. The design is elaborate and detailed, and I especially like the big flames and how they operate in two different sets. The conveyor belt gimmicks are clever, and the part where factory chunks fall into the lava look nice, although the second one doesn't give adequate time. The lava tunnel is especially well done, and the boss is really interesting, except too long. Bowser takes too long to kill in that form to warrant two phases. The second phase should have been the only one, especially with how far away from the midpoint the fight is and the fact that the two phases are nearly identical. Also, the crushers are nasty surprises that are certain to kill you if you don't already know to rush past them. You make players redo a lot of the level just from something they couldn't anticipate. I dislike the gimmicks in the secret star room as well. The room itself is well hidden and I like how you make the player reach it, but the ceiling Podoboos are very sudden and unreasonable to react to, and the platforms don't always sync in a way that makes them possible to cross. As a whole, this level is pretty awesome, but some of its gimmicks are not implemented well. The level is also way too long for the number of cheap shots it has, which made everything less fun.
Firespike33: 8/10
This level made me so mad. Every time I was on fire, it lead to me exploding with rage when my goose was cooked. I guess I’m just hot-headed. I suck at Mario games, though. They should fire me as a judge.
This level had a good design and some gimmicks I liked, such as the conveyor belts that move the pipes and the fire that shoots up out of the barrels. I was not crazy about the graphics. You recolored almost everything, which is great, but it portrays the theme of “fire” incorrectly. Actual fire is orange and yellow, but rarely red (although flaming sugar cane makes very red fires for some reason). It looked more like rose-tinted glasses or some kind of ruby dye than an actual theme of “fire.” There were some 2x2 pixels as well.
The two-phase boss was pretty good. The first phase was pretty easy and boring, but it picked up in intensity in the second.
Quill: 8.5/10
Wow, what a cool level! The gameplay is literally great. There's so much to do and see and I just really love it! It's a little lengthy, but man that first half is pretty cool. The second half is amazing too! I loved the lava rising as well as the podoboos, it added some nice difficulty. The boss is a little disappointing. The concept is really cool but since its Mother Brain x2 the boss drags a hell of a lot and it's annoying and frustruating to defeat him. This gets even more annoying during the second phase when Bowser attacks.
Valtteri: 7.5/10
This must be the fire level that's so red it hurts your eyes that's in every contest. :P Nah, I like it, although the tileset recolor looks pretty ugly and it bothers me. But that aside, it's a quite fluid and interesting level. I like the idea of switches moving obstacles out of the way. It's an overused gimmick but it kind of makes the level cool. The boss is overkill, though, one Mother Brain fight should be enough. Especially in a long level like this. The star has a glitched graphic.
- castlewars: 9.6/10
This SM3DL-influenced level is just so gorgeous. Everywhere the player goes, they are required to do some form of exploration in order to get ahold of the really unique gimmicks that make up this level, and what I really liked was the idea that new, special gimmicks are mixed in with old, overused ones such as switches. First off, the idea of a carryable NPC with nogravity=1 enabled is rather unique and original, as they are required to use it to collect one of the Ace Coins. Second off, the idea of a timed red coin hunt is interesting and well-thought out, but the player does not know when the timer is going to run out, and I liked the Mystery Box gimmick as well, which is also rather original. As well as in the gimmicks, the level excels brilliantly in terms of design and the combination of both castle and cloud tiles has been used before, but here the two have been spun around to create a unique texture, particularly with the music notes inside the cloud tiles, creating a level looking almost as if shinbison had made it. However, the spike placement is a little off as a few are placed right next to mushroom platforms meaning that the jump is restricted so hitting the spike is likely. But the pros outweigh the cons here so this level is deserved of a high score. Snow Luigi Revamped, I won't be surprised if your level wins the contest.
Chad: 8.1/10
Quite an elaborate and enjoyable level. The amount of detail put into every place is impressive, the whole layout is fantastic, and the tilesets mix in a way that looks really nice. There are quite a few creative items that the player is introduced to, and I really like how each section of the level uses a different form of progression. It goes from a linear run, to an upward ascent, to a Yoshi spike-walk, and then an interestingly complex switch hunt, which is a great variety for the level. The line platforms are very well placed, and the arrows are thoughtful implementations as well, because getting lost would probably be really easy without them. You could have put some on the last two big falls so they aren't blind jumps, though. I also think the level could have done without the mystery box room. It felt like it was there for no real reason, and it broke the flow of the level a bit. Maybe more than one would have been better for consistency. I also found that the purple blocks weren't given any purpose and the propeller block got very little usage given the length of the path that its on. I had a little trouble telling the difference between solid and background castle tiles too, and you shouldn't have introduced every new item at once before you even see them. You could put a different message by the first instance of every item, that would have been better and more spread-out.
Firespike33: 7.5/10
A pretty good level with an interesting aesthetic theme, although I don’t approve of the infodump at the start. It was a mixture of clouds and ruins, and the only big graphical problems were how the jump-through sizables looked like normal blocks and how the Banzai Bills could be seen behind the cannons that fired them. The enemy placement was pretty good, and I liked the part where you have to collect the red coins to get the Ice Flower (it took me a few tries, but was satisfying until I bumped into a Goomba). A bit of backtracking, and some switch blocks, so it didn’t feel completely linear. The only Ace Coin that was hard to get was the one in the bonus box. Completing the challenge and then having the coin disappear because I ran out of time was a bit frustrating, as was losing the Yoshi thirty seconds after finding it. Anyway, it was a good level, but had a few flaws.
Valtteri: 7.5/10
Aside the weird new powerups and features, this is a pretty normal switch-based level. The new things are cool and all but they didn't really need to be there, you could have just used warps for the warp blocks for example. The concept confused me a bit. Acknowledging the SMB2 mushroom's ability to clone your item was cool in my opinion. The gravity blocks are pretty innovative, too. I never understood the "100 comes before 99" thing. I found a random Goomba saying that, too, I wonder if that was intentional or just an error on the authors behalf? And I dislike the castle tileset. The texture doesn't appeal to me and the BGOs are hard to tell from solid blocks sometimes. The sizables also don't look different from regular blocks at all. Also, why do the Bob-ombs turn into spheres when they're stomped? That's not how they worked in SMW! And the Venus Fire Traps are just recolored SMB3 ones. And I never liked the SMB3 recolored SMW Spinies, I wish people didn't use those that much. But this is just me rambling about how people use the wrong graphics, it doesn't affect your score.
- castlewars: 7.53/10
This is a good level, and out of all the possible level themes and gameplay styles for SMBX, a level which effectively has vertical autoscroll and has the player hang on to balloons for the majority of the level is very unique, if not, strongly unique. The whole level is built out of this gimmick which has been stretched to the limit, and the castle tiles go well with the spikes, which actually go well with the sky background to make the level feel like a ruins-based level. The Moon Coins were an interesting mechanic, particularly in this level in which it's make or break for most of the items, so the player has to get them or not get them at all, and I liked the idea of Ninjis that the player cannot jump on in this level, and the sideways Jumping Piranha Plants were a very interesting gimmick that I've seen in SMSE. However, the level is too hard - I couldn't even beat it after 20 attempts at it - the Grinders make the level really difficult as a lot of the balloons pass through the path of an oncoming Grinder, particularly if the player took the left path at one point in the level, and some sections are overloaded with enemies, leaving little room for error - one false move and you're dead.
Chad: 8.4/10
This is a highly original gimmick and really nicely done, too! It's used in a completely stable fashion for the entire section, and it looks great. No matter which path you take, there's always a few balloons that can be used to avoid the obstacles. The difficulty is balanced pretty much the whole way even though the routes and hazards frequently change. However, the Lakitu's a bit much, especially since it flies very low to you in a section where you travel upwards and is far from the only danger. It's also unclear that the balloons are vines at first, you can't place two stars in the same section since it'll only count one, and the pipe to the last Moon Coin is unenterable because its entrance doesn't line up with the balloons in any feasible way. The exit sign is misleading as well, I fell to my death thinking I was supposed to enter the pipe it was sitting on. This is a great level overall that's excellently built around the gimmick, and its entire construction really conveys the attention to detail, but those few things at the start and end interfere with the experience. Dying at the end in such ways to make you redo the entire level is a bit disappointing.
Firespike33: 9.5/10
This level looked like a rocky ravine of some sort, with minimal clash and fitting music. It also had a very interesting gimmick: climbing on and jumping between balloons. It was very hard, but also a fun challenge. The enemy placement and design were very well-done, which, combined with the originality, made this a really fun level. There were some Moon Coins, but I was so busy staying alive that I couldn't risk death attempting to get them. My only complaint is the lack of a checkpoint.
Quill: 8.5/10
This level was super neat! It took me a while to figure out how to grab the balloons, as at first I thought you had to stand on them or grab them in mid-air, but after I found out the balloons were like vines, the level turned out awesome! This level was amazingly creative. My only problem was that a few enemies were unfair and sometimes you're forced to take paths that you won't be able to reach the correct balloon for before it's too late. Overall, fantastic level! Great job!
Valtteri: 7.5/10
I like the gimmick very much, and it works really well for the most part. It gets pretty difficult sometimes, and I would personally make it a tad shorter, it starts feeling like an eternity after the first half.
- castlewars: 8.43/10
This level, for some reason, reminded me of Super Princess Peach, and this level has superior design and gimmicks, and I think shinbison might have done this one. The idea of having to activate switches was OK enough because it's just a one-time use, but put that with exploratory design, in which in many cases you can choose the upper or lower path, and enemy placements and design then you're good to go, and the amount of uses and ideas that can be squeezed out of a Firebar is evident here, used really well, allowing for this interesting gimmick to be pulled off very well. The puzzles, however, despite the nonlinearity, weren't really that a big deal. It was just flicking switches to proceed, although used in very creative ways, in which you could open up a new path using them, and that different sections required you to go left, or right, or up to proceed. The level's decoration was really good as well and it made the player feel as though they were in the sky, and the boss was interesting. However it's hard to avoid it when it's travelling horizontally across the floor and the player can just hold a Bob-omb in front of it for an easy kill, if possible, and what's more, the warps aren't hidden so the player can just hold Up and happen to find a hidden door warp on the battlefield, skipping the boss.
Chad: 7.8/10
The level has quite a pleasant graphical atmosphere, and great job with the cloud details. The design is pretty interesting too, as there's a good amount of secrets and multiple forms of progression. Sometimes you explore a cloudy maze, traverse a linear landscape, or climb upward with the beanstalks. They add a lot of variety to the level. However, powerups are very difficult to come by. There's several of them, but nearly all of them are hidden away in risky side areas. A lot of unique enemies are present and the Clottons are especially neat, but I find the Lakitus to be a lot harder than most other parts of the level. You almost can't kill them without taking a Spiny to the face. The Kracko boss is impressive and very creatively made, with his movements and attacks being very fluid and stable. The spark attack is really interesting, but having it be insta-kill is extremely punishing because you already have to react fast to it, and then you have to redo a ton of the level. It's often impossible to avoid Kracko when he's moving low from one end of the screen to the other, too. Ducking doesn't always work.
Firespike33: 9.5/10
There are bad levels, and then there are terrible levels. And then there are levels like this, which are neither.
This level had a cool graphical theme and some cool ideas like the Lakitus replacing Hammer Bros. and the beanstalks you can ascend. Everything in the level was really well-done and well-designed, and I had a lot of fun playing it. Tricky things like the vines with spiders on them always kept the level interesting. There were a lot of secrets to find, and the level opens up to be explored freely in one section. It had some well-hidden Dragon Coins, and all the power-ups were well-placed, rewarding the player for surviving just long enough to get them.
The boss was pretty good too, having difficult attacks and being hard to hit (the stupid cloud things kept blocking my bombs).
I have two complaints. One, a beanstalk ends abruptly, making it look like it was chopped off. Two, there were some bushes growing on bricks in the boss area. I know this is Mario, but bushes growing on bricks take it a bit far. Other than that, I really liked it.
Valtteri: 7.5/10
This is a pretty straightforward level if you don't care much for the goods it provides to those who like exploring. It's pretty fun I guess. I really like the giant beanstalks, they look beautiful. The rest of the level looks okay, too.
- castlewars: 9.3/10
If I had to guess at an author, I would probably guess Quill might have made this. Even so, this level had some really outstanding ideas mixed and matched to create this absolute gem of a level. First off, the combination of both the "dead forest" and factory level themes has been pulled off very well, as well as being original. The gimmicks in this level appear to have already been used a few times, but in this level a lot of original gimmicks are stretched to their limits, and even the uncommon gimmicks such as requiring the use of a fairy to advance in one section begin to excel in terms of performance. Even so, this level shows so much variety with many different gimmicks used with each other so that the player doesn't get bored with the same gimmick being repeated over and over. However, the level was fairly long and the lack of a checkpoint means the player will have to redo all the hard work, and the final section caps off the level in a brilliant manner by use of the secret airship piece, having to dodge the enemies and try and not lose it. However, if the player goes over the top they'll be forced off it and will eventually die, and if the player jumps back on certain Skull Rafts after they've run their course they'll be forced into the lava and die unfairly.
Chad: 9.3/10
Wow, what an incredible atmosphere! The detail in every place is amazing and it really feels like an industrial, apocalyptic takeover of nature. The design is also excellent to boot, you use a great amount of moving parts and gimmicks and the lava looks really nice meshing with the tilesets. Part of the factory taking off into the sky is a neat surprise as well, and I also like how your method of leaving the yellow switch room changes after you hit it. When you're inside the factory though, a few things blend in too much. A lot of the objects are the same color as the background and a certain Podoboo in the jetpack section is right in front of a lavafall and difficult to see. Also, using the secret airship piece, especially that far after the midpoint, is not advisable. It kinda works well enough for this scenario and the whole area has a really nice theme to it, but it can bug out at the most unexpected of movements and cost you dearly. It'd be better if you based it around propeller block usage or something. The section's already designed to accomodate that rather well except for a few coin placements.
Firespike33: 8.5/10
First, this uses my former avatar as an enemy, which is awesome.
This level starts with the theme of a burned forest and transitions into an industrial factory. I liked most of the graphics, although the background in the outdoors sections had some weird blending that made it not look like 2x2 pixels. The lavafalls coming out of the ceiling in the factory were strange, too, because it seems like a bad idea to dump lava out in your own factory. All of the music was fitting, although I think sometime more mechanical-sounding would be better for the indoor factory areas.
As for gameplay, it has good design and well-placed Dragon Coins, as well as some backtracking which gives it a feel of nonlinearity. The gimmicks involving rising platforms and jetpacks were pretty cool as well. The part where you ride in the flying shark...thing was okay, but flying off the top would dismount you, and I got crushed between the flying shark and the airship once. Other than that, I like it.
Quill: 7/10
Man, this level was pretty neat. It had lots of unique level design but unfortunatly its greatest fault was its length. This level was far too long for my liking and to make it worse it lacked a checkpoint. That's some poor decision making there. It's a real shame as this level was very good, but these faults made it frustruating to continue when you die.
Valtteri: 8/10
Stop. Stop with the unclimbable SMB2 vines. IT'S NO FUN. What a great level, really. It's designed beautifully and it's a lot of fun to play, although I found the switch puzzles to be kind of boring. But I love the part with the platforms in the lava, that feels a bit fresh somehow. The last scene is pretty neat, although a bit abrupt, but knowing how glitchy the plane is, I wouldn't have made it any longer myself. I'm not a big fan of the clouds. I think they just make the level look messy and some of them don't even move which isn't very good in my opinion. The Autobomb flames animate too slowly and they don't turn right when they shoot right. Some airship tiles don't have the correct mask. I witnessed something really weird in SMBX when I played this level. When I entered the pipe at the end of the jetpack section (the jetpack looks beautiful, by the way) my player got stuck in the warp. I've never seen this happen before. This has no effect on the score, I just thought I'd mention this.
Places 6-10
Spoiler: show
10. Emral - Mount Kuribo (8.554/10)
- castlewars: 8.67/10
This was an exciting, high-octane level. What was so special about it was the fact that it was just made out of Goombas and nothing else, and the level was super-nonlinear, particularly with the strange and special gimmicks that this level comes with, such as the double cherry and the berry blocks, both of which were pulled off very well, and a particular mention was the fact that some gimmicks can do negative to the player as well as positive, which is incredibly rare, and also the fact that the player can choose one of three paths at the start of the level, and can't turn back, and each section came with its own gimmick, many of which were facilitated by the use of "event switches" which trigger something special in the level, allowing for completion. This level requires the use of a lot of powerups as well, including the Kuribo's Shoe, Propeller Block, and Yoshi, and the signs were interesting, as the underlying message is shown in the graphic itself. However, in terms of design, if the player goes too far left if they took the second path they can see a blank space where the filler blocks end, and this appears to be the case in other sections as well.
Chad: 8.6/10
I really enjoyed this level a lot! It's a very pretty landscape, with several tilesets combining together in ways that look great, and the layout of the level feels very natural yet complex. It's a lot of fun to explore in every way. There's an excellent variety of unique Goombas, and the fake ones are silly. Yoshi and Kuribo's Shoe are implemented really well, especially with how the shoes are attached to Goombas originally wearing them. The propeller block section is built very well, and I really like the signs that tell you whether or not you can use the various items offered in certain areas. The secret passage containing the Goomba coin is neat as well, and is indicated in a perfectly subtle way since it looks like an empty alcove. Interesting purpose for the Double Cherry, making it clone your powerup actually makes a lot of sense. The messages in the level are helpful, but I found the bridge event to be a little unclear, and I couldn't read the message box at first because I didn't realize it was associated with the switch that it disappeared with. Otherwise, impressive work!
Firespike33: 9/10
This level had a solid aesthetic theme--grass and sky--and always stayed consistent. I never noticed any graphical problems. It’s also nonlinear, in all the right ways: it’s obvious what’s a secret and what isn’t, but you have to do some searching to actually find the secrets. There’s a part with a split path (a Yoshi area, Kuribo area and Propeller Block area) which adds even more to the replay value. Everything was well-placed, and there were some cool features like fruit blocks and wooden Goombas that were fun to stomp. My biggest criticism is that none of the cool things like Yoshi last very long. Sometimes you get a Kuribo’s shoe and lose it five seconds later. I know that’s the level’s theme, but I prefer being able to hold onto really fun things like Yoshi. Other than that, really good.
Quill: 8/10
I really enjoyed this level a lot! The split path added some great replay value and the bonus areas were neat, although they were basic and not that impressive reward wise. The three different sections were really good and had lots of variety when you compared them, which I thought was super neat! They could have been more gimmicks introduced to the level such as moving layers to make it more lively, but I thought it was still very good.
Valtteri: 8.5/10
I enjoyed this one. The level surely lives up to its name, many kinds of Goombas can be seen here. The different signs kind of feel excessive, it's like this is supposed to introduce the game to a player who's completely new to Mario. But on the other hand it's pretty cool. Also, I wouldn't mix that many tilesets as it kind of looks messy but overall it's a great level!
- castlewars: 8.38/10
This level was an electrifying experience. The electricity idea is original to this level, and it goes well with the main industrial theme of this level, and this idea of having insta-kill currents (as in, they replace the lava) allows for some serious puzzle-solving to take place around it, and this gimmick gets extended as the player progresses, and I liked the moving electric current just after the checkpoint that the player has to avoid, and also the automatic ones in the last section in which the player has to time their jumps. However, the lava effect is still present and not removed. The gameplay was fairly nonlinear, having the player go backwards and forwards, and the majority of the level either involves activating an elevator of some sort or deactivating the barriers. Good idea, but the player is just doing that for the main part of the level, and it gets a bit repetitive, considering there isn't any sidequest like Dragon Coins, and if the player jumps off the elevator as it rises, they've missed their board and will be stuck. The only place that's different is the last section which involves the skillful use of the Propeller Block to dodge the currents and claim the star. However, some jumps are really difficult to carry out and they almost inevitably force the player to get hit by a Grinder, although the amount of uses that could be got out of the humble Grinder is really interesting.
Chad: 9.5/10
I am amazed by this level! The industrial atmosphere is terrific, and the usage of electricity is incredible. There are so many forms that it takes in the level, all of which are executed really well. Also, thank you for warning at the very start that the electricity is insta-kill, because that's pretty important. It's spread out enough that it's easy enough to concentrate on and put special attention into avoiding, but at the same time, there's enough dangers in the level as a whole to keep you on your toes and provide some challenge. The entire level pulls off this great balance tremendously. I also really like that the barriers make you run around a lot. Sometimes a switch and a barrier will be right next to each other, but they're each linked to different ones, so the level has you explore while making it easy to keep track of what you're doing and where you're going. The moving and alternating electricity are pretty neat as well, and I'm impressed that you thought to put invisible vines in front of the moving fence to prevent errors there. The only thing I'd nitpick about is that the timed electricity isn't very well indicated initially, it deserves its own message box and more obvious sounds. At first, I couldn't tell what the Fireball and Blaarg sounds were doing. I'd use Slide for the timer and Fireworks for the activation, personally. You also could have made the electricity in the star room into a timed version, so it would make sense for the sounds to continue playing.
Firespike33: 8.5/10
This level had a theme you don’t see too much: electricity. The level was pretty nice, aesthetically, and I have only a few complaints: there was lack of shading on the Yoshi’s Island enemies, and the lava effect appears when enemies fall into lava. It would be better if you removed it or changed it into sparks or ash. The level had a lot of backtracking, but was really pretty linear, with no secrets that I could see. Still, I liked the electric theme and some of the more interesting parts like the moving electronic beams or elevator tunnels, and the rest had solid design.
Quill: 8/10
I really enjoyed this level! It had a fantastic atmosphere and was generally fun to play! As the level went on, it became more predictable sadly. It was just going from Point A to B, deactviating a wall then going back to Point A to access Point C. Rinse and repeat. The elevator parts were fantastic and fun to play, but the level needed a lot more variety as things were becoming repetitive.
Valtteri: 8.5/10
A fine level. All the barrier-disabling gets a bit boring but it's fun for the most part. The elevators could be a tad faster. I don't think it's necessary to have the electricity instakill. It gets pretty frustating at the propeller block section. And the Tap Tap animates too slowly.
- castlewars: 8.9/10
This level is magnificently designed. Considering that SMB2 is rarely used nowadays, this level mixes different SMB2 tilesets together and creates an excellent texture with each one of them, in particular the blend between the castle and grass tiles. Each section is fully-fledged nonlinear and really expansive as well and requires a great deal of exploring in order to uncover hidden secrets, and I like the way each buried NPC is equally effective against the enemies in this level, and I like the imaginative ways the POW block is used to bring down coins and also to kill surrounding enemies, as it is spun around in ingenuity to create interesting gimmicks. Each underused SMB2 enemy such as the Autobombs and Ostro are placed and used very well, but the Autobombs' fireballs always face left whenever they are given out, and the level seems to lack really interesting gimmicks other than the POW blocks, and Ace Coins could have made this level more exciting. Even though, this level is really interestingly great and nonlinear, as stated earlier, and I won't be surprised if it ends up in the higher tiers.
Chad: 9.2/10
Very impressive! This is definitely one of the more detailed SMB2 levels I've seen, and the grassland, castle, and cloud themes all fit together very naturally. There's a lot of great originality here, like the Ostros, bomb statues, fire cannons, and especially the vase cannons, those are extremely clever. The design is very elaborate and really fun to explore, while also having a clear linear path at the same time, and all of the placements are great. I had a lot of fun with this, and it looks great.
Firespike33: 8.5/10
First, I really like the graphics and theme of this level (grass + castle ruins) even though you don’t actually enter the ruins. I don’t like how the fireballs shot by the autobomb sometimes face the wrong way (right, even if they’re moving left) and how there are blue and yellow trees, but the rest is great. Well, I can’t say I’m a fan of the music. It sounds WAY too happy and pretty to me, and I would prefer just the standard SMB2 overworld theme. The level has a really good nonlinear design and was fun to explore, even if I was a bit confused about where everything was. No Dragon Coins, but there were some hidden 1-UPs to please item hunters.
Quill: 8/10
What?! A SMB2 Level?! Those exist in this contest?! I really liked this level; it was a great take on Subcon and added some interesting gameplay and variety to it. It was a little on the short side in my opinion and could have been extended with some more bonus areas, but overall I really liked it!
Valtteri: 9/10
This is great. The varying environments and interesting secret areas make this level really fun to play. Great job on this. The Autobomb flames animate too slowly and they don't turn right for some reason, you should probably fix that.
- castlewars: 9.1/10
This level is just so excellent. Attaching clock tiles to certain NPCs such as the Roto-Discs allowed for special gimmicks to be carried out and performed, and sure that's OK, but in this level this gimmick is stretched to its limits, and this idea is unique to SMBX. There could have been a bit more variety in the gimmicks used but the idea of time is still a focal part of this level, and the use of the green P-Switch that freezes time is almost near-perfect because the player is required to do some forward thinking before hitting the switch because one false hit can result in a jump too far, or a clock tile rendering the player from being unable to cross over, and the use of the P-Switch Start and P-Switch End events has been masterfully executed in that hitting the switch can show blocks in frozen time, but at one point in section 7 the player will get pushed out of a corner if they hit the green P-Switch as it is bricked up. The bossfight in this level was excellent as well, and is reminiscent of the final boss in Mario Classic in that it takes on various forms depending on how much damage it has taken. The idea of having to catch the eggs and throw them before they hatch is a nice idea for a boss battle, and turning off the playerblocktop attribute to the SMB2 Bob-omb is an interesting gimmick used. Also, Hoenn confirmed.
Chad: 9.6/10
This level impressed me quite a lot! It's filled to the brim with originality and creativity, and all of the clock-based gimmicks are executed extremely well. I'm amazed by just how many gimmicks are included, and you have hint arrows and messages at the start to help players along with what wouldn't be obvious initially. The boss is excellent too, with each phase being just a little harder than the last and it even has a visible health counter that resembles a clock. There are a few issues, like how frozen time can break the vine and despawn red/blue clocks occasionally, one time switch pushes you through blocks as you step on it, the eggs should probably hatch Goombas or Spinies because not being able to step on the Bob-ombs is odd, the pendulum appears very suddenly, and there's no reason or indication for the little bird to not be killed by a normal jump. Other than those, you've got a pretty well made and innovative level here! It isn't lacking or excessive in any regard, and is a fulfilling and enjoyable gameplay experience.
Firespike33: 9.5/10
This level had everything: a good graphical theme, good music, well-placed NPCs, replay value and unique gimmicks. While some of the level was typical in design, the enemy placement is really good and made it hard, especially with the Bullet Bills (I am not good at avoiding them). There was some backtracking--thankfully not tedious--and ace coins, as well as a split path near the end, all adding to the replay value. The gimmicks involving the freezing of time and jumping on blocks were also very good and fit with the level’s theme. The graphics weren’t outstanding, but still fitting and not clashy. The background could have been better, and I don’t like the look of tufts of grass growing on stone (with no grass on it) here. The music fit pretty well. The Ace Coins are somewhat hard to find, which is a good thing, but the part where you have to land on a Bullet Bill was just annoying.
The boss was good, too. It was difficult to grab the eggs while they fell, especially while he moved, but it never seemed unfair (except for when the yellow hammer thing got a cheap hit on me when it first appeared). I’d add spikes to the Bob-ombs to make it obvious that you aren’t supposed to jump on them. Also, sometimes the floating blocks with clocks on them despawned if you moved offscreen and came back. Overall, it had flaws, but was an amazing level otherwise.
Quill: 7/10
This level was neat! What a creative use of the time switch! It's really clever, but at times it can be glitchy as stuff despawns when you need them to progress and running out of time causing blocks to sometimes block your path can be annoying. The backtracking in the first part was also a little boring and could have been changed more. Overall, it was pretty cool and done generally well. The boss however, needs a lot of work. It takes a while to figure out what to do at first but when you do, it starts okay. When he starts moving around, it gets frustrating just trying to pick up the egg as the timing is annoying. To make things worse, a thwomp is attached the boss in the final phase and that causes the egg to glitch and make it unable to be picked up. The only way to fix this is to make the thwomp fall, but it's annoying trying to keep an eye on it and on the egg spawner at the same time. Overall, good level, bad boss.
Valtteri: 8.5/10
This level is strong in aesthetics and gimmicks. This has to be the most creative way of using the Stop Switch I've seen. The boss is really cool with the different phases and skillful use of different features in SMBX, although the sprite isn't exactly impressive. As I said first, the level looks really good overall. The different graphics used go well together. I love the parallax cloud background. I think the idea of using clocks in the ground is pretty stupid, though. It's not the least bit creative (the level has to do with time, let's put pictures of clocks everywhere!) and doesn't make much sense, even if the level does make use of the time stopping feature. I'd also like to add that the background walls, while looking okay, are pretty cheap darkened foreground tiles with windows attached that don't really look like they belong there since they're lacking the black outlines.
- castlewars: 9.35/10
This level is just marvellous to look through, and marvellous to play. Every single part of this level was greatly decorated, and the atmosphere brought through the ghostliness of the level, combined with the forest, both pulled off extremely well, making this look like a reghrhre level. This level was very nonlinear and the special gimmicks that this level brought through with it are outstanding and unique, such as the blackouts in section 3 and the double-sided spiky blocks that flip on occasion. Each puzzle brought through with it its own special integrity, making the level very interesting and not repetitive, and collecting all the green coins was interesting but there's no way to know when the barrier's been deactivated unless the player goes back by themselves, and some of the NPCs seem misplaced. There is one part in this level when in order to hit a block this gets a player inevitably hit by either a Boo or a Volcano Lotus fireball, and the Grinder spinjumping challenge is tricky because the player is expected to nail it perfectly and recovery is tricky due to the size of the Muncher pit. However it's fair to say that the pros outweigh the cons here, and I won't be surprised if this ends up in the higher tier.
Chad: 8.2/10
Pretty good level! The design is great, I like the jagged shape that the logs give to the level, and the detail that the edge tiles provide to the inner parts really add to the look of it. The stretching wood blocks, darkness area, green coin hunt, alternating spike floors, and propeller blocks are all interesting gimmicks that provide a nice gameplay variety. However, the darkness is very laggy. Even with frameskip disabled, it kept slowing down and speeding up the game whenever it'd occur, and the sound/lag would continue for the remainder of the level. The rhythms of both the darkness and the spike floors are unpredictable, too. The gloomy ambiance is excellent in this level, but the background logs should be darker, as they blend in with the solid logs and enemies. The stars are decently placed, but not exactly hidden, just down alternate pipes. Other than that, very enjoyable level. It's atmospheric, the gameplay and design feel quite polished, and it's somewhat challenging without being too difficult.
Firespike33: 9.5/10
This level was unusually creepy. You don't see that much in SMBX. The main reason it was creepy was how everything was gray. I wasn't in love with this effect, but you get points for originality and creepiness. The music was very fitting and enhanced the atmosphere. It also showed a forest theme pretty well, even though it was weird that the whole level took place and logs and not solid ground. Some things were a bit inconsistent, like how only one of the stars has color. I think the Lava Lotus fireballs should be colored, too. The level itself was well-designed, starting with linearity but then branching out in sections like the place where you collect Frog Coins, which required some exploration. The gimmicks were good, too, involving vines and saws, and were well-used. The enemy placement is really good as well, which made the level a lot of fun to play through. Overall, it was amazing, and I can't think of many flaws.
Quill: 8.5/10
What an amazing level! The atmosphere is literally stunning, it's so good! The design is mostly superb and it was fun to explore and play through the level. I thought the checkpoint was a little inbalanced but with the frog coin hunt in the middle, there wasn't really a better place to put it. The two extra stars were super easy to find and finding some of the frog coins was more difficult in my opinion. But man, what an incredible atmosphere! Absolutely incredible!
Valtteri: 8.5/10
What a nice level. It's designed fluidly and beautifully and is fun to play. Normally I don't like 1-color levels but the gimmick works so well in this one. I'd complain about the first Scuttle Bug; it's pretty hard to see at first which isn't very good as it's the first one in the level and you don't expect it. But that's literally the only complaint I can come up with and I feel bad for it taking up a few words of my review. Really this is a very good level.
Spoiler: show
5. reghrhre - Unearthly Volcano (8.82/10)
- castlewars: 8.8/10
This level's idea and gimmicks used feel as though this was inspired by Noxious Apparitions in the Revived contest. Even if they were taken from that level, this level still remains its great standard. All the sections are a mix of both linear and nonlinear to keep the player interested so it doesn't get too boring or mazey, and the Dragon Coins provided the perfect backdrop for that. The tileset was excellent as well and the background versions provided good decoration, and this level was chock-full of gimmicks as well. I liked the lava bubble gimmick - the bubbles the player has to avoid, and this appears to have been pushed towards its limits to contain things like Dragon Coins. The problem is that in some places there are too many of those bubbles, making it too hazardous to jump. It also seems that you can squeeze a lot out of the Boo as well - the invisible Volcano Lotus and Rinka spawn allowed for some interesting gimmicks involving the Boos such as having them chase you while you look them in the eye, but the problem is that the area can become overloaded with Boos if the player waits for too long The SMW rocks replacing the POW blocks also allowed for an interesting gimmick in clearing enemies out of the way as well, and having the ? block spawn second-level powerups like Fire Flowers instead of Mushrooms is another unique gimmick this level is ridden with.
Chad: 9.3/10
Amazing level! The atmosphere is incredible, and the design is nice and wide open in order to accomodate enough room for its highly original gimmicks. The lava bubbles are clever and excellently placed, great job on recreating the Boo ceiling pretty much perfectly, the POW rock usage is rather creative, and you managed to squeeze all this into a moderate difficulty level that's short, sweet, and to the point. Quite impressive.
Firespike33: 8/10
A fun, original level with what I believe is Earthbound music. The graphics are pretty good, portraying well the theme of a volcano. There were some pretty cool gimmicks like the falling rocks and lava bubbles, and the Dragon Coins required some searching to find. For some reason, there were six, but, unfortunately, I could only find three of them (I’d try to find the rest if I had more time to review levels). Anyway, I wasn’t a big fan of the random power-ups, as they reward you even if you aren’t Super yet, and can potentially make the level too easy (I’m looking at you, Tanooki Suit) but I really liked the rest.
Quill: 8.5/10
Amazing level! The length was perfect and I loved the bubble gimmick in this level! It was simple yet provided a great obstacle that was fair and unique at the same time. There were a few parts where I felt like design was being repeated, but this was minor. The Pow Block gimmick in Section 2 was pretty cool, but sometimes annoying as the bounce would knock you into the lava. Section 4 had a lot of possible places where secrets could be put in if you had flight, that would have been pretty cool to add too! Overall, great level!
Valtteri: 9.5/10
Great job on this level, it's fun to play and pleasant to look at. The part with the Ghosts dropping the lava bubbles is innovative. Other than that it's casual platforming. I enjoyed it.
- castlewars: 8.31/10
OK, I'll just say it now - this level was really fun, and was really intricate as well, considering the player is required to do so much exploring in order to crack the secrets and get the star. What's more, as well as using different sections, I liked the gameplay as well, because it revolves around the unique idea in that the player can use a switch and the entire ground of the section transports to another area, making new paths accessible using the same areas and warps, further extended by the Bob-omb that uses an airship to take the player up to an island at the top of the section, although if the player falls off it will be impossible to collect all the Red Coins and thus the secret star, and as the player progresses the level gets slightly less intricate and slowly condenses down to two paths with switch puzzles. This can prevent the player from getting confused, which is good. The combination of the tilesets was good as well, and it appears to have been used pretty well. However, the SMW pipes don't fit with the SMB3 theme, and there are a few clashy objects in terms of game style here as well.
Chad: 10/10
This level is nothing short of incredible. Having gigantic islands floating in the sky with fully explorable interiors is amazing enough, but you actually turn them into what are essentially enormous vehicles which split and rejoin as you hit switches. It felt like I was navigating a massive tectonic puzzle, like making Smash Bros.' Hyrule Temple stage into multiple islands as one big interlocking machine. The design is incredible to boot, the islands look both natural and grand in terms of construction. Great layouts both inside and out, and the red coins are nicely hidden as well. I honestly feel it deserves a perfect 10, because it's amazing and gives an original, fulfilling gameplay experience. Nothing feels missing or lacking, nothing is poorly executed or buggy, there's nothing in the level that I'd consider a flaw, the length and difficulty are very nice, and the gameplay felt complete. Wonderful job on this.
Firespike33: 8.5/10
This level was nonlinear and had many well-hidden secrets. I also liked the part where floating islands connect with each other, which I haven’t seen much before. The graphics and themes were really good and the whole level was well-designed. My only real complaint is that it’s too easy to get lives. There are loads of coins and I had 14 lives by the end (and I had missed three!). Other than that, I liked it.
Valtteri: 8.5/10
This level uses an original concept, move islands around and connect them to progress. It's really cool but it was executed pretty lamely in my opinion. You didn't really get to do much with the island-moving and the islands were pretty boring, they felt empty and there was no challenge, really. But again, the concept was awesome and even if it felt a bit lazy I still had fun exploring. I'd indicate the places where you have to jump down a pit to progress with coins, I got stuck for a while because I didn't realize first that the pit doesn't lead to my death.
- castlewars: 9.9/10
OK, no words can help me now, in describing the wonder and awe that this level exudes. It's absolutely magnificent and totally above stunning in everything - graphics, music and gimmicks, in which everything is top-notch and stretched to its limit. It's really rare that I've had to give levels perfect 10/10 scores, and just as rare to get even close, because this level is almost flawless in everything, but despite the flaws this level is just stunningly perfect. The level's mixing of many tilesets is so excellent, as is the excellent decoration and decorative background objects inside the tilesets, while it's not looking too artificial - it's far from it. It's perfectly natural and extremely attractive, it's really stunning. This level was not just nonlinear in terms of paths - it was all the sections that were perfectly nonlinear and pipes allow easy movement and get rid of the backtracking, while the gimmicks were very unique, and then at the same time stretched to their absolute limits, such as the glittering mushrooms that provide the player with powerups in a white void. However should the player re-enter the void they are able to navigate in blindness and then they'll die for no reason. Other gimmicks were thrown into the mix as well - cannon pipes, moving platforms - everything thrown into the mix and all stretched to their limits to create a level looking as if DarkYoshi had made it. You deserve these credits, man. I won't be surprised if this level wins.
Chad: 9.5/10
This level feels completely mystical. The theme of the level is amazing, and all of the elements mix together in ways that look incredible. The design and difficulty are impeccable, I don't have anything to complain about in terms of gameplay and structure. Nothing felt lacking, it was a great experience. The enchanted mushrooms are really clever, and it's interesting how their color lets you know what powerup you're getting. However, I think you should just use the background itself for the white flashes. Having the entire level disappear for a moment is a little jarring. Also, the background brick tiles look a little too close to the solid ones, and the cloud platforms blend in with the scenery clouds as well. Still, amazing work on this level.
Firespike33: 8.5/10
A very well-designed level. I like the cloud/ruins/grass themes, and all of the NPCs were well-placed: with the Bill Blasters, I had to pay attention to make sure I didn’t die. There was a difficulty spike near the end, where there were Bullet Bills everywhere, but it wasn’t too hard. I really like how you can stand on mushrooms to get power-ups. The level was pretty typical aside from that, and very long (almost too long) but still high-quality.
One complaint I have is the area near the start blocked off with spiky blocks. You can actually get in, and I was hoping to find a secret under there. I felt trolled. There are other parts of the level with brick walls or scenery that look like they hint at places that can be landed on, but you just fall to your death. That was a bit frustrating. Also, spin-jumping on pipes containing Piranha Plants can get you killed if you’re in a part of the level that moves.
Quill: 8.5/10
What a beautiful level! The design is pretty good and the aesthetics are simply gorgeous. This level is incredibly effective with its atmosphere and that makes the level even more enjoyable. My only complaint is the length. When I reached the checkpoint, I was thinking to myself, "We're only half way through the level?". The level kinda overstayed its welcome in my opinion and didn't introduce anything remotely new in the latter half to make up for that.
Valtteri: 8/10
This is a fun level, althought the concept has been used a million times. It's pretty fun in my opinion, though. The BGOs should probably be darkened, I kept confusing them with the floor/walls. I think the level would look better without the mushrooms, they kind of make it look messy. The moon consists of bigger pixels than the rest of the background which doesn't look very good.
- castlewars: 8.13/10
This is quite an amazing level, if a little bordering on great. The level has some really neat gimmicks such as the Snake Blocks which provide a path for the player to cross over, if a little on the hard side because the player is expected to formulate the path by themselves and the flashing blocks can distract the player from doing this. The background was interesting as well but it hurts my eyes: actually the colours and the moving backgrounds, especially with the Snake Blocks, are a literal eyesore, although the gameplay was interesting, such as in the section with the Skull Switches; the player isn't just going one direction, but having to go forwards and reverse direction as well to access the hidden door, but the problem is that some of the switches' placement inevitably forces the player to get hit by a moving spike, which were an interesting addition. There was a bit of Magikoopa overuse particularly in the penultimate section as well, and as for the boss, it requires the player to be quick as one false move can cost them the level as the spikes keep spawning.
Firespike33: 9/10
Quite a good level. It had an interesting visual theme (chocolate + gray) as well as a cool background and good scenery and aesthetics. There were also some awesome gimmicks like the invisible blocks demonstrated by snake-like trails. The boss was good, too--well-designed, unique, and you felt like you were actually fighting the boss itself. My only complaint would be that I died from trying to spin-jump on a Kamek (I MEAN UM...MAGIKOOPA) and simply bouncing off.
Quill: 9/10
What a brilliant level! This level is nothing but a huge amount of creativity! All the gimmicks are fairly simple, but they're complex at the same time. It's really awesome. The boss was pretty cool too, but he probably could have had a few more attacks. 3 hits would have been more suitable than 4 too in my opinion. Overall, fantastic job!
Valtteri: 9.5/10
This is some trippy level design. Surprisingly, it looks really nice, with all the castle and ghost house tiles in different colors. The background is choppily animated but doesn't actually look all that bad. The level has a chaotic atmosphere and I kind of like it. Gameplay-wise, it's pretty generic and the most interesting gimmicks include pressing switches and half-functional Magikoopas. Although the flashing block trails revealing invisible platforms are pretty useless, they're pretty cool and add up to the weird atmosphere. Overall, it's an enjoyable level.
- Chad: 8.35/10
Awesome level! I really like the cool jungle atmosphere, and all the wooden platforms are nice decoration and design. The rising and falling water is nicely executed and creates a good challenge of timing. This level also uses very strategic placements of Lotuses to make the level tricky, and the ruins half of the level is a great surprise. I'm especially impressed by how you've implemented the Spark generators, they're extremely frequent but still fair. I really like how they literally flood one room the further in it you go, it's a very unique chase sequence that is quite visually convincing. However, it's pretty much imperative that this level be run with frameskip disabled, because Sparks very quickly eat up the performance even with just several on-screen at once. The story twist and ending are clever and silly, though.
Firespike33: 9/10
This level starts out in a swamp, obviously. It has solid design, pretty good aesthetics and minimal clash. The music fits, too. The next section has a cool gimmick where you need to swim in water before it lowers, then wait for it to rise again. At the end there were some Volcano Lotuses or whatever they’re called, meaning you had to run through. The waterfall section was cool, and at one point you get dumped into ruins after collecting the “star.” The ruins were FILLED with the electric owl things (I forget their name) and the saw blade things (I forget their name as well). They were very hard to avoid in the first part, but it was doable. My favorite section had you run from a group of them. It’s kind of weird that you’re rewarded with three 1-UPs after everything, but other than that, I really liked this level.
Quill: 8.5/10
Wow! What an amazing level! It flowed so well and the design was brilliant! I loved how the sparkies was used as an alternate to rising lava as they both forced the player to speed up, it was very creative! The rising water gimmick was neat, but I felt more could have been done with it. It was mainly going from area to area before the tide fell. For me, Section 7 felt a little overkill with the enemies and it could have been longer too, especially if you're playing that amazing music. Overall, great level!
Valtteri: 10/10
Amazing. What a fun level. The Spark chase thing was very creative, and I thought it was great how Mario ate Toad for revenge. I died when the water in that one section went down quickly. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, I should have seen it coming. And sometimes it just seemed inevitable that I would get hit by the Sparks. But overall, it's a great level and is constructed beautifully as well.
