LP's/Reviews (requests open!)

[halibabica]

If this isn't the right spot for this or there's a better place for it on the forums, please let me know.

'sup, I'm halibabica. You may remember me as the lead dev of Yoshi's Archipelago and some older episodes that aren't worth a mention. I never had much presence in the SMBX community, but I played a lot of episodes in the past and had a good time with it. This year, I started an SMBX segment on my YouTube channel (as if there wasn't enough video coverage for SMBX already). I take requests from developers for what I play, and I'll also review and draw some terrible fanart for each episode as well. I'll try any level or episode, doesn't matter how old or new, popular or infamous, easy or hard, demo or complete; if you had a hand in making it, you can request me to play it. I go by first come/first serve, so there's no limit to requests, but there may be a line to wait in.

So go ahead, request your SMBX project today!

Queue:
amattson7919's Star Chasing
Ness-Wednesday's Temperate Unearthly Biome

Done

Spoiler: show

The Princess Cliche 1.2
The Invasion
DRACalgar Law's Epic Fights
Darkonius Mavakar's Delightful Adventure: Enhanced
CodeX's Mario and the Frozen Forge
Alagirez's Exit This Earth's Atmosphere
Shinbison-Kof's Super Mario Signal Interference
DRACalgar Law's Realm of Nihility

[DRACalgar Law]

Welcome back!

There has been tons of emergence of many custom assets, projects (episodes / levels), and others. I hope you were doing great back then!

Also, if you meant taking requests from creators of such episodes, think you can try my boss rush featuring many bosses made with LunaLua: viewtopic.php?t=29035

[Waddle]

You gotta play Betterified VI.

Pinnacle of SMBX in many ways, quoth my biased mind.

[halibabica]

You gotta play Betterified VI.

Did you help to make it, though? Part of the reason I restrict it to dev requests is to avoid a request explosion.

Either way, I've been watching Alexander the Pretty Good play that episode, so I'll still take it if it's requested, but it won't exactly be new to me. It's certainly impressive.

[halibabica]

I see things move a mile a minute around here. Well, as an example of what I have going on, here's a review I wrote for The Princess Cliche 1.2:

-----

If you would like me to LP/review a level or episode you made, feel free to ask! My queue accepts all takers, so long as it is your own project.

Full Let's Play

The Princess Cliché 1.2 is one of the oldest SMBX episodes, second only to the original version of The Invasion. It was made by Redigit as a short scenario showing off the program’s features, though this version came later and included some minor changes. Since certain items and mechanics didn’t exist at the time it was initially made, the update included some extras like the special suits and Yoshi types, along with custom music from Mario RPG and a new design for the final fight. Apart from those, it’s mostly the same as it was, and downright quaint compared to the program’s capabilities now.

Let’s Talk About Assets!

It should be no surprise that it only uses the stock graphics from SMBX, therefore featuring a mix of aesthetics from the SNES era of Mario. It’s not the most elegant use of these tiles at times, but it gets the job done and tends not to clash. That’s break even, as far as I’m concerned, so it looks fine.

Let’s Talk About Writing!

There isn’t much to it, not that a Mario game needs anything elaborate. The original had Peach inviting Mario over for cake, and this was revised to Daisy later so Peach could be playable. When you reach her castle, you find out she was kidnapped by Bowser because of course she was. Arriving at his keep, you’re taunted at the door for needing stars to enter, though they call them star pieces in keeping with the slight Mario RPG theming. The rest of the story is straightforward and obvious from there.

Outside of the main plot, there are a couple NPC towns where you see Toads with silly dialogue. Hardly anything mind-blowing, but it’s the tried and true Mario formula and doesn’t betray the genre.

Let’s Talk About Design!

The episode is very short, requiring only 10 stars to enter the final fight and having very few worlds to explore for them. There are some small secrets hidden about, but even with these, you can clear the whole thing in under an hour. It’s generally easy and not too stingy with power-ups. Some levels are less traditional in their gimmicks, adding a nice bit of variety to it. If anything, the conclusion is disproportionately hard compared to the rest.

The final battle used to be handled much differently. It was against SMB3 Bowser in a lengthy room studded with pipes in the floor which produced ice blocks. You had to run around grabbing and throwing these at him to defeat him, which took 20 hits to do, and Yoshi was a big help. In the new version, Yoshi gets filtered and your only source of ammo is two chasing paratroopas. Between these changes and the stage providing no power-ups, it’s brutal to attempt without bringing in hammer suits. Bowser and his minions are quick and unpredictable, so trying to wrangle 20 chasing paratroopas while dodging Bowser’s ground pounds and fireballs is a miserable chore. At least if Yoshi were included, you could nab them more easily and have a recoverable hit point, but alas.

That’s my only serious gripe with the episode, though. The rest may not be that inspiring, but it’s inoffensive at worst and makes for a brief and pleasant romp.

Let’s Wrap This Up…

Dated episodes like this really show their age with how far SMBX has come, but for old schoolers like me, they’re nostalgic in their own way, just like how they deliver nostalgia for the Mario days of yore. It’s not great by modern standards, but you can certainly do worse for a short trip in this game. Just make sure you grab some hammer suits and save outside the castle before you try to rescue Daisy.

3/5


I replaced Mario with Pauline. Deal with it.

[Darkonius Mavakar]

oh you should definitely check Delightful Adventure: Enhanced!

it's a rework of the original mario and luigi's delightful adventure episode from 2014, but this time it's with lua and so on

[halibabica]

If you would like me to LP/review a level or episode you made, feel free to ask! My queue accepts all takers, so long as it is your own project.

Full Let’s Play

The Invasion is the 1st SMBX episode ever created. No, not The Invasion 2; this is the original version from the program’s infancy, available with legacy copies of SMBX. Being from a time so far gone, it really shows its age and just how far SMBX has come, if only for all the things it lacks.

Let’s Talk About Assets!

All default SMBX stuff, meaning graphics and music from SNES Mario All-Stars & World, plus the occasional rogue non-Mario BGM. Only so many of the tiles and NPCs had been included at the time, so the available resources were stretched threadbare across the 50 or so stages. Nostalgia is all it has going for it, though the visual consistency and theming is at least coherent.

Let’s Talk About Writing!

There isn’t any. They either hadn’t implemented text boxes yet or didn’t use them. I doubt Redigit would have left out a feature if it existed, so my guess is the former. Anyway, what can be construed of the plot is that Bowser sent his forces to invade on too many airships and tanks, so the Mario Bros. put a stop to that nonsense. Classic. At least some of the stages have funny names.

Let’s Talk About Design!

As has been exemplified by the various iterations of Betterified, The Invasion is not an especially great episode. By far, it suffers the most from a lack of checkpoints, as many of the levels are too long and spammy with foes to have the player take it from the top every time they die. Never mind that SMBX was traditionally set such that the player dies in two hits like the original Mario, instead of anything more sensible from later in the series. While it’s not particularly hard, it is unforgiving. It’s easy to fault the episode for this now, but this was before checkpoints were even included.

Apart from that major drawback, the other big issue is the lack of variety, which was also due to so few inclusions in the program. A light smattering of SMB2 & 3 monsters are all they had to work with, and as mentioned, they were stretched as far as possible. Redigit tried to make the most of it, like making Shy Stacks that waver crazily, but there’s just no saving it. The clever bits are diluted with too much bland Mario schlock.

The lack of variety especially hurts the boss fights, as all but the finale are against Boom-Boom or Birdo. With the former of those being such a basic opponent, their only solution was to have fights against 3+ of them, which creates its own problems. Boom-Boom’s behavior is slightly randomized, meaning they get out of sync with each other, shell sliding and jumping at different intervals and bouncing off each other. This makes groups of them a lot less predictable, increasing the likelihood of taking hits, dying, and having to repeat the entire stage prior. Meanwhile, Birdo has the opposite problem: it’s so slow and predictable that dying is your own clumsy fault and there’s no challenge to be had.

Outside of the basic platforming issues, it’s also a chore to fully complete this episode as it has a large number of secret exits which aren’t flagged on the map. Red level icons weren’t included back then, so it’s a tossup which levels have secrets and which don’t. It’s not a necessity to find every path, but if you’re the completionist type, you may go slightly mad looking for missing paths when your only clue of where not to look is if the path placement makes further exits impossible, and the secrets are inscrutable enough to be literal leaps of faith.

And don’t get me started about pwnhammer and the Clown Car stages.

Let’s Wrap This Up…

The original Invasion was supplanted for a reason. Not saying The Invasion 2 is a spectacular upgrade, but most of the old version’s problems are due to the program’s early development phase. There were a lot less features and options. There was only so much they could do. It would’ve been wiser to design around the program’s limitations rather than in spite of them, but later inclusions and expanded capabilities only go to show how hindsight reveals these weaknesses. If anything, it’s a wonder it worked as well as it did. Let’s just be thankful those days are far behind us and SMBX is capable of so much more now.

2/5


Anger is the correct emotion to feel.

Next Up: Epic Fights

Queue:
Delightful Adventure: Enhanced

[DRACalgar Law]

Looking forward to an image correlating to my episode.

[halibabica]

Epic Fights Review: The Importance of Patterns



The LP of Delightful Adventure: Enhanced is already under way. That queue's still open, so you know!

[halibabica]

Delightful Adventure: Enhanced Review: The Only Problem Is There Isn't More of It

[Alagirez]

If you still have requests on, I would like to request my CCX4 level "Exit This Earth's Atmosphere".
You can find the level here.

[Shinbison-Kof]

Hey, it's interesting!

Here is my old minisode(2020)

viewtopic.php?t=25734

[halibabica]

Mario and the Frozen Forge Review: It's Like a Retro Mario 64

[halibabica]

Exit This Earth's Atmosphere Mini-Review: A Stage Where You Go Up



I'ma give singular stages mini reviews and mini pics since they're almost inevitably one-offs.

[DRACalgar Law]

Mind if you try iut my Realm of Nihility level I made for a MFGG Level Design Contest #1. viewtopic.php?t=28894

[halibabica]

Signal Interference Review: Mario's High-Tech Trouble

[amattson7919]

Hey, since your queue's empty, want to take on my "Star Chasing" episode next? I'm honestly terrified of what you might say about it, especially given my levels' contest performance, but I would like to see how someone other than myself interacts with it.

viewtopic.php?p=393703#p393703

[Ness-Wednesday]

Requesting my level Temperate Unearthly Biome. I recommend playing it in beta 4 as I haven't tested it in beta 5 yet

[halibabica]

Realm of Nihility Mini-Review: Alien Landscape