In Detail...
The player starts in a section with the SMB2 cloud background and a tileset made from the SMB2 grass sizable (Valtteri!). The large slopes look really weird. The music used is the SMB2 overworld theme. There's that weird bird door guy in the far left, I'm going to suppose it's where you came from. You can stand on him and look really weird because it looks like your character is flying. The bird dude is sitting on the side of a wall made of a SMB2 tower (or is it a castle? idk) tileset with an Ace Coin on top of it. I guess you can get there peacefully if you're Luigi, but I'm using Mario so I'll have to find another way. Guess what, there's a pink Shy Guy (Valtteri!) standing on a sizable farther away! If you're not dumb, you might have deduced what you're supposed to do to get that Ace Coin. Just grab the Shy Guy and throw it at the bird guy so you can stand on it and jump to the top of the wall and take the Ace Coin. To the left of the pink Shy Guy's sizable there's another sizable (right above the initial spawn point) with some grass you pull stuff from and two cherries. You can pull a heart-shaped vegetable (Valtteri!) and a normal weaponized vegetable.
Let's go farther! There's the first hole of the level right here, with a tower/castle tileset forming a three-block height stairway to the bottomless pit. In the next platform there's two Bob-ombs you can just jump through and let fall in the bottomless pit. There's also a downside slope that's connected really weirdly to the other grass tiles. Advancing, there's a cherry, a tower/castle stairway, a Tweeter and a green Snifit (Valtteri!) on top of a tower/castle two-block height stairway that leads to another bottomless pit and some sizables. This part was fun: there's some SMB2 styled SMW black Ninjis (Valtteri!) running through the sizables, leading to larger sizables. There's a tall sizable above another sizable (fuck how many sizables are there) with a green Snifit standing on it, and you need a running start to get up on it (which was a bit annoying). Going further on the sizables I pull a POW block from some grass (that makes no sense but this is mario) and throw it on a Tweeter's head. This specific sizable has a lot of Tweeter that look like they're on a straight line: it's like Valtteri just felt like putting a straight line of just Tweeters on a sizable were enough. It's not really bad, but complaining is fun! Anyway, it looks like we're climbing a mountain. There's a lot of sizables on top of sizables that are on top of other sizables now. The largest sizable around has only two Shy Guys on it: Valtteri needed to put some enemies here so it didn't feel empty. This is the biggest problem on making a mountain out of a bunch of sizables. There's some smaller sizables and a vine. Going up we meet some Snifits standing on clouds and get to the end of the vine. From there we jump on a cloud with a pink Shy Guy on them, and then into a cloud with a black Ninji on it. Now, above this Ninji's cloud is a cloud with a Tweeter on it. To get to that cloud you need a running start before you jump. This isn't a problem when you're Luigi but for a Mario player this is annoying. After the Tweeter cloud we jump down onto a pink Snifit (Valtteri!) cloud that has a bridge glued to its right side leading to THE GOLDEN PALACE. The door has a really nice frog block on top of it edited from the SMB2 Bob-omb block. Also, you'd think there's something on top of THE GOLDEN PALACE but there isn't. Don't worry.
We enter the palace...
Some white light is covering Mario and it's one of those horrible transparent SMBX graphics. There's a Bob-omb going right at you, and in the left side there's a mushroom block wall with some dark SMB2 breakable bricks. The bricks can't be broken. Oooooh! Secrets! Going ahead there's another Bob-omb and a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt pushes you to the left and it leads to a small platform with a vase above it. The vase is a Bob-omb warp. The small platform is just a bridge between the conveyor belt that pushes you left and the conveyor belt that pushes you to the right. After this conveyor belt there's a bottomless pit and you have to jump into another conveyor belt (also pushing you to the right). There's some Shy Guys here, and spike pits with SMB2-flower-guys-that-spit-fire standing on them. After the spike pits there's a really weird stairway that looks really good when you climb down it, but you're supposed to be climbing up and the player climbs it just on the stance sprite and really slowly (Valtteri!). I know I'm bad at explaining it, but hey, I just gave you a (shitty) reason to play the level!
Going up that nightmare stairway leads you to some cross-shaped platform with spark guys (idk who they are) moving around. The last cross has some large slopes and THE NIGHTMARE STAIRWAY in it, housing a black Ninji and a green Snifit. Then there's some small platform with pink Shy Guys and green Snifits leading to a chain with a ladybug climbing it. After climbing the chain, you have to jump into a zero-shaped platform (the percentage of testing Valtteri must have gone through to make THE NIGHTMARE STAIRWAY work) with a pink Shy Guy and a pink Snifit. Inside there's a Tweeter you will never kill. Then there's a wall separating two parts of THE GOLDEN PALACE with a door that connects the two. There is no purpose for the door other than look cool. There's a mushroom block wall blocking (lol) the way to a door, and going further there's some spark guy platforms above a spike pit. Then there's a pink Snifit platform above another platform with an Ace Coin. It's not really hard to take the Ace Coin, but if you're not paying attention you'll fall into the spike pit. After that you go into another platform (housing a black Ninji) and slide down into THE GOLDEN PALACE, with a pink Shy Guy platform, and further down, mushroom block bridges. But it turns out the mushroom blocks replace the shiny blue SMB3 bricks! What a plot twist!
The top mushroom block bridge has a normal red Shy Guy on it.
The second mushroom block bridge has a red Snifit on it.
The third mushroom block bridge has a giant red Shy Guy on it.
The bottom mushroom block bridge has a Tweeter on it.
After going down, you face some enemies and reach a spike pit. There's a flaming flower dude on the spike pit, and you have to jump over it while avoiding flaming flower dude's fireballs to escape to safer ground where there's another flaming flower dude. Going further there's a conveyor belt above another spike pit with a black Ninji. The conveyor belt pushes you left, but the black Ninji barely feels it because he's hyperactive and jumping all the time. There's another conveyor belt with a black Ninji on it, this time the belt pushes you to the right. Then there's a taller conveyor belt with a pink Snifit pushing you left, a conveyor belt with a pink Shy Guy pushing you right, and a conveyor belt with a green Snifit pushing you left. Then there's some blocks and a NIGHTMARE STAIRWAY. Thankfully you don't have to take THE NIGHTMARE STAIRWAY. There's a door on the left, but there's also a door on the right. Which one do you take?
The door on the right takes you to a fun section. It takes place outside. There's a mushroom on the far right, but it's inside a bubble. There's a Tweeter and a green Snifit on the ground, and a vine that takes you to the clouds with a giant pink Shy Guy, a normal pink Shy Guy, a green Snifit, a ladybug, a pink Snifit, another green Snifit and a flaming flower dude along the way. It takes five blows to burst the bubble so you can take the mushroom. Keep climbing up and you'll find a door that takes to another area of THE GOLDEN PALACE. In this area, there's a lot of bottomless pits and disconnected platforms. The first platform has a vase warping Bob-ombs. The second platform is a spark guy platform. After that there's a conveyor belt pushing you to the right and some Bob-ombs. Above this conveyor belt is a platform with a wall of giant mushroom blocks standing on a conveyor belt, but this conveyor belt is turned off! What you have to do is go to the far right of the area and hit a blue question mark block to turn the conveyor belt on and move the mushroom blocks out of the way. Then you'll face a really big vase that warps giant red Shy Guys. Then there's a door leading you to another area, with lots of turn on/off conveyor belts and giant mushroom blocks and BLAH. Somewhere you'll find a potion that leads to Subspace (Valtteri!), and Subspace looks FUCKING HORRIBLE because Valtteri had to simulate the Subspace effect by putting transparent BGOs all over. It also lags a fucking lot because the BGOs are all over (Valtteri!). Now, before you enter Subspace, there's some dark mushroom blocks blocking your path in the bottom of the section. When you enter Subspace, these dark blocks are gone! Ooooh! So that's what the dark blocks are about! We enter the small hole with the dark blocks and meet a fire-spitting Birdo (the fire took me by surprise because the ugly BGOs make Birdo black). There's two mushroom blocks in front of an Ace Coin. We use the mushroom blocks to kill Birdo and grab the Ace Coin. Birdo's death makes the ceiling explode, letting us jump at a blue ? block to turn some conveyor belts on and move those fucking giant mushroom blocks.
Getting back to our Mario dimension, the mushroom blocks get out of the way and we can enter a door. The door takes us outside with a green Snifit greeting us on a cloud. After throwing the Snifit at a bottomless pit, we climb some vines and there's some ladybugs coming down, and up, and whatever, Valtteri thinks everyone can do crazy stunts to dodge ladybugs. Going up we grab some grass from the ground and pull a ROCKET from under the ground. Mario! The ROCKET takes us to the roof, where a Tweeter and a black Ninji await us. Turns out there's a lot of roofs (WHAT THE FUCK?), each with their own sets of lots of enemies of the same species (notice something here?). We get back inside, grab a heart, and Ace Coin and avoid some spark guys. Then we climb up a chain and are greeted to two paths: left and right.
In the left side we can get an Ace Coin by climbing a chain and going to a platform in the right. Getting back to the chain we climb up some more and reach a lot of conveyor belts with spark guys. They lead us to some slope platforms (some with THE NIGHTMARE STAIRWAY) that go down back into ground level and to a locked door. Oooh! Don't jump into the locked door. Instead, go to the far right and climb down the chain. You'll fight a black Birdo (Valtteri!) that gives you a key when dead. If you go near the key, a Phanto in the room starts shining and then chases you. There's a door that takes you back to where you were, so you can just take the key and open the door.
The door takes us to a room with a bird door guy with his door-mouth open, a mushroom trapped in a bubble and some veggies. When going inside the door-mouth, we end up in the other side of the wall, and there's a larger room with a crystal ball. The crystal ball doesn't end the level, you're supposed to grab it so you can fight bird door guy! That's why there's a vase spawning mushroom blocks. When you kill bird door guy, the level doesn't end. No, you have to endure more because this is a long Valtteri level! Instead a door appears leading you to laggy Subspace. When in Subspace, two doors appear.
The left door takes you outside, and then you can get out of Subspace. There's a pillar separating our platform from the rest of the level, but two doors uniting the two parts. Entering the door, we go down a REALLY FUCKING LONG pipe and it goes all the way down to... the beginning of the level! The humanity of it all!
The right door takes you to the first room of THE GOLDEN PALACE, but in Subspace version! We finally break those bricks, but there's a pillar instead of mushroom blocks.
You thought the left door was meaningless, didn't you? But it makes things easier after what we did on the right door (if Valtteri made us go all the way back, I'd seriously stop writing this review and go straight to a 0 rating). Back to the beginning, we go all the way to the first room of THE GOLDEN PALACE and go through that hidden door. There's a heart and we go a medium-long way to THE GREAT WART. You know the drill here. Take veggies, throw at Wart's open mouth, blah. After we kill him, a door appears and it takes us to a room with a closed vase. It opens and reveals a star. End of level! Finally.
In General...
This is a long level, but not as long as everyone makes it look like. I didn't explore the level. I didn't go through all passages, all the paths, collected every cherry, maybe I'll do that next time. But I can form an opinion from this first run. The level isn't too hard, but it's not too easy either. Valtteri intended for this to play like a level that could have been in SMB2, and he succeeded. It really feels like it belongs in SMB2 (if it doesn't don't blame me because i never played smb2), with all the features Valtteri put here like Subspace, the rocket and bird door guy. But it's not a perfect level.
First, the enemy placement is pretty pattern driven. There's a lot of platforms with groups of a single enemy species moving on a line, or just a single enemy in a platform. This is understandable in the first section's mountain because of how the sizables had to get larger and larger but that's not an excuse. Also, the dark BGOs in Subspace look really ugly and they lag a lot (I thought Subspace was underwater when Mario started moving slowly). It would be easier to replace all blocks with pitch black stuff. That's all I can complain about.
Overall Rating: 7/10 stars
Above average, but still not perfect. Valtteri's Golden Palace is a good level, and it will keep you coming back to know everything the level has to offer.
congratulations Valtteri!