Ninji Hills V.2

[KBM-Quine]

since I've remodeled the level and it's been a while since the other topic was active, I posted it in a new topic.
I've added three new sections(two of which are just the inside of a jar), redistributed the coins and ace coins, and changed the boss.


New

Spoiler: show

Big screen (don't look if you don't want to know what the boss is)

Spoiler: show

old

Spoiler: show

[silent_]

You waited long enough; here's a review. By the way, this covers the new version and the new version only.

This was a short SMB2 level which actually resembled the original game very well. I liked the hawk mouth at the end and how it worked with events. However, while the checkpoint could have been a unique and original idea, when you died and started back at it, you were actually in the ground, making you permanently stuck. Also, personally, you could have added some more scenery in the underground section. Trees would be a good start. Speaking of the second section, by the way, there was a cut-off in between the vines and the ceiling. Perhaps make a vine piece replace a background object so you can fix that. Other than that, section two is fantastic, and is probably better than section one overall due to its intricate enemy placement, good variety despite BGOs, and non-tedious vine jumping. As for section one, anyways, it doesn't have much of a variety of enemies, besides Ninjis all with different behaviors, and it lacks coins at certain parts as well. More power-ups for it would be nice too.

This level's secrets were okay, but a bit too easy to obtain, and on that matter, unrewarding. The secret exit wasn't very rewarding, honestly, for a start. I mean you could have had the locked door lead to a star, not just to the end of the level like that. As for the other secrets, the Dragon Coins (which looked awesome, honestly; they were very nicely designed to fit a SMB2 atmosphere) were placed a bit hardly and I found myself just ignoring them after getting the first two and not willing to risk my life over a collectible so pointless. To conclude this paragraph, I think you could have made the vases leading to the bonus areas harder to find. They're both just in an open area, like you didn't even care where you placed them; you just placed them.

I liked the atmosphere for this level, and as said earlier, it resembled SMB2 extraordinarily well, and even brought some nostalgia. However, since the level didn't feel like or look like night at all, I would consider choosing a daytime background. Alternatively, you could give the level a more night feel and keep the background. Otherwise, the level was aesthetically great besides the second section which had no BGOs (I mentioned that earlier, though). Great work.

About the boss, it was okay, but if you grabbed the mushroom hidden in the veggie, you could hit Mouser with that same mushroom infinitely until he died. Pretty gamebreaking, honestly. Also, you should make it more obvious that you're supposed to grab and let go of the orb once the boss is dead, because I found myself wondering what in the actual fuck to do for a while.

Overall, this was a pretty good level, but it had several bugs and lots of flaws which brought your score down. 6.5.