Wario Land 1 + 2 (Poll)

[Lunar Chris]

Wario Land 1

https://www.mediafire.com/file/2bs5xj8s ... o_Land.rar

Wario Land 2 (Expanded Edition in the works)

http://www.mediafire.com/download/waka6 ... Land+2.zip

[Keddy]

Are these completed episodes, if there's a two the one is most likely done, and two seems to be finished as well...

[Lunar Chris]

Are these completed episodes, if there's a two the one is most likely done, and two seems to be finished as well...

They are complete. I just couldn't find a completed projects sub-forum

[Chill Pingu]

http://www.smbxgame.com/forums/v ... m.php?f=36

[Keddy]

Joey mentioned something about this earlier. You can't post in the episodes, it has to be posted in level submissions and then moved to episodes.

[FallingSnow]

I went ahead and moved it for you. And yes, you create episode topics in level submissions, and if they're of high enough quality, they're moved to the episodes forum.

[MarioWizzerd]

I like this episodes.I like very much Wario Land 2.And Golden Bowser instead of Golden Diva.Good idea and Good job.

[icemario12]

Kinda good, really. Can you do a WL3 featuring Wario skills from SML3? Just asking, as Wario's fighting skills can really bring a nostalgic feel to it.

[Imaynotbehere4long]

Since this topic has two episodes, both of my reviews are in this post.

AND NOW, MY REVIEW OF

...wait, wrong game. Why did you name your episode after an already existing game? Wouldn't it make more sense for you to try to make your episode stand out? Whatever.

AND NOW, MY REVIEW OF WARIO LAND 1:

Okay, so this episode's biggest problem is its hub(s) (...okay, second biggest). Not only did you forget to add ".lvl" to the end of the Auto Start Level's file-name, meaning the player has to start at the start point of the hub each time he/she dies or beats a level, but the hub is separated between multiple levels, meaning that even if it weren't for your file-name error, the player would still be sent back to the "main" hub and have to go through the sub-hubs each time. Were you really that strapped for tiles and backgrounds to sprite-swap that you just had to make separate levels for the sub-hubs? I doubt it.

Even with that large selection of tiles to choose from, you still made mistakes with which backgrounds to use:

Spoiler: show

Also, why are the worlds themed if their levels don't all follow that same theme? You might as well just stick each level in the same room in the "main" hub with their background decorations beside them since each level has a different theme than the previous one. It's also annoying that I have to run across the entire "main" hub in order to get to the next world; hubs and maps should provide quick access to the next level.

Anyway, the levels. First, world 1 (obviously):

Spoiler: show

The cookies can be frozen...

...and you didn't replace their death effect. In fact, there were a bunch of NPCs whose death effects weren't sprite swapped.

So...where are these waterfalls coming from?

This pink-bright green stripe swap is a bit of an eyesore.

Also, you shouldn't make the player go through what is basically the exact same section twice because it's incredibly boring and tedious. This is why Cold Cubes didn't do well in CC8.

That part on the left is also quite tedious because all you're making me do is run back and forth on a flat plane, with an occasional projectile. On top of removing the extra half of padding that this level has, you should also remove that part of the level entirely.

The annoying thing about these sharks is that, not only do they have jumphurt=1, you also gave them the "jump" AI, which means they will launch themselves at the player, often without warning, and their width makes it almost guaranteed to hit the player.

This part is also just running back and forth, and should be removed or replaced.

The world 1 boss is quite tedious, as all it is is a stationary Mother Brain sprite-swap, two Rinka generators, and a bomb generator. It's still more difficult than the other world bosses because all they are are sprite swaps of preprogrammed AIs with hardly anything in their rooms. Also, 1x1 pixel clash.

World 2:

Spoiler: show

Why did you put an invisible wall here? Wouldn't it make more sense to have the section boundary there, and put the star in a third section?

Dark palettes shouldn't be used because it makes it difficult to see enemies, even if they're in "light." (actually, I think that makes them harder to see)

Two things: 1) Forcing the player to backtrack to a key generator every few seconds isn't fun (not only that, but you also used the super-repetitive SMB3 castle theme, making it even more annoying). 2) You forgot to recolor the Para-Goomba's effect.

Also, overlapping the foreground images over each other causes issues like this:

This part is just boring. The egg sprite swaps are too high to damage me while standing on the ground (they only damage me if I'm standing on the NPC), and the only way I can damage him is by waiting on a jumphurt=1(?!) SMB2 bomb sprite swap generator. At first, I thought I could just bypass this, but there was an invisible(?!) wall blocking me, and I ended up getting killed.

Also, if you're going to make it look like I have to jump across these propeller Goombas, give some sort of warning that I can't actually jump on them normally.

These Yoshi cars are annoying because they move just fast enough to prevent the bombs from generating, making this part take way longer than it needs to.

When I get the star, a visible wall appears...why?

Time for more background/foreground confusion:

Speaking of backgrounds, you missed a spot:

World 3: In the first level, you had a skull-raft area where you put a Blaarg right under a pipe, making it nigh impossible to avoid.

Spoiler: show

NO. DON'T DO THIS. EVER. IT'S NO FUN.

When you give the player a propeller block, you might want to make sure it can't be used to jump over ceilings.

I CAN SEE THE PLATFORM THERE, THANKYOUVERYMUCH.

It was around this time that I realized none of your levels have midpoints. WHY??? This just means that the player has to play through pretty much the entire level again if he/she dies (on top of having to re-traverse the hub as mentioned before). If they wouldn't work, fix the hub as described above, and they will work.

That wall moves slowly. You should just move it to that height so I don't have to hit a switch that's right there in order to proceed.

You also didn't sprite swap the watermelon's effect. If I'm not mistaken, Galoomba Plains by Darkonius fixes this error (it's his SMWCX level).

World 4:

Spoiler: show

Well, that's kinda lazy. You could just give them nogravity=1 if you really want them to float, since this is just a hub.

I'm not sure if you know this, but propeller blocks don't get killed by lava. It would probably be better to have them fall into a pit. Also, why are these propeller blocks friendly when there's a normal one in a ? block right after this part?

...which can subsequently be used to bypass your annoying invisible walls...

...and other stuff.

This level was super annoying, and it's all because of your spikes sprite-swapping Thwomps. There's absolutely no way for the player to react fast enough when spikes come raining down, mainly because the player has to move upward most of the time (they were okay when moving downward). Here are just a couple of examples of your spikes' nonsense:


Back and forth and back and forth an...zzzzz...

You really should tell the player that the Paratroopa is friendly, or make it invisible.

OH WHAT THE CRAP THERE WAS NO WAY I CAN POSSIBLY DODGE THOSE SPIKES!!!

Unlike other levels, where there were a few death effects that weren't sprite swapped, House of Mystery has NO death effects swapped (I checked). Here are just a few examples:




Also, why make the player run aaaaaaall the way back to the door after hitting a switch? Why not just put a door at the end that leads back, but block it until the player hits the switch.

By performing a running jump, it is possible to jump over your Bob-omb generators.

You should also sprite swap the SMB2 red door's effect so that those doors won't open when entering this level

All right, on to the other stuff:

Spoiler: show

You shouldn't make the player re-fight all of the bosses again. It's not like this is Mega Man and you have new powers to use, and it's not like there's anything different being done with them; in fact, they're actually easier to fight here (except the first one, which is just as tedious as ever).

The last level is extremely annoying and tedious on multiple counts. First of all, you make the level's entrance a door warp instead of a streamlined start point.

While not as bad as anything else in this level, the ? blocks only give out mushrooms, even though I'm already super, and that's just annoying.

Next, the boss fight doesn't begin automatically upon entering the boss room; rather, I have to hit this switch, wait a few seconds, then it begins.

Lastly, and most importantly, your final boss fight is awful. Remember when I said that the poorly constructed hub was the second worst thing in this episode? This is the worst. For starters, upon defeating the Koopa-Clown-Car phase, which only takes one hit, an SMB3 Bowser sprite swap falls from the center of the room (you didn't even attach the Lakitu sprite-swap form of Bowser to it), which is unexpected, and I ended up taking an unfair hit the first time. Second, the section has "Level Wrap" set to "On," meaning if Bowser shoots a flame horizontally, it will be a permanent obstacle until he's defeated (but there are no blocks outside of the level boundary to prevent the mushrooms from falling off-screen). Finally, the only way to defeat this incarnation of the SMB3 Bowser is to throw mecha-koopas at him, but they're on a slow generator, and Bowser can easily kill them by stomping them or jumping at them. Eventually, I couldn't take the tedium anymore and activated cheats to win. What's my reward for beating this boss? The default credits; nothing more.

IN CONCLUSION
This is a pretty bad episode, but the flaws should be easy enough to fix to make it salvageable.

--EDIT--
So...what was the plot of this episode?

AND NOW, MY REVIEW OF WARIO LAND 2:

Well, if nothing else, this has a better hub than the first one since each section of the hub is in one level. You still forgot to put ".lvl" at the end (and thus the backtracking problem is still present), making me wonder if you made these episodes before Metroid X. However, I did like some of your clever level names, like "Fungus Among Us" and "Snow Time."

Spoiler: show

There's also some avoidable cutoff with your tiles; just pair each cutoff tile with the one that matches it, and these should be fine.

I also noticed that you tried to use txt codes for effect sprites. I'm just saying that you don't have to do that.

Anyway, the levels. Once again, world 1 is first:

Spoiler: show

I'm not a very big fan of large, pixelated sprites, so I recommend that you replace them with a sprite similar to the mushroom houses (without any house features, of course).

Here's something that seems to be a trademark of your episodes: forgetting to swap the effect sprite.


This is something you do frequently that I find annoying: at first, it appears like there's nothing there, but there's actually an invisible wall blocking the player's path. Why not just use a normal, visible wall instead?

The concept of having blocks disappear for a few seconds was kinda neat, but it was also underdeveloped and not warned about. When introducing a gimmick in your episode, you should make sure to do it away from hazards so the player can get a feel for what the gimmick does. Also, it looks awkward that the bottom tip of the reeds shines in reverse of the main stem. Maybe you could make another background sprite swap with an upside-down reed-stem?

So, when I began this level, there was a Dino-Rhino generator over that way, and the dinos themselves move pretty quickly. I think what you were trying to do was make it so the player has to run to the left, but it's pretty easy to just jump over them, or have Yoshi eat them.

Also, why are the NPCs on these supposed dino runs friendly (except for the Erie sprite swaps)?

You accidentally used a foreground object instead of a background object here (and in a few other places in similarly styled levels).

For as much of the background image that isn't onscreen, you could probably scale this back to 2x2 pixels (maybe move the graphic up a bit because the lava would be covering up the missing part of the background) and I wouldn't have noticed anything wrong with it.

World 2:

Spoiler: show

It can be difficult to tell these doughnut-block sprite swaps apart from the normal bricks because they almost look exactly like some of the normal bricks. I recommend darkening the bottom part of the doughnut-block sprite swaps as well. There's also a poorly resized pyramid in the background.

This part was unintuitive, especially having played your other episodes first. Normally, the pots are blocks, and you only used the flames as a background image. Here, the flames are lava sprite swaps, and the pots are background images! I didn't notice this until after I got killed by them. You should at least provide some sort of warning that the tiles that look like blocks are actually background images. Plus, each time you use this obstacle, it is entirely possible to jump over it without the use of a Racoon Leaf or Tanooki Suit.

No Rex effect swap.

I used the racoon tail to whip one of the Koopas out of its shell, and this happened:

You really shouldn't leave out checkpoints from your levels. I played through most of Piranha Panic multiple times because I'd always die near the end and have to redo the whole level over again (not to mention run through the hub again). I ended up getting sick of the "jungle" theme because of that level (and the fact that it was used for another level afterward made me even more disappointed).

Poisonshroom was a bit annoying to fight. The intro was kinda neat, but I had to sit through it each time I died, so it got annoying quickly. Also, his head is round, so I was surprised to find out he had jumphurt=1. Plus, the Galoomba generators felt pretty slow to me.

World 3:

Spoiler: show

Two things: first, when I hit the ? block, the propeller block got caught in the tiles and fell down to where it is now. I recommend moving the ceiling a bit higher to prevent this. Second, not all of Wario's frames are swapped correctly. Here, you can see that he still has the same hands and shoes as Mario (there are quite a few other frames like this, and it's not just limited to super Wario)

Here, you warp the player right in front of one of those Dino-Rhino generators without warning, and I got hit before I could react to them.

You also didn't swap their effect sprites.

This pipe is misleading. Couldn't you have a smaller ledge for the player to jump on instead of having them go into a pipe to get back here? Couldn't you simply not require a Racoon Leaf for the jump in the first place?

Okay, there's a wall here. What am I supposed to do?

Oh, there was a P-Switch in an invisible block the whole time. Again, you shouldn't put required items in invisible blocks; that's just unintuitive.

In this level, the fish have been recolored green, but not their effects.


Regarding your medieval levels, it is entirely possible to have Yoshi eat the Armos Knights.

The reason this boss is annoying is because everything is off-sync. The bomb is generated but you can't grab it because there are Rinkas coming at you, and as you are landing, the Snifit sprite swap shoots at you, giving you barely enough time to jump out of the way of that, and then there are more Rinkas you have to avoid, then the bomb explodes and you have to wait even longer. I eventually found out that I can just wait on the right side of the ship, and the Rinka generators will be off-screened, allowing me enough time to grab the bomb, attack the boss, then retreat.

World 4:

Spoiler: show

This part is kinda boring since it's simply waiting for the Bob-ombs to explode.

Although it isn't as long as your previous ones, it's still just running back and forth without needing to do anything.

Also, why aren't the vines climbable? That's just counter-intuitive.

Here, you combined both your unnecessary use of invisible walls with your cruel use of making necessary items invisible. Although I did hit the switch trying to jump to the left, and the invisible wall kept me from falling off to my death, you should still change this.

Another tedious part where I have to destroy blocks to proceed while doing nothing else.

Also, sometimes, vines won't appear while the stopwatch is being used. I'm not sure why.

You actually had a pretty good idea for this boss, but it wasn't executed very well. For starters, there's the intro that I have to sit through each time I'm killed. Next, there's the fact that there's no warning for when the bridge will be swapped out with the Rinkas again which sometimes made me think that I had more or less time than I really did. On top of that, the bridge is sometimes barely there long enough for me to deal one point of damage, and it can be pretty difficult avoiding the Rinkas and the bombs' explosions (because sometimes there's not enough time to get rid of the bomb before it explodes). All of this, combined with the fact that the mushrooms are in between the bomb generator and the magikoopa (meaning the player might get one on accident) and that he has three "phases," so to speak, as well as the aforementioned lack of midpoints, make this boss pretty annoying to fight.

Final world:

Spoiler: show

You didn't properly swap the Snifit's effect. The effect sprite swap needs to have the same number of frames as the original, or it will only show part of the frame like this:

Here, the Snifits apparently get turned around by something and quickly clog up the way forward. I ended up getting hit because of it the first time I got here. You should move the generator further up so that there's enough room to jump over them.

You should also make sure that each generator is indicated by something.

This has to be the most unintuitive thing I've seen in any SMBX level, and it's mainly this that brings your episode down. When I first got here, I thought that this mech was just a neat decoration, but no, it's a mini-boss of some sort. I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do, so I tried going under it and I died.

So, what was I actually supposed to do? Carefully throw a block into that small crevice, making sure it doesn't hit the wall just above it or the Shy-Guy projectile. Setting aside the fact that this is pretty tricky to do, there's nothing special about the block that needs to be hit! It just looks like any other block, so the player would have no way of knowing that it's that specific block that needs to be hit in order to proceed. You do this three times, each with a different block that blends in with the others, and that's just frustrating. I had to open up the level in the editor just to find out what I was supposed to do, and you should try to make levels that are intuitive enough that the player doesn't have to do this.

Also, the placement of this invisible block is really annoying.

Yet another cutoff effect:

Something else the player won't be able to figure out very quickly is that your silver Koopas are actually Bullet Bill Cannon sprite swaps. I'm not saying that having radically different sprite swaps is bad, I'm just saying that you should give the player some kind of warning about what it's AI is because, once again, I didn't know what it was and ended up getting hit. Plus, it can't be stomped on to be killed.

So, I made it to the final boss, and there were some hints that this episode had a plot, but nothing tangible. My main problem with the final boss is that you force the player to attack him with bomb generators, and he takes TWENTY HITS!! Yes, I counted this time. That alone warrants the use of cheats, but the flames it shoots out are fairly massive and hard to dodge, especially when he shoots multiple ones at a time, then jumps toward you. That just makes the final boss even more unfair. Don't get me wrong; this is an improvement over Wario Land 1's final boss, but that's not saying much.

IN CONCLUSION

While this is definitely a huge improvement over Wario Land 1, this still has some major flaws. If you can combine the clever things that you did in this episode with the clever things you did in The Fawful Crusade, as well as manage to prevent any major design flaws, you might be able to get this theoretical episode featured.

[Lunar Chris]

Update: I've decided to make a poll to see whether or not I should do a continuation of my Wario Land episodes, especially since I cancelled Wario's Double Trouble. If either yes or no get a total of TEN votes, the poll will close and I will commit to the decision made by the community.