*sees song title*
I hate you.
And now, my review:
To begin: your song choice sucks. There's barely any percussion and the background instrument (there's only one) is staccato, which makes the song feel empty and unfinished. Plus, I'm pretty sure your instrument choice could have been better, even with SMW's selection. Anyway, the first thing I did when I started this level was jump into the cold water and get killed. Great start. You should have had a more obvious warning than having a Goomba fall into it and disappear, especially since the player can clearly see a splash; it would be better if you had the water sprite-swap lava so that the Goomba gets killed when it falls in. Also, you should put it closer to the water so that the player isn't paralyzed for so long; you made me think my controller wasn't working. Also, needing to use the buried fireballs to melt the ice was kinda tedious, honestly; I recommend removing the top two rows of frozen coins and swapping the position of the first buried mushroom with the first ? block so the player can get a fire-flower quicker without needing to skip and backtrack. After that, the player has to run past some downward-facing Piranha plants, but that part becomes impossible to get past without taking a hit if the player spawns them at the wrong time; the first two are spawned immediately, but the rest spawn when they come on-screen. Plus, the player has no idea that the rest of them are there at first.
Moving on: I thought that the part where the player has to knock Bullies off of the platform was kinda neat at first since the Bullies only push the player instead of harm him/her, but when I knocked the last Bully off, more immediately appeared without warning, fell on each side of me, and instantly crushed me. Although you have the Bullies appear above the platform, there's still not enough warning for first time players to be able to react to them. Also, if the player is standing away from the platform when the third wave appears, half of the Bullies immediately fall into the water. After that is a mess of lines and a line rider that forces the player to wait (the projectile fish fall off-screen long before the line rider makes it to the water), and waiting = boring = not fun. At the end of the line rider part is a row of used SMB3 coin blocks which even I admit doesn't go well with the rest of the level aesthetically. Finally, at the end of the level, there's a stack of Mousers that represent games we don't play (who was the first to do that, by the way?), unequivocally proving that this is not a serious level, you know, just in case the player didn't already figure it out by hearing the level's song choice (by the way, I
have played Metroid: Other M, Sonic the Hedgehog (all three games with that exact same title), Kirby's Adventure, and A Link Between Worlds; I've even beaten all of those games).
By the way, why are there ? blocks over the water if the water is harmful? It is impossible for the player to get those blocks without cheating.
Summary:
GOOD:
-Um, the graphics weren't terrible, I guess.
-The block-like Bullies are a neat concept.
BAD:
-Your song choice.
-The player is paralyzed for too long to demonstrate one simple thing, but it's done in such a way that the player won't be able to understand it.
-Using buried fireballs becomes tedious quickly.
-The Piranha Plants in Section 2.
-The sudden appearance of the Bully waves.
-The long, winding line ride.
-The used SMB3 coin blocks.
-A stack of Mousers.
-Unreachable ? blocks.
In conclusion:
Sometimes, if a gimmick hasn't been used in a level, it's for a good reason. Even aside from that, pretty much every part of this level is flawed in some way. I'd say this deserves a 1.5/10 (would have been a two if it weren't for your song choice).
Turtwig wrote:Anyway, the first thing I did when I started this level was jump into the cold water and get killed. Great start. You probably should have warned the player about that.
Actually, there is a warning; it just isn't well implemented.
