Mario sunset adventure

[Bowser is ded]

a level based on world 5 of mario forever

screenshots

Spoiler: show

credit

Spoiler: show

KFCMARIO - Some graphics
Buziol game - music
Nintendo - Original character and graphics

DOWNLOAD

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http://www.mediafire.com/download/tmaee ... enture.zip

thank and have fun

[Imaynotbehere4long]

Well, this level is certainly odd. It starts off well enough by having the cloud platforms isolated from enemies so that the player can easily figure out that they fall without taking an unfair hit (as well as having some nice variation with block placement), but not long after that, there's what is basically a flat line of block-65 along with a predictable Bullet Bill formation, and this part is just boring. The level does pick up soon afterward by having three Bullet Bill generators with a Hammer Bro on the top, which can be quite tricky to pass if you don't stop and think about it for a few seconds. After that, there's a Piranha Plant on a sizable, but there's also another sizable a few units below the Piranha Plant that has fire flowers on it. It isn't a good idea to put a Piranha Plant on blocks that the player can jump through (like sizables) since the spawn point of the Piranha Plant harms the player, even if the Piranha Plant isn't onscreen.

However, the level's biggest flaw is the difficulty spike that comes right after that part. The level reintroduces the falling cloud platforms, but also throws Bullet Bills among them. Doesn't seem so bad, right? Well, the problem is that some of the Bullet Bills are placed in such a way that they are nearly impossible to avoid without running into another one or falling into the bottomless pit below. The three worst ones are placed 1-2 units above and 6-7 units to the right of their respective cloud platform; they're just far away enough that they'll be right above the platform at the same time as the player and just high enough that 1) attempting to jump over them results in undershooting the next platform and 2) attempting to ride the platform down to jump under them will result in the player being too low to make the next jump (or falling above the platform and being unable to jump at all). There is no way that first-time players will be able to make it past that part unscathed, if they even make it past that part at all.

I recommend moving/removing three Bullet Bills from that part; I surrounded the ones that should be moved/removed with block-65:

Spoiler: show

Admittedly, the first one isn't as big a problem as the second one, but it does make the second one that much harder to dodge. If you remove the second Bullet Bill (or move it back far enough), the first one probably wouldn't need to be moved/removed.

After the player is given a break with some normal blocks and a couple of Bullet Bill cannons, there's another cloud platform afterward. However, unlike the rest of the cloud platforms, this one starts a line-rider segment instead of immediately falling down like all the others. This is unintuitive since the player has been trained to think that all cloud platforms will fall immediately upon being jumped on, and the line that the cloud rides is invisible, so first-time players will jump off immediately, only to fall into the bottomless pit below. This is the level's second biggest problem, and it can be fixed by simply keeping the line visible (and maybe adding a background-70 at the beginning of the line). Plus, the line-rider segment is just as boring as the flat line of block-65s earlier in the level.

At the end of Section 1 is the checkpoint, a pipe, and an arrow pointing at the pipe (which is unnecessary since it's obvious that the player has to enter the pipe to proceed). After entering the pipe, the player is brought to Section 2, where the music won't play. For some reason, SMBX has trouble playing MP3 files with album art, so use a converter like http://audio.online-convert.com/convert-to-mp3 and the song will play in SMBX properly (don't forget to properly label the song afterward since the converter removes album and composer credits).

Section 2 is basically just a long, boring line-rider segment; the reason it's boring is because, most of the time, the player is just trying to navigate around simple block formations without a hazard in sight, and when the player does come across enemies, they're all spaced out to the point where they don't become much of a threat anymore. Plus, the block formations are very simplistic, which means there's hardly ever a feeling of danger or urgency in the player. Even at the end, where there's nothing but a few SMB3 Lakitus coming out to attack the player (which is also a lazy design choice), the player can easily dispatch them with the hammer suits given out not long before that part (the distance between them may be long, but there's not much for the player to do in between, so it doesn't feel like the distance is great). After Section 2, there's another boring line-rider part with predictable Bullet Bill placements, but that's also optional since there's ground below and the goal tape is right afterward.

Summary:
GOOD:
-Graphics aren't terrible.
-Music is odd, but still fits the level (although Section 2's song is a bit too hectic for what happens in that section)
-Cloud platforms are introduced in a first-time-player-friendly way.
-Non-block-65 block placement is done well.
-The tower with the three Bullet Bill generators and Hammer Bro.

BAD:
-Boring Bullet Bill segments.
-Piranha Plant spawn point isn't out of the player's way.
--NEARLY-IMPOSSIBLE-TO-AVOID BULLET BILLS BY CLOUD PLATFORMS.
-Boring line-rider segments.
-Section 2's song won't play.

In conclusion:
This is definitely an interesting level, but the flaws are too great for this to be Pretty Good. I'd say this deserves a 5/10.