Super Mario Bros. X Forums

Imaynotbehere4long wrote:I have to agree with PDPaula: the warnings need to be fixed. There isn't enough time for the player to react to the first Bombs layer, so unless he/she happens to already be near the arrows, he/she will get hit by the Dark Fire (same goes for the Thwomp Warnings and the Lighting Warnings). Plus, having the second attack's safe spot be only one unit away from the previous layer's safe spot means the player barely has to do anything to avoid the second attack and ultimately makes it pointless. I recommend changing the delay between the warning events and attack events to 1.5 seconds at least, as well as rearranging the Dark fire 2 layer. Also, regarding the Thwomps, instead of just using one flashing !, you should use as many as it takes to cover the entire area that will become harmful (or at least the area from left to right, like what you did with the lightning), especially for the third Thwomp layer, where there's only one unit of safe space between each Thwomp. Plus, that's something you could have easily done since the !s sprite swap the SMB3 platform background.

Also, by making the Bowser Shells move at the start of the level (you could have just made them Auto Start events, you know), they will appear in different places on different play-throughs, so on top of having only a 1 second warning period (which, as mentioned earlier, is too short), the player won't even be able to preempt them on a second play-through. I recommend working their movement into the main event chain, especially since they're only used during that one part of the fight. Plus, it's unintuitive that they don't move all the way to the other edge of the screen before turning around; they stop about 3/4ths of the way before turning around. This can easily be fixed by simply increasing the delay between when they turn around.

If it weren't for those issues, this would have been a pretty good boss. Although you used a pre-programmed AI in an empty room at first, you made it a bit enjoyable by speeding up the flames and the shell. You even have harmful layers appear between pre-programmed AI fights. The Mother Brain sprite-swaps and the Dark Fire 3 should move, like, twice as fast, though (and their Trigger Event delay should be half as long); it gets a bit annoying having to wait on them to move, especially after getting killed by one of the improperly indicated layers. Also, the second fight against the pre-programmed AI sprite-swap is boring since it's literally no different than the first and just feels like you're trying to pad out the fight. The third one was a bit better since you have lightning appear during the fight, but once the pre-programmed AI sprite-swap is defeated, the player still has a good chance at getting struck by lightning after winning, especially since they only move at 6 speed; as soon as I beat the third phase, I got hit (luckily, I was Super) and could see the lightning slowly sliding off-screen. I recommend making a duplicate section and adding a layer of instant warps (that lead from the first section to the duplicate) that appear when the third boss is defeated.

Summary:
GOOD:
-Graphics aren't terrible.
-Music fits the level well, though I'd prefer if you had it playing from the start since there's a bit of a delay when making SMBX play a custom song during game-play (as opposed to at the start of game-play).
-Variety of layer-based attacks.

BAD:
-Pre-programmed AI in an empty room times 2.
-Slow layer speeds.
--SHORT LAYER WARNINGS.
-Dark fire 2's similar placement to Dark fire 1.

In conclusion: This boss has quite a few problems, but it would have been enjoyable if you gave the player enough time to react to the boss's layer-based attacks. I'd say this deserves a 5.5/10.