Tip: A common level trope to avoid is "item babysitting". This involves forcing the player to carry P-Switches, springboards, or other items all around the level. Usually, this doesn't end up being very fun or engaging, so use another level gimmick if you can.
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Details for New Super Mario World 2: Around The World
The sequel to NSMW1 The 12 Magic Orbs, this hack features 16 different worlds and 90+ unique levels filled with challenge and secrets. The hack uses a lot of ASM like custom sprites, blocks, uberASM effects and other stuff like that. Aesthetically it has a choconilla style with most of the graphics being from the original SMW with some new custom graphics.
Updates:
-Reduced the difficulty in some of the late game levels, specially 16-5
-Redesigned the second half of 15-4
-The coins in 14-5 now only hurt you and subtract a coin rather than instantly killing you
-Added different death songs for each world (and also 7-6)
-Fixed other issues
This comment is going to be pretty in-depth, so beware. Overall I had a really good time doing any% in this hack, but 100% left me with a sour taste.
As for stuff I really enjoyed:
- the aesthetics in this hack are excellent. They look really nice, the colors look clean and well made. There were a few moments of me having a hard time seeing some obstacles (like the blue flames in the W9 castle), but overall they looked nice and the overworld looks beautiful
- any% in this hack is legitimately very fun and it keeps a really nice traditional theme while also giving its own twist with unique level themes. The difficulty curve through any% is also great, where it starts out really easy and slowly gets a tiny bit harder and harder every world
- I really liked that you usually had a way to get back to secrets or Dragon Coins. There were few spots where it was impossible to go back in a room, but for most of the time you could explore a level on your will
- There's LOTS of content, and it never becomes repetitive. That's very difficult to do with a hack of this length.
Now here's some stuff I found problematic and improving them would benefit this hack a lot:
- this hack generally suffers from a lot of slowdown. Usually it's minor, but some spots like world 6 or 8 the game could drop frames for a longer time, and sometimes even in the middle of a jump. There's also some major slowdown in rooms 6 and 8 of the final gauntlet
- the Bowser fight felt very random and the hammer attacks were unpredictable, and you had to keep jumping to avoid getting stunned by his ground pound. Thankfully the fight is short and you can iframe through him really easily if you survive the first 2-3 hits with no damage
- the World 14 Ghost House has a cool idea that goes way too far IMO. Having misleading gameplay could work well with this kind of level, but some rooms have an absurd amount of doors which turn the level basically into a pick-a-path, not to mention it also has two fakeout exits that don't give you any progress. The concept of this level was unique and interesting, but I think the jokes went way overboard
- the Special World is generally a difficulty spike in this hack, especially the final gauntlet. It feels very out of place for this hack, considering most of the levels are quite short. In this level you have to do 16 rooms (8 per checkpoint), and that's so much longer than the rest of the hack, especially that you barely get any power-ups in the first place. The room difficulties are all over the place, with some rooms being pretty easy and some (most notably room 3, 6 without a cape/flower, 9 and the beginning of 15) having some timings be much more rough than the rest. This paired with the small amount of power-ups makes the level a tedious slog to do RTA. I normally enjoy marathon levels, but only if they're sightreadable. Some of the rooms were definitely not sightreadable). As an alternate solution, you could provide a 1-UP farm in this level so you don't need to farm them everytime you run short on them (this is not much of a problem in the first half, but a big issue in the second).
Overall I think you have potential to make excellent hacks, and while this one's really solid and it shows that you put a lot of time and effort into it, it still feels rough around the edges in the late-game. I'd love to see an update that potentially would address these issues but in the end it's up to you. I'm looking forward to what you can do in the future.
I'm having some trouble finding all 3 exits for 14-5 - I have found the one leading back to 14-1 and the one leading out to 14-5. Any hints?
I don't know if u already know it, but u need to pass the first part and go to the pyramid of doors (left). Enter on the only accessible door. Then fall through the floor. Walk on the top part until u reach 3 coins forming a wall. Pass it. If u did everything right until here, there will be 3 coins at the ceiling. Wall jump to there and still going (wall jumping) until u reach the top. If everything is right, there'll be a star door. That's it
This game starts as good as an official Super Mario game, have an awesome level design and polished graphics that makes it looks like a sequel of Super Mario World.
But as far as you go in this game, it turns into a nightmare
The world 16 is the hell itself, and the marathon is a Kaizo level.
This is not a casual game anymore, it's just a masochist level designed to piss off any gamer who deny to use save state to reach the end.
I have farmed 99 lives to not see the game over screen anymore, still lost all the 99 lives and could't reach world 8 door. This level makes me sick. Tubular is the easiest level in the world when compared to this. Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels is casual compared to this. I really don't want to quit, but I feel no will to continue, seems like a waste of time.
Thanks, Koopster. I never thought that I could emulate this wonderful hack in ZMZ, since I tried this hack and it works correctly. Thank you very much.
Welp, the game broke on the blue switch palace for me when I was riding back with yoshi to the reset door (I was using snes9x). The save got corrupted somehow, so I suggest anyone playing this hack to not rely on the auto save feature because the game might break at some point. I also notice some audio errors from time to time. Also, why the hack does not keep the life counter when you reset? This hack is hard, so going back to play it with 5 lives is kinda ridiculous. Aside from this, I am enjoying playing it, but I have only completed 6 worlds at this point.
Super Mario World is one of my all-time best games, it's the example I put when I have to describe "master piece" in video games. I'm mind blown both as a gamer and a sw engineer by the level of this hack.
Save for a few style issues and difficulty, this could have been released as the sequel by Nintendo and noone would have blinked. In my opinion, it's better than the actual official sequel, Yoshi's Island.
This game deserves a wiki on its own. I've noticed references to many games and I'm sure I've missed many others. Special mention to Super Mario Land 1&2. And very special mention to VVVVVV level. The fact that you can do that within super mario world blows my mind hard.
The soundtrack is really amazing. This alone would make this game remarkable. My favourite is the "secret code level theme". Again, this deserves a wiki page to list the themes.
The elephant in the room: this game is hard, very hard... too hard. It's nicely hard up to world ~10. Very, very hard up to ~12 and too hard from then on, to an absurd point. Some levels are ridiculously hard and punishing. I understand there is some people who enjoy this kind of pain, but I didn't. I only went on because I didn't want to miss what cool new thing would await me on the next level/world. I completed everything except 16-6. I got to world 6 in there and that was enough.
I suggest this level of madness, the game as it is now, be the game+. Masochist would enjoy the pain while we casuals/"people without a dark soul"/younameit wouldn't have to suffer it.
Some other random thoughts:
* The code thing was exciting at first, again sometimes bordering insane difficulty, but when I got it I didn't feel "rewarded". Maybe a stage full of coins/items/whatever? A happy cloud throwing you good stuff? It's not actually meaningful at this point in game, but I think it leaves a better feeling.
* I like that both Yoshi and the cape are much more rationed, but still present. I also like that, most of the times, you have to feed Yoshi first.
* The house tutorial has made a friend of mine to quit the game, and I bet he would have enjoyed and completed at least half the worlds.
* I spent like an hour trying to figure it out how to go up the ceiling entrance in 16-5. Bouncing up on a lured ghost doesn't scroll up. I searched everywhere for a gravity switch in vain.
I just finished it... The visual ambiance, escially in haunted world (9) and pipe world (12), is just amazing !! This really another step in visual ambiance and Mario action.
With the possibility of walls jumps, Mario is really the ultime platform race car.
Beside, it lack of yoshi levels...
And the difficulty after world 13 is just punishing, to finish the last three wolrd (14-15-16), is very hard.
Last thing but it's not specific to this release : there's no counter of the levels that you succeed to finish with 5 yoshis coins.
You have to play to this hack, is really like an official SMW2 would look like.
So I’m having an odd glitch and it’s infuriating me. I beat 4-2, Sunset Winds, both ways but the path to 4-3 did not open up! This makes my run come to a haunt because I won’t be able to get the retroachievements. I’m super disappointed.
Nice hack. I beated this game. But unfortunately I got 118 exits.
I don't have any idea what I missed. 😢
Edit: I found it! I missed the stage 9-6.
Now, I got all 119 exits on this hack game! \o/
Waiting for the sequence! 😉
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I noticed some bugs/errors:
The level 3-5 (Broken Bridges) has only 4 Dragon coins.
The level 6-6 (Azure Alcazar) don't have a lock sign on mapa despite it has 2 exits.
The level 11-4 (Cloudy Copse) has only 4 Dragon coins.
The level 14-3 (Spinning Sky) has only 4 Dragon coins.
I recently finished a 100% playthrough this hack, and I have a few things I'd like to mention:
-The boss at 4-6 seemed impossible at first because I had no idea you could actually pick up those rocks. It felt misleading. On the other hand, I wish there were more bosses like this later on. Once I knew what to do, it was pretty fun.
-In 7-3, I kept getting crushed by the boost pads for some reason.
-13-4 has a spot in the first half with some slopes leading into the ceiling, which will kill you if you're small.
-There's a softlock in 13-6 if, like me, you don't realize what you have to do at the end of the first half in time.
Not going to get into the levels I strongly disliked, like 16-3, or the things I found peculiar that were obviously intentional, like the code system (with the amount of subtle ASM I was assuming I would have to actually enter a code, not just go through the right doors).
I will say that I found the overworld design to be kind of predictable? Pretty much all the worlds were about the same size and had very similar layouts: 1 level with a secret exit (2 if one was a switch palace, but those didn't lead anywhere) that skipped 1-2 worlds, with the rest being linear. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does get repetitive after a dozen worlds.
Also, I feel like it's worth mentioning that 16-6 took me literally as long as the rest of the hack combined. I only finished it because I was having so much fun with it. Although I will note that I got to the checkpoint with one life left and promptly died, removing my checkpoint, so I wasn't happy about that.
But yeah, good hack, definitely worth playing through.
(Was there a point to collecting the dragon coins? I got them in the first two levels but couldn't figure out if they counted, so I ended up ignoring them for the rest of the game and they never came up again)
hey, just letting you know but in world 5-2 (or 3, i forgot which one) there is an area where you can die and once you reach the bottom of the screen there is an area where there isn't a wall. sorry if I sound like one of those complainy guys, but the rom hack is really good, it's on my top five list.
It was worth it going through all of this so it could be accepted, unlike the previous one. My favourite new feature is the differente sounds that are in each world.
Clearly the hack has a large following as well as many people enjoying it for what it is.
Large Hack with many worlds and plenty of custom resources.
Still falls short in a lot of ways but at least now with it been accepted it can been enjoyed more to those who want to play it without any softlocks or other errors.
I do hope that any feedback is taken on board with your next project as your eye for aesthetics and details that fit around the existing SMW are great and are no doubt this hacks greatest achievement.
Good Luck with your next projects. I'll be interested in what comes next.
Amazing hack, LOADED with content that keeps you playing for WEEKS or longer (if playing without savesates and slowdowns).
The only complaint is 14-5 (House of illusion 2), because it is a guessing game to find what door progresses you throughout the stage, most of the time there a fake (disappears), others back to the room I have been before, no clues or suspicious objects point to where I should go. This level, by the way, have 2 secret exits (a total of 3), I found the normal and SE1, but have trouble finding the final SE2.
Other than that, thanks for not making pipes leading to bonus rooms that would skip an area that leads to the secret exit, I find this frustrating that the player gets punished for going to the bonus room to not be able to find the secret exit afterwards.
YES IT GOT ACCEPTED!!!! But no seriously! Your one of the best Romhackers I have ever seen out there!! Right next to Blind Devil and Stiviboy. Most romhacks would have 7 or 8 worlds sometimes 9. But you had 12 worlds in the 1st one and now 16 WORLDS!? That's why I respect you a lot and heck, take your time on NSMW 3. I am a very patient person! But other than 10/10 Okay you know what no! 20/10!!! For such an amazing game and a lot of polishing!!
regardless of my thoughts on this hack, i know you've worked your ass off to address the primary concerns of your first rejection. best of luck with this getting accepted!
Thanks.
Originally posted by Atari2.0
So, this update fixes all of the softlocks and crashes issues I had with the first version of the hack, making it acceptable.
However it misses some, in my PERSONAL opinion, key points about level design, the Ghost House with 3 exits is significantly easier, and that's good, but there are parts of the endgame that still struck me in a negative fashion:
-Bowser which is still very much hard to fight and EXTREMELY luck based
-The Final Marathon, which is still 16 rooms long with only 1 checkpoint (you could've at least used a 1-up checkpoint somewhere).
However, all the other levels are good now, save for little insignificant hiccups, which makes the hack way more enjoyable than before. Aesthetics and music are good as they were before.
Well, thanks, now i can finally move on to a new and hopefully better project.
So, this update fixes all of the softlocks and crashes issues I had with the first version of the hack, making it acceptable.
However it misses some, in my PERSONAL opinion, key points about level design, the Ghost House with 3 exits is significantly easier, and that's good, but there are parts of the endgame that still struck me in a negative fashion:
-Bowser which is still very much hard to fight and EXTREMELY luck based
-The Final Marathon, which is still 16 rooms long with only 1 checkpoint (you could've at least used a 1-up checkpoint somewhere).
However, all the other levels are good now, save for little insignificant hiccups, which makes the hack way more enjoyable than before. Aesthetics and music are good as they were before.
regardless of my thoughts on this hack, i know you've worked your ass off to address the primary concerns of your first rejection. best of luck with this getting accepted!
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