Played your latest IPS in the level testing thread, and it seems pretty good overall now. I caught a couple of things on this playthrough that I feel you should address though.


Frostees don't work well with slopes, period. You have a few setups like this in the level - I'd suggest moving these sprites to straight areas and then placing an Ice Bro at the top of the slopes or something.


Your SMWC coins are unnecessarily hard to find. This one in particular has no indication that you can even get to it, and I had to open LM to even find it. I couldn't even FIND the third coin, and the second coin on the line-guided path is, as Rameau's Nephew said, very irritating to get. When I explained the SMWC coins initially, I said they should be a bit out of the way but not insanely tough to find. Yours are.

Other than that, it's still a pretty fun level overall. You just need to do a bit more polishing and it'll be good to go.

At last, some criticism.
Update based on what S.N.N. said. I think I made the SMWCoins much easier to get. By not hiding the first one behind a wall, and adding a message block telling you about the other two. Also the frostee thing.

you might want to fix the ceiling between screens 3-4 on level 94, besides that awesome level loved playing it

Thanks man.

I don't see why you insist on grayscaling the pallete either .. ice isn't gray, it's either transparent or a blue-ish color. Fix that and you'll be set.

Oh, and if I have been correctly informed, we're not using the item reserve, so that mushroom next to the feather at the beginning is pointless as well (from what I gather?).

I wouldn't exactly say the level is becoming icy when the switch is OFF, it's just cooled off. Cooled doesn't necessarily mean icy. But that's just my take on the situation here.

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My Let's Play channel (Current LP: Final Fantasy VI, MegaMari)

What Gemini said. Rocks don't turn transparent or blue when they cool off.

Second, the feather is only if you haven't gotten the switch. The mushroom is pity in case you did get the switch because MrDeePay told me too.

So .. is that it for IPSes? Does anyone else have anything to comment on here? If so, is it ready for me to clear it into the base ROM?

I need a few more comments here, if people wouldn't mind. Even something as simple as a "Yeah, it's good" would help as long as I can ensure you've genuinely beaten it without savestates.

Not yet, I just played the last IPS from the level testing thread.

I think the level is too hard, it took me around an hour and a half to beat it without savestates, (not even my world 9 level was that hard). Also, I noticed switch palace blocks where used to block the player's way, but not to help them (besides the hidden blue switch palace block that leads to the line guide room), so maybe it would be a good idea to use them to help the player considering the difficulty of the level. Let's go with the specifics:


I'm not sure if this was intended, but I can get here by spin jumping on the ball 'n' chain


This segment was very hard, especially because the white crystal blocks my sight, you should either remove the crystal or the frostee.


I have too litle time to react here, making it very hard to dodge the fire bro's attack.


This segment was also quite tedious; that thwomp pretty much appears from the nowhere.


Being greeted by a fire bro just after crossing the door is not really nice my friend.

I didn't picture this, but the line guide segment for the second SMWC coin was too easy (probably the only easy segment in the level); while the one for the third SMWC coin was too hard, you should either remove the bullet bills or get rid of some venus plants (maybe replace the ones that throw two fireballs with plants that only throw one fireball).

Pretty much the difficulty is the main problem here. There are probably more hard segments that I didn't point out, so I advise you to add a couple of powerups or use the switch palace blocks to help the player.

Since SNN insisted, I guess I'll go back to testing more levels for the sake of giving some feedback.

I'll have to agree with aj here, this level took a while for me to beat without savestates. If I had to point to anything in particular that's making this level so difficult, it's the overall lack of powerups, particular in the first half where I found the level to be most hazardous.



This is assuming the player doesn't kill the first Frostee in the level (which I can see a lot of players might ignore him). If the player accidentally goes too far left after hitting the first ON/OFF (I'm talking next to the solidfied lavafall), the Frostee will appear and can follow you down here, making it quite tricky to get past the water unharmed.
Course I never liked that particular Frostee to begin with. I can see most players entering this level for the first time jumping too high towards the upper waterfall and getting smacked by him before they can get away.



This spot was a bit annoying. Consider that this is a steep slope that pushes you towards the Thwomp. Note that the Ice Bro can also hit me where I was positioned left of the Thwomp in this screenshot. Also consider that he throws in upward arcs, so even spin-jumping the Thwomp could be a bad idea.



This was a case of requiring a few things to line up correctly to not get hurt here.



Is it really necessary to put spikes next to one of the scarce few powerups like this?



These two powerups are located so close to each other and a Midway Point that they end up being quite moot, considering Midway Points are essentially a free mushroom as it is.

Keep in mind that up until near the midway point, there are only two powerups that are actually helping the player. This isn't enough, considering how easily one can get hit and lose those powerups throughout the first half.

The second half of the level wasn't as difficult as the first in terms of design, but there were absolutely no powerups until you reached one of the exits. I would recommend adding a powerup or two somewhere in this stretch.

Like aj said, that second line-ride was pretty ridiculous. I didn't even finish this part without savestates (partly because I just didn't have the time to really put up with repeated deaths this time around), and I found it quite insulting that you can miss the SMWCoin entirely for not having the switch OFF at the end. Anyone who goes through that hell should be entitled to that prize! If you're going to make the player dodge random Bullet Bills, at least remove a few of the Venus Fire Traps, or do away with the bullet generator instead.



It has been mentioned before Frostees and slopes do not mix well.

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My Let's Play channel (Current LP: Final Fantasy VI, MegaMari)

Finally.
Update again.

This one was much better, no complaints about the difficulty this time. I don't know if somebody else has something to say though.

Gotta agree. I think you've hit the nail on the head this time.

Does anyone else have anything to say (once again)? If not, I think we might be in the clear.

Let me preface this by saying I've NOT played the level because it's pretty late here but judging by the various screenshots I've seen throughout the level, doesn't it seem like the level's gone overboard with spikes? Perhaps I'm just really not a fan of spikes (I'm not) but it doesn't really seem like there needs to be so many. They're kind of an artificial difficulty for levels, doing nothing but restricting movement and platforming usually. Now, again, i haven't played the level, maybe the spikes fit in well. It's just that judging by the screens, there seems to be an overabundance of spikes and i worry that they're unnecessary difficulty.

Three small notes I think you(and others) have missed:


Is the intended way to spin-jump on the Ball n' Chain up to the cold chain and jump onto this ledge? It's possible to just spin jump up to the ledge itself. Not a big point, but yeah.

Also, the sequence of ON/OFF switches in the first line guided area should be MISS MISS HIT, not HIT MISS HIT. Remember, the switch status will already be OFF as you enter the room.(Unless I missed something?)


I don't recall hitting a yellow switch...

This is all I've got. The level was pretty challenging, but fair. I don't have any complaints on the difficulty.

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aran - Graces of Heaven

Actually, those spikes don't hurt the player from the side, meaning you don't have to worry about walking near them. They're not as annoying as munchers or ordinary spikes, so I think it's ok if there are so many of them.

Ah right, I forgot about directional spikes, that does make the level seem much more fair. Hopefully it all plays out well when i finally get to play it in the rom.

Fixed A Couple Things
There, I think now there should be nothing else to fix, unless someone finds something else I overlooked.

Yeah, I'd say you're set. If any other bugs DO pop up, they can be pointed out in the stickied "Bugs" threads.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/570113795016622090/698323209019326494/Pyro-Cryo_Castle_Revamp_V1_1.bps

Above is the download link for my revamp of Pyro-Cryo Castle, you can play it and test it out if you like. It has already been given an OK, but I just thought that I would put it on here in addition to the Discord server.