Killjoys in SMW Hacks?

I'm sure we are all aware that there are moments in games in general that there is always that one time where a level, boss, or thing happens that kills your joy of playing a game. However, has anyone experienced a Killjoy in SMW Hacks? I can think of a few...

Getting to the end only to find out you needed to bring "This Item":
This case is a bit rare, but when this does come up, it just disgusts me. Pretty much most Kaizo Hacks are guilty for this trope, however since it is Kaizo, that can be excused. The VIPs have done this a few times (A few, thank god). It is a Killjoy for me because it's so rare, that by the time you come across it, you just think "...WTF?" and you force yourself to die.

Overused Boss Battles:
No matter what you do, no matter where you go, you will always meet these bosses. Either the Thwomp Boss, the Koopalings, or any other abused boss, they always come back every time you play a new hack. While it is nice to see these bosses the first time, you get tired of fighting these guys in every hack. There are some hacks where it isn't a complete Killjoy, like the VIPs got it right by actually editing the Koopalings' battles most of time time.

The worst case are Brtual Mario Bosses. They are pretty fun when you fight them in Brutal Mario, but when you fight them in other hacks... they aren't that special anymore (I'm looking at the Xan-bite Boss).

LOOOOOONG levels:
Pretty much any long hack has one of those levels that go on and on, doesn't end when you want it to. When you die in one of them, you feel very annoyed because you have to start all over again. Pretty much most full 8 World hacks and One level hacks are guilty for this trope, especially One Level hacks because they don't use the Multi-Midway Point Patch.

Don't get me wrong, long levels can work if there are many powerups everywhere and a couple Midway points so you don't have to restart everything all over again. But that isn't the case for a lot of hacks with long levels.

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There are plenty of Killjoy's I've experienced in SMW Hacks, so why not hear the killjoys you experienced?

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It's worth mentioning as well the extra levels of SMWCP. Today I gathered some courage to try to beat them and guess what? I stopped in the middle of Orbital Fortress after using save-states 500 times for oh god brambles and Asteroid Frigate. I couldn't bear the unfairness anymore. oh god brambles could be a nice level except for: 1)highly accurate jumps and 2)those MOTH**FU**ING homing munchers. I even died after getting the goal, because some of these MOTH**FU**ERS apparently crushed me on the wall. Asteroid Frigate was mostly fine, but those DAMN LIGHT-SPEED Roto Disks were annoying as hell. Orbital Fortress was the last straw: 1)highly accurate jumps, 2)highly accurate jumps, 3)Thwomps and Thwimps taking up the whole ground space to land after a jump, 4)highly accurate jumps and 5)That "ride the Disco Shell" part... with spiky ground... and Thwimps... and Thwomps which are immune to shells... I stopped here. No comments.

Also, TSRPR's final level and Chaos CompleXX (both too long and too hard...) and the other

Thirdspace

levels as well. Well, at least the difficulty wasn't much "artificial", so it's a bit forgivable. I still had a hard time though, enough to take some points away from the gameplay experience I had.

S"M"W2's final level and final boss:

Final level: the platforming itself there is just too complicated, with (reaaaally) large gaps, unlinear terrain, slopes that make you fall, etc. Also, there are some rather strong enemies, while others are just dangerous because they ambush you. Also, the midway point is just too far away in the level. Actually it's right before the final boss room. Speaking of which:


I just forgot to mention there, that the final boss is an

And last, but not least:

IDK...

in ASMT when the levels got more annoying than fun (around W6)

in MGU aroudn end of W1/beginning of W2 I lost my motivation to continue (mario is going on a random adventure... what happened to the motivation?) plus the fact I'm screwed out of the yellow switch because I went to the key boss first and now can't get back

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Couldn't this turn into some insult thread or something, like let's say someone's hack gets mentioned here and they happen to run across it. This thread doesn't give off a constructive vibe in my honest opinion, it more gives off "you made a huge mistake and now I'm going to publicly just give it all out" thread. So far, I know nothing of the hacks you've given except SMWCP, and if someone is looking to play a hack they have not before and they happen to read this thread, see a hack name listed here, what do you think they will do?

Here is your answer, "I know I won't play that hack, hell I won't even give it a chance."

If I had never played SMWCP and I came across this, I could only assume SMWCPII will be the same way, when it clearly is not.

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-Every of "that one level (read: ASMWCP's levels considered to be lunatic)" in An Super Mario World Central Production.
-The final level of ASMT "The Iron Trial".
-The final level of Super "Mario" World 2.
-Checkpoint starvation (lacks of checkpoint)
-Power-up starvation (ditto, but with power-up)
-That one boss (boss considered to be difficult)

Killjoys in general for me (not naming names):
-checkpoint starvation
-tough enemies used in the most annoying ways possible in the first few worlds
-most custom bosses, especially if they're really tough for where they are placed in the game. It is really hard to make a custom boss without also making it artificially difficult. Well, many of the custom boss fights I played have at least some artificial difficulty, not all of them.

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I think most people wouldn't not give the whole hack a chance just because someone says there's a couple of levels/bosses that are infuriating/harder than the others. If they're looking to play a hack, and want to learn if it's really worth the overall experience (not a couple of levels/bosses), then they should read the reviews, or watch some LP's, so they can understand what's the hack all about. For example: I said that both the last level and last boss in S"M"W2 are way too hard, and sort of a killjoy, because of this. BUT, if you read my hack review on it, you'll see that the difficulty is NOT something that should discourage someone to play it, as the overall quality and gameplay are considered good/enjoyable by me.

Also, the way the first post looks, I really thought when I wrote mine that this thread was actually about stating singular situations in some hacks that kinda pis*ed you. I agree that there's definitely a "hate" atmosphere in the first posts, and I do think that following cypher's and Sokoban's posts is a good idea, that is, stating your personal killjoys in general, like cypher said. I apologize if I said something that hurt someone's feeling. Do know that it wasn't intentional at all.

Anyway, my personal killjoys:

- Ambushes;
- You guessed it! Highly accurate jumps requirement;
- Homing annoying enemies;
- Sprites and layer priority abuses;
- Custom bosses that spawn obstacles/sprites as much as the Spike Hell cluster spawns spikes; (Yes I'm exaggerating here, but you know what I mean.)
- Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long levels.

I guess I took the info a bit too sensitive, my apologies, good sir. But I still do not agree with specifically calling hacks out, it really could insult somebody, and while criticism is very important, I feel it should be done in the appropriate thread to the hack instead of just like it was here.

Anyway, here are my personal killjoys in general

Vanilla music - I prefer the custom music on the site, even if I have heard the same piece a thousand times, I find it much more entertaining the SMW music.
Vanilla Koopa Kid - This wouldn't make me outright quit playing a hack, but it can ruin the custom vibe going on. Most of these bosses remain the EXACT same.
Duplicate level - I hate it when people copy levels from a game like SMB or similar and paste it in their hack.
No story - This is a biggie for me. I'd like to have atleast a little story so I feel there is a goal instead of just wasting my time to rescue a princess... AGAIN... Even if it just Mario going to get some ingredients for a cake or something. (But everyone knows that the cake... is a lie! )

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I'll just go ahead and list my general kill joys instead of naming them from hacks (Though I can think of a lot.) I'm going to be very honest about them however.

Custom Bosses Spawning Homing bullet Bills: This is never ever a good idea unless you want players to literally rage at the boss. Seriously, 5 bullet bills on screen all following you throughout a single screen really isn't fun to deal with at all and just kind of adds cheap difficulty in my opinion.

No Power Ups Before Boss Battles: Okay so a lot of hacks now in days seem to have custom bosses which are generally harder than the regular SMW World bosses overall.......so I see no reason why not offer at least a single power up before the boss fight. I've experienced this way too many times to where I'll end up breaking my no savestate run and load state if I end up dying against a boss. I feel that sometimes people don't realize how easy it is just to get hit once.

Long Levels Without Midpoints: I don't mind long levels being that I make long levels myself but to come so far to completing the level then making a mistake then having to start the level ALL OVER AGAIN isn't cool. I see no reason not to have midpoints in levels that are longer. I don't care how oddly placed the spawn point is, just have a midpoint there. I'm sure it can be overlooked.

Final World Difficulty: Well I don't have a problem with final world difficulty itself. It's when difficulty is spammed liked hell for the excuse of it being the final world and honestly, it's not much of an excuse at all. You can make a level difficult without trying to make the level kill at every opportunity it gets.

Well those are the main things I can think of.

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That... fucking... Thwomp Boss - It doesn't matter if the graphics are changed or not, it's still the same shit every time. I have defeated this thing probably at least 50 times now. It's just not fun anymore.

Mouser - So sick of fighting this boss now. It's really annoying when my bombs keep hitting the bombs he throws.

Secret Exits by the goal post - This just means having to basically replay the entire level. I know I did it in my VLDC level but I won't be doing that again.

Original SMW Bowser boss - I have beaten this boss probably at least 200 times now and it's just getting stale. No one wants to take on the same boss over and over again!

Water levels, not the ones with mushroom columns.

Item babysitting. Unless it is for a good purpose and it does not make you go through the SAME area again, I can't stand it. It would be more interesting if you had to carry the item through a different area instead of going back through the same area.

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World 5 of Super Mario Omega
This World has a lot of labyrinthine levels that don't seem to give enough time for completion. It just got tedious.

Coal Mine Rush in Mario Wants His Mushroom
This level has Mario constantly running at top speed without player input. Not only will you die if you fall down a pit or get hit by an enemy/hazard while small, but you'll ALSO die if you hit a wall or other solid object.

Lamek in Super "Mario" World 2
This hack was already quite difficult, but this boss was just annoying. It's a reskin of Davros's Lakitu boss that throws Bob-Ombs. This wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have such small platforms to stand on.

A hack that is fairly recent breaking in snes9x
This isn't nearly as bad as the above 3, but there isn't any excuse for it since an accurate emulator/hardware-friendly AddMusic that's easy to use has been around since early 2011.

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- Transformers the Movie (1986)

Execpt there's nothing wrong with underwater levels. The only problem is that most hackers just do not know how to properly design one.

Anyways my biggest kill joy is that thowmp boss. I refuse to continue any hack that features it. It's way too overdone.

I hate insanely dumb jumps that either discriminate against Big Mario (he's a person too ;_;), require you to do some insane thing with a certain enemy, have enemies that you just can't avoid at the end of a jump, require you to shell jump, etc.

Other than that, a lot doesn't bother me. I don't mind Item Babysitting, I love games that require secret exits to progress (like Mario Gives Up 2 (seriously, that's a fantastic hack)).

- BLackMageMario

So much hate for Homing Thwomp. =/

Almost makes me worry that I should find a different mini-boss for my first castle (I just use the non-boss version and you have to trick it into dropping into lava)

I'm going to jump on the overused bosses bandwagon. Default SMW bosses I can forgive... If you can't code, you can't code. But if you're going through the trouble of having custom boss fights, you should try to do something unique. Make it something special. Not just pick something from the custom sprites section and call it a day.

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I really hate most ghost house levels. Not because of the level theme itself, but because of how they're done by most hackers.

Most ghost houses are basically puzzle levels, and while I have no real problem with that, it's not uncommon for them to be based on trial-and-error or item babysitting. It's also very hard to use the ghost sprites correctly, I've seen a lot ghost levels that have boos/generic ghost house sprites randomly placed in the level with no real thought.

I also hate hacks that simply select random bosses from the sprites section and throw it in the hack, even more if it's just another overused boss (ugh Homing Thwomp). Same goes for bosses that are too repetitive and take too many hits to die.