[REMOVED] "Journey to the Mushroom Kingdom 3: Mario and Moonlight's Quest" by HackerOfTheLegend

CURRENT VERSION -- REVIEW THIS ONE
NO PRELIMINARY REVIEW OF THIS VERSION -- WILL BE POSTED ON JULY 30.

Permanent link to download - OLD VERSION, DO NOT REVIEWo legendary hacker, thy wish art my command.

What the hell was that beautiful music that played at the logo

oh god

what is this

You know, the title screen should be black with a fancy logo like Final Fantasy with this kind of music. Instead, it looks almost like the Kirby 64 title screen where the characters are standing there against a plain background (this one is kinda like sandpaper) and it just seems weird

Speaking of Kirby, the intro takes me to a cutscene where Mario and this Moonlight woman discuss a villain's conspiracy to revive the evil Bowser, and you get Halberd music. Moonlight drops out of the sky and lands on an airship. The plot thickens: Kirby is possessed, and you must battle him. ...I fought this boss in the last hack I played (K-16) so I know the workings. I have a couple of problems to report thus far: It says "Mario" in the status bar when I'm fighting Kirby, and the status bar disappears and the screen freezes briefly when Moon 'dies'.

Finally, after that mess, you're able to start up the first real level. Again, it opens with a long cutscene. There's a typo in 'possesed' and 'villian'. "Mother of mushrooms" made me laugh - cute dialogue there. But, you know another thing... Romi's cutscene tool is painfully boring compared to things like Azure Chaotic or K-16's cutscenes which are fully illustrated, even if they're less 'efficient' than the cutscene tool. It just doesn't seem right for this high quality music and deep story to be backed by such boring visuals. Dying means I have to sit through the whole cutscene again, too... I wish there was a way to skip it.

Green Fields has some KDL3 music and graphics. I can't help but feel one of the samples is detuned. The level design is basic, and contains a lot of custom sprites, none of which are as threatening as the Bronto Burts with circular flight patterns in the airship. I kinda wish the Goomba you can ride on served more of a purpose.

Youkai Forest had me expecting something freaky and weird, but instead I got probably the HAPPIEST level on Earth. While the level's assembly is clean, it seems like it has "slopes for the sake of having slopes" and the enemies just seem to be there, in your path, but not effective at doing their jobs. I feel like the sprites are there for something interesting, but the design doesn't really push them to their potential. I couldn't figure out how to get to the secret exit, and if it's meant to be inaccessible, it's not polite to tease your moderator. :| What is this music, by the way? I heard it in Tourist the Mountaineer and it's just so cheery.

Mario's Fleet Feet was a very uneventful level with NSMB style graphics. You pretty much only face Goombas and Koopas here, and the design doesn't deviate much from the formula the last few levels used. This level seems more appropriate as an opening level to the first world, given how it seems to be the easiest and simplest of the bunch.

Greely's Hideout is well-hidden... but what purpose will this house serve? Find out next time, on Dragon Ball Z.

Mountain Terrain is a level I could say you should be somewhat proud of. It wraps itself around Chucks and barrels, has a solid sense of progression, lots of elevation shifts that make you feel like you're navigating a mountain, and finishes strong with a wave of exploding blocks full of enemies and a huge descent down to the goal post. One itty bitty problem... the ground doesn't extend to the far edge of the screen boundary, so you have some cutoff. :V

King Dedede's Keep - first, let me stop and say with the barrels being thrown around these levels, I was expecting a build-up to an encounter with Donkey Kong. I am slightly disappointed, but I'll roll with it. First of all, the foreground is fairly tough to distinguish since the interior, walls and floors included, are all really bright, and the foreground isn't outlined. Kirby Super Star had the visual depth to distinguish these things more easily and it's not working out so well here. The SPC700 also slows down during one part of the song, greatly. I paused it to write this memo, and then when I unpaused, the music was gone completely. AddMusicK bug? AddMusicK bug. I paused and unpaused it again, and the music came back. Funny how that works. I don't have much to say about the level design other than it was inoffensive and unmemorable. Tick's aliasing clashes with the black windows; that's more of a problem with how KDL3's style really only belongs in KDL3 environments. Also, this FF2 port of the Dreadnaught theme really, really sucks. x_x Cutscene issues: "kirby" is not capitalized in one part of Dedede's text. Onto the boss... there are serious problems with how it responds to being jumped on. Sometimes I get hurt for jumping in him, which should never happen if he was meant to be damaged by being jumped on. It took me forever to realize he could only be damaged while he was ducking or tripping, which doesn't make a lot of sense. It's not really your fault (unless your graphics edit to the boss covered up a blatant exposure of the weakness.) Anyways, after defeating this boss, I find it really cool that he becomes a benefactor in your quest.

Float Islands probably should've been a little more water-focused than it was, with some aquatic enemies instead of a lot of Koopas. I feel like the time limit here was a little too strict since you didn't have time to look around. Speaking of which, the level looked weird with the giant star blocks floating in front of everything. It's kind of gaudy and unnecessary.

House of Spooks has EPIC ghost house music. I'm so sick of that *other* song that everyone uses that slows down the SPC700 and just sounds like a cartoony ghost song... okay, like, this ghost is fast... and I just got assaulted by a flying chair. This house is a cathedral. You've successfully made a ghost house creepier in the first 10 seconds than 99% of all other ghost house/horror hacks. It actually feels like a level you're going to metaphorically die in. The theme execution is brilliant, to put it in layman's terms, and the design exploits the actions of the fast Boos and the chairs to their fullest. It falls apart a little toward the end where it starts to shift back to having generic enemies, the Koopa and Goomba, but the first 2/3 are wild. Don't drag on a level longer than is needed, because you'll end up hurting an otherwise spooktacular design.

Beachy Blues was a very boring level.. there's nothing fundamentally different about it from Mario's Fleet Feet or Green Fields, and the fact that it looks like a beach does not cover up this flaw.

Underground Factory - is that FEAR FACTORY? holy shit i love this song, but admitably, I liked CrispyYoshi's port better than this one; the instruments seem more true to the original. Anyways, what are those half... things... that the vertical pipe shoots out? Also, why the generic choice of enemies? I feel like structuring bits and pieces of this level around enemies like the Sparky/Hothead and/or Ball & Chain could yield much wilder results than... Koopas and Goombas for the umpteenth time. The chaos of the platforms bouncing you around or conveying you around made this level stand out, but it could've been so much more unique than it was.

Racin' With Runman annoyed the fucking shit out of me until the 10th time I played it. The Shy Guy placement and the left slopes are what kept 'killing' me. I'm going to print out an enlarged screenshot of this thing. I'll post the results of my 'project' eventually.

#2 Iggy's Fire Keep is a lava castle with extremely loud, echoey music. The contact with the spikes on the vertical pillar is WRONG by a few pixels and the top doesn't even look sharp... and I can't get past that really wide gap between Tap Tap and the cement block structure with the Ball and Chains no matter what I do. The furthest I can get is the last tile of lava right next to the block. It requires a cape to pass...that, or I really suck at Mario. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and let them vote on whether to accept or reject it rather than mercilessly defenestrating this enigmatic ragdoll hack.

Anyways, this is a 'crossover' hack with a lot of different styles and characters from other series besides Mario, and even an original character. It reminds me of fanfiction.net or deviantart in a way. A lot of these levels are very bland and uninspired, but there are a few strokes of genius present in the hack, and a couple of real ballbusters. Whether or not that excuses the shortcomings of the rest of the hack, I am not sure.

Difficulty: Normal

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+1:
Wakana
Wormer21

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+1 for NEW VERSION:
AnOtakuGamer

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+1 for NEWER VERSION:
MercuryPenny
Mr. GreenThunder
Wakana
AnOtakuGamer
Koopster

This is going to be a priority of mine Wednesday. We're generally supposed to wait for a staff member before reviewing updates (reason being the instant removal filtering to determine whether or not the priority of this hack for reviewing should be lowered beneath that of a hack that needs it for acceptance) but I spent most of Sunday and Monday not home so... we're going to do this backwards. You can continue to review this hack, but until I can see and play this latest version in full, no action will be taken on it.

The old one will be removed and the OP will direct to the latest version in the hacks section until I mirror it when I review it next.

Link to latest and greatestA few changes are present in this demo:

Some cutscenes are skippable. I personally would've put the question and the prompt together to save a little time and let every cutscene be skippable.

Green Fields still feels like it drags on aimlessly past the halfway mark.

Youkai Forest doesn't enable vertical scrolling - I can't see the top half:

This does take me to the secret exit though but I still don't think it's right that I can't see anything. Other than that, I still like this level a lot.

The Yellow Button - a switch palace is still a level and it's not exempt from the "all levels should be done from scratch" thing...

Mario's Fleet Feet is still offensively weak. >_<

Mountain Terrain is still short-but-sweet but I'm starting to think that the pastel color of the enemies make them recede too much and they could use a stronger outline, and the level would probably feel more complete with some clouds in the background above those mountains.

King Dedede's Keep is a little better without the 2.5D look, but the layout is still uneventful and the Ticks clash a lot (KSS and KDL3 do not go well together, even if they are in the same franchise.)

Float Island has really weird instances where I can walk on water. Isn't it possible to make the enemy walk on a specific tile that Mario can't?

I like how there's a 1up hidden at the bottom of one lake, but I don't feel like there's enough emphasis on water; it doesn't do enough to set this level apart from others.

House of Spooks is still great but I feel like the pale outlines of the foreground objects clash a lot with the background; they should be black.

Beachy Blues had a lot of terrain graphics but no real flow to the level.

Underground Factory is still cool.

Racin' With Runman is still annoying.

#2 Iggy's Fire Keep still has weird interaction with the tops of the spikes. The tops should really act like normal slopes. Koopas also blend in a lot because of the pale outline. Interaction with Iggy is messed up; his hitbox extends a lot higher than his graphical space.

Eh, because of a few interaction issues and the fact that yellow switch palace was completely unedited, I am leaning towards rejection. The level design quality is very inconsistent - you have a few levels with great ASM gimmicks, a few levels with a solid core design, and about half of all the levels are uninteresting still.

Difficulty: Normal