[REJECTED] Classic Mario World 2: The Great Alliance by bandicoot - Featured Hacks

Link to submission.

Due to the amount of updates the author kept submitting in a certain period, I had the pleasure to play this hack multiple times, discovering every exit and 100% it more than once. So this review is coming from someone who possibly played this hack for many, many, hours.

My opinion about it is... meeehhh. The hack is good, don't take me wrong here: the job with the vanilla tiles, in particular, helps making the gfx factor varied enough. There are many tricks that could inspire you for the VLDC contests in here, and this is a big plus for a vanilla hack. Although... that's it. That's about the factors that make this hack shine a little bit more than the generic hack. What makes me more lenient to a reject is the boring design mostly.
I'm honestly not a big fan of the author's way of designing in general: you'll see that most of the levels feel extremly, unnecessarily long, with repetitions of the same gimmick that adds nothing new to what you already passed in the first sections of the level. Feels like you ran out of ideas while making your levels; yet, you tried stretching them as much as possible. Pretty sure that, if you cut some levels in half, the hack would be much more enjoyable than how it is right now.
Obviously I'm not saying this kind of design is always bad: generally, when a level is long, it has many and many different applications of the gimmick used. The "number of applications" in this hack is very low, and that's what penalizes it the most, I think.

That's it I guess, I don't think there is more to add. This feels like a generic good hack. Mind you, generic good hack. That "generic" at the beginning makes me, sadly, go with a rejection. The hack is okay, but it's not worth featuring.

You don't agree? Let me know your opinions here!

Deadline: 10th October

I wouldn't say this was a bad hack by any means, but personally to me, it's just a bit too generic. While that's not inherently bad, it definitely doesn't do much to set itself apart.

Contrary to what I found with Mario's Amazing Adventure, I don't really feel the author had too much fun designing these levels. The level design generally doesn't provide too much of a challenge, with levels boasting plenty of barren areas that are void of enemies, or even objects, such as this (it's an auto scroller BTW, so even more zzz) and this. For a hack to be successful, it must be able to keep the player on their feet. Even in a hack that's meant to be easy, the player should be faced with obstacles that make them think. There should still be satisfaction from simply playing through, which sadly, this hack lacks.

A lot of sections simply consist of jumping to the right over enemies, with no platforms, or twists and turns to make them any more of a challenge. The levels are mostly linear, but that doesn't mean they have to be cheesable by just dashing and jumping. I also feel the gimmicks the author played with weren't executed well. Fungi Highroad for example, had a lot of noteblock spam, which really, I doubt any player enjoy. The hack needs to be far less repetitive in general.

And why do you not let me keep Yoshi? :<

All that aside, another issue with this hack is how unrefined it feels to me, level design aside. Here's a rather minor example. What I find odd here is how this waterfall does not have layer priority while the others do...? A more irritating example is in Blockfall Fortress. I know a message box does warn the player about this, but why exactly do the stones hurt the player from the side? Surely if they land on top of the player, they will kill them anyway - that's just how SMW's mechanics work.

On another note: If the author is reading this, I highly suggest you use this for any cutscenes. Having full control over Mario and having to press up just feels... clunky, and imo is not a good first impression.

As for music, I actually thought there were some pretty nice and fitting choices in there. Not much to say on that regard.

I also very much liked the graphical choices; although for the most part it was vanilla GFX, I liked how they handled their palettes, and I especially liked how they made the desert from vanilla assets, even if I have seen it done to a better standard. Good on you.

As for the overworld, it was alright; although the pathing was very well done, the landmasses themselves need refining a little, just so they look less blocky (also perspective errors) but that's no biggy - it doesn't hurt my eyes or detract from the experience at all.

I also feel the hack had some other neat ideas here and there. For some reason I especially loved the use of boo buddy fish in the water levels lol.

~

As I said before, I don't think this is a bad hack - it in fact does have some great ideas. Right now, I feel it doesn't represent how competent or memorable a hack can be; the author needs to refine many of these said ideas, expand upon them, and most importantly: Think outside the box. Until then, it's a definite rejection from me.

As much as I love this hack, I think it'd go with a rejection on this. Which is a shame, it's a good hack. But there are some stupid parts to it. One for me, is why do you have to kill Yoshi upon entering a castle/fortress?

Also I have a question, by rejection, does that mean you delete of the site for good?

BANANA SLAMMA.

I'm sure that just means the hack won't be featured.

In this case it just means that it won't be featured. It will be deleted from the site for good if it's rejected outside of the featured hacks system.

Rejected it is.
And obviously, "rejected" in this subforum means "not featured".
The hack will still live in the hacks section forever.