This hack looked very interesting so I decided to give it a go, for those interested
here's the link (btw please post a link next time you upload a demo), and I've got to say that... I'm disapointed. The first couple levels were very fun, but then everything went downhill, to the point I almost rage quit at the final level. Of course I didn't come here just to tell you that. I'll give you feedback.
>There's a teleport block right at the beginning of the first level, even worse it sent me to the end screen(?), so I had to restart the hack. Also, you should add 50 more seconds to the timer.
>On the third level there's a blue pipe leading to a bonus room, but one screen ahead there's a dragon coin which
can't be taken if you go to the bonus level, and if you wanted make the player choose between one or another, let me tell you the answer is quite obvius, I mean,
you can easily farm lives in the bonus level. Also a bit more seconds would come in handy here too.
>So you're telling me that my reward for getting up here and barely evading a grinder is a poison mushroom? Also the colision between the grass and the castle tiles looks very odd.
>Ok this definitely doesn't look good, and of course recoloring all the sprites to black won't make it any better. There's some cutoff
here and
here,
this looks really strange and
this doesn't look very good either.
>I don't like the background palette you used here. And I noticed you used the same bonus stage like, 3 times just with some minor modifications. I mean, official Mario games tend to do the same, but it looks bad imho.
>The water level. This was the first level in which I got bored. This could've been done on purpose as SMB's water levels weren't that good either, but even so this could definitely get some polish. Also,
poison mushroom right after midway point? Are you kidding? Yes I know right after that there's a real mushroom, but even so it still is a very cheap shot placed very unfairly if you ask me.
>What's the point of placing a directional coins block if you're not gonna give the player enough room to at least react to it?
>So you give me a power up and 10 seconds later you try to take it away from me the cheapest way possible: Poison mushroom. Ok at this point I stopped screencapping poison mushrooms, there was no point in doing so as almost literally EVERY SINGLE LEVEL HAD THEM FROM THIS POINT ON. That said let me state my thoughts about poison mushrooms:
They are one fo the, if not THE cheapest way of creating fake difficulty. I might be wrong with this, but it's my honest opinion.
>You varied the terrain in this layer 2 section to give the impression these holes were safe spots, but when I trying ducking in them I got squashed. That's cool.
>Ugly cement block palette. And there's a lot of other problems I found in this level. Let's begin with the bonus room you placed right after the midway point, after beating it I was sent to
a bugged level 0. And when you fix this, please relocate the bonus room, if you leave it there players are easily gonna farm lives. Now let's go to thenext issue: hammer bros. See, these guys can either be fun or specially annoying obstacles depending on their usage, and in this case they're the second. The first hammer bro is nicely placed on top of an elevated platfform, but the other ones... Hammer bros on flat ground are never good. Relocate them to be like the very first one please. And finally, I know I said I was gonna stop with poison mushrooms,
BUT THIS IS JUST TOO MUCH. Hammer bro on flat ground + volcano lotus on a high platfform + poison mushroom = NOPE.
>Enable vertical scrolling in this level.
>I dunno what were you aiming for with these visuals, but right now it looks very strange. And you used the same cement blocks from before at the very end of the level. As for the level design, you literally spammed the same Y-shaped structure throughout all the level, yet it was kinda fun to play, so no complains about that I guess.
>Ok you definnitely messed up with this eye-rapping palette. And a bit further in the level I got thrown away by this note block as big Mario, usually I could've avoided it thanks to smw's jump physics, but with the new ones you made I couldn't.
>This was one hell of a cheap shot.
>I jumped to the not-so-dangerous looking water and I died, and what's wrong with those wooden logs? Are they... rolling? In any case, they look weird, and the fact that they act as quicksand makes them look even weirder. Also, I'm sorry but as you probably can tell from the lives counter, I started using savestates from here. I couldn't bear your cheap shot attempts anymore.
>lol what's wrong with that bullet bill shooter palette? And a few seconds later
this red pipe shot a fast moving cannon ball which I obviusly couldn't evade the first time. I'm getting bored of repeating cheap shot once and once again, y'know... Also, this level has got to be the most boring of the hack, I just had to stand still and wait for the screen to scroll most of the time. And no midway point? Really? Come on
>ugh, what's this palette? The bg will be fine if you simply use its default palette, but I can't really tell you how to work around the fg, sorry. Also, why is that platform so far away?
>This level was probably my favorite, but you definitely overdid it here, getting rid of the fire bro should be enough.
>Ugly rock palette,
and the bg keeps blinking after hitting the goal tape, it's not a huge issue and I don't know how to fix it, but I felt like pointing it out anyway.
>This is some really weird bug I found. It triggers when Mario passes through the black gap and hits the wooden blocks. It's hard to see in this image, and of course I don't know how to fix it, but hopefully someone else does. On a minor note, I felt this level very anti climatic and overall "meh" compared to the past two.
>The final level, and in my personal opinion, the worst one. See, this is something very personal, but I
hate levels that require finding a random pipe to advance a.k.a "maze" levels, and the fact that you made
the very last level like this almost made me rage quit the game. Even so I decided to play it, and after 10+ minutes of repeating the same two rooms I got angry and decided go check lunar magic, and when I found out what I was supposed to do... Really?
Hitting random blocks til finding a p-switch? I don't know how obvius this was cause at that point I was hella annoyed and was playing just for the sake of finishing the hack, so I won't say anything about it,
but I sure can point out this ugly bg, and did you really use the SMB3 water theme in the last level?
>About he final boss...
I literally skipped him over on my first attempt, and just for fun I looked back at him lmao, but most smw final bosses are anti-climatic so there's no point in complaining about it.
>I really hope this is just a place holder.
That's pretty much everything. Sorry for the long rant zacmario, but I honestly felt disapointed after playing this, I expected much more... But don't get me wrong, I did have fun playing this hack, but most of the issues mentioned above killed it for me. Anyway, I hope you find my feedback useful. Good luck, I look forward to playing the improved version.
