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Sicari 2 - The Brink of Time DEMO

Super Mario WorldDemoScreenshots

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Originally posted by Minuy600
I actually found Sicari the weak one as her dagger goes nowhere #wario{-_-?}

Really I thought her range was quite generous with how many pixels ahead you can hit enemies with compared to where the dagger actually lands.
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Sicari's dagger is also more powerful I think. IIRC it killed enemies in one hit whereas pew pewing sometimes took more than one.

Playing the boss level again, the boss is actually a little disappointing. Given Sicari's and K-16's ability to damage enemies without jumping, it might be worth looking into bosses that can be damaged with these standard attacks but take more damage to defeat this way so they're not easy kills (think something like Shovel Knight). If you could do that to this boss, it would make for a much more enjoyable fight.
All the tilesets are really dope, I'm really looking forward to seeing the full project! All the custom ASM that goes into this is really fascinating, and all the graphics transform what what was once Mario into a totally different game. :D Good job!
I'll be sure to give this a go sometime, even if I generally prefer waiting for the full thing rather than "ruining my surprise" with demos. From the screens, though, you can already tell it's going to be amazing.
Great job so far! Looking forward the final relase!
The demo was amazing! Anybody who, like me, has been in and out of smw hacking should play this. Seeing all the effort and care that are being put into this hack is uplifting and reminds me of what can be done in a smw hack. I especially loved being able to forget this is a Mario romhack and to enjoy it as its own game.

My favourite level has to be Ka'shai the Foul, not simply because of the boss but also because I think you nailed the oriental aesthetic, and the combination of the LM 3.0 bigger level feature with the vertical scroll locking made it feel kinda like a Megaman level or something
I played your demo despite never even trying the first sicari. I really enjoyed it; what I liked most were the new characters and the mechanics that came with them. I also really liked each level, they were somewhat simple, but also really fun to play. Here are few suggestions:
- Personally, I feel that TS-16 (or whatever she's called) is slightly better than sicari, perhaps because her normal attack has a much bigger range. Not sure what you can do here though.
- In the lava level, the floating, round enemy here would be better if you could still bounce off it even when it emits sparks.
- I think the boss should be damaged by the character's attacks instead. I first assumed that's how you had to damage him, actually.
Either way, great hack! I'll definitely play the full version when it comes out.
Originally posted by Minuy600
I actually found Sicari the weak one as her dagger goes nowhere #wario{-_-?}
Originally posted by Christian07
- Personally, I feel that TS-16 (or whatever she's called) is slightly better than sicari, perhaps because her normal attack has a much bigger range. Not sure what you can do here though.}

For me Sicari's Spin Jump made up for that. Besides the diving birds in level 1 the dagger seemed very reasonable.
On another note I did find the unique death animations fun. Though I'll admit turning into a pile of ash with eyeballs always creeped me out.
There were too many of those bouncing guys in the library. They were unkillable (which I learned the hard way as Sicari) and their nose gets annoying really fast, especially when in numbers.
The boss annoyed me with its long periods of invulnerability.

Two small blemishes on an otherwise excellent demo. I like the level select presentation a lot.
Despite dying a lot due to my incompetence with a keyboard, I had a whole lot of fun playing this hack. It was just an incredible experience too, the graphics all look wonderful and fit together really nicely with their own style to create a unique feeling. The music choice only compliment those too, and I believe I enjoyed every single one I heard throughout, including the title-screen music. That overworld system looks neat as hell too (props to Erik on that). Overall, even though it's a demo this hack already has a whole bunch of polish that really shows just how much effort and care you've put into it so far. Definitely earned a spot in the top 3 hacks that I'm looking forward to playing once the full version comes out.

Great work, Eevee!
For the boss you actually don't need to move much... The AI is a bit flawed and I just positioned myself, stood still and waited until after the lunge.
Finished it in about fifteen minutes. I love this already! The old mechanics work again and the new mechanics added to this game work perfectly. I played a shit ton out of Sicari rather than K-16 because of that BELMONT sword and the fire powerup that allows you to perform Dracula's split fireballs move.

LINKS -> YouTube - Discord - Twitter

Thanks once again for all the kind words and constructive feedback. I'm definitely going to try and take a lot of it on board.

As for my previous question, from what I've seen, the opinion on which character is better is still very split, which I suppose is a good thing? If each can suit a different playstyle I'm happy with that. With that said, I do still plan to buff K-16 a bit by improving her charge shot if possible.

Before C3 ends, I'll also wrap up this thread by revealing a level which I teased on Discord:


Witching Hour, the world 2 level in which you get to play as Anna in a shoot-em up segment. She works on a modified version of the marine pop, and is similar to the Shooting Stars level in K-16 - Story of Steel but more refined.
Originally posted by Eevee
Witching Hour, the world 2 level in which you get to play as Anna in a shoot-em up segment. She works on a modified version of the marine pop, and is similar to the Shooting Stars level in K-16 - Story of Steel but more refined.

Your screenshots look very pretty, as usual. My only complaint would be, that it looks a tad too monochromatic perhaps. There's already the HDMA which adds more colour variation (white on the bottom), but especially the left screenshot is still 90% purple/pink. You don't neccessarily need to change that drastically, but perhaps you want to keep in mind to refine the palettes a bit?

Secondly, the idea that Anna on her broom becomes a marine pop sprite is ingenious! I can't remember if i've seen such a creative use of it before!
You're as amazing as always Eevee! #w{<3}








The game is pretty and graphically it is a step up from the reworked first game. Sprite graphics, layer 3 usage, gradient usage, it's all top notch.

One thing I would consider here is to connect ground pieces together, such as in the picture below.
Another thing is that there were quite a few low ceilings and 2-tile corridors. I am personally not a fan of that for any game where jumping is one of the most prominent moves your character can make.



The demo as presented took me around 15-20 minutes to play through without save states. Ultimately it left me wanting for more. Not in the sense of more content, but in the sense of different content. As a sequel it didn't feel like this was bringing anything new to the table; the graphics are nicer and the levels are different, but ultimately it feels the same as the first game. I guess some people are fine with more of the same, though, and what was presented is of fine quality and enjoyable.

Thanks for sharing this!
I gave this a try, having never seen or played Sicari 1. It's very well done! I think "cohesive" is the word I want here - a great big pile of things have been changed, but they all fit together, and nothing looks like it was done "just because." I cleared every level as each character; my (completely unsorted) thoughts and impressions are below:

• Not being able to run was weird for about five minutes before I got over it.

• There's no such thing as a polite-sounding way to suggest a grammar fix, is there? "As you know, we Gods are weak..."

• I kept getting hurt as Sicari for quite some time because I wanted to run at enemies while swinging the dagger. I had to learn to slow it down a bit. I'm not framing this as a bad thing, mind.

• I didn't figure out what the midpoint was the first few times, I thought it was a decorative sign and passed it by. I don't think it's particularly poorly communicated, I'm just letting you know at least one of your players is real dumb.

• The Hungry Sand was my least favorite level. I had a difficult time judging which jump would be the one to free me from the quicksand.

• Feeling the Heat and Silence in the Library were tied for favorite level overall.

• One hazard I quite liked was the "double grinders on low ledges" setup towards the end of Ka'Shai the Foul, where jumping too high to escape the grinder puts the player back on the top ledge, forcing another try.

• One hazard I much did not like was in Chill Out, namely the "triple single-tile slippery block jump scrunched under a low, solid ceiling you can't see all of" setup. In my opinion, this is a post-midpoint kind of exercise. The ceiling was kind of a nuisance in that level whenever I had occasion to be near it.

• I'm sure you've noticed, but powerups coming out of blocks like to hide behind the background while rising only to suddenly appear once fully out.

• Ducking and spin jumping seem to cancel Sicari's dagger swing, but starting a wall slide does not. It's so quick as to be a minor issue, but for a split second a blade is slashing out of her back.

• After getting a GAME OVER, the computer screen level select menu is shown; one can see a little halo over the level selector icon.

Originally posted by Eevee
As for my previous question, from what I've seen, the opinion on which character is better is still very split, which I suppose is a good thing?

• I'd argue that's the best thing. If everyone can agree that character X is best, then she probably is, which ought to concern you if balance is something you're after. That said, I found Sicari to be more capable in general than K-16. K-16 seems to be a very horizontal-oriented character, so the second an enemy starts crawling up one of the many slopes or is positioned in one of the many pits, K-16's abilities are quickly made much more difficult to use.

• Tapping into the above, I kind of felt like there were a few too many "blue metal" enemies about. Maybe these levels were disproportionately from the later game, but placing an abundance of enemies that flat negate most of the abilities that make your characters so unique seems like an odd choice. Could just be me on that one, though.

• Also related to the above, I didn't feel like the powerup items I found were of particularly great use.


If any of my rambling sounds overly negative, that's only because I haven't touched on the graphics, or the music, or the overall design, which is all excellent. I'm glad you're as dedicated as you are to your project, and I hope it turns out to be everything you want it to be.





The woman on your title screen looks like she's in the middle of falling over because she can't see through her heavy iron helmet.

(I'm sorry)
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