| File Name: | New Super Mario World 2: Around The World |
| Submitted: | by Pink Gold Peach |
| Authors: | Pink Gold Peach |
| Demo: | No |
| Featured: | No |
| Length: | 119 exit(s) |
| Difficulty: | Very Hard |
| Description: | The sequel to NSMW1 The 12 Magic Orbs, this hack features 16 different worlds and 90+ unique levels filled with challenge and secrets. The hack uses a lot of ASM like custom sprites, blocks, uberASM effects and other stuff like that. Aesthetically it has a choconilla style with most of the graphics being from the original SMW with some new custom graphics. July 15th Update: -Fixed some issues pointed out in the comments July 16th Update: -Fixed the midpoint in 15-5 August 3rd Update: -Removed Yoshi from the secret exit in 9-3 -Removed two player mode |
| Screenshots: |    |
To start, let's say that I'm sorry this took so long to moderate. Unfortunately, I have to reject this hack, for a variety of major and minor reasons.
Let's quickly go over the major reasons, since those are probably the simplest to explain.
There are various crashes, errors and softlocks that made their way into the final version of this hack, therefore breaking the Core Values of the Submission Guidelines:
An example of a crash that can be easily reproduced is here, you can do it by going in a vertical level with yoshi, eat a koopa and then spit it out after having moved some screens vertically, I found another crash that I couldn't reproduce again so I don't have any gifs of it.
An example of a softlock is here, there are a couple more scattered around the hack.
An example of an error is the fact that lives overflow back to 99 after getting a Game Over.
Keep in mind that these are just examples and they do not represent the whole reason the hack gets rejected. In fact, while the most rule breaking things are for sure the crashes and the softlocks, there are a sea of minor issues that I'll go in more details down below.
I'll preface this log by saying that when we started moderating this hack we were worried the rejection would happen after having read the comments under it that cited crashes and the likes. So, to prevent us having to moderating the same thing twice, the moderator who originally claimed the hack asked you if you wanted to update the hack in the near future based on the feedback received, and you declined.
I'll append here the moderation notes of Beekaay for documentation purposes:
Originally posted by BeeKaaaay
I lost my patience after 74 exits in world 14 (the ghost house and upside-down levels) and will be handing off my save file and moderation to another moderator.
With the exception of the above levels which caused me to quit, I was generally fond of the hack. I liked the level design, graphics, and music.
My moderation notes:
- 4-6: the boss is really bad and in my opinion has no place in modern hacks. I feel like I only beat it because I got lucky.
- 6-2: it is counter-intuitive that you cannot spin jump on the giant thwomps because you can spin jump on regular thwomps.
- After you get a game over, you get 99 lives, which seems unintended. I took advantage of this. A hack of this difficulty needs life farms or infinite lives.
- 11-2: the balloons in the second half are awkward to deal with because of the unusually short jump height when jumping off of them.
- The Ice Bro enemy (as found in the 13-2 secret exit and 13-5) is obnoxious. If he hits you once, you are stun-locked and will die after he hits you more. He might as well insta-kill you.
- 13-5: if you fall down the pit before the final pipe, there's some significant cutoff.
With the exception of the above levels which caused me to quit, I was generally fond of the hack. I liked the level design, graphics, and music.
My moderation notes:
- 4-6: the boss is really bad and in my opinion has no place in modern hacks. I feel like I only beat it because I got lucky.
- 6-2: it is counter-intuitive that you cannot spin jump on the giant thwomps because you can spin jump on regular thwomps.
- After you get a game over, you get 99 lives, which seems unintended. I took advantage of this. A hack of this difficulty needs life farms or infinite lives.
- 11-2: the balloons in the second half are awkward to deal with because of the unusually short jump height when jumping off of them.
- The Ice Bro enemy (as found in the 13-2 secret exit and 13-5) is obnoxious. If he hits you once, you are stun-locked and will die after he hits you more. He might as well insta-kill you.
- 13-5: if you fall down the pit before the final pipe, there's some significant cutoff.
Now I'll start with MY moderation log.
So, this will be a long ride so strap in and prepare yourself because I have a lot to say about this.
Let's be clear and say that I have no played this hack to its full extent, I have gotten the savefile from another moderator to complete it, since they found some levels too annoying to deal with and so I started from a base of 74 exits.
Then, I completed the rest of the game, namely finishing worlds 14/15/16, then going back and finishing worlds 3/12 along with getting a couple of missed secret exits.
I won't focus much on the first 10 or so worlds of this hack, since most of the levels in them are okay, the level design is not groundbreaking or innovative, but the aesthetics are very much on point and nothing is too annoying. Worlds 11-13 are not that bad either, althought you can see the level design deteriorating as you go along.
Worlds from 14 to 16 is where the hack really starts to crumble, the levels are getting worse. But how exactly?
Let's explain:
In every hack there's a difficulty curve of course, it can be slow (SMW), steep (THNAN), or oscillating (JUMP). In order to keep the challenge up while the player dives further into the game, a creator should know how to increase the difficulty of their levels in the final worlds while keeping the player engaged and maintaining the levels fair and fun.
This is exactly where your hack, unfortunately, fails. You wanted to make the final levels hard, with a good reason (they are the final levels, afterall), but you did it in the wrong way: making long, excruciating levels, with little to no way to recover after a fail (let's name for example the secret exit that takes you to world 16), a lot (and when I say a lot, I really mean it) of sprite spam, a lot of lag, and annoying obstacles. Along with this, there was also a problem with the testing as I could see that the final 2/3 worlds clearly weren't tested enough if at all, finding softlocks, crashes and sequence breaks (like skipping a whole section with a cape, or cheesing a secret exit by walljumping).
Let's now talk about some specific levels which were more problematic than others.
- World 14-5 House of Illusions 2
This is probably the worst level in the hack. Confusing, unfair, long, littered with unexpected deaths and sprite spam. Apart from the fact that it has 3 exits and it took me SO much time to figure out what exits I was getting, the real problem of this level is that it's too damn confusing. The mechanic itself could've been probably fine if used in a less punishing level, but coins being instant death, doors everywhere that took you around in a circle, combined with some very tight spaces and jumps, made it a very frustrating and generally not fun level.
- World 15-2 Asteroid Ascent
This level, while being nowhere near as confusing as the previous one, has its other fair share of problems. The stars everywhere make some jumps unnecessearily hard, there are constantly a lot of sprites on screen (sometimes lagging aswell) and it's generally not forgiving at all. The secret exit is also very difficult to obtain, considering I had to use Lunar Magic to even figure out where it was and how to get it.
- World 15-5 The Core & World 16-3 Raindbow Ride
These 2 levels can be wrapped under the same tree, a lot of sprites, long and unforgiving. Pretty much the same issue as before.
- World 16-5 Pink Gold Palace (secret exit in particular)
This level wasn't too bad, the fast conveyor belts however, were very annoying to battle, flinging you in the complete opposite direction of where you wanted to go, sometimes leaving you no room because if you went left, you'd die in the lava, if you went right, you'd be stuck in place because of the conveyor and if you jumped you'd die because of a hammer bro. The secret exit... I don't know, I don't see an easy way to get it. I didn't have trouble cheesing it with a shelljump but I'm pretty sure most other players (especially of non-kaizo) wouldn't have an easy time with it.
- World 16-6 Final Marathon
This level doesn't suffer from the sprite spam as much as the others mentioned before it, it suffers from eccessive length. 16 total sections, with only 1 checkpoint in the middle, all long between 8 to 10 screens, is not feasible or fun to play. Every normal player will have to use savestates to get out of this level.
Let's also briefly touch upon the final boss of any%, Bowser. The boss itself would've been fine, if it wasn't for the fact that every time it landed on the ground, it stuns you for way longer than needed. Sometimes you'd just be dead, with no way out. It's too reliant on luck, sometimes you'd get a specific pattern of hammers and fire, combined with a stun, that would just nuke you right out of the fight.
With that said, there are also a lot of positive things you did in this hack.
Aesthetics are absolutely on point, rarely finding errors and generally offering a beatiful view to the eye. Also as I said before, worlds 1-9/10 are fine by themselves, level design wise. If I had any feedback on how to save this with minimal effort, I'd say to cut the hack around world 10, make a final little world there, based on world's 10 difficulty, without going overboard, fix all the little bugs and crashes, and you're good to go. This is my personal suggestion, if you actually do it, I'm sure this hack will have no problems being accepted. I won't get around saying much more on the matter because I'm sure that other people have already given you their best advice.
I also liked how you introduced the mechanics in some levels and how you used them, in early levels the mechanics were fun, fresh and a nice addition to spice up the level design. I think that you need to keep up your work on that front!
I wish you the best of luck with your future endeavors and projects.