SM65-Course 1-2

[SuperMIC]

Okay, this review will encompass all that I played in your level series.

FUN - 3.5/10

Basically, there wasn't any LASTING APPEAL to your levels - it was the same gameplay every time. What I mean is, there was one hidden shine, one platforming-y shine, and usually one shine that dealt with the cannon... Overall, all of the Shines were very VERY easy to get, each of them having the same level of difficulty as the Tutorial Shine...

I found it good that you had a red coin and Silver Star level, but again there were many things that could have been improved. For one, almost all of the coins and stars were hidden in plain sight; it took me almost no effort to find them. True, there were some coins and stars that I thought had been hidden quite well, but the rest were very easy. Your biggest mistake in these levels were constantly putting the Shines, coins, and stars all in the EXACT SAME PLACE. Literally, there was always one red coin and one silver star where a shine previously had been.

Another big probem with your levels is that it is VERY HARD TO DIE. I think that what you were going at was not to annoy people by making them die after they had done quite a lot, but dieing is actually an essential part of a game - it makes the player want to play it again SO THAt he can get past that part. Obviously, underuse and overuse of death is bad, but it's gotta be there.

The most interesting part out of all of your series, in my opinion, was just the small section where you jumped into the painting. Call me harsh, but that is the thing that I think I'll most remember from your series. Either that or the snow maze. That was pretty fun.

GRAPHICS - 1/5

The biggest problem with your graphics was that there was almost NO decor whatsoever. You usually used one block type for each level, except for the silver stars part in the Bulldog Bay where you made that pyramid (which was somehwhat well-executed). The "Fabulous" Fortress wasn't that fabulous because it was one tle texture - stone, stone, stone, and stone. The most decorated levels you had were the "Tutorial level," and the "Outside the Castle" part.

OTHER - 0/5

+1 Snow maze
+1 Jumping into paintings
+1 Almost no lag
+0.5 Okay platforming sections
+0.2 Traditional style Mario 64 levels (Red coins and silver stars)
+0.1 Few well-hidden silver stars and red coins.
-3 Easy-Peasy Lemon-squeezy. Don't ask. I'm weird.
-2 Easily accessable secrets and hidden objects (Red coins, silver stars)
-0.5 Bulldog Bay... What do Bulldogs even have to do with it? There's aso a really random butterfly at the beginning of the course.
-0.5 Bland graphics (Only half because I already covered this in graphics, but I really need to stress this.)

OVERALL - 4.5/20

Overall, this series obviously has a lot of work to do. First and foremost, add more difficulty to the levels. At the moment, if they were all on the LDP, I would give them all "Baby." You also need more lasting appeal. Twists to the storyline, secret courses, they all work. You really need to make the shines a LOT harder. At the moment, they are very easy to get. I think your biggest flaw was putting three shines in one level, instead of devoting an entire level to one shine. For example, "The Amazing Goomba Army" was really weak... holding the X-button down destroyed them all. If you'd made an entire level devoted to rough terrain and let's say, progression from grassland to bare rock, and then made this kinda awesome block-gooma boss at the end of your long march, it would have been very epic.

Graphics. Please, please add decor. If you're thinking for the fabulous fortress that you can't put plants on stone because they'd die and its illogical, there are many other options. Disable some tiles and make monuments out of tiles. Use a variety of tiles and not just one. Bulldog Bay was very, very bland... I don't think the background suited it at all. The blackness made me quite sleepy and bored. You could always make a land section in the bay. Bays aren't just water. Add a shore. Add a hidden town in the water. You really have to expand your levels - you're working in a very cramped space. For me, the minimum length my levels have to go is at least 100x by 100y. From there, I use extra space as saving space for future installments - for secret courses and such.

I really hope that from this review you think I'm a mean old hag (I'm male, just saying) and that I only critique meanly. If you ever update your levels, please PM me that you did, because I'd be really interested in seeing how much you can expand your levels.

Best of luck,

-SMIC