Postby HeroLinik » Sun Jan 12, 2014 7:34 am
Level Review #1: Shrewd Manor by m4sterbr0s
Reviewed by castlewars.
Level Design: 8.1/10
Well, well, well. This level is quite a masterpiece, and it seems to utilise a lot of gimmicks to their full potential. Well, for starters, forcing a gimmick to start off the level was really excellent, and I liked that. The rest of this was mostly skillful use of the invisible npc-178 (axe) to create a myriad of gimmicks that basically form the level, so it doesn't get too repetitive and boring without feeling too overloaded, even though only one gimmick seems to be used all the time - triggering an invisible npc-178 that changes the layers and thus alters the level. However, the fact that the player isn't expecting it makes it seem less repetitive and more surprising. Unfortunately, despite the coin indication, there are too many pits, and many of them are exceptions to this coin-pit rule, where the player believes it's a standard block, only to fall through a BGO, and possibly die. This happens a lot in this level, mainly in the second half, while blocks with coins under them aren't BGOs at all. That's quite unfair, particularly to a new player, and I strongly suggest you add a more clearer indication as to which ones are blocks and which are BGOs. The other nitpick I wanted to mention is that when the player reaches the secret room, talking to the Boo at least twice will set off the event chain of dialogues once more and play the sound effect. Replacing the Boo layer after the first chain will prevent this from happening. However, many of the bad aspects seem to be outweighed by the good parts, so while carrying unfair hindrances, the gimmicks used really stand out.
Music: 9.75/10
I liked the SM3DW track used in this level, and it seems to be almost the right choice of track selected. It really seems to represent the adventures explored by the player through the level while maintaining that eerie feel that all ghost house musics have. The dark feel also represents the dark nature of the level.
Graphics: 8.7/10
You did a good job with the graphics. Well, to begin with, the idea of an SMB2 ghost house is rather unique, and I've only seen one already, Spectral Skyfall, in CC5. However, even with a relatively new idea, the theme seems to be pulled off really well, even with SMB3-styled/recolored graphics, like the SMB3-styled SMW pipe, P-Switch, and SMB3-styled SMW Koopa Troopa, which actually don't clash at all, but works really well with the rest of the graphics. The level was also very nicely decorated as well; it actually feels like a mansion, feeling very naturalistic, not too designed and artificial, with the use of CGFX being executed well. There are also no cut-offs either, which really bumps up the grade of this level, and in fact, using that choice of graphics makes a typical ghost house feel much more like a ghost house. Good work with that. In order to improve, I would say try to style anything you can into the SMB2 style, because a lot of the objects in the level stick out like a sore point from the rest, rather than blending in with the rest of the graphics. This can include swapping the pipes for vases, or recoloring the checkpoint, which hasn't been tampered with at all. Also, there are graphics in the folder that haven't been used in the level itself; I suggest remove them if you're not going to be using them, as they only cause a longer level loading time.
NPC Placement: 7.3/10
I have to say here that this level was unfairly difficult, mainly because of the placement of the enemy NPCs, which was not nearly as good as everything else. While the enemy NPCs give off the feel of enemies in all typical Mario levels, a lot of them were placed in really unfair and misleading positions. Like, for starters, when the player starts the level and drops to the lower level, there is a high chance that the Eerie will kill the player without a spinjump. The rest of the problem is NPC overuse, and the most likely suspect is Mudkip's screenshot earlier up the thread - the area after the checkpoint is too overloaded with NPCs, and there is a chance that the player will either get damaged or die. Cutting the amount of NPCs there will fix the problem, but another problem lies in the actual lack of powerups. There are only two. That, coupled with the unfair difficulty of the level, makes this a very hard level, and some newbies will find it impossible. The next issue is the lack of coins underneath a lot of BGOs, and coins which provide a false indication that there is a pit there, when there isn't. Adding coins under all BGOs and removing them below blocks will fix the problem, and I strongly suggest adding a message at the start to tell players how to identify the pits from the blocks.
Overall Result: 8.46/10
Sort out the problems that make this level unfairly difficult first, and one of them must definitely be helping the player with identification of the BGO/block situation, because of the problems mentioned earlier. However, other than that, this is a good level, but try to test your levels really extensively in the future!
