Want to review this WAD. Used hours playing this. The emerald spots were ones of the best in this game ever in my opinion.
Seaside palace:
This map did the first map's job pretty well in my opinion! It wasn't too easy but it still had space and a lot of places where to play around, and gave the player time to get used to the new special abilities (which I hate, at least as Sonic, sorry). Also the emerald was in an easy enough place to tell there is emeralds, good thing for first map.
This was actually the only obstacle I didn't like in the map:
These springs lead player to pit, nowhere else and I coldn't see an escape... Could there be something else or just pit, please?
Power Metropolis:
It's hard to say if I like this map or not because there's both, good and bad things. One of the very good things is that player has a lot of space to move but this doesn't feel too empty. Another is that you have done a lot of work for the environment!
But almost right at the start there was some problems... There's a blue wall you have to jump at to get higher. I was very unsure if that wall would take me anywhere and didn't even think about it at first. After some trips backwards I still had to try. And it was the supposed way.
Another thing I have to mention is this:
There's a starpost where you can spawn inside a crawla.
The lava rise is also torture if you once hit lava. I'd suggest making it liguid, so player could actually die instead of losing rings continuously, or making the lava a little slower, so player could get into the "race" again.
As a good feature I still have to mention the emerald place, not spoiling it but I used a lot of time while trying to find it and after that I just laughed. =)
Casino Highway:
Again, I have to give huge points for the effort you have put in this map! The appearence was Sonic casino-like and the theme was also. Everything reminded of something in casino. In that view this is one of the most best working SRB2 maps in history.
But I want to include the gameplay in the review though.
Most of the gameplay was unique and worked well, and how you have hidden monitors around the map, made it better. There's still many little things that I didn't like.
Just a minor thing but I lost some lives while running too fast toward this obstacle and fell before seeing any pit. Could the player have a little more space before the jumps?
The next place I have to mention is a glass floor where's rings under it. When I was trying to get 50 rings for the door behind, I used the action that makes the player go towards the closest ring and got stuck under the floor...
Also, in this level I met one of the first annoying obstacles for Sonic players. I had to thok to a platform, but every platform was surrounded by springs, so the new thok chose the closest spring to thok into.
At first I didn't know the glass floor in the end is going to collapse and lead me to the goal, so I had to restart to get the emerald and avoid the floor this time...
Rail Station:
Again, nice appearance, new fancy theme that lasted though the map in many variations, and space to move. That is awesome in your maps, but this time the gameplay wasn't so special. Sorry to say it but it felt more like platformer obstacles after each other, (except for the flying part, points for that). Emerald was nicely hidden. That was much better than expcted.
No more to say because the only thing I actually remember well is the fancy appearence. Other was just didn't stand out in this map.
Frog Jungle:
The gameplay became better in this map again. =) Using frogs to modify the map was a fun idea. Even if the frogs' sprites weren't actually as fancy as other of the WAD, I can't blame because they're better than I would make. xD
This may sound weird but could there be a warning (sign or something else) before cutscenes? At first I was running pretty fast against a frog and fell to a pit during a cutscene.
In a forest room where you had to give water to the springs, my game crashed at first for some reason. Is there anything special?
ps. emerald offered fun challenge. =)
Mystic Castle
Nice theme, totally different gameplay. There were both, nice challenges and pretty cheap ones. (emerald was a lot both of them. I still think it was a very nice extra challenge, took a lot of time to find xD)
I liked the torture room and other similar places where you just had to literally find the way out.
I still don't think the teleports were the best possible. There's linedef tricks to make the angle not change and make them sometimes completely unnotable. For excample the metal sonic room could maybe use something like that.
There is an obstacle where you have to use your own special ability to survive. I actually rather jumped to another road with spin as Sonic because that was easier way forward.
(Also, the ability cost a life in the blood flod obstacle because I couldn't aim thoks)
One of the most outstanding SRB2 maps with oustanding gameplay for a while though. =D
Egg Fortress:
Sorry, this map wasn't one of my favourites for the normal gameplay. Outlook is good and the player has space, but the obstacles didn't entertain always. I'm not personaly a fan of enemy destroying obstacles, so I always skipped the two first of them completely by little tricks...
I could explain the tricks I've found so far for Sonic:
First enemy destroy place: spin and jump to right direction, thok to 1 up monitor.
Second: Use the flying robot to fly over it. (also, if you're lucky, you can get hundreds of thousands of points when it crashes)
Third skip place: In the night area between laser platformer obstacles: You can spin or thok through the corners of the player detecting area (thok is risky because of the nerf)
I don't say these ways would make the map worse because I used them to avoid the parts I don't really like. (mappers don't like these "cheat" ways so much though. Exploits are just players' fun who don't find them wrong)
This map really took a lot of lives in the obstacles with falling platforms or even pits around. The challenge was a good thing. But as a Soni player I tried to thok into right places. Now it often aimed into a spiky robot or a spring instead, which caused very crazy deaths.
As a positive feedback I still have to say that the emerald gave a lot of challenge and it was awesome to finally get it and survive alive back. =D
But then..:
I happened to die in a wrong place. There's a star post where you can spawn inside an enemy... I did.
I don't know what to say about Metal Sonic things because I'm not a huge fan of boss fights (actually flew through Metal Sonic race as super first time I played that map). I let that part of review for someone who doesn't just find them all "just bosses".
Ps. would you like to put some emblems? Emeralds were more awesome fun to hunt than before.
EDIT: Pps: This is already the third time you present us with something very big. Extremely patient work. =D