This map pack seems to jump between a fun, fairly easy experience and a sudden difficulty spike to kaizo-level traps that are nothing but trial and error. The longer it goes on, the bigger these dips and spikes in difficulty get. One level will be easy going, then it'll suddenly crank up the difficulty and drain your lives. I'm convinced map 20 wasn't meant to be beaten by a human, at least on the "secret" route. Sure, I'm weak, whatever, but I'm not gonna waste my time going for a secret level when the design of the levels directly punishes and hates me. Some segments I could mercifully find a way around (those narrow platforms in map 19 for example, you can spindash jump to a small path on the left wall), but for the ones I couldn't, it was just a matter of dying to a trap, retrying, getting past that trap, then dying to the next trap. Rinse and repeat until you can manage to brute force your way to the end.
That said, there's a lot to like for the good parts. When the maps are good, they're very fun, and visually they look pretty good as well. The cutscenes were good for a laugh or two. Bit surprised there were no emblems in this mod, though I found several places where a green grayed out emblem was hovering in place. I actually didn't mind being forced to switch between all 3 characters for different levels, though quite often when faced with kaizo-like challenges I'd wished I could choose my own character. The lack of being able to pick Amy/Fang/Metal kinda hurts too.
The mod's overall a good experience, but the levels towards the end where you're hit with beginner traps and trial and error challenges are infuriating. I think it can have its place in unlockable maps, but for main campaign levels, some of this stuff is discouraging. If the difficulty curve could be smoothed out, I think this is a pretty solid level pack.
The hard path is completable :3
Flying up as tails slows him down, so you have to sparingly use it, it adds a layer of precision. Also, you have to fully charge a spindash in the beginning. The gravity obstacle afterwards, that's the hard part. Always lose between 10 and 30 lives there.
What would you change about map 18? Is the timer too tight? I remember when I first released the map, not even I could beat it because it was another 30 seconds or so shorter, and I thought that was crazy. It's definitely still hard, I wouldn't mind to just add 20 more seconds to the timer if you think that would help. Would be cool if you sent me a short DM about your thoughts :)