[Open Assets] SRB2 : Project Junio 2

So I don't typically write reviews on level packs or SRB2 mods in general. At least, I haven't in many years. Not because of a lack of quality (SRB2 modding community has always had such talented people participating), but simply because I've either been busy or didn't really resonate much with the content. However, I wanted to leave a review on this mod because it has stuck with me as probably my favorite SRB2 level pack of all time. There's a few reasons why that is, but firstly I wanted to offer my perspective on the progression system of this level pack.

Typically, when I pick up level packs, I feel like I'm in a rush to see how quickly I can blitz through the content. It isn't because I'm bored, but rather, it's how I'm used to playing SRB2. I don't ever take my time and try to 100% mods because I don't usually feel the drive to do so. In fact, very rarely do I 100% games in general. That being said, when I first started playing this level pack, I cringed at the idea that progression was locked behind collecting emblems. I was willing to give it a try though, and went emblem hunting. I found that the location of the emblems was really smartly placed. They weren't too hidden or felt unfair. It always felt like a nice reward and a big spike in dopamine when I found them. And something happened... I found myself wanting to know what the other levels were like. The first few levels were really easy to me, and I wanted to see how challenging your level designing could get. But the only way forward was to explore these levels. So I had a choice. I dedicate myself to emblem hunting so I can play the later stages, or I just give up/cheat. But I'm not the type of person that likes to cheat on my first playthrough, and giving up felt lame. So I picked it up again the next day. I started to explore these stages. It is no secret that these stages are expertly crafted. Sure, there are little quirks here and there, but those are typically easy fixes. The type of design and scope of these stages must have taken you so incredibly long to develop. And, in addition, to make each room feel unique while also maintaining the flow of the level. You aren't just good at level design, I'd say you've mastered it. This doesn't feel like SRB2 to me, it feels like a spiritual successor to Sonic Utopia. I thought playing through the same levels would be boring or repetitive, but because of your skill building these stages, it was a pleasant surprise to explore the stages and really soak it in. I understand why you'd want to have emblem progression. You spent so much time building these levels, you want to encourage people to explore and really soak it in. I see it may be controversial, but honestly, I think this level pack's biggest strength is that it isn't scared to defy SRB2 norms. The way you design the levels isn't patronizing, it treats the user with respect and assumes the user knows enough about SRB2 and how to control in it. That's why you can get away with things like the hub world placing levels in locations that require you to make use of physics or rebounding. That's why you can trust that the player will make it through the stages without it feeling unfair. It stands proudly as a level pack that knows exactly what it wants to be, and you should be proud of it. Not once during my playthrough did I feel cheated from the level design. (Ok, there was one point where I hit a spring and it launched me into a mace, but on my second go around, it was fun having to dodge it so whatever.)

Now with all that out of the way, I wanted to talk about some specific pieces of feedback.

I will say, Volcano Rave 1 and 2 are probably my favorite stages in the pack. Both of them are really fun and unique and just have really nice gameplay elements to them. My least favorite stage is Stormspire Heights. This level was the one that I had the least fun with. Still a good level, but something about the gimmicks in this one didn't really resonate with me.

(Also, my personal nitpick, please please please change the Verdant Bastion music. k thnx)

I think one of my biggest issues with the level pack is actually the momentum. It feels a bit inconsistent at times, like sometimes I can go really fast and keep my speed, and other times I feel like I can't build speed at all. Another thing, perhaps an optional emblem radar may be useful, especially late game (past 60 emblems).

Also, being able to see what emblems you've collected in each level before having to go into it would be a huge time saver. Anyway, that's my weird sorta review / glaze post. I would love to see what maps you start making next, and I can see this pack going down as one of the best SRB2 has to offer. I know there's some criticisms or controversies behind some of the level pack's choices, but I can see exactly what you were going for here, and once the waters have settled a bit, I think you'll find that people will appreciate all you've done here.

POST EDIT: Started writing this before the update that removed the hub and emblem progression, but I will say that I'd love for you to reconsider this change. I know it may be unpopular, but I do think it's integral to this level pack. I will not be updating until I beat the level pack in full. And I would love to chat with you one day, Malon, and gain insight into how you design your levels. I think I can learn a lot from you. Hit me up on Discord if you ever wanna chat!

Just rolled credits, although I cheated a bit.

To start with, most of the levels in this pack absolutely rule, if it was just a level pack and a (suggested but optional) custom Junio Sonic, this would be a 5/5 easily, only held back from "I wish I could give this a six" by performance issues and some pretty obnoxious enemy spam in some levels. (Which probably also doesn't help with performance.) The theming and spectacle is fun, the flow is frequently immaculate, and a lot of stages feel like they do a good job taking advantage of Junio's unique moveset and water running. It's honestly hard to pick out highlights, because when I attempted to do so I basically listed every level except Stormspire Heights, and even that is less "not a highlight" and more "I suspect this would be awesome if there were more checkpoints, less enemies, and my framerate didn't randomly decide to die in this level." Even the hub world, which I am about to complain about, has fun movement between levels and cool platforming challenges for level entrances and emerald and emblem locations.

This variation of Junio Sonic is also great, between the (I think buffed?) rebound dash, the drop dash, and the dash mode, along with the heavy use of slopes in the level design, I could swear there was a momentum mod if it wasn't for the lack of the hyperspeed glitch when loading one in and vanilla characters feeling like they could use one when loaded into stages. (Note: This is not a request to pack in a momentum mod. If someone wants to use a momentum mod they can pick their own, and a lot of people do not and that's fine too. Especially when the maps are designed for a specific character without one.)

Unfortunately, and the main thing holding it back from a 5/5 for me, it's not just stages and a character. I suppose the idea of a hub world and emblem collecting to open up stages at all is a matter of opinion, but even outside of that not being my preference, it's not executed very well. The hub world itself doesn't do much of anything to telegraph level locations unless you just opened up a new section, or even to communicate when you HAVE levels you haven't been to. I actually missed an entire level until cheating Knuckles in to search for emeralds, and didn't even know it was missing! On top of this, the amount of emblems required for later areas is a bit much, I actually wound up editing the total required for the final stage down because I'm pretty sure it's 100% completion, and I'm glad I did because that stage is incredible. And to make the whole emblem collection thing worse, there are no emblem hints or emblem radar. (That's another edit I made to my copy, and I'm pretty sure I just wouldn't have played the latter half of the game without it.)

I'm honestly not a fan of this entire structure, but the implementation in particular, along with performance issues and occasional enemy spam, really make this whole mod feel like less than the sum of it's parts. But also, they are VERY good parts.

Tone down the emblem collection some, tone down the amount of just the worst enemies in Vulcanic Rave and Stormspire Heights, and maybe figure out a way to improve performance (even the SD version gets huge frame drops in some stages, especially if you replay them a few times for some reason?) and this becomes an easy 5/5. Release a side version where the character lock is just a suggestion and the hub and the stages are just arranged in order as a normal campaign and this becomes an all time great.

Ok, let's get the positives out of the way:
The music is awesome, no denying that. The level size is extremely ambitious, but mostly works well given the speeds you travel at and the amount of action involved. The overall design cohesion of the pack is good. Emblems being used as a progression requirement isn't inherently bad, and overall in-concept works here.

BUT.

I cannot STAND how the progression system is handled. I can't describe how frustrating it is to even remotely know what to do around here, given the requirement of emblems to progress, yet how little info you EVER get on how to find them or where to go. I understand that these levels are meant to be explored, but the level design ALSO forcing you to keep up speed in order to beat the stage does not mesh well with the collectathon goal.

The hub world is the perfect example of this. I can tell the inspiration immediately: Sonic Generations. But what made SG work is lost here with the design of the hubworld itself being convoluted at best, with some design decisions being downright stupid from my perspective. Hubworlds should ALWAYS feature the main level entrances in easily accessible ways, and the hub here falls flat in every regard to that.

As for Junio himself, his moveset here is good on paper, but feels clunky as all hell in execution. The rebound dash fails to work half the time, and the dropdash is seldom useful outside of slopes and hastening your own death to pits (another level design issue). The amount of slope jumps that Junio can hardly complete is astronomical, often locking you out of pathways unless you've learnt the game's mechanics to a T, which i doubt most people have. If you wanted to make a custom moveset for this, you could at least have it work 100% in the levels it's made for.

SO MANY areas in this pack need explanation, from the emblem system to the moveset to the multi-path level layouts. A PDF manual would be enough, though with something this complex, a tutorial should be a given and a requirement. With how different this pack is to the vanilla game, new players NEED a safety net to prevent confusion, and we get nothing like that, making the experience feel overcomplicated and frustrating beyond belief, at least to me.

Overall, this mod has some fun, solid ideas, but they get heavily washed out by the overall lack of polish present throughout. I want to see this succeed, since on paper it could be great - yet the lack of clarity, especially for new players, is beyond irritating and hard to ignore. Excuse my harshness, but you may want to form more of a team to actually get this finished, especially in regards to coding changes that should be made.

This will be amazing mod, i says as i downloads the map... amazed by how big each level is..... I was then shot 57 times by a horrible fps on the hub-world and many many unwanted mods for my experience (PLEASE LET US CHOOSE WHAT WE WANT TO LOAD OURSELVES)

Jokes aside....
1. This mappack is pretty freakin sick and i love how big and free the levels are
2. I do NOT many mods are kinda forced on, can you seperate that or something if possible? And also, for some reason levels play fine but the hub world sometimes lags me hard enough to make me crash.
3. MP (Multiplayer patch) for better time if people want to host this amazing mappack?

(TLDR, amazing mappack, i freakin love it, but please make all the mods that get forced on seperate or something)

Before I get into my review, I want to mention that with this level pack, I can anticipate a lot of the community making really shallow "Too much slope! Momentum slop! Every level nowadays is too large!" comments that I see happen with a lot of momentum and speed based levels built for this game, so if anyone has thought that looking at the screenshots or playing through the opening level, I implore you to put aside your preconceived notions and play the level pack on its own terms.

Project Junio is a generational level pack. It's very rare to see a mod this stylistically consistent and cohesive. Every level here could only exist for Project Junio; It exists almost as its own gametype.

Something I realized, is that this level pack is not designed to be rushed. I sucked at all the levels my first time around, and didn't collect nearly enough emblems to progress. But once I slowed down, replayed the levels and hunted for emblems, I discovered just how much depth is displayed here. I spent like three hours gawking at the visual fidelity and architecture here. There's detail, so much detail, an obsessive amount of detail. You're rewarded at every corner for exploring, and generally the scenery is awe inspiring.

These levels are **REALLY EXHILARATING** when you learn them too. The difficulty curve is solid, the high speed and super powerful rebound dash makes for a really unique experience where I feel tremendously powerful, yet the levels still challenge my reaction time with proper challenging obstacles and platforming.

However, with all my praises, this isn't perfect by any means. The levels are very often too visually busy, and the directioning is unclear. I found myself going the wrong direction or even backwards constantly. Something I see constantly in this project is that you have to run on leaves, where each end has a 512x512 opaque leaf texture that looks like a wall and completely covers your camera every time you cross through it. You absolutely need to replace these with a shorter texture if you expect it to be a main path, it feels really unpolished.

Similar to the visual clutter, there's a lot of sector clutter that gets in the way of the player in really annoying ways. Often I'll get caught on an arbitrary step-up, slam into a block that doesn't need to be there, and not see where I'm going because just **so much stuff**. You should clear up the ground on the intended paths in a way that doesn't slam you into walls as much or kill your speed for no reason.

And also, similar to the directioning issues, it's often unclear where you're supposed to rebound, since often times the rebound dash use has little flow to it, I just have to slam up against a wall at an odd angle and hope it brings me high enough. A lot of my rebound use often felt unintentional. I'd recommend making it more clear what areas should be rebounded on, and where. Some polish at the expense of maybe feeling a bit more hand-holdy.

The level unlocks are also something I anticipate being an issue. I was willing to play each of the levels 3 or 4 times over to collect emblems, but the beginning of the pack here is extremely slow. Most players won't be willing to play past Verdant Bastion because of the 12 emblem difference between it and Crimson Shrine. It wasn't until after Verdant Bastion where I started unlocking levels at a quicker pace. I think it might be worth making the first few levels unlock faster.

Something else I noticed is that the hub never tells you what levels you unlocked and where they are. The unlocks all say "New Level Unlock" instead of telling you what level you unlocked. This leads to situations like the 18 level unlock, Tropical Jungle, where I had no reason to think I should look UNDER THE HUB to find the level I unlocked. I thought the unlock was bugged.

Pat yourself on the back, Malom, this is an absolutely insane effort, triumphs, flaws and all.
You've done -- entirely by yourself -- what should take an entire development team of people. Making this many hours of content on your own is a feat in and of itself. I wish you best of luck in what you create in the future, or how you update this pack.