[Open Assets] [v5.2] The Mystic Realm v5.2

In contrast to what Shadey said, this old thing holds up surprisingly well despite not really having been actually updated (level design changes) for a Final Demo-ish level pack. Multiple paths is nice, and the new emerald collection method of Mystic Shrines is pretty cool. Though the true final boss is... pretty bad and tries to be way too hard, and Prismatic Angel doesn't have too much depth being platforming that is very cheeseable as Sonic + Tails, there's still pretty good levels here. Labr. Woods is a maze with well-designed clues to escape. Not saying other things here except the Bumblebores are a pain to deal with and Aerial Garden relies purely on death pits.
Great pack, but there are some problems. I get this is old but dude PAZ should've been better than this.

I played the hell out of Mystic Realm before 2.x dropped, and when 2.x finally came out, I was so disappointed in the new level designs, by comparison, I wished they had just cancelled it and called Mystic Realm the real version.

Yet everywhere I look are these posts dumping on it for being less inspired than new 2.x content. Baloney. It took the main team years to make a full level pack that had some semblance of the same quality, and it wasn't that good.

Mystic Realm is king. The only question for me, are the newer versions a downgrade because it keeps getting changed by the people who aren't happy with it?

One of my friends told me to try this mod, unfortunately, it was not up to my expectations. After completing the base game entirely, I can safely say that the levels and overall design of said levels could use some critical work, while it may be true that mystic realm was out at 2.0 or 2.1 era, which probably would be good at the time, does not hold up to today, If I may give suggestions, I think slopes in some of these levels would work rather nicely, such as some sections where they use stairs and some hills that requires jumps, some of the enemy placements and obstacles in levels could be better too. Out of all the levels Aerial Garden was the worst experience out of its entirety, sure its the last level, its supposed to have some challenge I presume, but the challenge does not seem fun and I do not really learn anything other than just having a very precise jump, as a Sonic player (Mainly cause i view sonic as the main experience of the game), Doing this kind of platforming kinda sucks, especially when you have to go max speed to reach certain distances. The final levels in the vanilla experience, like Egg Rock, I viewed as challenging, I died numerous times when I was a beginner, but there are cool things to learn from it, it has unique ways of designing traps and obstacles, which isn't presented in this mod. Some may have a distaste towards what I'm saying, I think this mod can have much more potential, but at its current state it feels rather boring and very short for my play style, please listen and learn from this.

For the first level pack for SRB2, it's still holds up till this day (in my opinion)