I was just going to go ahead and release this, but then I decided it'd be worth giving a more in-depth review.
I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that you've really made something great here, as any good designer knows it without being told. Nevertheless, I'd like to say it anyways:
This is fantastic. You took several completely original concepts to SRB2 as we knew (2D Axis platforming, real trampolines) and several old ones, and used them all in fantastic and progressive ways, getting more and more interesting and difficult as the level went on. I never thought I'd ENJOY seeing a robohood in SRB2, but your use of them as passive stage hazards a la kirby 64 cannons was a choice that seemed tasteful and fair. You hid secrets all over the place, requiring the players to really think about their path of movement to get to seemingly impossible things. I love that stuff.
My favorite part was the large round tower which you ascended the outside of, each revolution being a little above the path below.
There is one major flaw with your level though, and that is the visual design. That's a topic that is hard to quantify though, so I'll try my best.
This is exactly the example I need. What we have here, is a complete mishmash of textures, all different styles, sizes, and colors. You have the geometrical Sapphire Falls walls textures and grass, the semi realistic clean wooden slabs (all different sizes of it), an uber realism aged brick texture, and a twinkling starry sky that looks like it would be better served to fit some sort of fairytale theme. The sky is the wrong dimensions too, and it stretches horizontally, making your stars oval shaped.
Also I know it's vanilla but seriously those flowers are so bad looking in every way
Do I even need to mention the cut in half clocks? I'm honestly not sure how you did that and didn't notice it. :p
Though having a cohesive style of texture patterns would definitely help, I don't think it'd entirely solve it. Some of your level architecture is fundementally boring on the eyes. I mean, your clock towers look like cardboard boxes on posts. Considering the otherwise fantastic nature of your level, I feel it's deserving of majestic towers more on the tier of Big Ben and all.
Not all parts suffer from this though. A few notable examples of fantastic looking areas with excellent cinematics:
Gotta love those gears, which give a great feeling of motion and progress to the level.
This part is just amazing. The spiral of pillars really draws the player's eyes up and towards the huge clock, which is the backdrop. It feels like there's enough to look at, without it being too much.
Some of the rooms cannot boast this visual impressiveness though.
This one is just plain dull. Same texture plastered all over, and no real visual variation. I think to really fix up the visuals of rooms like these (there's quite a few) you'd have to, first, get a proper floor texture. That alone would jazz it up a lot, and putting some extra woodwork like the stuff in Sphere's Clockwork Towers, would really hit the target dead on.
Visuals aside, there are two small things in particular that bugged me, gameplay wise. The first, is these platforms:
The issue is that they're only used here in this one instance, and it's above a death pit. I didn't expect them to disappear at all, because every other platform in the level stays put, and I died to them instantly. The next time I played, I forgot they existed, and made the jump again, only to have them disappear out from under me. If you're gonna introduce a gimmick like this, it's best to do it in non death situations first, so I can know what I'm up against.
Lastly, this monitor is rather unpredictable, and is instant death if you get it wrong.
I didn't expect the collisions of the spikes to rise above the top of the box itself, so I figured I'd be safe to grab it as long as I didn't stand around down there. I was not though, as the spikes apparently reach above the box, and it sent me plummeting to my doom.
I don't expect you to fix any of this, though. I wouldn't if I were you. This is already a fantastic level, and it's best to take the lessons learned onto future projects, rather than refining the same thing over and over again.
...That's all I have to say. Released. 10/10
