SunkythePootis
Member
Never really voted through a forum post before, but I'm going to give it a go anyway. Here are my votes for the single player division of this contest:
1. Hollow Hill Zone by Othius, Inazuma & Spectorious
2. Falcon Emissary Zone by InferNOr
3. Mercury Mine Zone by Rexeljet
4. Lava Temple by Vixuzen
5. Koopa Kastle Zone by Glaber
6. Zaxel's Thunder Yard by Zaxel
7. Ante-Station Zone by Twins'R'Okay
8. Abyss Caverns Zone by yyeellooww7
9. Ridge Rapids Zone by particle
10. Teal Tundra Zone by SunCyclone
11. Fort Sunset Zone by DylanDude
12. Blizzard Bastion Zone by PhilJFou
13. Bombastic Beach Zone by Shapeshifter Boi
14. Drenched Dam Zone by Voidy2246
15. Music Mash Zone by WasifBoomz
16. Emerald Glade Zone by DoodlesYT
My bullet pointed thoughts on these levels can be read here:
1. Hollow Hill Zone by Othius, Inazuma & Spectorious
2. Falcon Emissary Zone by InferNOr
3. Mercury Mine Zone by Rexeljet
4. Lava Temple by Vixuzen
5. Koopa Kastle Zone by Glaber
6. Zaxel's Thunder Yard by Zaxel
7. Ante-Station Zone by Twins'R'Okay
8. Abyss Caverns Zone by yyeellooww7
9. Ridge Rapids Zone by particle
10. Teal Tundra Zone by SunCyclone
11. Fort Sunset Zone by DylanDude
12. Blizzard Bastion Zone by PhilJFou
13. Bombastic Beach Zone by Shapeshifter Boi
14. Drenched Dam Zone by Voidy2246
15. Music Mash Zone by WasifBoomz
16. Emerald Glade Zone by DoodlesYT
My bullet pointed thoughts on these levels can be read here:
Fort Sunset Zone:
- Not great
- It kind of reminds me of the vanilla SRB2 special stages pre-2.1 with its basic boxy layout and I think the collecting gimmick overstays its welcome kind of quickly
- I think 500 coins is too much for a collect-a-thon stage in a Sonic game which only makes losing the coins more of a pain. Maybe 200-300 at most would work better for a simple stage like this
- I do appreciate the coins respawning though, that does help recollecting be a bit less tedious.
- The textures do look pretty good for what I think is based on another game I'm not aware of, and I do like the coin sound.
- I think it could work better if there was a separate coin counter and you unlocked pay gates to unlock more of a bigger level. Kind of like that Spyro level in a previous contest.
Mercury Mine Zone:
- Pretty good
- There's a neat water gimmick that has a pretty decent introduction
- There's a good amount alternative paths that not only reward those exploring but also take into account the different character abilities for emblems
- The flow is on point for a SRB2 level with a good amount of slopes to take advantage of the physics.
- Though in some of the more running areas it can kind of feel a bit empty, I noticed it particularly when playing as Amy since she can't roll
Ridge Rapids Zone:
- Average
- The aesthetics looks nice but the stage kind of feels a bit compact to navigate through
- The alternate character paths didn't really add much to the level outside of Amy's path at the beginning
- The 2D camera for the first water slide was kind of jarring when I first jumped into it and since I was off the main spline I didn't really get much out of the slide
- The water current at the end of the first water slide made getting up to the springs on foot a bit troublesome. Could have ended with Sonic landing in a pool of water at that point
- This is a personal nit-pick but I wasn't keen on some of the secret areas having score monitors instead of rings since outside of Record Attack, there's not much incentive to get points in this pack as lives have been removed.
Hollow Hill Zone Act 1:
- This was anything but "Hollow". It was incredible.
- The level looks beautiful with its spooky yet almost dream-like atmosphere
- It's huge with so many interchanging paths, along with character specific routes that change up how you navigate through the stage
- It lives up to the Hill name with the slope based platforming the stage has to offer and that that thrilling downhill slope at the beginning
- I like the gag with the Gold Eggman monitor at the start and end of the level
- I like the combination of water and the quick sand gimmick of Sandopolis Zone where you could keep jump to go up the water stream
- Wasn't sure what most of the switches did when I pressed them during my playthroughs. I knew some activated stage gimmicks but others didn't seem to do anything from what I can see
- The Tails path at the beginning was rather slow to go through even with the SA1 dash gates, also didn't refill the flight time when having Tails carry Sonic
- The bomb ghost enemies are pretty difficult to hit with a roll or Fang's gun, making that one collapsing room near the end a bit of a hassle
Ante-Station Zone:
- I'm pretty torn on this stage
- On one hand I wasn't expecting a fully 2.5D stage in SRB2 after nearly a decade of just 3D levels with occasional 2D sections, and it does a pretty good job using camera angles to add a bit of depth to the level
- On the other hand I think the level design kind of falls apart once the moving platforms are introduced
- The depth perception between them and my character was hard to make out which caused me to fall off to my death multiple times
- Even when I switched to Metal Sonic to use his glide, there were times where the game forced me down to the platform which in turn cancelled the glide
- The part where I kept falling through the portal liquid thing to go through the spikes was also kind of a hassle with how you keep falling down faster and faster
- The technical aspects are also hard to ignore. I'll give the visual aspects not visible in OpenGL a pass since the creator admits it at the beginning
- But there were times where I'd be running and suddenly the stage would vanish to show other parts of the map
- The game also crashed on me when I hit one of the bombs in the outside space section (which I think it's a reference to a SRB2 Kart track).
- I'm also perplexed about having to go into the console to make one of the visual aspects work. I'm ok doing it since I've been familiar with this game for a long time but it comes as inconvenient, especially for casual players or newcomers who may not even know about the console in the first place.
- It's not a bad level as I do like the spectacle the stage offers and there's some pretty good usage of alternate paths combined with the visual bending to show distinct areas
- I want to like this level since it reminded me of how Generations creatively used the 2.5D perspective in Classic Sonic's stages, but there's parts of it that keep bugging me and stopped me from fully enjoying the level
Blizzard Bastion Zone:
- Not very good
- The beginning didn't leave a good first impression on me with how small the platforms were and how easy it was for enemies to knock me into a pit (especially those little drill hat guys)
- The desaturated look made the stage look rather dark. It's like if you take a picture in something like Photoshop and decrease the contrast without also adjusting the brightness.
- I'm not a fan of the ice maze with the ice blocks breaking since it pretty much punishes the player for just walking on the ice normally without doing some crazy jump to make up for it
- I also didn't enjoy going through the optional Amy path as it seem to overly rely on tight spaces, whether it'd be juggling between very small conveyor belts while trying to dodge the laser or going through a vent maze.
- Near the end, the level sort of became confusing on where I needed to do since the path wasn't made clear other than a big arrow on the floor. The pillars obstructing the path forward didn't help either
- The music also doesn't have a loop point leading to a jarring cut back to the beginning of Diamond Dust's theme.
- This level could be better if the difficulty curve was more gradual. At the beginning be a bit more open and forgiving as you introduce the stage mechanics and as you get closer to the end, you can then present challenges with what was introduced earlier, but do keep in mind that SRB2 doesn't have tight platforming controls ala Mega Man.
Lava Temple:
- Pretty good reimaging of the Rayman 2 stage
- The stage does a good job incorporating the stage mechanics from Rayman 2 with SRB2's existing assets
- The ball puzzles are a decent challenge
- I like the second part of the stage being exclusive challenges for specific characters, helps add to replay value
- The stage looks pretty good overall with the Rayman 2 assets though the enemies and the toad head do look rather flat with them not having the 8 direction frames
- Had some difficulty telling that the bones on the walls you could climb up them by walking into them as I thought they were for Knuckles to climb up
- It did feel like it dragged a bit for a standalone Sonic level but it wasn't too bad in length within the context of the original level
Teal Tundra Zone:
- Pretty barren stage
- Platforming is kept to a minimum leaving only long stretches where it's just running on a wide empty plain with maybe a couple of badnicks sprinkled around
- I think it'd only be kind of fun if you were playing as Metal Sonic (or one of the speed heavy character mods) and trying to speedrun it
- Least it's short and the visuals are pretty decent
Abyss Caverns Zone:
- This was a short level but I do like the ideas presented
- I like the 2 different paths you can choose from at the beginning which lead to either a fire or ice area. Reminds me of Egg Rock Act 1 but with a more balanced difficulty
- The cave parts of the level do look pretty great for what is mostly made up of one texture
- I did like the sneaky chaos emerald placement behind the crates near the end
- Only real complaint I have is that it was pretty short and the end of the level was rather underwhelming.
Emerald Glade Zone Act 1:
- Ummm...you tried?
- This kind of came up as someone messing around in Zone Builder for the first time and then deciding to submit at the last minute
- The 2 emblems I collected were practically just out in plain sight
- For some reason when I used the Armageddon Shield to clear the spring badnicks, I magically gained 900 rings even though badnicks don't drop rings in SRB2.
- If it wasn't for the golden wind shield, that emerald on the standalone pedestal would be practically impossible to get as Sonic and Amy without being carried by Tails
- I guess the Sonic drawing in one of the pits looks okay-ish?
- This will probably end up being rock bottom on many people's voting lists but I don't think that should discourage the author from making more levels and submitting in the future once they get more comfortable with Zone Builder.
Koopa Kastle Zone:
- I see what you did there with the Zone name, you pesky plumber
- The level design was pretty on point for a Bowser castle level ala Mario 3D Land. Starts out simple but gradually makes more challenging uses of the obstacles introduced
- It's pretty generous with the power ups which is not a bad thing. Does allow multiple chances to use the Fire Flower if you get hurt which is not something I usually say for fan made levels in Mario rom hacks or Mario Maker.
- The tilesets look really good and wouldn't be too out of place if this was a second act of Mario Koopa Blast
- The Mario pipe transitions were a nice touch
- I liked the twist at the end where you ended up fighting Metal Robotnik after defeating Bowser
- The remix of NSMB Wii's Castle theme is pretty good albeit without a loop point, but I think the remix of "In the Final" and the Mario 3 Boss Clear theme were pretty lacking. Hard to describe but they kind of lacked the energy the originals had.
- When it came to the Bowser battle, I think I spawned slightly off in the 2D plane as my fireballs kept flying past him leaving only the Axe to defeat Bowser
- Not effecting my vote but I did check out the Mario Maker code placed at the end of the level and found it to be a pretty good 2D rendition of the stage I just played
Drenched Dam Zone:
- One word: cramped
- For what is a race against Metal Sonic that for some reason also has a time limit, there's not a lot of room to move around with either crates or water bombs blocking the way
- I kept dying to that one water jump over the pit because of those bombs
- Around the mid way point there's also a bunch of dash panels just to direct Sonic in the right direction as if it doesn't trust me to move right. This isn't Sonic Forces last time I checked
- Near the end it expect you to hover over the fans but it's rather finicky to get the right height before moving forward which isn't good when there's a time limit at play here
- Not to diss Voidy's music taste, but the song used felt pretty out of place and sounded like I could get a DMCA strike if I streamed it on Twitch or Youtube
- The song also doesn't have a loop point which is surprising considering how repetitive the song kind of sounded
- I guess on the positive side I didn't come across any notable errors with the tileset
Zaxel's Thunder Yard:
- I'm a bit mixed on this level.
- The level looks nice its GBA-like aesthetic but I do think those little green spiders do kind of blend into the grass while you're running
- There's a good amount of optional paths for those who like exploring in Sonic games
- The lightning walls were a pretty clever stage gimmick and they're used pretty effectively as it goes on
- At around 1 minute into the stage I had no idea where to go after the spike wall, I think there could have been some rings on the side to help with navigation a bit.
- The stage did feel a bit cramped at the beginning but it got more wide open as I got further into the stage
- I do think the stage could have been shortened. Don't get me wrong there's quite a few set pieces to keep things interesting but after a while I got a bit bored playing it, and doing the optional 1000 ring ending felt pretty tense at points because I knew at any point I could lose my rings and would have to start the level all over again.
- For some reason the bombs like to attract to the magnet and electric shields leading to some cheap hits on occasion. Could be a deal breaker for those doing the 1000 ring ending.
- Overall it's a decent level. Just not something I'd be willing to rush back to for a quick go around.
Falcon Emissary Zone:
- Well this is a first in my 10+ years playing this game, having to wait a few seconds for the level to load. It even took a while between deaths for the level to reload.
- Other than those loading times, I thought this was a pretty good Fortress level.
- The twist with the weather at the end was a neat touch even if it took some time to adjust to the increased gravity
- I like the start of Knuckles' path being a climb over a maze of spikes
- I think the main problem in my first couple of playthroughs was the direction not being made clear to me. That isn't to say that the level was vague but there were parts that had me fumble around on to figure out where to go, like the room where the gravity increased for example. I think some visual hints that stuck out amongst the purple walls could have helped
- I had a bit of trouble getting out that room with the 1ups next to a tornado background as Knuckles since the walls to climb out of the fan section weren't climbable and I couldn't get a good height to glide across, I had to make Tails carry me to get out of that
- No loop point for the music so the cut to the beginning of Flying Battery's track was pretty jarring to me.
Bombastic Beach Zone:
- Hey guys, I know the song used here is from Sonic Rush but that doesn't mean you had to literally RUSH the level out.
- By the way, why a song originally for a short cutscene though? That's kind of unfitting.
- This was pretty disappointing because I liked the bubble gimmick it introduces at the beginning to regain air. I think that could really help with pacing in those underwater levels in Sonic games.
- It was very short (like under 30 seconds short) and what was there in the level design was not that great to be honest.
- The casino night bumpers were not only out of place for a beach level but were also pretty annoying to get pass along with the fireballs that are just there for some reason.
- At least the Palmtree Panic-like aesthetic looks pretty ok though it did kind of feel like I was boxed in during my time playing.
- I wouldn't mind this zone coming back and expanding on the idea presented at the very beginning of the level, it just needed more time put into it to flesh those concepts out.
Music Mash Zone:
There was one question in my mind while playing this level, and that was "Good lord, what is happening in there?!". Unfortunately the answer wasn't "Aurora Borealis". I'm going to be blunt here when I say this was a bad level. A really bad level. So bad that I can't sum my thoughts briefly so here's a long description on my time with this level.
First off there's the flashing lights at the beginning which while didn't hurt my eyes, I imagine would be really problematic for some that do have epilepsy and would probably get this level disqualified if this wasn't a community voted contest. It only gets worse later on with not only rapidly animated textures, but also a room in one of the secret paths that full of rapidly changing coloured floors and lights. I just want to remind people that Cyberpunk 2077 and Balan Wonderworld got into the general gaming press for giving people seizures, I don't think we want a repeat of that for a humble fan game in a already notorious gaming fandom.
Even when I look past the potential seizures for epileptics, the stage doesn't even look that good with a whole bunch of inconsistently sized checkerboards and poorly aligned Music block textures from Mario 3 that for some reason get used to tile round moving platforms, even though they're meant to be blocks that you bounce on.
The music that accompanies the stage and 2 of the pathways was quiet. Too quiet. So quiet that it took me going Super Sonic to get a hearable music beat in my first playthrough. Here's a tip for your music volume, there's a thing in Audacity's effect list called "Normalise" that increases the volume until the playback meter reaches roughly 0db. Try using it, and if it's still to quiet go to Amplify, enable peaking and increase it by 1-2dbs at a time until it sounds balanced with the volume of the sound effects in-game.
I made my own pk3 that increased the volume of the music files to properly judge what I was hearing and what I got out of it was a bad midi rendition of "You Can Do Anything" that seems to have its structure broken as it suddenly stops in the middle of the "Toot Toot Sonic Warrior" section in favour of a bad guitar solo, then the volume spikes with a bad backing synth instrument. The pathway that takes place underwater had a midi rendition of Labyrinth Zone from Master System Sonic 1 that seems to have jarring jump cuts to try and condense the song to a smaller medley, and lastly there's the grey brick area which....I don't know how to fully describe since it sounds like a bunch of random notes played on a synthesiser.
First obstacle I came across in the level was a water section, where it couldn't decide where the liquid presented was regular water I should water skip over, or the bouncy liquid from Techno Hill. It didn't help that there was spikes in the way making it more confusing. It was this point in my first playthrough that I went Super Sonic and flew over it and I ended up coming across what I assume is the Knuckles path. I say "assume" because I was able to jump up the walls as Sonic for some reason, even without the Super form in a later playthrough. After climbing up I came across a whole bunch of anti-gravity monitors and I just think "Why though? Just use that gravity flip thing from Egg Rock Zone if you need an Anti-Gravity section". There was a really tight gap of spikes shortly after, followed by a maze where it required you to wear stereo headphones to do it with a skip for those who don't.
I'm gonna say this now, do not even bother with the maze if you have the right headphones. If you go in the maze there's this loud thumping sound that's meant to help navigate where you go in this confusing maze where every wall looks the same, and there's spikes behind these walls. Even if you go through and get out of this maze, there's a good chance you'll come out of it stuck in the ground, leading you to die when trying to jump out as if it was one of "Robotnik's traps" in Sonic 3.
Second time through took me to an area where I could pick two areas I want to go through, one was a climb up some grey bricks, the other was a water level I think I saw in a prior OLDC. The water area wasn't horrible barring a jump I couldn't made as Sonic, so had to let Tails carry me over the section. The grey blocks though had really small platforms to stand on, a 1up trap just before the exit and then it was a scripted spin around the whole area for no reason. No tunnel, no pipe, no nothing.
And then there was the secret path that you accessed by jumping up the pipe at the split which leads to more confusion with the weird water/bouncy liquid situation while going around pillars which leads to the rainbow flashes room I mentioned earlier. It all ends off with a bunch of gargoyles moving around a jagged disco floor while shooting fireballs in multiple directions which are luckily easy to avoid if you have quick reflexes.
The best I can give this level is that there was a good number of alternate paths to increase replay ability, but even that isn't saying much when I wasn't having a fun time in any of the paths. I guess the little bit where you bounce off the piano keys was pretty neat...though it only reminded me that I could be playing Super Mario 3D Land instead. This level may not have hit rock bottom on my voting list on virtue of it actually being a level, but it was by far the most poorly put together level I've played in this contest pack.
Congratulations, you get an F Minor. See me after music class.
- Not great
- It kind of reminds me of the vanilla SRB2 special stages pre-2.1 with its basic boxy layout and I think the collecting gimmick overstays its welcome kind of quickly
- I think 500 coins is too much for a collect-a-thon stage in a Sonic game which only makes losing the coins more of a pain. Maybe 200-300 at most would work better for a simple stage like this
- I do appreciate the coins respawning though, that does help recollecting be a bit less tedious.
- The textures do look pretty good for what I think is based on another game I'm not aware of, and I do like the coin sound.
- I think it could work better if there was a separate coin counter and you unlocked pay gates to unlock more of a bigger level. Kind of like that Spyro level in a previous contest.
Mercury Mine Zone:
- Pretty good
- There's a neat water gimmick that has a pretty decent introduction
- There's a good amount alternative paths that not only reward those exploring but also take into account the different character abilities for emblems
- The flow is on point for a SRB2 level with a good amount of slopes to take advantage of the physics.
- Though in some of the more running areas it can kind of feel a bit empty, I noticed it particularly when playing as Amy since she can't roll
Ridge Rapids Zone:
- Average
- The aesthetics looks nice but the stage kind of feels a bit compact to navigate through
- The alternate character paths didn't really add much to the level outside of Amy's path at the beginning
- The 2D camera for the first water slide was kind of jarring when I first jumped into it and since I was off the main spline I didn't really get much out of the slide
- The water current at the end of the first water slide made getting up to the springs on foot a bit troublesome. Could have ended with Sonic landing in a pool of water at that point
- This is a personal nit-pick but I wasn't keen on some of the secret areas having score monitors instead of rings since outside of Record Attack, there's not much incentive to get points in this pack as lives have been removed.
Hollow Hill Zone Act 1:
- This was anything but "Hollow". It was incredible.
- The level looks beautiful with its spooky yet almost dream-like atmosphere
- It's huge with so many interchanging paths, along with character specific routes that change up how you navigate through the stage
- It lives up to the Hill name with the slope based platforming the stage has to offer and that that thrilling downhill slope at the beginning
- I like the gag with the Gold Eggman monitor at the start and end of the level
- I like the combination of water and the quick sand gimmick of Sandopolis Zone where you could keep jump to go up the water stream
- Wasn't sure what most of the switches did when I pressed them during my playthroughs. I knew some activated stage gimmicks but others didn't seem to do anything from what I can see
- The Tails path at the beginning was rather slow to go through even with the SA1 dash gates, also didn't refill the flight time when having Tails carry Sonic
- The bomb ghost enemies are pretty difficult to hit with a roll or Fang's gun, making that one collapsing room near the end a bit of a hassle
Ante-Station Zone:
- I'm pretty torn on this stage
- On one hand I wasn't expecting a fully 2.5D stage in SRB2 after nearly a decade of just 3D levels with occasional 2D sections, and it does a pretty good job using camera angles to add a bit of depth to the level
- On the other hand I think the level design kind of falls apart once the moving platforms are introduced
- The depth perception between them and my character was hard to make out which caused me to fall off to my death multiple times
- Even when I switched to Metal Sonic to use his glide, there were times where the game forced me down to the platform which in turn cancelled the glide
- The part where I kept falling through the portal liquid thing to go through the spikes was also kind of a hassle with how you keep falling down faster and faster
- The technical aspects are also hard to ignore. I'll give the visual aspects not visible in OpenGL a pass since the creator admits it at the beginning
- But there were times where I'd be running and suddenly the stage would vanish to show other parts of the map
- The game also crashed on me when I hit one of the bombs in the outside space section (which I think it's a reference to a SRB2 Kart track).
- I'm also perplexed about having to go into the console to make one of the visual aspects work. I'm ok doing it since I've been familiar with this game for a long time but it comes as inconvenient, especially for casual players or newcomers who may not even know about the console in the first place.
- It's not a bad level as I do like the spectacle the stage offers and there's some pretty good usage of alternate paths combined with the visual bending to show distinct areas
- I want to like this level since it reminded me of how Generations creatively used the 2.5D perspective in Classic Sonic's stages, but there's parts of it that keep bugging me and stopped me from fully enjoying the level
Blizzard Bastion Zone:
- Not very good
- The beginning didn't leave a good first impression on me with how small the platforms were and how easy it was for enemies to knock me into a pit (especially those little drill hat guys)
- The desaturated look made the stage look rather dark. It's like if you take a picture in something like Photoshop and decrease the contrast without also adjusting the brightness.
- I'm not a fan of the ice maze with the ice blocks breaking since it pretty much punishes the player for just walking on the ice normally without doing some crazy jump to make up for it
- I also didn't enjoy going through the optional Amy path as it seem to overly rely on tight spaces, whether it'd be juggling between very small conveyor belts while trying to dodge the laser or going through a vent maze.
- Near the end, the level sort of became confusing on where I needed to do since the path wasn't made clear other than a big arrow on the floor. The pillars obstructing the path forward didn't help either
- The music also doesn't have a loop point leading to a jarring cut back to the beginning of Diamond Dust's theme.
- This level could be better if the difficulty curve was more gradual. At the beginning be a bit more open and forgiving as you introduce the stage mechanics and as you get closer to the end, you can then present challenges with what was introduced earlier, but do keep in mind that SRB2 doesn't have tight platforming controls ala Mega Man.
Lava Temple:
- Pretty good reimaging of the Rayman 2 stage
- The stage does a good job incorporating the stage mechanics from Rayman 2 with SRB2's existing assets
- The ball puzzles are a decent challenge
- I like the second part of the stage being exclusive challenges for specific characters, helps add to replay value
- The stage looks pretty good overall with the Rayman 2 assets though the enemies and the toad head do look rather flat with them not having the 8 direction frames
- Had some difficulty telling that the bones on the walls you could climb up them by walking into them as I thought they were for Knuckles to climb up
- It did feel like it dragged a bit for a standalone Sonic level but it wasn't too bad in length within the context of the original level
Teal Tundra Zone:
- Pretty barren stage
- Platforming is kept to a minimum leaving only long stretches where it's just running on a wide empty plain with maybe a couple of badnicks sprinkled around
- I think it'd only be kind of fun if you were playing as Metal Sonic (or one of the speed heavy character mods) and trying to speedrun it
- Least it's short and the visuals are pretty decent
Abyss Caverns Zone:
- This was a short level but I do like the ideas presented
- I like the 2 different paths you can choose from at the beginning which lead to either a fire or ice area. Reminds me of Egg Rock Act 1 but with a more balanced difficulty
- The cave parts of the level do look pretty great for what is mostly made up of one texture
- I did like the sneaky chaos emerald placement behind the crates near the end
- Only real complaint I have is that it was pretty short and the end of the level was rather underwhelming.
Emerald Glade Zone Act 1:
- Ummm...you tried?
- This kind of came up as someone messing around in Zone Builder for the first time and then deciding to submit at the last minute
- The 2 emblems I collected were practically just out in plain sight
- For some reason when I used the Armageddon Shield to clear the spring badnicks, I magically gained 900 rings even though badnicks don't drop rings in SRB2.
- If it wasn't for the golden wind shield, that emerald on the standalone pedestal would be practically impossible to get as Sonic and Amy without being carried by Tails
- I guess the Sonic drawing in one of the pits looks okay-ish?
- This will probably end up being rock bottom on many people's voting lists but I don't think that should discourage the author from making more levels and submitting in the future once they get more comfortable with Zone Builder.
Koopa Kastle Zone:
- I see what you did there with the Zone name, you pesky plumber
- The level design was pretty on point for a Bowser castle level ala Mario 3D Land. Starts out simple but gradually makes more challenging uses of the obstacles introduced
- It's pretty generous with the power ups which is not a bad thing. Does allow multiple chances to use the Fire Flower if you get hurt which is not something I usually say for fan made levels in Mario rom hacks or Mario Maker.
- The tilesets look really good and wouldn't be too out of place if this was a second act of Mario Koopa Blast
- The Mario pipe transitions were a nice touch
- I liked the twist at the end where you ended up fighting Metal Robotnik after defeating Bowser
- The remix of NSMB Wii's Castle theme is pretty good albeit without a loop point, but I think the remix of "In the Final" and the Mario 3 Boss Clear theme were pretty lacking. Hard to describe but they kind of lacked the energy the originals had.
- When it came to the Bowser battle, I think I spawned slightly off in the 2D plane as my fireballs kept flying past him leaving only the Axe to defeat Bowser
- Not effecting my vote but I did check out the Mario Maker code placed at the end of the level and found it to be a pretty good 2D rendition of the stage I just played
Drenched Dam Zone:
- One word: cramped
- For what is a race against Metal Sonic that for some reason also has a time limit, there's not a lot of room to move around with either crates or water bombs blocking the way
- I kept dying to that one water jump over the pit because of those bombs
- Around the mid way point there's also a bunch of dash panels just to direct Sonic in the right direction as if it doesn't trust me to move right. This isn't Sonic Forces last time I checked
- Near the end it expect you to hover over the fans but it's rather finicky to get the right height before moving forward which isn't good when there's a time limit at play here
- Not to diss Voidy's music taste, but the song used felt pretty out of place and sounded like I could get a DMCA strike if I streamed it on Twitch or Youtube
- The song also doesn't have a loop point which is surprising considering how repetitive the song kind of sounded
- I guess on the positive side I didn't come across any notable errors with the tileset
Zaxel's Thunder Yard:
- I'm a bit mixed on this level.
- The level looks nice its GBA-like aesthetic but I do think those little green spiders do kind of blend into the grass while you're running
- There's a good amount of optional paths for those who like exploring in Sonic games
- The lightning walls were a pretty clever stage gimmick and they're used pretty effectively as it goes on
- At around 1 minute into the stage I had no idea where to go after the spike wall, I think there could have been some rings on the side to help with navigation a bit.
- The stage did feel a bit cramped at the beginning but it got more wide open as I got further into the stage
- I do think the stage could have been shortened. Don't get me wrong there's quite a few set pieces to keep things interesting but after a while I got a bit bored playing it, and doing the optional 1000 ring ending felt pretty tense at points because I knew at any point I could lose my rings and would have to start the level all over again.
- For some reason the bombs like to attract to the magnet and electric shields leading to some cheap hits on occasion. Could be a deal breaker for those doing the 1000 ring ending.
- Overall it's a decent level. Just not something I'd be willing to rush back to for a quick go around.
Falcon Emissary Zone:
- Well this is a first in my 10+ years playing this game, having to wait a few seconds for the level to load. It even took a while between deaths for the level to reload.
- Other than those loading times, I thought this was a pretty good Fortress level.
- The twist with the weather at the end was a neat touch even if it took some time to adjust to the increased gravity
- I like the start of Knuckles' path being a climb over a maze of spikes
- I think the main problem in my first couple of playthroughs was the direction not being made clear to me. That isn't to say that the level was vague but there were parts that had me fumble around on to figure out where to go, like the room where the gravity increased for example. I think some visual hints that stuck out amongst the purple walls could have helped
- I had a bit of trouble getting out that room with the 1ups next to a tornado background as Knuckles since the walls to climb out of the fan section weren't climbable and I couldn't get a good height to glide across, I had to make Tails carry me to get out of that
- No loop point for the music so the cut to the beginning of Flying Battery's track was pretty jarring to me.
Bombastic Beach Zone:
- Hey guys, I know the song used here is from Sonic Rush but that doesn't mean you had to literally RUSH the level out.
- By the way, why a song originally for a short cutscene though? That's kind of unfitting.
- This was pretty disappointing because I liked the bubble gimmick it introduces at the beginning to regain air. I think that could really help with pacing in those underwater levels in Sonic games.
- It was very short (like under 30 seconds short) and what was there in the level design was not that great to be honest.
- The casino night bumpers were not only out of place for a beach level but were also pretty annoying to get pass along with the fireballs that are just there for some reason.
- At least the Palmtree Panic-like aesthetic looks pretty ok though it did kind of feel like I was boxed in during my time playing.
- I wouldn't mind this zone coming back and expanding on the idea presented at the very beginning of the level, it just needed more time put into it to flesh those concepts out.
Music Mash Zone:
There was one question in my mind while playing this level, and that was "Good lord, what is happening in there?!". Unfortunately the answer wasn't "Aurora Borealis". I'm going to be blunt here when I say this was a bad level. A really bad level. So bad that I can't sum my thoughts briefly so here's a long description on my time with this level.
First off there's the flashing lights at the beginning which while didn't hurt my eyes, I imagine would be really problematic for some that do have epilepsy and would probably get this level disqualified if this wasn't a community voted contest. It only gets worse later on with not only rapidly animated textures, but also a room in one of the secret paths that full of rapidly changing coloured floors and lights. I just want to remind people that Cyberpunk 2077 and Balan Wonderworld got into the general gaming press for giving people seizures, I don't think we want a repeat of that for a humble fan game in a already notorious gaming fandom.
Even when I look past the potential seizures for epileptics, the stage doesn't even look that good with a whole bunch of inconsistently sized checkerboards and poorly aligned Music block textures from Mario 3 that for some reason get used to tile round moving platforms, even though they're meant to be blocks that you bounce on.
The music that accompanies the stage and 2 of the pathways was quiet. Too quiet. So quiet that it took me going Super Sonic to get a hearable music beat in my first playthrough. Here's a tip for your music volume, there's a thing in Audacity's effect list called "Normalise" that increases the volume until the playback meter reaches roughly 0db. Try using it, and if it's still to quiet go to Amplify, enable peaking and increase it by 1-2dbs at a time until it sounds balanced with the volume of the sound effects in-game.
I made my own pk3 that increased the volume of the music files to properly judge what I was hearing and what I got out of it was a bad midi rendition of "You Can Do Anything" that seems to have its structure broken as it suddenly stops in the middle of the "Toot Toot Sonic Warrior" section in favour of a bad guitar solo, then the volume spikes with a bad backing synth instrument. The pathway that takes place underwater had a midi rendition of Labyrinth Zone from Master System Sonic 1 that seems to have jarring jump cuts to try and condense the song to a smaller medley, and lastly there's the grey brick area which....I don't know how to fully describe since it sounds like a bunch of random notes played on a synthesiser.
First obstacle I came across in the level was a water section, where it couldn't decide where the liquid presented was regular water I should water skip over, or the bouncy liquid from Techno Hill. It didn't help that there was spikes in the way making it more confusing. It was this point in my first playthrough that I went Super Sonic and flew over it and I ended up coming across what I assume is the Knuckles path. I say "assume" because I was able to jump up the walls as Sonic for some reason, even without the Super form in a later playthrough. After climbing up I came across a whole bunch of anti-gravity monitors and I just think "Why though? Just use that gravity flip thing from Egg Rock Zone if you need an Anti-Gravity section". There was a really tight gap of spikes shortly after, followed by a maze where it required you to wear stereo headphones to do it with a skip for those who don't.
I'm gonna say this now, do not even bother with the maze if you have the right headphones. If you go in the maze there's this loud thumping sound that's meant to help navigate where you go in this confusing maze where every wall looks the same, and there's spikes behind these walls. Even if you go through and get out of this maze, there's a good chance you'll come out of it stuck in the ground, leading you to die when trying to jump out as if it was one of "Robotnik's traps" in Sonic 3.
Second time through took me to an area where I could pick two areas I want to go through, one was a climb up some grey bricks, the other was a water level I think I saw in a prior OLDC. The water area wasn't horrible barring a jump I couldn't made as Sonic, so had to let Tails carry me over the section. The grey blocks though had really small platforms to stand on, a 1up trap just before the exit and then it was a scripted spin around the whole area for no reason. No tunnel, no pipe, no nothing.
And then there was the secret path that you accessed by jumping up the pipe at the split which leads to more confusion with the weird water/bouncy liquid situation while going around pillars which leads to the rainbow flashes room I mentioned earlier. It all ends off with a bunch of gargoyles moving around a jagged disco floor while shooting fireballs in multiple directions which are luckily easy to avoid if you have quick reflexes.
The best I can give this level is that there was a good number of alternate paths to increase replay ability, but even that isn't saying much when I wasn't having a fun time in any of the paths. I guess the little bit where you bounce off the piano keys was pretty neat...though it only reminded me that I could be playing Super Mario 3D Land instead. This level may not have hit rock bottom on my voting list on virtue of it actually being a level, but it was by far the most poorly put together level I've played in this contest pack.
Congratulations, you get an F Minor. See me after music class.
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