cookiefonster
Wiki Admin
Ranked best to worst (copied from the OLDC discussion thread)
1. Lava Temple
Positives:
- Very creative uses of the rollout rock, with puzzles that really make you use your brain!
- Solid visual design and aesthetic.
- Generally good sense of platforming.
- Having a different ending path for each character is genius. All six characters get their own little path that requires you to use their abilities to get through the level, sometimes even with rollout rock shenanigans. I found Fang's the most creative and Metal Sonic's the most challenging.
- Overall, enormous improvement over Dark Marsh! I'm most relieved that the green instakill liquid is nowhere to be seen here.
Negatives:
- I don't like that the giant eye enemies (or enemy-looking things) are, as far as I know, impossible to kill.
- The bone ladders aren't telegraphed clearly. How is the player supposed to know that one particular wall texture allows you to walk up it?
- Although I generally like the indoor platforming room with the chain launchers, I find it irritating to get the highest angle off a launcher and get hurt by the ceiling.
- Very minor criticism, but since we're in 2.2, if it looks like a slope it should probably act like a slope.
2. Hollow Hill Zone Act 1
Positives:
- Generally fluid level design and gameplay.
- Excellent visual design, a perfect balance between being consistent and varied.
- Good use of springs for level direction and spectacle alike.
- Good-looking crushers used as setpieces, reminds me of Sonic 1 or 2.
- The slippery slowly sinking liquid is a neat gimmick, if somewhat strange in usage.
Negatives:
- Death pits are way deeper than they have any reason to be.
- It's a very tedious waiting game to deliberately descend in the liquid.
- Depending on which path you take, glaregoyles may only show up at the start and then never be seen again. Not good for a gimmick to only show up once at the start.
- In the room with the breakable floor marked by an arrow of rings, the way ahead exclusive to spin characters isn't clear, because the spin gap doesn't look like much of a spin gap.
- There's a path ahead of that breakable floor where continue going through glaregoyle gauntlets, but after following a column of rings down it appears to be a dead end, unless you just happen to notice springs on a wall that are near invisible. It's not good form to make springs that are vital to progression so hard to see.
- Speaking of springs, it's hard to tell sometimes whether springs are red or yellow.
- I'm not sure why the same identical chain of diagonal springs at the end is near the end is mirrored; it feels unnecessary, like a fake path split.
Other notes:
- If you don't mind me nitpicking grammar, the heart emblem's hint says "it's" where it should be "its". (sorry, that one specific grammar mistake irritates me)
3. Mercury Mine Zone
Positives:
- Slopes are used in a way that feels very Sonic-like.
- Expansive enough that maintaining boost mode as Metal Sonic is doable, which many levels (even vanilla levels) don't do.
- Stacked path structure makes for good replayability.
- Solid visual design.
- The ring-draining mercury has the right amount of prevalence as a hazard: common but doesn't take up the entire level.
Negatives:
- I don't think it's fair for the liquid to drain your rings and drown you at the same time. One or the other would be better.
- Not sure if this is something the level would fix, but I would have loved it if an elemental shield could prevent ring drain.
- The mercury falls are perhaps too fast and hard to avoid. They go down quickly enough that spindashing all the way and then jumping is the easiest way to get past them, and that isn't kind to Amy and Fang.
4. Falcon Emissary Zone
Positives:
- Excellent visual design, perhaps the best in the contest! It's exactly the right degree of colorful but not too colorful... at least in the outdoor rooms.
- Good usage of fan gimmicks for level progression.
- Creative and varied room design.
Negatives:
- The indoor rooms are quite a bit too dark and purple.
- As with your prior levels, you used way too many different enemy types. When making a SRB2 level, it's good form to only stick to a few enemy types, so that the player gets used to whichever enemies are featured in the level rather than constantly being bombarded with new ones.
- Some rooms look weird and bloated, with off-the-path secrets that don't seem to serve a purpose, or springs that don't lead you anywhere meaningful.
- I'm not sure what the point of the low gravity section is. I don't find it very fun.
5. Teal Tundra Zone
Positives:
- Pleasant visual design and theming—I've got a soft spot for ice-themed levels.
- Fun to run through as Metal Sonic because of his boost mode.
Negatives:
- There's not a lot going on in this level to make it interesting aside from blasting through. An enjoyable level, but one that plays things a bit too safe.
6. Zaxel's Thunder Yard
I'll sidestep the existence of the troll exit in this review, since you've been criticized enough for it already.
Positives:
- The lightning field speed gimmick is a very fun one. Perhaps underdeveloped, but fun no less.
- Generally much more solid layout and sense of level design than either of your prior OLDC submissions. Good improvement!
Negatives:
- It's not a good idea to mix pity shields with other shields.
- I also don't see the point of having enemies take more than two hits to kill. Two hits already make for an extremely threatening enemy, and any more than that is just tedious to kill.
- Don't put tiny textures on large walls that can be seen from far away. Large textures are much better for such walls, since it makes them easier on the eyes.
- Some of the hallways are very small and cramped.
- I don't think the 2D sections add much to the level.
7. Ridge Rapids Zone
Positives:
- Pleasant visual design and aesthetic.
- Layout that invites exploration with some engaging platforming mixed in. This one is quite a joy to explore!
Negatives:
- There is never any reason to place score monitors directly on a map, unless you've modded the map in some way so that they're more than just 1/50 and 1/5 of an extra life respectively. They're an extremely underwhelming reward for exploration; just put super ring monitors or shields or any other sort of monitor instead.
- Some of the waterfalls are weird and confusing to get through. It's especially confusing to have to go to the rightmost edge of a waterfall to proceed instead of being blocked off by a wall.
- The 2D section (or sections?) doesn't quite seem to work as intended. Note that I'm not a big fan of 2D sections in SRB2 levels anyway.
8. Ante-Station Zone
Positives:
- Incredibly creative uses of 2D mode (or Axis2D, rather), far more than I usually see from 2D SRB2 levels or sections of levels. The fact that you made the entire level in 2D really allowed you to get creative with it.
- Good usage of enemies in 2D mode coming from the 3D space.
- Cool visual design and flair throughout.
Negatives:
- Many parts don't have a lot going on or are basically "hold right to win".
- I'm not a big fan of the usage of platforms moving against the 2D axis. It never feels clear when you can or can't land on them; disappearing platforms would've worked much better.
9. Abyss Caverns Zone
Positives:
- Decent visual design.
- It feels weirdly enticing and satisfying to get through the black areas and tell platforms apart form death pits.
- I like the placement of speed shoes down low after the lava section. It's a good and fitting place to put speed shoes: somewhere that's a little tricky to access, but can be reached without breaking the pace and then put to good use. It feels like a lot of people making SRB2 levels forget there's such a thing as speed shoes.
Negatives:
- I'm not sure if I like the fact that the level abruptly switches from a dark cave to a lava section.
- There's one part that especially feels pointless: a spin gap/breakable floor that seems to be a spin/non-spin path split, but really just quickly leads to the same room. You either spin under the gap, or you break the floor and jump on a spring to bust a ceiling. That part serves solely to transition to the abrupt switch listed above.
10. Fort Sunset Zone
Not sure how to judge this one. It's not a very interesting or memorable level, though it is a respectable deviation from the other levels. My main problem with this level is that the coins are opaque to Fang's pop gun, and also annoying in some way as Sonic if I recall.
11. Koopa Kastle Zone
Frankly, it's strange that such an amateurish-seeming level would come out of someone who's been making SRB2 maps since the final demo days. I know this level is inspired by 3D Mario games, but as Pipe Towers Zone proves, you really can't slap the gameplay style of a Mario game into SRB2 and expect it to be all that fun, and this level is no exception. It's also strange for this level to put in old-timey spincushion sprites (back when they were called sharps)—seems like something only done for historical interest. I also don't understand why this level ends with the Brak fight near unedited, and surrounded by a death pit that looks like lava at that.
If there's anything I can praise about this level, I guess it's the imitation of the "gauntlet of hazards" style that Mario castle levels use?
12. Blizzard Bastion Zone
Positives:
- You're using Castle Eggman's chain launcher gimmick in exactly the right way: when launching off them at a high angle, the player can reach upper paths or even skip through big chunks of the level. At lower angles, the player is sent on lower paths.
Negatives:
- Unfortunately, the positive listed is about the only thing I like about this level. I can tell a lot of work went into this level, but unfortunately it's far too confusing to be fun to play, with extremely unforgiving gimmick sections and enemy placement.
- It's also not a kind level to the eyes, especially with the prevalent usage of a tiny brick texture on large walls.
I appreciate the attempt to make a challenging level, but it falls flat in many ways. Some improved visual design and telegraphing of gimmicks would have done wonders, and you should keep that in mind for future levels you make.
13. Bombastic Beach Zone
This one's way too short for me to say much meaningful about. There is an interesting attempt at engaging hazards in that hallway with spinning bumpers and fireballs, but the level never gets time to develop that idea, and it's easy to skip that part anyway. The final room seems like something that you'd need to climb up to progress, but it's actually pointless since the signpost is in a small crevice in that room.
14. Music Mash Zone
I really want to like this a lot more than your prior OLDC levels—this one has some creatively designed puzzles and varying paths! But its visual design is WAY too far on the unrealistic extreme. With SRB2 levels, you should make your levels look fairly realistic, so that the player can connect it with something that exists in real life, or perhaps a well-known setting in fiction. The visual design weighs this whole thing down and only serves to accentuate the bizarre, incomprehensible platforming and level design you've got there. Connecting your levels to realism would help enormously with making them cohesive and enjoyable.
15. Drenched Dam Zone
Extremely confusing and extremely cramped. I want to enjoy this level, especially since it's meant to be speed-based, but I simply can't because the invisible walls throw me off so much. Making this level more spacious would do wonders, and it would no doubt make the invisible walls less confusing.
16. Emerald Glade Zone
This comes off not so much like a level as someone's first attempt at using Zone Builder, figuring out how it works and how to implement level features. Now don't get me wrong, experimenting like this is the perfect way to learn Zone Builder (or any software for that matter)! I advise that you keep learning how to use Zone Builder and figure out more about how SRB2's levels are made.
Positives:
- Very creative uses of the rollout rock, with puzzles that really make you use your brain!
- Solid visual design and aesthetic.
- Generally good sense of platforming.
- Having a different ending path for each character is genius. All six characters get their own little path that requires you to use their abilities to get through the level, sometimes even with rollout rock shenanigans. I found Fang's the most creative and Metal Sonic's the most challenging.
- Overall, enormous improvement over Dark Marsh! I'm most relieved that the green instakill liquid is nowhere to be seen here.
Negatives:
- I don't like that the giant eye enemies (or enemy-looking things) are, as far as I know, impossible to kill.
- The bone ladders aren't telegraphed clearly. How is the player supposed to know that one particular wall texture allows you to walk up it?
- Although I generally like the indoor platforming room with the chain launchers, I find it irritating to get the highest angle off a launcher and get hurt by the ceiling.
- Very minor criticism, but since we're in 2.2, if it looks like a slope it should probably act like a slope.
2. Hollow Hill Zone Act 1
Positives:
- Generally fluid level design and gameplay.
- Excellent visual design, a perfect balance between being consistent and varied.
- Good use of springs for level direction and spectacle alike.
- Good-looking crushers used as setpieces, reminds me of Sonic 1 or 2.
- The slippery slowly sinking liquid is a neat gimmick, if somewhat strange in usage.
Negatives:
- Death pits are way deeper than they have any reason to be.
- It's a very tedious waiting game to deliberately descend in the liquid.
- Depending on which path you take, glaregoyles may only show up at the start and then never be seen again. Not good for a gimmick to only show up once at the start.
- In the room with the breakable floor marked by an arrow of rings, the way ahead exclusive to spin characters isn't clear, because the spin gap doesn't look like much of a spin gap.
- There's a path ahead of that breakable floor where continue going through glaregoyle gauntlets, but after following a column of rings down it appears to be a dead end, unless you just happen to notice springs on a wall that are near invisible. It's not good form to make springs that are vital to progression so hard to see.
- Speaking of springs, it's hard to tell sometimes whether springs are red or yellow.
- I'm not sure why the same identical chain of diagonal springs at the end is near the end is mirrored; it feels unnecessary, like a fake path split.
Other notes:
- If you don't mind me nitpicking grammar, the heart emblem's hint says "it's" where it should be "its". (sorry, that one specific grammar mistake irritates me)
3. Mercury Mine Zone
Positives:
- Slopes are used in a way that feels very Sonic-like.
- Expansive enough that maintaining boost mode as Metal Sonic is doable, which many levels (even vanilla levels) don't do.
- Stacked path structure makes for good replayability.
- Solid visual design.
- The ring-draining mercury has the right amount of prevalence as a hazard: common but doesn't take up the entire level.
Negatives:
- I don't think it's fair for the liquid to drain your rings and drown you at the same time. One or the other would be better.
- Not sure if this is something the level would fix, but I would have loved it if an elemental shield could prevent ring drain.
- The mercury falls are perhaps too fast and hard to avoid. They go down quickly enough that spindashing all the way and then jumping is the easiest way to get past them, and that isn't kind to Amy and Fang.
4. Falcon Emissary Zone
Positives:
- Excellent visual design, perhaps the best in the contest! It's exactly the right degree of colorful but not too colorful... at least in the outdoor rooms.
- Good usage of fan gimmicks for level progression.
- Creative and varied room design.
Negatives:
- The indoor rooms are quite a bit too dark and purple.
- As with your prior levels, you used way too many different enemy types. When making a SRB2 level, it's good form to only stick to a few enemy types, so that the player gets used to whichever enemies are featured in the level rather than constantly being bombarded with new ones.
- Some rooms look weird and bloated, with off-the-path secrets that don't seem to serve a purpose, or springs that don't lead you anywhere meaningful.
- I'm not sure what the point of the low gravity section is. I don't find it very fun.
5. Teal Tundra Zone
Positives:
- Pleasant visual design and theming—I've got a soft spot for ice-themed levels.
- Fun to run through as Metal Sonic because of his boost mode.
Negatives:
- There's not a lot going on in this level to make it interesting aside from blasting through. An enjoyable level, but one that plays things a bit too safe.
6. Zaxel's Thunder Yard
I'll sidestep the existence of the troll exit in this review, since you've been criticized enough for it already.
Positives:
- The lightning field speed gimmick is a very fun one. Perhaps underdeveloped, but fun no less.
- Generally much more solid layout and sense of level design than either of your prior OLDC submissions. Good improvement!
Negatives:
- It's not a good idea to mix pity shields with other shields.
- I also don't see the point of having enemies take more than two hits to kill. Two hits already make for an extremely threatening enemy, and any more than that is just tedious to kill.
- Don't put tiny textures on large walls that can be seen from far away. Large textures are much better for such walls, since it makes them easier on the eyes.
- Some of the hallways are very small and cramped.
- I don't think the 2D sections add much to the level.
7. Ridge Rapids Zone
Positives:
- Pleasant visual design and aesthetic.
- Layout that invites exploration with some engaging platforming mixed in. This one is quite a joy to explore!
Negatives:
- There is never any reason to place score monitors directly on a map, unless you've modded the map in some way so that they're more than just 1/50 and 1/5 of an extra life respectively. They're an extremely underwhelming reward for exploration; just put super ring monitors or shields or any other sort of monitor instead.
- Some of the waterfalls are weird and confusing to get through. It's especially confusing to have to go to the rightmost edge of a waterfall to proceed instead of being blocked off by a wall.
- The 2D section (or sections?) doesn't quite seem to work as intended. Note that I'm not a big fan of 2D sections in SRB2 levels anyway.
8. Ante-Station Zone
Positives:
- Incredibly creative uses of 2D mode (or Axis2D, rather), far more than I usually see from 2D SRB2 levels or sections of levels. The fact that you made the entire level in 2D really allowed you to get creative with it.
- Good usage of enemies in 2D mode coming from the 3D space.
- Cool visual design and flair throughout.
Negatives:
- Many parts don't have a lot going on or are basically "hold right to win".
- I'm not a big fan of the usage of platforms moving against the 2D axis. It never feels clear when you can or can't land on them; disappearing platforms would've worked much better.
9. Abyss Caverns Zone
Positives:
- Decent visual design.
- It feels weirdly enticing and satisfying to get through the black areas and tell platforms apart form death pits.
- I like the placement of speed shoes down low after the lava section. It's a good and fitting place to put speed shoes: somewhere that's a little tricky to access, but can be reached without breaking the pace and then put to good use. It feels like a lot of people making SRB2 levels forget there's such a thing as speed shoes.
Negatives:
- I'm not sure if I like the fact that the level abruptly switches from a dark cave to a lava section.
- There's one part that especially feels pointless: a spin gap/breakable floor that seems to be a spin/non-spin path split, but really just quickly leads to the same room. You either spin under the gap, or you break the floor and jump on a spring to bust a ceiling. That part serves solely to transition to the abrupt switch listed above.
10. Fort Sunset Zone
Not sure how to judge this one. It's not a very interesting or memorable level, though it is a respectable deviation from the other levels. My main problem with this level is that the coins are opaque to Fang's pop gun, and also annoying in some way as Sonic if I recall.
11. Koopa Kastle Zone
Frankly, it's strange that such an amateurish-seeming level would come out of someone who's been making SRB2 maps since the final demo days. I know this level is inspired by 3D Mario games, but as Pipe Towers Zone proves, you really can't slap the gameplay style of a Mario game into SRB2 and expect it to be all that fun, and this level is no exception. It's also strange for this level to put in old-timey spincushion sprites (back when they were called sharps)—seems like something only done for historical interest. I also don't understand why this level ends with the Brak fight near unedited, and surrounded by a death pit that looks like lava at that.
If there's anything I can praise about this level, I guess it's the imitation of the "gauntlet of hazards" style that Mario castle levels use?
12. Blizzard Bastion Zone
Positives:
- You're using Castle Eggman's chain launcher gimmick in exactly the right way: when launching off them at a high angle, the player can reach upper paths or even skip through big chunks of the level. At lower angles, the player is sent on lower paths.
Negatives:
- Unfortunately, the positive listed is about the only thing I like about this level. I can tell a lot of work went into this level, but unfortunately it's far too confusing to be fun to play, with extremely unforgiving gimmick sections and enemy placement.
- It's also not a kind level to the eyes, especially with the prevalent usage of a tiny brick texture on large walls.
I appreciate the attempt to make a challenging level, but it falls flat in many ways. Some improved visual design and telegraphing of gimmicks would have done wonders, and you should keep that in mind for future levels you make.
13. Bombastic Beach Zone
This one's way too short for me to say much meaningful about. There is an interesting attempt at engaging hazards in that hallway with spinning bumpers and fireballs, but the level never gets time to develop that idea, and it's easy to skip that part anyway. The final room seems like something that you'd need to climb up to progress, but it's actually pointless since the signpost is in a small crevice in that room.
14. Music Mash Zone
I really want to like this a lot more than your prior OLDC levels—this one has some creatively designed puzzles and varying paths! But its visual design is WAY too far on the unrealistic extreme. With SRB2 levels, you should make your levels look fairly realistic, so that the player can connect it with something that exists in real life, or perhaps a well-known setting in fiction. The visual design weighs this whole thing down and only serves to accentuate the bizarre, incomprehensible platforming and level design you've got there. Connecting your levels to realism would help enormously with making them cohesive and enjoyable.
15. Drenched Dam Zone
Extremely confusing and extremely cramped. I want to enjoy this level, especially since it's meant to be speed-based, but I simply can't because the invisible walls throw me off so much. Making this level more spacious would do wonders, and it would no doubt make the invisible walls less confusing.
16. Emerald Glade Zone
This comes off not so much like a level as someone's first attempt at using Zone Builder, figuring out how it works and how to implement level features. Now don't get me wrong, experimenting like this is the perfect way to learn Zone Builder (or any software for that matter)! I advise that you keep learning how to use Zone Builder and figure out more about how SRB2's levels are made.