742mph
My work is never done yet
Gravity Garden > Koopa Garrison > Cloud Convoy > Phantom Gadget > Shadow Castle > Autumn Valley > Quickman
Gravity Garden: 7.5/10. The visuals were excellent and the level design made pretty good use of reverse gravity, but there were a couple of overly confusing areas, particularly the long, dark vertical shaft with all of the gravity hoops. I also remember having to hunt for longer than I should have to find a spring or something back up to the main path after falling off of it. Polish those sections a little bit more, though, and it'll be hard to fault this stage for anything.
Koopa Garrison: 7/10. I'm happy to see that Bowser's Castle has been given the Pipe Towers treatment, and overall I think it turned out pretty well. The segments where you're being constantly shot at by cannonball launchers can get a little frustrating, though, and climbing up that giant spiral staircase near the end got really repetitive really fast. The skybox is probably the most visually interesting one I've ever seen in SRB2, though.
Cloud Convoy: 6.5/10. The level's great once you get a feel for how all of the mechanics work, but since it doesn't do a very good job of communicating anything to the player, expect at least one game over before you can have any fun with it. The main problem here is that the camera is positioned too far away from the player and doesn't follow them along the Y-axis at all, resulting in anything near the back of the level being extremely difficult to interact with unless you already know what it is.
Phantom Gadget: 6/10. This stage had high 'production values' and a lot of original ideas, without a doubt, but a few irritating design choices made it one of the cheapest in the contest gameplay-wise. Enemies that look nearly identical to their vanilla counterparts but have completely different and confusing-to-decipher attack patterns, as many as five laser turrets in a single room with awful sound effects accompanying their fire, conveyor belts and crushers that are nearly impossible to see coming, and way too much fumbling around in the dark.
Shadow Castle: 5/10. It's like Hang Castle, but with far more boring visuals and little to no creativity in the use of the gravity-flipping gimmick. I also got lost for about 45 seconds once, in an area around two-thirds of the way through the level. It's hard to orient yourself properly when the only visual contrast is between repetitively textured walls of gray and an infinite black void.
Autumn Valley: 4/10. Basic 2D platforming with basic visuals and not so much as a movement gimmick in sight. I doubt I'll ever play it again, but from what I've experienced of it, there isn't much to hate.
Quickman: 3.5/10. Making SRB2 feel like a Mega Man fangame was surely not an easy task. Unfortunately, that Mega Man fangame happens to be a particularly bad one with abysmal mid-air control, awkwardly placed spikes that ignore mercy invulnerability, charged shots that emerge from above Mega Man's buster, and a boss that's simply too fast for your sluggish movement and unintuitive firing mechanics to keep up with. Responsive control and plenty of interesting special weapons are what makes Mega Man so great to begin with, and this level is lacking in both of those departments. It's highly innovative from an SRB2 modding and programming perspective, don't get me wrong, but the experience of playing it is, well... not fun.
Koopa Garrison: 7/10. I'm happy to see that Bowser's Castle has been given the Pipe Towers treatment, and overall I think it turned out pretty well. The segments where you're being constantly shot at by cannonball launchers can get a little frustrating, though, and climbing up that giant spiral staircase near the end got really repetitive really fast. The skybox is probably the most visually interesting one I've ever seen in SRB2, though.
Cloud Convoy: 6.5/10. The level's great once you get a feel for how all of the mechanics work, but since it doesn't do a very good job of communicating anything to the player, expect at least one game over before you can have any fun with it. The main problem here is that the camera is positioned too far away from the player and doesn't follow them along the Y-axis at all, resulting in anything near the back of the level being extremely difficult to interact with unless you already know what it is.
Phantom Gadget: 6/10. This stage had high 'production values' and a lot of original ideas, without a doubt, but a few irritating design choices made it one of the cheapest in the contest gameplay-wise. Enemies that look nearly identical to their vanilla counterparts but have completely different and confusing-to-decipher attack patterns, as many as five laser turrets in a single room with awful sound effects accompanying their fire, conveyor belts and crushers that are nearly impossible to see coming, and way too much fumbling around in the dark.
Shadow Castle: 5/10. It's like Hang Castle, but with far more boring visuals and little to no creativity in the use of the gravity-flipping gimmick. I also got lost for about 45 seconds once, in an area around two-thirds of the way through the level. It's hard to orient yourself properly when the only visual contrast is between repetitively textured walls of gray and an infinite black void.
Autumn Valley: 4/10. Basic 2D platforming with basic visuals and not so much as a movement gimmick in sight. I doubt I'll ever play it again, but from what I've experienced of it, there isn't much to hate.
Quickman: 3.5/10. Making SRB2 feel like a Mega Man fangame was surely not an easy task. Unfortunately, that Mega Man fangame happens to be a particularly bad one with abysmal mid-air control, awkwardly placed spikes that ignore mercy invulnerability, charged shots that emerge from above Mega Man's buster, and a boss that's simply too fast for your sluggish movement and unintuitive firing mechanics to keep up with. Responsive control and plenty of interesting special weapons are what makes Mega Man so great to begin with, and this level is lacking in both of those departments. It's highly innovative from an SRB2 modding and programming perspective, don't get me wrong, but the experience of playing it is, well... not fun.