Outer Excavation

79th: Outer Excavation Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

There's gold in them thar asteroids! Or at least, there's diamonds.

Overview Creator(s): Darth Composer(s): Ippo Yamada, Hiroki Isogai, Kouji Murata (originals) Mathew Valente (covers) Statistics Scores: 45 60 40 50 Total: 48.75 / 100 Rank: 79th Elements: 1 Box Items: La Jaba Metall Cannon Wandering Head Crystal Generator Falling Platform Enemies: Battonton Jumbig La Jaba Metall Cannon Picket Man Wandering Head Gimmicks: Crystal Generator Falling Platform (MM2) Room Low Gravity Sub-Bosses: Giant Metall Cannon Guts Man Bosses: Uranus

Theme Music Part 1: Mega Man 10 - Silent Rain Guts Man: Mega Man 10 - Wily Stage Boss Part 2: Mega Man V - Pluto Uranus: Mega Man V - Boss Stage Order Location: Tier 4 Previous: Deep Dark Temple Next: Air Labs

Outer Excavation is the 79th place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. It is a cave level that predominantly uses Drill Man's tileset (after an opening area that uses Guts Man's), and features Falling Platforms as its primary gimmick. Almost every one of these platforms is positioned over or near a hazard, such as a bottomless pit, death spikes, or Crystal Generators marked with chutes. The level is also noticeably starved of checkpoints, with the entire underground part having none between its start and the end, forcing Mega Man to redo much of the level whenever he dies.

Strategy

The beginning of the level has Room Low Gravity, giving Mega Man a much higher jump. As the only enemies here are stationary Metall Cannons and Picket Men, jumping past them to avoid fights is very easy to do. Falling Platforms and Crystal Droppers are introduced simultaneously over a bottomless pit, but the low gravity takes the edge off of things. Eventually, a Giant Metall Cannon blocks a boss door; behind which is a corridor that reinstates normal gravity and contains Wandering Heads bouncing everywhere. Guts Man is then fought as a midboss in an arena with three chutes dropping crystals from above; defeating him causes the floor to collapse, leading to the level's one and only checkpoint prior to the boss. Be mindful of a Jumbig lurking behind the door, aiming to strike as soon as Mega Man passes through.

For the next few screens, there's little of note save for simple Falling Platform setups and Metall Cannons often blocking the path. Joining them are La Jabas that attempt to ambush Mega Man, and Battontons that perch on the ceiling and target him. To help with jumping across Falling Platforms, keep jumping on one to stop it from dropping down. The Flame Mixer can also be used as protection against falling crystals, although it's possible for them to slip between the flames. Another Giant Metall Cannon appears directly next to a bottomless pit, from which a Wandering Head emerges roughly every seven seconds; without caution, it can easily knock Mega Man into the pit. A final Falling Platform gauntlet over spikes and pits precedes the end of the level, which culminates in a battle against Uranus. Dying here, however, means redoing the entire second half of the level again, so using the Rush Jet to fly over everything may be preferable to trying to complete it the normal way.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 45 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 15 / 35 7 / 15 10 / 10 8 / 25 5 / 15 When the level started, I was really into it. The gimmicks worked really well with low gravity, and the enemies felt more like something to avoid than something to fight. The Guts Man tileset mixed with the space one looked really good. Then, when you get to the miniboss, the level starts to go downhill. Two minibosses in a row was just too much of a drain, and suddenly losing the low gravity just felt weird. Then the level turns into just being in Drill Man's stage and all the cool stuff from the first section is gone. For the love of God this section needed another checkpoint. It's super instant death heavy, overly long, and it's just okay otherwise. This level felt like just a big letdown to me. It's not awful, but I just don't think the underground section is terribly fun. It's just okay. It feels like such a departure from the earlier part where that feels out of place. I think pursuing either idea would be better than just throwing the two together like this. I'd have preferred a level more like the first part, but if the whole level was the underground and just more fleshed out, it could have also been better. It just feels too disjointed.
PKWeegee  : 60 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 17 / 35 9 / 15 10 / 10 14 / 25 10 / 15 The part before Guts Man was boring and dragged a bit. After that, though, it certainly picked up a lot. It would have easily done without the beginning part, starting you right off in the caves. Besides that, the cave section was fun, the combo of the bubble platforms and the crystal droppers was well handled inside of there. Also, Pluto's theme is amazing <3
M-Jacq  : 40 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 10 / 35 5 / 15 10 / 10 4 / 25 11 / 15 Sometimes, one little thing completely incidental to the level design can completely destroy your enjoyment of a level. For me, it was the lack of a checkpoint before or after the midboss. I understand the logic behind not placing it there, given that there are the requisite two checkpoints at the "midpoint" and right before the final boss, but in practice every single death I had in the second half of the level happened at exactly the same point in the level, where that godforsaken Pepsi can was hopping around on the Bubble Man platforms, and I did not enjoy wasting a minute between attempts at that part. Eventually, I just stood backwards on a Rush Jet and crossed my fingers that I wouldn't get hit. This level mostly struggles from poor use of the Crystal Man drops, which were awful in Mega Man 5 but even worse here. With no tell to when they're going to fire, they're either a lame waiting game if you have solid ground to stand on or a nail-biting hellride if you're hopping between falling platforms and thus have to chance not getting hit. There's also a handful of extremely inconvenient enemy placements, almost all of which involve enemies that are hard to dispose of quickly being placed right by platforms over spikes/pits. The parts of the level that DON'T rely on those sorts of scenarios are handled well enough, but they're overshadowed by those truly annoying sections.
Freems  : 50 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 14 / 35 8 / 15 10 / 10 10 / 25 8 / 15 It feels weird to play what is essentially two mini levels shoved together into one. I always have to question the use of an actual Robot Master as a miniboss, especially when there are two other minibosses in the same stage. I don't know if it's padding but something like that always feels off to me. The general gist of the level is pretty average with not much to talk about but I want to bring special notice to the problems with the Bubble Man platform introduction. You immediately pair them up with the falling crystals which combines a waiting challenge with that of a "gotta get off these platforms fast" challenge, which is good and all if it wasn't the first time we see the platforms in the entire level. Especially if someone doesn't know that you can jump on them repeatedly it just makes the opening needlessly difficult for someone who wouldn't know how the platforms work. I think it would work great as an end of the level challenge... Except it is an end of the level challenge but shorter. It may seem weird to say from someone who knows how all these gimmicks work already, but even when you know how they work, a cohesive difficulty curve is really important for making a level click.

Notes

• Darth initially submitted a level called "Air Control", which had Prop-Top, Up'n'Down, Hell Metall DX, Angle Platform, and Mega Man 2 Falling Platforms for its box. Personal dissatisfaction with the level led to Outer Excavation being submitted as a replacement.