Windy Conditions

16th: Windy Conditions Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

Welcome to Mega Man: The Lost Levels; or as it's known in Japan, Mega Man 2.

Overview Creator(s): Mysterion-Svin Composer(s): SEGA, Takashi Tateishi (originals) Lu9 (cover) Statistics Scores: 82 70 63 67 Total: 70.50 / 100 Rank: 16th Elements: 1 Box Items: Docron Metall EX Sprinklan Bokazurah Tengu Wind Enemies: Docron Metall EX Sprinklan Gimmicks: Bokazurah Reflect Block Tengu Wind Bosses: Air Man

Theme Music Sonic & Knuckles - Flying Battery Zone Act 1 Boss: Mega Man 2 - Boss Stage Order Location: Tier 10 Previous: Into the Furnace Next: Minari Hydrospace Center

Windy Conditions is the 16th place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. It is a fast-paced level that uses Tengu Wind to push Mega Man forwards at high speeds, with an emphasis on jumping over enemies and death pits over fighting enemies. However, it also has slower-paced sections with Bokazurah barricades that block the path ahead, which are later mixed in with the constant rush of wind.

Strategy

Right after the first few screens, a strong wind starts blowing behind Mega Man, pushing him forwards through several screens. In these areas, the only enemies are Sprinklans crawling on the ground. Although the Tengu Blade's dash can destroy them, it's easier and less risky to simply jump over them using the wind as a boost. Having the Beat Rescue upgrade is useful to avoid death from falling into a pit, but even without it, frequent checkpoints and the fast wind means recovering from a death is quick and easy. At the end of the wind rush is a short tower populated with Bokazurahs, most of which are placed in areas away from the bricks that need to be destroyed. Though these often require racing to said bricks after attacking a Bokazurah, using the Rain Flush to attack them from afar can be a simpler, faster way to proceed.

A teleporter outside the tower takes Mega Man to the level's second half, which combines the fast wind with clearing away Bokazurah bricks. Avoiding a stray cannonball can be difficult, as the wind makes it almost impossible to move left, but the stop-and-go pace of this section makes it easier to avoid running into a pit; even then, checkpoints remain plentiful. The wind increases in speed towards the end of the gauntlet, before stopping entirely at the boss door, which is initially walled off with bricks. The level culminates in a battle with Air Man, who is fought in a room with two bottomless pits covered by bricks, with a Bokazurah in the top-right. By attacking it with a Special Weapon (or with a well-reflected Mega Buster shot using Air Man's tornadoes), Mega Man can instantly kill Air Man by breaking open either pit and letting him fall into it. Of course, this also means Air Man can blow him into said pit to kill him instantly as well.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 82 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 27 / 35 10 / 15 10 / 10 25 / 25 10 / 15 Thoroughly enjoyable level! Mixing these gimmicks together seems like a tightrope of making something awful or awesome, and you did awesome. It's very prone to just being frustrating and full of instant death with no room for error, but you avoided that. Generally, you always know what you have to do, and the parts that are reaction based are fair and engaging. The pacing of the level is really good. The cannons can make a level grind to a halt, but mixing them with the Tengu wind made it feel very fluid and good. I don't know what I would do to make this level better, but it looks, feels and plays great.
PKWeegee  : 70 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 22 / 35 10 / 15 10 / 10 18 / 25 10 / 15 Lots of thought went into this one, I can tell. The ball shooters were always positioned in just the right spots to make the level flow nicely, and to make their shots go where they needed to — with a bit of help, of course. The wind actually accompanied that pretty well, although the faster winds did come a bit out of nowhere at times, making it hard to react.
M-Jacq  : 63 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 20 / 35 6 / 15 6 / 10 18 / 25 13 / 15 Hey, you guys ever play Canabalt? I like Canabalt. I never really thought that Canabalt needed a segment in the middle where you stop running and persuade a flower pot to move some bricks for you. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Actually, the earlier parts of this level where you're just riding the gales are pretty fun! (Albeit extremely glitchy, with the ladders and the sliding and the wind occasionally getting you killed via clipping.) The checkpoints are placed extremely generously as well, which is nice to counteract all the instant death. And the setups with the Bokazurahs early on are good - they're introduced well, you ramp up the difficulty well without relying on any cheap gotcha moments. But then they get used together and the level just kind of hits a wall. Jump jump slide slide is fun (citation needed); Bokazurah is fun. But they're not two great tastes that go better together. The wind makes it impossible for you to get any really interesting set-ups, and the Bokazurah blocks obstruct your potential wind joyride. The funny thing is that this level perfectly fulfills the formula of what everyone says a Mega Man level should look like: you introduce/test gimmick A, then you introduce/test gimmick B, and then there's a final stretch that uses gimmicks A and B together. This level is a really good illustration of why that formula really isn't a slam dunk, because the level is strongest when the two halves of it are separated rather than awkwardly smushed together.
Freems  : 67 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 20 / 35 11 / 15 9 / 10 15 / 25 12 / 15 I think a staple of levels that want to use very fast wind is you need to give your players a chance to realize and accommodate when it speeds up really fast, and not stick a pit almost right after. While being able to change the speed helps keep things fresh, without the time to realize that you're thrust into a high speed zone, odds are you're going right into that pit. Luckily there are plenty of checkpoints to compensate so it doesn't feel terrible, but it's not the ideal situation. Outside of that, things are well and good. The pacing makes sense, one gimmick, the other, then both (though the wind can prove a little more than inconvenient in the final stretch if you find yourself going straight first into the machine hitbox, with it being a pain to get back out) and even if there were problems here and there, it made sense and was put together pretty well. So good job! Though I don't quite understand the purpose of the machine in the boss fight. It's either supposed to reward you by maybe dunking Air Man in a pit or try to stop you from using certain Special Weapons. It's not a deal breaker, but I don't think I got the point.

Notes

• In-game, Windy Conditions' score is incorrectly displayed as 71.50, thanks to a typo with ParmaJon's rankings: his total score is given as 86, because his Fun score is accidentally written as 29, four points higher than the category's maximum of 25.