Difference between revisions of "Universe City V"

The stage starts out rather bland, with soothing yet ominous music playing, as there are only New Shotmen, Spark Man platforms and rather annoying spike blocks puzzles, which require extremely precise timing to get through undamaged.

And then Volt Man happened. And laughters happened. Music's ramping up as you see there are multiple Volt Men, each has their own actions assigned, essentially making them like regular enemies. That is a super creative idea! And super amusing which I can't stop giggling as I went through the stage. It really succeeded at breaking players' expectation with the clever use of the dull beginning.

Nevertheless, there are issues. Since each Volt Man's appearances are identical, it's hard to differentiate which Volt Man would do which at first glance. One room in particular where there are 3 shielding Volt Men in a line, all of them keep their shields in place except the middle one, with barely any indication that he's going to do that.

Another problem with the shielding Volt Men is that they keep their shields up indefinitely, effectively being immune to your normal buster shots, this isn't a big deal early on as they mostly stand or jump on one spot, it's in the last few sessions where they'll chase you constantly, making them unfun to deal with. (Also sometimes their shields can get stuck behind if you kill them with weapons)

Also one checkpoint in particular is rather poorly placed, as it forces you to wait for the spike platforms to be in a certain state to safely pass through, creating unnecessary wait time every time you retry, and it just so happens to be where the shielded Volt Men who chase you down located after, argh!

Finally, there's Giga Volt Man, and he's just as amusing as the rest of the stage, if not for the fact he can be beaten by doing absolutely nothing when you have the Jewel Satellite up. Thankfully though, he's still simple enough to deal with using the buster only. My only issue with him is I feel that his sprite should be placed higher up? Since he's only half emerged from the ground the entire time.

Overall, very humorous yet creative level, although at the cost of some design points. A little bit faulty on the coding but a good amount of creative endeavor was definitely shown here!

The tileset is good, there is a small yet consistent enemy set that integrates nicely into the stage, collision-wise there's a gimmick with the rotating spike blocks and rising platforms, and the boss fight at the end is mostly brilliant. There are a few problems that drag it down though. The Volt Men enemies, while consistent in their patterns, sometimes lack visual differentiation to indicate what they're going to do (shield jumper? shield firer?), and additionally you can get Kaizo trapped by the boss if you Super Arrow into the Energy Element, as you will fall into the pit and die after picking it up. And, finally, synthwave isn't really a Mega Man-esque song, and didn't fit the beginning of the stage that well, despite it being a good song taken on its own merits.

Volt Man aside, some of the individual segments in this level were neat. I think you got some good utility out of the Spark Man platforms and the spike blocks, with the second checkpoint room being a particular standout. And there’s a fun boss which ends the level on a high note, which is nice. There’s the beginnings of a good comedy level here, but I think you were a bit too willing to coast on one joke.

The boss battle against Giant Robo Volt Man is really fun. All of the attacks have unique tells and they all come out at reasonable speeds. Everything can be dodged without expecting some super danmaku skills from the player. I also appreciate how the spawned Volt Man in the boss fight dies in 1 hit as that doesn’t break the flow of the fight at all, and allows for good combos from the spawned enemy to the boss if you use a charged shot.