Difference between revisions of "Crystal Lab"

A good concept for a stage, and the rising platforms are simple but efective, but the stage itself seems marred by bizarre design choices. There's random usages of [INSERT UTILITY WEAPON OF YOUR CHOICE HERE] spread throughout the stage, especially near the beginning, and tbh my first thought was that the level was broken rather than me having to use Super Arrow or something. And there's also a few stretches of random Wheel Cutter usage - the level DOES give you heads up by putting cutters in the background, but I didn't even notice them until my second playthrough because I don't really have a keen eye for graphical things. The second shaft of Wheel Cutter usage is particularly frustrating to me - the slipping through spikes manouevers are very finicky and due to the fast rising speed of Wheel Cutter it's hard to really react at all. It also doesn't help that no matter what path you take the checkpoint is quite a ways away from the shaft you'll most likely keep dying in. I would say that the floating platforms didn't get used enough, but near the beginning of the level there's a random secret path you can only get through by sliding through a fake wall that actually DOES have okay usages of the rising platforms. It puzzles me why that wasn't just the second half and was instead put on a random secret path no one will find. Overall, there's nice ideas, but the forced weapon usage just really ruins it for me, because it's so thrown in and obnoxious.

Really cool level! I loved the atmosphere in this place, felt kind of like a ruined factory of sorts. I really liked the use of the elevators, but they kept making the sound it makes when gravity flips, which was kind of annoying. One of them also pushed me through a wall and killed me once. The last Wheel Cutter section was pretty difficult compared to the rest of the level, and new players will most likely die the first time they play through it.

Pretty neat! I like the platforms this stage revolves around. They're a neat concept and used pretty well. I find it somewhat of a shame how they're rather glitchy, though, with glitchy results when they push the player into a ceiling and the gravity sound effect relentlessly playing for seemingly no reason. I like how this stage makes use of various utility weapons in order to advance, though I wish it'd start out every introduction to a concept in a safer environment, as instant death is kinda everywhere in this stage. The screw platforms themselves never got a proper introduction unfortunately. Its first use is atop a pit of spikes no matter which of the three paths the player takes. Speaking of paths, I like the intense secret route this level offers, but I think due to its difficulty that shortcut should reward with something, perhaps a Noble Nickel. The final section before the boss feels pretty epic and despite my numerous deaths I'm a big fan of it. Nice level overall!

I don't get it, what is this level trying to be? The level design in this one isn't as bad as the others in terms of enemy placement for example, but the stage layout is just so awkward it almost feels as if the author had tried to implement secret paths into the level but didn't do it. It could have been a good level, the ideas were where they should have been, but the execution is just really, really bad.

There's plenty to be happy about with this one. Your segments with the Wheel Cutter, and your Rising Platform gimmick was neat (and the auto-scroller and vertical room which combined both!) are really quite enjoyable to go through. The enemy selection is... a bit unfocused, although you did a decent thing with Shield Attackers that's worth a mention. It's just got a few niggles that hinder is a bit. The level is a tad, ugly. Not in the spriting sense but certainly your colour palette. Why is this monochrome?! This is NES styled! Not Gameboy styled! This gets very dull after a while and not even a decent tileset can salvage it. At least make the backgrounds a different colour to the foreground. It makes it hard to tell what you can and cannot walk on at times. Your three other issues are gameplay based, because you didn't take a few things into consideration. Namely, I really think you should've taken the option to render Wheel Cutter with infinite ammo, because you based this entire stage around it... which is fine, but you have infinite lives here, and any player who is struggling will be forced to reset, which is kind of sad. Your rising platform gimmick also breaks one of the Mega Man conventions - gimmicks should respawn, or outright kill you if you fail them. Having them not reset and forcing the player to kill themselves goes against every gameplay instinct a player will have. Finally there are a lot of areas that look like either the correct route, or an alternative route, and they aren't! This sort of thing baffles the player. So yeah, a more thematic enemy selection, better implementation of the gimmicks (although your execution was pretty good!) would've helped this stage a lot. Oh, and, hi dev-kit boss!