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SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

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SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Super Mario Bros. X
39
66%
Lunar Magic
20
34%
 
Total votes: 59

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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by raocow »

it doesn't help that most mouser fights, when people try to make it hard, just make it really annoying and tedious.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by MrDeePay »

Gonna echo the comment of anything saying SMW/LM is more difficult to use custom material for probably hasn't given it an honest attempt. You can figure out how to use xkas, Asar, Sprite Tool, BTSD/GPS, AddmusicK/4, combined in a few hours tops. And that's just the common third party tools.

SMBX ultimately has more "out of the box" features, but also lacks some things that Lunar Magic has, including a more limited selection of enemies! Lunar Magic has a much higher "creativity ceiling" than SMBX despite the SNES being more limited.
Septentrion Pleiades wrote:Also, Sprite Limitation.
SA-1 patch mostly ignores sprite limitations.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

MrDeePay wrote:Lunar Magic has a much higher "creativity ceiling" than SMBX despite the SNES being more limited.
The creativity ceiling? That's a very odd term.

There's a lot you can do in SMBX which just isn't like the stuff you can do in SMW so I don't see how it applies here.

Both engines do have a very wide selection of NPCs. LunaDLL can even affect what type of item a boss/enemy will throw.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Icelink256 »

Lunar Magic, and YY-CHR for tiles (I edit in my palettes by hand).

No comparison, really. SMBX is a straight dose tedium, right out of the box.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by MrDeePay »

Septentrion Pleiades wrote:
MrDeePay wrote:Lunar Magic has a much higher "creativity ceiling" than SMBX despite the SNES being more limited.
The creativity ceiling? That's a very odd term.

There's a lot you can do in SMBX which just isn't like the stuff you can do in SMW so I don't see how it applies here.

Both engines do have a very wide selection of NPCs. LunaDLL can even affect what type of item a boss/enemy will throw.
SMBX: You're limited by the program.
SMW: You're limited by the SNES itself.

The huge amount of third party resources (Sprite Tool, Gopher Popcorn Stew, AddmusicK, countless patches, etc.) gives SMW and Lunar Magic a major edge against SMBX. Hell, for the main games SMBX has sprites for (SMB1-SMW), it doesn't even have all of those games' enemies ready to be used. To me, the biggest selling points for SMBX are:

- Extra Power-ups that actually function very well (PowerTool is very rough around the edges and conflicts with a bunch of things).
- Layer/Event shenanigans.
- Less sprite limits when it pertains to memory and slowdown (SA-1 patch gives SMW more room to work with, but also conflicts with a lot of things).
- Sprites can actually interact with platforms instead of falling through everything.
- You're nowhere near as limited with shooters.
- Easier to use MP3 quality music, too bad it can't loop.
- A few other things.

But like I said, SMBX ultimately has more out of the box features, but you're limited by the program itself. The poor GUI certainly does not help.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Willhart »

Since all the graphics are in gif format, it is very much possible to automate the conversion of tilesets via patch editing and image cutting tools. One can split a premade tileset really easily to a ton of little tiles with gamemaker sprite editor or Photoshop. Animated sprites and other custom graphics can be made easier with this method too.

Kil is working on custom enemies. I've already seen some of them in game.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

MrDeePay wrote:- Easier to use MP3 quality music, too bad it can't loop.
It's a shame that a lot of people make levels longer than their 5 minute MP3s.

Honestly, even though I like SMBX better, SMW's level makers have matured more than SMBX's level makers have.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Sorel »

Septentrion Pleiades wrote:
MrDeePay wrote:- Easier to use MP3 quality music, too bad it can't loop.
It's a shame that a lot of people make levels longer than their 5 minute MP3s.

Honestly, even though I like SMBX better, SMW's level makers have matured more than SMBX's level makers have.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by CM30 »

Lunar Magic. Without a doubt.

It allows for more creativity simply by letting you modify the game source code in a way that Super Mario Bros X can never match. For example, look at just about any complicated SMW hack with a ton of ASM and custom programming (Brutal Mario, Mario LD, SMWCP 1/2, any ASMT game, etc). You physically do most of that in Super Mario Bros X, because it doesn't let you add in super complex new bosses with new attack patterns and weaknesses, or levels which completely change how the engine works. Oh sure, you can mess around with layers and sort of 'fake' it, but that's not really the same thing. It's the difference between say, this (in a SMW mod):




And a n00b boss equivalent of the same fight. Cause that's what most of Super Mario Bros X's custom bosses (the ones built around Mother Brain or Wart) basically are. The SMBX equivalent of the n00b boss, spamming projectiles and moving a few independant layers about if you're lucky.

SMW lets you go deep into the engine and reprogram everything to your heart's desire, assuming your ASM skills are up to the job. SMB X? Kind of limits you to what's already included in the engine, with a few changes made possible with LunarDLL.

But the stuff below? Not really possible in SMBX...













Above: Not possible in SMBX, until someone disassembles the program 100%.

And the tools out there make this sort of stuff possible for a lot more people too, without a whole lot of learning required. As said, BlockTool, SpriteTool, adding dynamic sprites, cluster sprites, etc... is not something that's particularly hard to learn.

Lunar Magic also has another benefit too... Super Mario World is an official Nintendo game, with a rock solid engine. The platforming mechanics and physics work pretty much perfectly. That's not to say SMBX is bad (it's certainly a lot better than most fan games as far as mimicking Mario game physics goes, it's not 'Mario on ice' like the hello engine), but come on, it can't compare to a game actually programmed by Nintendo staff, at least as far as physics and gameplay mechanics go.

And Lunar Magic's main limitations when it comes to graphics and music? Not really that much of a big deal to be honest. Oh sure, you can't use ridiculously complex tilesets from later 2D platformers in SMW. Something like a Rayman PS1 themed level would be too much for the SNES to handle yet theoretically doable by SMB X or Game Maker:




But most people both wouldn't need such a complicated/fancy looking level/tileset (how many Super Mario Bros X projects or Mario fan games in general would need to have the game look like Rayman? Or Donkey Kong Country Returns or whatever) and wouldn't run into too many tech problems with fitting similarly impressive tilesets into a SMW ROM. Take it from me, I've ripped graphics from a ton of games I'd never thought would be remotely possible to include content from in Super Mario World hacking. Such as making a few sets of ExGFX based on Castlevania Symphony of the Night for showcase purposes:

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Other games I've gotten graphics from working in SMw include Wario Land 4, Jazz Jackrabbit 1 and 2 and Metal Slug. So while Super Mario Bros X does have less limits as far as graphics and palettes go, you can definitely do an impressive amount with Lunar Magic, even under SNES limitations. Indeed, it's very surprising how many games from later generations would theoretically work near perfectly on a SNES if ported to it by a decent designer...

Music is definitely nowhere near as good in Lunar Magic as in Super Mario Bros X (quality wise, without MSU1), but the latter does provide potentially useful possibilities to even out this gap in future, and careful sampling can definitely get you tunes that sound almost too good to be real:







So for me, I'd definitely say Lunar Magic is the better option. The things you can do with custom programming and external tools blows away anything doable in SMBX, and things like graphics and music can for the most part be worked around to at least an acceptable standard.

As for what each tool specifically does well:

SMB X

Newbie friendly. You don't have to worry much about command line stuff, or external tools, or palette limits, or anything else. Just paste in resources and build levels.
Layers/events.
Easier to use MP3 music
More options for built in power ups, enemies, bosses, etc.
Support for better graphics, on the 'super high end' of the spectrum.

Lunar Magic

Support for adding new programming to the game on a massive scale, with tools like BlockTool Super Deluxe, Sprite Tool, etc as well as patches like Uber ASM.
Works with a better game/physics engine in general, due to SMW being a Nintendo developed game rather than a fan imitation of one.
Very light on resources compared to other tools (memory/RAM used by Lunar Magic is nigh on non existent, and the games can be stored in just 4MB rather than the 200-300MB+ used by SMB X episodes and the near computer killing 500MB used by some Game Maker games)

Basically, SMBX is good for less experienced users and people who just want to make a 'Mario game' without anything particularly custom in it, whereas SMW is good for those who want to push the SNES to its limits and turn SMW into something completely unlike the original game.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Septentrion Pleiades »

Did you not see the posts about how you can use C++ with LunaDLL? I've been hearing how stuff isn't possible in SMBX despite it being easily feasible.

Maybe SMBX can't do everything SMW, but it goes both ways. Want a level section that is both high and long? It's a simple thing SMW does not do.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by docopoper »

With the new version of LunaDLL (not the one in A2XT) you gain the ability to draw arbitrary sprites on the screen. You can combine this with triggering the player hurt event and just checking for collisions manually to create all sorts of stuff. Mode7 is definitely out of reach though.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Sorel »

It's quite funny how sone people mention "so many tools for Lunar Magic" but totally forget that SMBX has a few tools too.

It's not like we are really comparing SMBX Basic vs Lunar Magic Basic like this.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by docopoper »

This is really just a fan war above anything else. :P
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by devil†zukin »

1 2 3 4 i declare a fan war
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by docopoper »

*hits you with a fan*
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by CM30 »

As someone who (as a non SMBX user) has been lurking on the SMBX forums from time to time, please show me:

1. Some sort of custom boss which is genuinely impressive in terms of attack pattern, and can match something in a high end SMW ASM hack.

2. At least one level with graphics of higher quality than '16 bit SNES tiles'.

3. And something truly amazing in general built on the platform

And I'll consider SMBX as even remotely as capable as Lunar Magic.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by docopoper »

Well, again. The levels I made for A2XT are almost definitely the most technically advanced levels to have been made so far in SMBX. But I don't want to show them for the sake of spoilers. The attack pattern of the boss I made isn't as fancy as that Marx boss but that's more because that's not the sort of boss I was trying to make.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by raocow »

yeah, the 'complexity' debate is going to have to wait until at least a2xt, or after more people spend some serious time with luna.dll.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Doctor Shemp »

Well, that assumes that the people who hate SMBX with a burning passion will actually look at A2XT, which seems unlikely. They could be burnt at the stake for crimes against SMW purity.

Oh, and all the stuff you linked CM30? It's extremely technically impressive. How much of it is fun though? Certainly Brutal Mario isn't. That's the problem with having so much technology at your disposal: way, way too many people focus on how technically impressive they can make something and forget to actually make it enjoyable. The two biggest killers of SMW hacking seem to be:
1) The belief that if something doesn't have ASM, it's not a proper hack and is worth less than something that does.
2) The knowledge that people can fall back on savestates if something gets too hard.
Combine these two and you have people who make extremely technically impressive things that are incredibly painful to play, because difficulty no longer becomes a consideration if most of the playerbase savescums.

Yeah, a lot of SMBX creators make really boring things. The reason for that is they don't have fancy ASM to cover up the fact that they're terrible level designers. But once you start covering up the fact that you can't design a level for shit with the fact that you can code well - or, more realistically, can insert someone else's code well - then you end up with incredibly painful things. And, yes, I know, USS Suboptimal exists, but that's the exception that proves the rule: everyone remembers it because it's so unique in that regard. If I ask you to name a SMBX level that's painful to play, you'd say Suboptimal, but if I asked you to name a SMW level that's painful to play, where would you begin?

LunaDLL can achieve a lot right now and is only getting more powerful as time goes by. I really, really hope though that we never reach a mindset where levels that are made without LunaDLL are inferior.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better? -Neither

Post by Sturg »

Psshhh, obviously none you have never heard of mother fuckin' Super Mario Flash, which puts both SMButtsX and Bonar Magic to shame.

Don't believe me? Time to sit down and get educated.

Super Mario Flash is an astounding piece of art which makes you wonder if there'll ever be a better platform editor such as this. Guess what, there isn't and there will never will be.

SMBECKET and Lunar Magic Marker both allow all this custom shit that's a pretty sweet deal at first, like 'aw cool look at my sweet custom boss' or 'wow I can use MP3s'. But then everyone gets twin-diddled into thinking that 'more custom stuff = more popularity', and then they fuck themselves over by triple-layering their cake with thick chocolate and vanilla frosting and then force feeding that heart-attack to everyone they know by advertising how cool and custom it is. People always hate too much frosting, don't do it.

Super Mario Flash goes back to it's roots and does it spectacularly. The controls work, the physics are like you're on the moon (you're a goddamn astronaut!!!!), and the editor is super duper easy but yet let's you experience you're level as if you were playing SMB again (all stars version that is). But you're not just replaying SMB1, you're playing an astounding recreation of the same game, your recreation. You don't have to stress out about it, worry if "arrg why is my asm not workind" or "man editing these graphics sure is fun /sarcasm sarcasm". Don't have to worry about that in Super Mario Flash, having no custom blargh or any combustibility of the sort lets you think more about the Zen that is, Mario Level editing.

Look into the blue sky, stare at a sunset, think peaceful thoughts, and you will know and shall remember that Super Mario Flash is your purest form of clay, and your the creator.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by ano0maly »

@Doctor Shemp
Eh, but "Brutal Mario not enjoyable" isn't an argument against the editor itself. If people are forgetting to make their levels enjoyable with impressive features, that's the fault of the level creators. In the end, it looks like Lunar Magic still has the edge in customization.

(Disclaimer: did not use either editor so the following is just guesswork)

CM30's post made me consider this topic more deeply. Reading the post, it sounds like Lunar Magic allows more creativity because it just happens so that you can dig into the source code in a way you can't in SMBX. But why not? There's no reason why SMBX can't potentially allow you to the same thing; it just wasn't made yet.

Now I have to confirm one thing. Is SMBX closed source and preventing others from hacking into it? If so, then that would mean that you're comparing one game that was successfully "hacked" (Super Mario World) with a game that was not infiltrated because it's hard-locked. But if that's not the case, then the problem isn't that SMBX can't do these things; it's that no one yet bothered to make a "Lunar Magic" for SMBX.

Another big difference seems to be this: Lunar Magic is a tool that allows you hack into an existing game and its engine. SMBX is a game engine and a level editor all in one. You're not modifying an existing ROM, replacing the Nintendo levels with your own. You're using a utility software that comes with the game software to make "custom levels" much like, presumably, in Voxatron or Copy Kitty. Basically this feels like comparing apples and oranges. Hacking into a game isn't the same as using a custom level creator. A better comparison would be between SMBX and those two.

Oh and I have to disagree with "Lunar Magic edits an official Nintendo game so it has a solid foundation". I've heard that SMW code is very badly organized, and even playing the game, I can see that a lot of resources were made just to fit specific levels. They weren't made with taking the greater picture of the game as a whole into account. In other words, the game was made to tailor to the level designs, instead of the other way around, making the levels from a game engine that is flexible enough to accommodate levels. You're not going to have an optimal foundation in that situation.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Penguin Emperor »

I've only used SMBX so far, but I've found it very easy to work with and rather fun. It seems rather intuitively put together and I love the custom music. The downside to me is I'd like to be able to copy and paste sections of levels or specific custom blocks I create. Another downside is I'm not sure how to make a boss other than by replacing mother brain with something.

I'd be interested in trying out lunar magic as well, however. Could somebody let me know what all is needed to make it work? I only ask because it seems like you need several programs to make it function.

Finally, I'd like to say as a casual raocow fan that I love watching both smw and smbx LPs. I think it is quite a shame that some people miss the amazing enjoyment of raocow's LPs because of a grudge against a specific program. Just some thoughts from a newbie on the forum...
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Willhart »

CM30 wrote:2. At least one level with graphics of higher quality than '16 bit SNES tiles'.
All the colors of can be used. Also it's in twice higher resolution.
screenshot.82.png
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Another one from the tileset I converted.
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And I don't even need to use tilesets sometimes.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by MrDeePay »

Willhart wrote:Since all the graphics are in gif format, it is very much possible to automate the conversion of tilesets via patch editing and image cutting tools. One can split a premade tileset really easily to a ton of little tiles with gamemaker sprite editor or Photoshop. Animated sprites and other custom graphics can be made easier with this method too.
SNESGFX can do just about the same thing for SMW. It's not exactly fool proof (some manual work will be necessary after the conversion), but it speeds up the process tremendously.
Septentrion Pleiades wrote:Honestly, even though I like SMBX better, SMW's level makers have matured more than SMBX's level makers have.
More to do with the people than the editors.
Fluffi-dono wrote:It's quite funny how sone people mention "so many tools for Lunar Magic" but totally forget that SMBX has a few tools too.
How many third party extras does SMBX have compared to Lunar Magic? Then again, that's not really fair since LM has been around for almost fourteen years and SMBX has around half as old(? Can someone confirm/deny this?)
docopoper wrote:Well, again. The levels I made for A2XT are almost definitely the most technically advanced levels to have been made so far in SMBX. But I don't want to show them for the sake of spoilers. The attack pattern of the boss I made isn't as fancy as that Marx boss but that's more because that's not the sort of boss I was trying to make.
Some people couldn't care less about spoilers regarding certain subjects. Put it behind a spoiler tag if you must.
Doctor Shemp wrote:Well, that assumes that the people who hate SMBX with a burning passion will actually look at A2XT, which seems unlikely. They could be burnt at the stake for crimes against SMW purity.

Oh, and all the stuff you linked CM30? It's extremely technically impressive. How much of it is fun though? Certainly Brutal Mario isn't. That's the problem with having so much technology at your disposal: way, way too many people focus on how technically impressive they can make something and forget to actually make it enjoyable. The two biggest killers of SMW hacking seem to be:
1) The belief that if something doesn't have ASM, it's not a proper hack and is worth less than something that does.
2) The knowledge that people can fall back on savestates if something gets too hard.
Combine these two and you have people who make extremely technically impressive things that are incredibly painful to play, because difficulty no longer becomes a consideration if most of the playerbase savescums.
That's the fault of the authors, not the resources.
Yeah, a lot of SMBX creators make really boring things. The reason for that is they don't have fancy ASM to cover up the fact that they're terrible level designers.
Nice looking tilesets being used to cover up shoddy level quality is an extremely common tactic that exists in even commercial games.
But once you start covering up the fact that you can't design a level for shit with the fact that you can code well - or, more realistically, can insert someone else's code well - then you end up with incredibly painful things.
Again, that's fault of the authors, not the resources.
And, yes, I know, USS Suboptimal exists, but that's the exception that proves the rule: everyone remembers it because it's so unique in that regard. If I ask you to name a SMBX level that's painful to play, you'd say Suboptimal, but if I asked you to name a SMW level that's painful to play, where would you begin?
Lunar Magic is more user-friendly and has been around (much) longer than SMBX. Those two factors alone will allow for a much larger sample pool to pull from.

Also, USS Suboptimal wasn't the only level in ASMBXT that sucked.
LunaDLL can achieve a lot right now and is only getting more powerful as time goes by. I really, really hope though that we never reach a mindset where levels that are made without LunaDLL are inferior.
If authors know what the hell they are doing, it won't happen.
Penguin Emperor wrote:I'd be interested in trying out lunar magic as well, however. Could somebody let me know what all is needed to make it work? I only ask because it seems like you need several programs to make it function.
All you need is just Lunar Magic and a clean unmodified ROM of Super Mario World.
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Re: SMBX vs Lunar Magic: Which is better?

Post by Willhart »

MrDeePay wrote:
And, yes, I know, USS Suboptimal exists, but that's the exception that proves the rule: everyone remembers it because it's so unique in that regard. If I ask you to name a SMBX level that's painful to play, you'd say Suboptimal, but if I asked you to name a SMW level that's painful to play, where would you begin?
Lunar Magic is more user-friendly and has been around (much) longer than SMBX. Those two factors alone will allow for a much larger sample pool to pull from.

Also, USS Suboptimal wasn't the only level in ASMBXT that sucked.
I think that some of the poor level quality was mostly due to the short beta testing and most levels being our first ones on SMBX. There were still some really neat story, gameplay and graphics related ideas used in that game.
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