Jesus Christ, where do I begin with this level... I'll just go through one section at a time.
Nothing wrong with the first one, it's just flavor. Next one is reasonable, introduces the concept in a cute way.
Third section... I have NO idea how you're supposed to get that star, which I only ever noticed by viewing the editor. There's no indication you can get up there, or even if you'd want to. I'd either have a warp lead to that star, or remove it. The ice block puzzles are decent, though I'd point out they can be cheesed by just holding an object next to them and breaking them in seconds.
Forth section, it rewards taking your time carefully working through it, knocking the thwomps out with shells and keys until you get to the second block puzzle. The ice block puzzle is unnecessarily tedious here as you've gotta run back and forth under and over spikes and pits to toss 2 to 3 keys at the blocks and break them... and again if you know the holding glitch it's trivialized then. From here on out the difficulty spikes unexpectedly with the falling platform jumps. And still no mid-point in sight...
Fifth section, I flat out skipped this one as the whirlibird lagged my computer such that it was unplayable. Granted my XP netbook with a gig of RAM and 1.60GHz processor isn't a great machine, but let it be known; this section is unplayable on a machine with those stats. Though looking at how crowded the enemies are I can't say it looks any better without the lag.
Sixth section, finally a mid-point! By this point I'm already up to 2 personal checkpoints though, so it might as well have been a non-midpoint level and be over by now, but the worst is yet to come.
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Oh, and I'm not sure if this is a placeholder or a joke. In any case that cactus shooter is way too slow, if you need to stock up (and you will for the next section) it's just slowing you down further, in a level that revels in killing you and making you repeat 10 minutes of gameplay. Generators for powerups should just give the powerups, no waiting game is necessary.
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Also, what's up with the invisible conveyor belt? Not that it makes much of a difference as it's at this point the game is flatly unplayable without giving a checkpoint every two screens or so. In particular:
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There is zero indication you can stand here, but NOT under the thwomp which kills you from falling off the bottom. And the hammer bros is horribly placed and it's basically a gamble whether you'll get past him; the jump is plenty hard without him.
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Here's a great example of how the enemy NPCs are so haphazardly placed and crowded they literally fall over each other. Both sawblades wind up on the same track, which depending on your timing can make this an almost impossible jump. They also kill the thwomp, which doesn't seem intended.
After blatantly skipping the rest we're on to the seventh section. A tease of the star just cements in the player that this level has worn out its welcome and consider skipping the level altogether.
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Nitpick off the bat on the eighth section, those window background sprites just sorta float in the air and look odd, not a gameplay issue just wanted to point that out. As for this section... I haven't tested to see if you can somehow break the big ice block, hit the red switch and just skip the rest of the section and the second whirliwind segment (which surprise surprise, still lags), but if not the Rinkas plus crowded jumps will ensure that anyone who managed to make it this far will be sick of the level, which just refuses to give you a break even at this point.
Personally I feel the level should have been at least two, maybe three separate levels. The frozen factory motif is nice, and the ice block puzzles using fake keys was neat. The level could be over by the fifth section and it'd fit nicely as a mid-game to early late game level. Sixth section onward is just a gauntlet of improbably tight jumps and enemy crowds that don't particularly reward any style of play, be it rushing or taking it slow. You could easily get a post-game level out of just the last half; as it is this stage is firmly in the post-game, and is out of my skill range to finish.
Even if you're satisfied with the difficulty, the lagging issues plus enemies crowding each other out are a problem no matter what, and should be addressed in the next update IMO. I'm sorry if this seemed harsh, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible since "it's too hard!" doesn't really help anyone.