S.P.L.U.C.E. - What's that random reference?!

[Sebby19]

The four bosses are the 4 main characters, in their 'godtier' outfits: John, Rose, Dave, and Jane (who is also part omniscient dog). The John sprite looks a bit like too zombie-ish, though.

[Unaniem]

I don't know whether to bash the boss design here or compliment it.

On one hand it's really lazy to just use the same boss five times (Kirby included), but on the other hand it's interesting to see the exact same boss made harder using only environment changes, and doing them in a row only accentuates that.

Eh.

[Mata Hari]

I'm not super enamoured with the idea of using the same glitchy boss frice in a row, which is like thrice only there are four of them.

[oobitydoo]

I don't know whether to bash the boss design here or compliment it.

On one hand it's really lazy to just use the same boss five times (Kirby included), but on the other hand it's interesting to see the exact same boss made harder using only environment changes, and doing them in a row only accentuates that.

Eh.

I see it kind of like Reznor, who's always the same, or maybe more appropriately like Dunce in MGU since they're at least variants on a theme. They could probably stand to take a few fewer hits, though maybe hackmaker did that since their invincibility frames didn't stick? ¯\(ツ)/¯

It's called Showtime (Original Mix)

I liked this setting of Showtime in the Mario engine. It is too bad he didn't use each HS character's respective combat music for their fights. I would've loved to hear Dissension that way.

[Mata Hari]

Also I'm a little confused why the dude decided to give Abra a grey ring-shaped booster seat rather than using one of its evolutions which would be the correct height in the first place.

[Alice]

The overall design of today's levels seems rather questionable to me. Four levels of reasonably increasing difficulty with the more difficult part of the level being after the midpoint then ending with a progressively harder and harder boss that has some glitchy hit detection and takes significantly more than the standard three hits. At the very least the mid points should have been in different locations, if not multiple midpoints instead.

[Mineyl]

Wow, those Swinub aren't as artistically sound as most of the rest of the Pokemon sprites...and were the Spike Top replacements Shellos with spikes on their heads? I can't really make them out.

Today's references were more tasteful, but I'm still pretty well against direct reference injection like that. Can't please everyone, though, right?

What's the Wind and Shade music from, by the way?

The song is Underwater City from Rudra no Hihou / Treasure of the Rudras.

[Yikes]

I don't know whether to bash the boss design here or compliment it.

On one hand it's really lazy to just use the same boss five times (Kirby included), but on the other hand it's interesting to see the exact same boss made harder using only environment changes, and doing them in a row only accentuates that.

Imo it would have been better to recycle the 4 castle bosses in different environments instead of just recycle Kirby four times.

The overall design of today's levels seems rather questionable to me. Four levels of reasonably increasing difficulty with the more difficult part of the level being after the midpoint then ending with a progressively harder and harder boss that has some glitchy hit detection and takes significantly more than the standard three hits. At the very least the mid points should have been in different locations, if not multiple midpoints instead.

This. Even though, the 3rd boss was probably the most annoying, it would have been better with shorter levels (specially stage 4) or a second midpoint. The length of the first level was optimal.

[Menshay]

and were the Spike Top replacements Shellos with spikes on their heads?

Shiny Trapinches with spikes on top, I guess.

[skyluigi2]

Well, okay then. The levels themselves today weren't too horrible (not as much as the third Star World anyway), but using the same boss battle repeatedly? And it wasn't that good to start with, especially being kind of glitchy. Still, it's out of the way now, let's just hope we won't see the same boss a sixth time.

[Septentrion Pleiades]

I'm not sure what problem everyone has with the bosses. It's a platforming enemy vs a platforming player. The whole "glitch" thing is a common knowledge in SMW that is easy to avoid, even in a battle situation. You'll be very hard pressed to find SMW bosses as easy and fun as them.

I remember three main boss types in this game. The "kirby" the "pidgeot." and "bloistoise."

[Alice]

I'm not sure what problem everyone has with the bosses. It's a platforming enemy vs a platforming player. The whole "glitch" thing is a common knowledge in SMW that is easy to avoid, even in a battle situation. You'll be very hard pressed to find SMW bosses as easy and fun as them.

I remember three main boss types in this game. The "kirby" the "pidgeot." and "bloistoise."

The location of the bosses after a full half a level combined with being glitchy (which is apparently not as easy to avoid as you think) and taking six or seven hits to kill is the problem. There's a reason why the original SMW levels typically have the midway point right before the boss or before a reasonably short area and they only take three hits. The only one of those bosses where six or seven hits could possibly be excused is the last one but even there it'd be pushing being tedious. And that's only counting the boss in that instance, not the fairly difficult stretch of level between the midpoint and the boss.

[Septentrion Pleiades]

I'm not sure what problem everyone has with the bosses. It's a platforming enemy vs a platforming player. The whole "glitch" thing is a common knowledge in SMW that is easy to avoid, even in a battle situation. You'll be very hard pressed to find SMW bosses as easy and fun as them.

I remember three main boss types in this game. The "kirby" the "pidgeot." and "bloistoise."

The location of the bosses after a full half a level combined with being glitchy (which is apparently not as easy to avoid as you think) and taking six or seven hits to kill is the problem. There's a reason why the original SMW levels typically have the midway point right before the boss or before a reasonably short area and they only take three hits. The only one of those bosses where six or seven hits could possibly be excused is the last one but even there it'd be pushing being tedious. And that's only counting the boss in that instance, not the fairly difficult stretch of level between the midpoint and the boss.

You do know I've played this? The bosses aren't that hard.

[Mata Hari]

The whole "glitch" thing is a common knowledge in SMW that is easy to avoid, even in a battle situation.

Misbehaving custom elements shouldn't even be used. It's one thing to have a glitch that doesn't ever come up, and another to have a glitch that the player has to continuously act to avoid.

Even then it wouldn't have been so bad had it not come up frice.

[Alice]

You do know I've played this? The bosses aren't that hard.

And everyone is identical to you?

[Minnakht]

Misbehaving custom elements shouldn't even be used. It's one thing to have a glitch that doesn't ever come up, and another to have a glitch that the player has to continuously act to avoid.

I'm probably running some fallacious argument here, but it's funny and I just want to say it before Shemp or someone else does.

Let's not ever have more than one enemy sprite on the screen, or else you can glitch-get-hurt when you jump on both of them at once.

[CodeGorilla]

The whole "glitch" thing is a common knowledge in SMW that is easy to avoid, even in a battle situation.

Misbehaving custom elements shouldn't even be used. It's one thing to have a glitch that doesn't ever come up, and another to have a glitch that the player has to continuously act to avoid.

Even then it wouldn't have been so bad had it not come up frice.

Yeah, you should never use Thwimps in your hack because of this glitchy behavior.

[Mata Hari]

But is it something you have to actively keep in mind when playing around Thwimps?

[Minnakht]

Yes. And Eeries. Try to ferry yourself across a gap by spinjumping on two stacked Eerie sprites and chances are you'll glitch and be hurt. Or jump down on two Dry Bones at once. Happened in Swirlybomb's MAGL level, I think.

[Mata Hari]

I just don't think you should be putting stuff in your level that would encourage that glitch to occur. In all honestly I dunno about the Thwimps but I've never seen them act up to the extent those custom bosses were. Especially since you (spin)jump on them once or not at all, while you jump on the bosses multiple times.

I know I've said this but the fact there were four of those bosses in a row would have also meant the glitch came up way more than it would have for a single iteration.

[ano0maly]

You would think that someone in the SMW hacking community would have made a generally applicable patch to fix these.

[Leet]

find it funny how raocow called Dave "Johnny boy" in the lil cal level and here he mentioned Ironicus when entering John's room

edit: "lad jump" are you kidding meeee

anyway that Jade fight was actually really cool with how it took advantage of the boss sprite to make a significantly different battle (which also fits with Jade's tradition in-comic of subverting established patterns) they just should remove the player gates to make it less "bluh"

[CodeGorilla]

The problem with Thwimps can crop up anywhere you have Thwimps, and is the same problem here: if you try to bounce on an enemy that's moving upward fast enough (i.e. faster than Mario), you bounce, but you also get hit. Don't know enough about patching to know what you could do about it.

EDIT: One thing that could've been done with this boss is to make it drop to the ground when it's hit. That, after all, is why green parakoopas don't have this issue.

[Mineyl]

All I'll say about the glitchy jumping is that, unlike Thwimps, you are actually required to stomp on these bosses. Thwimps, for all intents and purposes, are designed to be dodged, and if it weren't for the spin jump, there'd be no conceivable way to touch them under everyday conditions. The oversight on the bosses should be corrected or they shouldn't be used at all.

[Lejes]

You do know I've played this? The bosses aren't that hard.

I've played it too! And the bosses are pretty bad. It's a common theme in SMW hacking. Instead of designing around or fixing some problem inherent to the SMW engine, hackers accentuate it as much as possible, as if they're trying to sour you on the entire concept of platformers. But man, if you think these plodding walk-back-and-forth-matons were bad, just wait until you see the big kahuna of this hack's bosses.

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