A2XT: It's Over

[Crow]

World 5 demo counts because WHY NOT:

Crazed Circuitry - 1
Parc du Debonair - 2
Baker Street - 2 (0 in second half.)
I Do Think You Fit This Shoe - 3
Grand Trunk Arena - 4
EuroShell R&D - 5 (I got to the end on my third or so try though, but then got elevator killed :T)
Sheath/Keith Courage, part deux - 6 (GUESS WHO SUCKS AS SHEATH? MEEEE :>)
Cityrun - 9
Superfluous Security - 12
Lightning In A Box - 13
Fun Times At The Laundromat - 15
Dyin' For An Electrifyin - 21
Fun Fungus Function - 21 (Noting that I came back after I'd done basically everything else to look for the secret leek.)

On today's level:
World 5 ends with a rompy romp that is basically playing an entirely different game and I'm pretty okay with that. The "game over" sound is practically a jump scare though dear god. Not much to say about this one, it's surprisingly easy with the enemies all having a decent chance of dropping more health and the boss being fairly harmless unless you try to attack him.

Favorites:
Cityrun is probably the most fun to play for me personally because high intensity platforming autoscroll action fun time woo! But I also really like Crazed Circuitry both visually and gameplay-wise. So I'm just going to give it to both of them.

Least Favorite:
Part of me wants to say Fun Fungus Function because of the secret leek but that's not really fair. Overall I'd say Superfluous Security, I guess, but that's mainly for the bosses + autoscroll level, which is not a combination I particularly enjoy.

[Mabel]

Favorite: city run

Least favorite: Grand Trunk Arena

[raocow]

world 6 status: starts out way easier

[Validon98]

And so Sheath once again participates in some sort of interlude like thing in another old-time video game.

Sheath/Keith Courage part deux feels to me like a kind of empty level. I get that it was meant to be moreso of an enemy-fighting level, but it was an enemy-fighting level carried moreso by the reference. Also, dying, like docopoper said, is pretty much the scariest thing ever because you get knocked down to three health and have no way to get bombs, so fighting Mr. Roboto becomes kind of a hassle. It's not impossible, just very tedious, especially if you miss him (his hitbox felt weird when I was fighting him, I don't know). I DO like the aesthetic of the level though, so that's something, I guess?

world 6 status: starts out way easier

The thing is, did you take it that way? :V

[Crow]

world 6 status: starts out way easier

continues to be way easier
i thought it was world 5 all the way until the ending cutscene said END OF WORLD 6 because it's barely a step up from world 4.

[Unaniem]

Full map of World 5 will have some delay, it is to be uploaded by tomorrow. :Y

Favourites and their counterparts:
Favourites:

Cityrun and Fun times at the Laundromat.

Cityrun for being a completely solid autoscroller stage with a decent challenge and a good length. Hitting that sweet spot in dynamic autoscrolling levels is super tough in my opinion, so it deems itself worthy of this title.

Fun times at the Laundromat for having fun stage design, lovely graphical usage and a nice challenge for the secret exit. It's a solid stage all around and I love it.

Least Favourites:

Grand Trunk Arena
Another case like the one in World 4 where the stage isn't necessarily bad, but relative to all other stages it leaves me with the biggest 'mediocre' experience over all. The platforming design is rather odd in some places, the stage itself feels rather cramped, there's too many chatty NPCs (for a regular stage) in my opinion and eh, something has to come last.

[Joseph Staleknight]

After so much running away from the police and armed forces with her four companions, Sheath finally decides to unequivocally exonerate the group by being a hero and destroying the evil menace of Mr. Roboto, who threatened to turn the entire planet into a modern ruin! Yeah!

...Except it only happened in her head. The five are forced to teleport back to the ship and escape the wrath of the townsfolk, who (barring the friendly people from Mantreopolis and the less fortunate of Baker Street) all agree to ban Demo and Company from Mantreol for life. And all because Demo's siblings kept getting in her way.

Sheath/Keith Courage, part deux (SAJewers): And once again, Sheath takes a page from Keith Courage!

Anyway, first off I like how you can get up to 10 bombs from Wize Wizard, as well as a significant increase in health from Nurse Nancy (with some help from LunaDLL!). It really goes a long way in making the ensuing fight easier. Now, the stage itself has a few hazards to let you know that this isn't going to be entirely easy; not only are there Speed Demons, Jumping Skullboys and Card Sharps to give you some trouble (especially the former two with their speed and unexpectedly jumping into your face respectively), but also the Godslayer spikes that are guaranteed to kill you under any circumstances. Yet despite all that, I didn't actually have too much of a fuss fighting through the stage; even when I took some hits, I always managed to find a heart to replenish my health.

The boss was also very simple to deal with, since his pattern of "shoot, sweep the floor, ascend and repeat" was pretty simple to figure out and respond to. Since I didn't waste my bombs out in the open underground, I had an even easier time wrecking him by throwing a bomb into his face as he swooped down to cross the room. Still, thrashing a giant robot and saving all the Alpha Zones is already pretty epic, so I'm willing to chalk it up to Sheath being Sheath.

End of World 5 Cutscene: Sheath Courage in Alpha City (Demolition): And with that, we finally beat Sheath Courage in Alpha City, a game with eleven levels, two bosses, a few cutscenes and a town and intro! A pretty good bargain deal, considering how incredibly hard it is, though the final level felt like a joke in comparison to the two before. 9/10, would play again.

Mantreol: I gotta say, this place is disorienting to navigate because it's the one world where not all the paths are paved like usual; those paths on the roads aren't immediately clear unless you study where the camera goes when the next level(s) are unlocked. Some of the levels were also very hard to get through, though it's only because of the sudden difficulty jump that happens after Colonial Seattle. Still, I'm loving the atmosphere of the land and how it all just feels so city-like (with a few exceptions). Even the town/district level feels alive and bustling despite not being as expansive as Fahren. Overall, this world feels well placed at this point of the game, even though its number isn't mentioned much.

Now then, on to World 6 (and some surprisingly easy levels early on according to raocow)!

[YelseyKing]

Yes it's that time again woohoo!

WORLD 5 FAVORITES!

...

Favorite: Fun Fungus Function. This level was just silly. A little *busy* in terms of visuals, and its secret leek was a bit of a pain to find (without the library hint), but I loved the sheer absurdity of it all.

Runner up: Dyin' for an Electrifyin'. Oddly, this stage gave me next to no problems. It's the kind of stage I just generally enjoy. The gimmick was solid and easy to work with, and in general it was just... fun.

Least Favorite: Baker Street. A-yup.


And yeah, world 6 seemed markedly easier than world 5 to me.

[Lunikyuu]

Favorite World 5 Level

Dyin' For an Electrifyin'- This level gave me absolute hell the first time playing it, however once I was able to look back on it through raocow's playthrough, I started to really like the level. It has a pretty neat gimmick with the alternating electric water, and I like how the level builds upon that gimmick as it goes on. The only problem I had with the upside down water (aside from me being bad in general) is that there isn't really a faster way to move down through the water, so if you accidentally swim up too far, you're kind of screwed, though in most cases, that can be avoided.

Edit: meant to say "me being bad in general" instead of implying the gimmick was bad

Runner Up

Fun Fungus Function- A really fun silly level that I liked for the dialogue and mini-story behind it, even though the secret was a little too hidden in my opinion.

Least Favorite World 5 Level

Baker Street- Again, I kind of warmed up to it a little bit after seeing raocow play through it, and I still really do like the aesthetic and feel of the level, however I still think the second half is rather rediculous to do without the cat llama, which I didn't have. There's just so much onscreen at once that I my mind kept getting overwhelmed while trying to dodge it, and the rain, while a neat aesthetic touch, didn't help. Seeing comments about testers not having problems with it makes me regret not saying something about it sooner, but I came in rather late to testing and assumed that actual bugs were the priority at that stage of testing, so I didn't think it was important enough.

Also since others are doing it, I might as well post my shamefully high demo counts for world 5

900 Place Des Ormeaux- 0
Dyin' For An Electrifyin'- 57
Parc Du Debonair- 11
Crazed Circuitry- 9
Fun Times At The Laundromat- 36
I Do Think You Fit This Shoe- 4
Lightning in a Box- 84 (this was mainly because I had run out of lives at that point and kept game overing at the boss, forcing me to redo the entire level each time. My demo count was at around 30 the first time I made it to the midpoint.)
Superfluous Security- 43 (Mostly to the paragoopas at the end of the normal path)
City Run- 28
Mantreopolis- 0
Grand Trunk Arena- 3
Euroshell R&D- 4
Baker Street- 63
Fun Fungus Function- 68 (mostly trying to find the secret leek)
Sheath/Keith Courage part deux- 0

and what the heck, I'll do demo counts for the others too:

World 1

Level 0- 0
Remakes are so Cliche- 0
Giant Egg- 7
A World One Level- 2
This Sounds Accurate- 9
Dense Jangle- 10
Steeltown Mine Co.- 0
Pet Rock- 4 (don't remember how that happened)
MAKL Vanilla- 6
Wood Zone- 10
Another Castle- 2

World 2

The Preventable Forest Path- 1
Just Rusty!- 4 (don't remember or have any idea how that happened)
Omelet Jungle- 1
Koopa Time- 6
Plant Zone- 1
Farina Station- 3
Edge of the Night- 14
Ohh No a Ghost!- 6
Canopy Journey- 0
Poison Tree- 18
Pimp Yo Ride!- 13
Sheath Partakes In An Interlude- 8

World 3

his name was king- 1 (again, no idea how that happened)
Sandy Sands- 15
Sloppy Sands- 16
Cinder Canyon- 50 (I don't remember having that much trouble with this level 0_o)
Forgotton World We Just Remembered- 54 (I don't do well with rotodisks...)
Load Bearing Bricks- 31
The Triforce Trials- 22
Plains of Ulysses Mad- 5
Nice and Easy- 7
Floating Falls- 8
Desert Town- 3
the good, the bad, and the stupid- 1

World 4

Demo and the Militarists- 0
Rainy Day- 21
Just Another Screen- 21
Soggy Steelworks- 9
26th - AUS - 'Level1 - Winter City'- 8
Tall Tall Ghost House- 5
Swimming in the Rain- 8
Fahren- 1
Out of Season- 15 (mainly due to me being dumb with the secret leek and trying to do it the hard way)
A Shelter in the Snow?- 23 (mainly due to the beta version of the boss)
Snowboardin'- 4
Johnson McCain and the Communists- 24

[SAJewers]

It''s interesting how I tried to make Mr. Roboto as accurate as possible to Mr. Roboto in Keith Courage while being fair and compensating for Sheath, while not making the SMBX events too complex, and it ended up being quite easy. I think as a child I only beast him once.

Original Boss if you've never played Keith Courage.

[raocow]

huh, that is very interesting!

[docopoper]

Original Boss if you've never played Keith Courage.

Wow. The original is much faster and harder looking. And it looks really easy to do his movement pattern with hardcoded lunadll.

[tigermoon]

I loved playing Sheath Courage, it was fun. Though maybe it's just because I like using Link/Sheath.

Also, I absolutely loved World 5's map. Easily my favorite of the whole game (counting the ones rao hasn't shown yet).

Favorite level: I've already stated what my two favorite levels of World 5 were. Still, Lightning in a Box has the bonus of featuring a neat boss fight, so I'm gonna give it to that over EuroShell R&D.

Least favorite level: Fun Times at the Laundromat. Not sure what it was, but this one just didn't really connect with me for some reason.


I'll post my demo counts for the other worlds when I get back to that computer. I will say that Dyin for an Electrifyin has the highest one up to this point, though.

[SAJewers]

Original Boss if you've never played Keith Courage.

Wow. The original is much faster and harder looking. And it looks really easy to do his movement pattern with hardcoded lunadll.

Once you figure out the timings, it's actually not that hard to beat him.

[Crow]

Demo counts okay I'll do them all!
(Anything not listed = 0, can't be bothered to hunt down all the missing levels.)

World 1: (The land where I really sucked at mario physics.)

Another Castle - 4
This Sounds Accurate - 5
Pet Rock - 5
MAKL Vanilla - 6
Giant Egg - 7
A World One Level - 7
Wood Zone - 12
Dense Jangle - 16 (How the hell did this happen, I don't even remember this level at all???)

World 2: (The land where me sucking at mario physics started hurting.)

Just Rusty - 1
Omelet Jungle - 1
Canopy Journey - 1
Sheath Partakes In An Interlude - 2
Edge Of The Night - 4
Plant Zone - 8
Koopa Time - 13
Ohh No A Ghost - 13
Poison Tree - 17 (I just suck, this level isn't *that* hard! :B)

World 3: (The land where I gained a bit of comptence except for in one level.)

Plains Of Ulysses Mad - 2
Sandy Sands - 3
Floating Falls - 3
the good, the bad, the stupid - 5
Nice And Easy - 5
The Triforce Trials - 7
Sloppy Sands - 8
Forgotten World That We Just Remembered - 9
Load Bearing Bricks - 11
Cinder Canyon - 33 (It says a lot that this level caused me tons of deaths in comparison to everything else in the world yet I quite like it.)

World 4: (The land where I cleared a lot of levels with no deaths???)

Tall Tall Ghost House - 2
A Shelter in the Snow - 4
Just Another Screen - 5
Johnson McCain And The Communists - 13
Rainy Day - 16
Out of Season - 25 (Potentially my least favorite in the entire game, really.)

Also, going back to look at this list, it's fitting that my top 5 death counts are all from world 9 (and the 6th highest is the hardest maingame level.)

[Voltgloss]

My favorite World 5 levels are Lightning in a Box and City Run, for reasons I've already described. I think in a head-to-head battle I have to give the slight edge to City Run, which wins the "level I looked forward to playing most every time I beta tested a new version of World 5" award.

My least favorite would be Grand Trunk Arena for pretty much the reasons Unaniem said.

[Leet]

how are you guys getting lists of your demos btw

[Crow]

how are you guys getting lists of your demos btw

Uhh the latest version of LunaDLL has a "democount" cheat added in, or at least that's how I got it (manually replacing the DLL version in the game and all).
Though I've been having to do a lot of reformatting to get all the right levels for each world and make stuff prettier looking.

[Lunikyuu]

I've just been going through every level in the game and typing them out in a text document because the democount cheat won't work for me and I don't know what version to download to make it work

[Sebby19]

See, I told you world 6 should have been done first.
Okay, I was arguing from a narrative standpoint, but still.

[SL the Pyro]

See, I told you world 6 should have been done first.
Okay, I was arguing from a narrative standpoint, but still.

My question is, why weren't World 5 and World 6 switched around in-game? You know, the teleporter icons, the end cutscene "END OF WORLD #" thing, etc. It seems like a simple fix.

[Sebby19]

Well, because of the 'choose your world thing', how they are ordered doesn't really matter.

[sedron]

City world is done, time to look at the last level then some favorites.

Level thoughts below!

Sheath/Keith Courage, Part Deux- When did the name change from "Sheath Courage Returns"? Anyway, I know nothing about the source material, but I can appreciate the unique atmosphere nonetheless. Honestly, this level is really simple the whole way through. You don't really have to do all that much to deal with the enemies, and you get a lot of health. The health system is cool, but makes the level way easier than it needs to be. You can just tank things if you want, including the boss if you make it there with enough hits. Speaking of the boss, he's also really easy. It's a little tricky to land hits on him without taking one yourself (provided you don't have bombs,) but he does very little to threaten you directly so you can take your time to plan your attack. The rest of the level doesn't do much in terms of land layout, and it basically just comes down to stabbing things when they get in your way. It's simple to a fault, really, especially considering what stuff the player goes through just getting here. It's still plenty enjoyable, though.

Favorites and Nots!

Favorites- City Run is the best level in World 5, hands-down. It's really fun. There isn't much more to it than that.

Opposite of Favorite- Grand Trunk Arena is probably the closest simply because it's the most mediocre, but I do have a huge disdain for Fun Fungus Function's secret exit. The normal exit is fine. I just can't stand how the secret leek is hidden. I know it's optional, but jeez. I did not have a good time looking for that.

[tigermoon]

Ah, here we go... my Demo Counts, for your viewing pleasure. (Ordered by world, by Demos from highest to lowest, then alphabetically)

World 1:

006 - MAKL Vanilla
003 - This Sounds Accurate
001 - A World One Level
001 - Another Castle
001 - Dense Jangle
000 - Giant Egg
000 - Pet Rock
000 - Remakes Are So Cliche
000 - Wood Zone

Total Demos: 12
12 is a fair amount of deaths for world one.

World 2:

015 - Ohh No A Ghost
009 - Poison Tree
007 - Pimp Yo Ride!
004 - Just Rusty!
004 - Koopa Time
001 - Plant Zone
001 - Sheath Partakes In An Interlude
001 - The Preventable Forest Path
000 - Canopy Journey
000 - Edge of the Night
000 - Omelet Jungle

Total Demos: 42
Quite a jump, eh? Yeah, I ain't gonna make excuses here.

World 3:

029 - Cinder Canyon
006 - Forgotten World We Just Remembered
005 - Sloppy Sands
004 - Nice and Easy
004 - the good, the bad and the stupid
002 - Sandy Sands
001 - Floating Falls
001 - Plains of Ulysses Mad
001 - Load Bearing Bricks
001 - Triforce Trials
000 - his name was king

Total Demos: 54
Bah, that secret exit in Cinder Canyon murdered my face.

World 4:

011 - Rainy Day
011 - Snowboardin'
008 - Just Another Screen
006 - Soggy Steelworks
004 - Johnson McCain and the Communists
003 - A Shelter in the Snow?
002 - Out Of Season
001 - 26th - AUS - 'Level1 - Winter City'
001 - Swimming in the Rain
001 - Tall Tall Ghost House
000 - Demo and the Militarists

Total Demos: 48
Despite having a lower Demo count, World 4 was indeed more difficult as a whole.

And, just for the sake of completion, World 5 again:

032 - Dyin' for an Electrifyin'
025 - City Run
014 - Fun Times At The Laundromat
011 - Lightning In A Box
010 - Surperfluous Security
009 - Fun Fungus Function
008 - Baker Street
003 - Grand Trunk Arena
001 - Crazed Circuitry
001 - I Do Think You Fit This Shoe
000 - 900 Place Des Ormeaux
000 - EuroShell R&D
000 - Parc du Debonair
000 - Sheath/Keith Courage

Total Demos: 114
I really have no excuse for how sloppy I was with Dyin.

[ztarwuff]

Oh gosh. That first level would have been better if you didn't spawn over the character blocks.