A2XT: It's Over

[Septentrion Pleiades]

So the Nevada fight is not how I left it.

I thought I was the only one because "Septentrion is worst designer."

Meanwhile, Mishi still has placeholder graphics for the ground. I don't know why that of all things wasn't changed.

[SAJewers]

All the siblings were replaced with original music.

In what world is Smells like Teen spirit original music?
I wrote Nevada's theme specifically for that boss battle.

It was really unfitting.

[Joseph Staleknight]

Dear Firefox, Stop panicking, it's only a new router! Thank you. -J. Staleknight

Anyway, Demo once again has a sibling spat and blows off steam by doing something criminal, in this case ruining a concert and killing the band and some front-row members of the audience. Anyone noticing a trend here?

I Do Think You Fit This Shoe (Demolition): And only moments after fighting Science do we encounter another of Demo's brothers! This battle is easier than that other one since the pattern is not as hectic, nor does Nevada really try and run into you at the left side of the screen (as befits his personality). Instead, you can just stay at one side and pick him off with the meat plants until he croaks. That's not to say that's a bad thing, but it definitely is a factor in terms of the fight.

Also, looks like the Flesh Lord is indeed an eldritch abomination. Too bad (or good?) raocow never got to see that dark side...

Grand Trunk Arena (Minnakht): For the longest time, I thought the Grand Trunk Arena was right outside the tree on the right-hand side rather than within it. Silly me! Now, the gameplay is pretty tight and somewhat convoluted (especially in the arena halls), but I can't help but love the flavor throughout. It really feels like an episode of Monaco with the whole criminal angle, though the arena probably gets angry guys breaking in so often it's no longer worth mentioning. I also like the chromatic arrangement of the Goopa audience and thought it was a neat touch.

Oh, and raocow once again missed out on a great reward for getting all the dragon coins, even as he went back to do so!

[docopoper]

I thought I was the only one because "Septentrion is worst designer."

That's not true. You design pretty interesting things. It's just that you seem to forget to provide leeway a lot and there's often a case of trying to figure out what you were thinking for your levels.

Like one of the biggest things I do to make my hard levels fun is to make them above my skill level and then just keep making the parts I die at easier. And not just easier to where I can just beat it, but easier a fair bit beyond that.

Also A World One Level was actually really good. Probably because you were designing for beginner players. You should take that mentality a lot more into your other levels since the player will always be a beginner at your level at least.

[Demolition]

It was really unfitting.

It was really unfitting.

What is wrong with you?

[Leet]

oh, found it in the files. that's Nevada's Theme? it's not unfitting at all. it's perfectly odd, panicky and threatening, just like Nevada himself. nice work. it should've been kept there.

[Doctor Shemp]

So the Nevada fight is not how I left it.
Originally it featured an original song that I composed, but it looks like it was replaced by a shemp cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit, and that's sad. Now Nevada stands out as the only sibling without original music.

The Nevada theme still appears in some boss battles as the hammer brothers replacement.
which is weird because it's is literally called "Nevada's theme".

Any real reason why it was replaced?

By the time I came to it (the first beta release) it had already been replaced by a remix of Smells Like Teen Spirit, specifically a fakebit remix that disguised the theme a little so that it's not immediately obvious that it's Smells Like Teen Spirit. If you want to check it out it's the first YouTube result for smells like teen spirit 8-bit. My view was that a) if you're going to do 8-bit then don't do fakebit plugin bullshit with 10+ square waves so that it doesn't even sound like chiptune, just lazily designed electro: do it properly on FamiTracker and b) if you're including a song solely for the purpose of making an easy pun (not that there's anything wrong with puns) then it should be immediately recognisable as that song so that the pun's obvious.

As for your original music, there's two problems I can immediately hear with it.
1. During the very late beta period, Horikawa made some comment about all the music being bad because it sounds MIDI. Assuming by MIDI she meant "the General MIDI soundset", as something can't sound MIDI anymore than a movie can "look like Final Cut", then she's generally wrong, but correct in this instance. All the instruments are General MIDI, or at least sound so extremely like them that I can't tell the difference, and commonly used ones at that. Thanks to GeoCities and other places, the General MIDI soundset has a terrible reputation. It's possibly undeserved, but you have to deal with life as it exists. And if you really weren't using General MIDI instruments, find new ones: I hate to think what program provides default instruments that sound so similar.

2. While the composition is good, the mixing really isn't. It sounds like there was nothing more to the mix process than adjusting the faders. Mixing properly is a hell of a lot more than that. For starters, a good mix would have cleaned all the bass sustain off the piano that's interfering massively with the percussion and generally muddying up the sound. I offered to mix this track properly for you if you gave me the stems, but you declined, so here we are.

P.S for raocow: go in the damn flesh lord

[Kil]

alright I need to hear this song now. too bad I can't find it

[Doctor Shemp]

alright I need to hear this song now. too bad I can't find it

Demolition's track is in the base game's music folder as smb3-hammer.mp3
The "fakebit plugin bullshit" is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1QH1TqVIKE and good luck recreating the chorus of that on an actual NES. Maybe with a VRC6 or MMC5 expansion it's possible, but probably you'd need a Namco 163 expansion to pull it off.

[Isrieri]

I liked Demolition's track for Nevada.

I don't agree that it was unfitting, but I can understand how one might find it so.

[YelseyKing]

I liked Demolition's track for Nevada.

I don't agree that it was unfitting, but I can understand how one might find it so.

I just listened to it. I agree, it's pretty wild and definitely fitting. But... yeah, it does sound very much like a midi... that piano...

[Septentrion Pleiades]

I liked Demolition's track for Nevada.

I don't agree that it was unfitting, but I can understand how one might find it so.

I just listened to it. I agree, it's pretty wild and definitely fitting. But... yeah, it does sound very much like a midi... that piano...

Not that the instantly recognizable song on chiptune is any better to use here. I cannot see how someone would think it's better than the original composition.

[Doctor Shemp]

I liked Demolition's track for Nevada.

I don't agree that it was unfitting, but I can understand how one might find it so.

I just listened to it. I agree, it's pretty wild and definitely fitting. But... yeah, it does sound very much like a midi... that piano...

Not that the instantly recognizable song on chiptune is any better to use here. I cannot see how someone would think it's better than the original composition.

Because of the pun, I guess. I suggested doing original music for the fight, unaware that it had original music to begin with (because, as I mentioned, by the time I came to it it already had the fakebit track) but that suggestion was greeted with the response (and I'm paraphrasing here) "nah mate, Nirvana's good, it sounds like Nevada". My response to that was that it would probably sound better as a Genesis track than a NES one, so I made that, and the response was (paraphasing again) "it really isn't better at all as a Genesis track", so then my next response was that if it's NES then we might as well do it properly, partially since fakebit is a particular grudge of mine since it's lazily made, and the response to that was "go on then" and so I did.

[SAJewers]

The reason I suggested that was because when I first tested it, that 8-bit rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit was the music used. To me, I liked that better than that general DevKit song that it was eventually replaced with. Additionally it wouldn't make sense for a DevKit song to get one specific use IMO.

[sedron]

Three other notes re: the Nevada fight:

1. The carrot platforms no longer "push" Demo (they did originally, but that caused unfair deaths as sedron mentioned, and so was changed). Instead, they now simply hurt Demo normally (if she's not riding one).

If you're riding them they still can cause unfair deaths. It happened when I played it today. I'm having a hell of a time actually recreating it now that I'm trying, so the problem's mostly fixed, but it's still there.

On the subject of the music, I actually liked the fakebit Nirvana best. Shemp's is technically better (I think it's closer to the original song, and it does sound more within the capabilities of the NES,) but I prefer how the fakebit starts/stays a lot stronger throughout. It feels more like a boss fight song.

Demolition's original track is certainly quirky and panicky, but I don't personally think it fits. It doesn't really feel like boss music. It's the kind of music I'd expect to see used for cutscenes, maybe right before the boss fight. I also don't picture Nevada as that kind of panicked, I guess? Reading through it all myself, I got the impression that he's nervous and shy, but more collected that this song would suggest. This sounded more flat-out insane.

[Doctor Shemp]

The thing about the characterizations of the siblings is that they're based on http://asmtinfo.tk/page/story which gives a short paragraph for each character, if that. Plus often what is provided is vague or contradictory. For example, it says Nevada's shy, but that he attacks anyone who gets too close. That's not shy. That's introverted and aggressive. Shy would be running away.

So since the background info was so vague and open to interpretation it means basically everyone involved had a different idea of what each sibling was like, to varying values of different. In some cases we were lucky enough to have one comparatively strong cutscene to base the rest on. For example, when I wrote EoW 9, I based Iris' character entirely off SoW 2, as it seems did most other writers, and Garish is based largely off EoW 4 as far as I can tell. For others, it just kind of stayed vague.

Plus there were other situations where the characterizations on that page were partly thrown out (like Calleoca being unable to control her abilities) or entirely thrown out (all of Iris). Which is fine, since A2MT is, I assume, now non-canon for the same reason Star Fox 2 is, just that it exacerbates the characters being more variable as that's another reference point gone. For Iris, though, like I mentioned, SoW 2 seemed to become the reference point instead.

[sedron]

I can still see Nevada's personality working that way. Socialization is obviously not his strong point, and while general shyness and aggression are very different, they can both come about for similar reasons. It's like the aggression is a more primal thing. I just always saw that aggression as more controlled than that.

Things probably would have been different with these things more set-in-stone, but it's all done now so whatevs.

[Septentrion Pleiades]

The testing for the sibling fights were handled a lot differently than the rest of the levels. They seemed to have been accepted right away but everyone wanted to make adjustments while at the same time QA was not documented or organized. Their wiki pages were also underutilized. In short, the sibling fights were fairly badly managed for no reason.

From what I can tell, the majority do like the original music. Regardless, the author should be notified with such big changes. I was rarely informed of changes when it came to the Science fight, and there were many changes. This led to a lot of confusion.

This deserves a place on the list from what I've seen with future sibling fights

[Voltgloss]

Regardless, the author should be notified with such big changes. I was rarely informed of changes when it came to the Science fight, and there were many changes.

You were a participant in the beta testing thread where all changes were described and uploaded. How were you not informed of changes?

[Septentrion Pleiades]

Regardless, the author should be notified with such big changes. I was rarely informed of changes when it came to the Science fight, and there were many changes.

You were a participant in the beta testing thread where all changes were described and uploaded. How were you not informed of changes?

I saw a bunch of suggestions but was never sure if changes were made. I was also main working from the wiki where the rest of the level were actually being documented. Working from the thread is hectic and leads to all sort of errors. We had a working tool and ditched it.

[Willhart]

Regardless, the author should be notified with such big changes. I was rarely informed of changes when it came to the Science fight, and there were many changes.

You were a participant in the beta testing thread where all changes were described and uploaded. How were you not informed of changes?

I saw a bunch of suggestions but was never sure if changes were made. I was also main working from the wiki where the rest of the level were actually being documented. Working from the thread is hectic and leads to all sort of errors. We had a working tool and ditched it.

I'm not updating the wiki links in three places for every time I fix a typo or minor error from the bug list. There were so many things to modify simultaneously, that just describing the changes, marking them as fixed and posting a new version of the level was enough.

The issues and what had been fixed was mostly documented on that list.

[Septentrion Pleiades]

I'm not updating the wiki links in three places for every time I fix a typo or minor error from the bug list. There were so many things to modify simultaneously, that just describing the changes, marking them as fixed and posting a new version of the level was enough.

The bug list may have worked for you, but my wiki page didn't get one update from anyone else. I didn't get any PM which is the obvious solution to the notification problem.

[Doctor Shemp]

It was said at the beginning of the beta testing that all reporting of bugs and reporting of bugs should be done on the buglist, with additional notification on the forums if possible but not mandatory. The Wiki was thrown out for everyone then because it was necessary to have all bugs on one single page, as opposed to on a hundred-odd level pages, so that when the page was finally full only of bugs marked "fixed" then the game could be deemed ready. If we stayed with the Wiki's hundred-odd pages it would have been impossible to centralize testing, and it was necessary to centralize testing because most of the level designers had buggered off. In short, while the Wiki was good for the initial phases of making the game, it really wasn't suited to the final phases.

[Septentrion Pleiades]

It was said at the beginning of the beta testing that all reporting of bugs and reporting of bugs should be done on the buglist, with additional notification on the forums if possible but not mandatory. The Wiki was thrown out for everyone then because it was necessary to have all bugs on one single page, as opposed to on a hundred-odd level pages, so that when the page was finally full only of bugs marked "fixed" then the game could be deemed ready. If we stayed with the Wiki's hundred-odd pages it would have been impossible to centralize testing, and it was necessary to centralize testing because most of the level designers had buggered off. In short, while the Wiki was good for the initial phases of making the game, it really wasn't suited to the final phases.

And this is why PMs don't exist.

[Doctor Shemp]

I agree that, in hindsight, there should have been a mass PM notifying everyone of the change from the Wiki to the Buglist. I don't think there should have been individual PMs per bug though. I think you're underestimating how many bugs were being filed each day and how much of an extra timesink that would have been.

Besides that, I think there was a mentality - which I have to say I at least partly agree with - that if level designers didn't get it right before the beta, they weren't going to get it right during the beta, and it should be left to people with a good track record to clean up the levels.