SUPER MARIO 152 - FPzero & Tyty play VLDC9

[FPzero]

I didn't mean for this to be so long but because we used savestates and this is also a puzzle level, the majority of it is just us learning the level slowly. There really wasn't much opportunity or reason to cut out the few legit deaths that occurred without the video still being long so here's a longer than usual video for you all.

[Sugar]

The confusing lack of reward for optional minigames is because the reward was a Yoshi Coin. The last Yoshi Coin was inserted using Map16 for some reason, so it's possible to keep regetting it and not bother with optional minigames funnily enough. You only need to do this minigame once, and then revisit it without redoing it (as the ON/OFF switch is already set to a state where you won the minigame).

I think myself it's a good level, but with one clause - for a small niche that enjoys hard and long levels. I definitely did enjoy this level myself. I sorta feel like this level with many more midway points could be so great of a level, perhaps even in top 10 (Lazy did get 3rd place in VLDC8, so they know how to make a good VLDC level), but well... it doesn't have more midpoints, so. If you fail, you will have to redo the entire thing (or at least from a single checkpoint) which is annoying.

[FPzero]

Finally! The beginning of Best World! The levels here are all generally really good, so get ready for a bunch of pleasant videos as we start to wrap up this LP.

[FPzero]

I forgot to post this a couple days ago, whoops...



Episode 50! Wow this LP turned out to be longer than I'd imagined it would be.

I'd heard mentions of this level but in the end it wasn't bad at all so I dunno what people were talking about with it? I thought it was pretty neat. (Also, there are three 6th place levels)

[FPzero]

Continuing through the Best World, having fun with saws and Layer 2.

[FPzero]

It's actually nowhere near as bad as the title makes it sound but there is one unfortunately glitchy part that sucks to run into.

[FPzero]

Man both of these levels are so good. We really are in the middle of best world.

[FPzero]

The Top 3 levels are here and all of them have the benefit of just being good, fun levels. I think 3rd place might actually be my favorite level in the contest.

[FPzero]

The levels are all done but now we need to find the postgame. Back to the Blue Switch Palace! (And some other places)

[FPzero]

Time to finish this LP.

Tyty is still mad about this one. He haaaaates variable Layer 2 scrolling. When specifically asked on the record exactly how much he hates the scrolling, he said, "I absolutely despise it."

Level's not even that long, it's just frustrating and easy to mess up in. It also doesn't help that it was past midnight at this point with no end in sight. And I even cut out a good 10 minutes from this level too.

[FPzero]

If there had been a mushroom at the midpoint this level would've been over in about 3 minutes instead of 12. Instead you get the uncut mess of me trying to navigate a million baseballs.

[FPzero]

I'm so sad that this isn't the final video because it contains everything we needed to end on a high note with our spirits uplifted because both levels are pretty good. WAA turns out to be hilarious and Eternal Space was both beautiful and fun.

[FPzero]

But like many collaborations in the Mario community, they never know when to quit. And this non-restraint leads to one of the worst levels in the whole game. Not because it's all bad, but because the sum of its parts make it bad. This is only the first half of the level. We get the midpoint 6 minutes in.

"The Void" might require some explanation too. SMWCentral Production was the site's first collab hack and at the end of Bowser's Castle there was something we called "The Void" and it was 8 levels based on the 8 world themes that you had to do to continue. The majority of them were all bad with the cave level being the worst for requiring you to find and carry 5 P-Switches amid spikes and invisible blocks to precise locations to get to the exit. We all vowed never to do something like that again.

Until the site did again.

[Ivy]

cant believe smwcentral ripped off the binding of isaac

[S.N.N.]

VLDC8 handled the last level much better than 9 did. In 8, you had two hubs of six colored doors (the level was a rainbow castle), but you only had to go through two of them + a final room. In this one, you have to go through all of them via a hub that's laid out in such a way that you have to run further and further each time .. not to mention the wildly varying quality of the rooms themselves.

I think VLDC9 was a better contest overall (level quality and maps), but 8 had a far better postgame.

[FPzero]

It's 3:30 AM, do you know where your kids are? They're finishing VLDC9 that's where they are. And what do we get for spending an hour on the final final final level? Some semi-Kaizo junk and an ending that didn't satisfy.

But we still finished the game and overall I had a lot of fun doing it. I think most of the people watching have too. Hopefully you learned some things about SMW romhacking along the way and maybe a little bit about level design Do's and Do Not's.

Thanks for watching.

[Ivy]

Thanks for make FPZero