SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Final Action

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unrelated: anyone has any experience with an xbox one elite controller, and it deciding randomly to just turn off and on all the time? That was an interesting extra wrinkle to the final level I had to deal with.

I don't know about the elite, but when my 360 controller was giving out, that's what it did. Could also be a driver issue if other controllers are screwing up like that.

My 360 controller was also doing that, but it was firmly hardware: jiggering the cable and then holding the controller very still while playing fixed things, temporarily. I suspect an XBone "elite" controller doesn't even have a cable, though?

[raocow]

I have mine plugged in because I don't want to mess with charging and stuff

and man I hope it's not physical because I got it like this summer. It's just weird because it was so sudden. As I said, I updated the firmware but haven't restarted my pc, so we'll see how it goes in the future...

[Ashan]

...Yep!

[Bean]

Fun enough game even if it wasn't as good as I remembered it being, but it still works for when it was originally made. Liked most of the gameplay changes but could have done without all the talking...

Yep.™

[strongbadman]

Man why'd zycloboo have to wait until the end to get funny

[Count Mohawk]

To whoever said the thing about the palette swap thing after doing Battle of the Mages: I believe the actual trigger to switch the colors is to go back into Starshine Top, hop into Zycloboo's doom portal in the side room and then finish the stage

(you get warped back to Marty's base and the right side fills in with lava)

after doing so. For some reason this counts as an extra exit.
Source: hearsay

[Validon98]

Man, that final boss looked extremely rude. One hit naturally to smack Mr. Giant Flying Hitbox in his stupid face eye nine times with increasingly high chances of getting smacked yourself. Honestly I'm glad the final boss is such a rude piece of crap to end this.

I dunno, TSRP2 was probably a great thing at the time, but this hack doesn't look too fun for something made within the last couple years. A few levels looked okay in the middle parts, but it feels like it asked a bit too much at parts. Not to mention the novel of unnecessary text involved, weird nonsense level design things... I dunno. It doesn't look as hard as JUMP or anything, but it's basically just a hack from earlier than 2014 in 2014, with all the rough patches that entails.

I'm looking forward to something else. Wait no we already did that.

[Voltgloss]

So was there some second Marty-related secret, or no?

[Ivy]

I have mine plugged in because I don't want to mess with charging and stuff

and man I hope it's not physical because I got it like this summer. It's just weird because it was so sudden. As I said, I updated the firmware but haven't restarted my pc, so we'll see how it goes in the future...

My OG Xbone controller would always be messed up when plugged in via USB, yeah. It needed to be plugged in at a certain angle, and deviating from that would disconnect it. It was bad enough that I donated it and purchased the newer model with the wireless bluetooth Windows compatibility.

[Le Neveu de Rameau]

I do find it interesting that after all the comments made over the years about the Big Boo Boss just floating impotently around while his minions do all the work, the second phase of this boss is very much based on Eyecloboo getting right up in your face and serving as the primary danger in the battle. It's a nice twist on a familiar concept.

The ending sequence here I'm less fond of. There was something very satisfying about the way TSRPR's ending worked structurally (even if a lot of the beginning is a wall of text), but here it feels kind of off. Like raocow said, Mario isn't even seen at all, it's just people talking around him. More significantly, we never get a shot of him jumping in the portal or falling through interdimensional space; the lack of that tiny bit of closure (even if we later see him returned to the First Reality) makes it feel weirdly unsatisfying. Which is doubly weird as the bad ending has a perfectly satisfying structure to it, and generally strikes me as working a lot better than the good one. Admittedly, the heavy sequel hook elements in the good ending don't help either, especially considering it's unlikely that we're ever going to see the final chapter...

As for the hack on the whole:

Personally, I'm still very fond of it myself, and would still put it on my short list of the better complete hacks. I do agree that it's a bit of an odd beast, though, straddling two uneven pillars. The original TSRP2 was a very impressive feat for its time and still holds up well today. But it's still nevertheless a product of its time in some ways, which we tend to forgive because, well, we can clearly see it's a product of its time. In some ways, by making this hack seem more modern in terms of structure, æsthetics and the like, the design elements that feel decidedly unmodern (for instance the proliferation of one-tile jumps and the like) are highlighted. And while the hack clearly tries to fix some of the more egregious design issues, there's perhaps too many border cases, where FPI presumably had to choose between keeping design element that seems less than ideal today or fundamentally changing the nature of the level. And in those cases, I can kind of see why he erred on the side of staying true to the original. That does, of course, again bring up the issue how "necessary" the remake was, but that's the problem with remaking a work that's pretty good to begin with.

It's a curious thing--for the most part, I'd say this hack is better than TSRPR in nearly all respects: in terms of level design, in terms of structure, in terms of visuals, in terms of music. And yet...it doesn't quite have that same "wow" effect as TSRPR did. Part of that, I suppose, is because the gulf between the two versions is not as great; TSRP belongs to pre-history, and is strikingly different from modern notions of SMW hacking, whereas TSRP2 belongs to the middle ages (and is kind of ahead of its time there), and fits a bit closer with out notions of what (also leading to the problems described above). Secondly, TSRPR in its day basically redefined the standards for completeness and polish for a hack, and this hack, even if better than its predecessor on the whole (as is to be expected nine (!) years later) doesn't do anything approaching that in the context it was released in. Hacks don't exist in a vacuum, and remakes even less so, so the questions of context and influence are hardly insignificant ones here.

In that respect, it would be interesting to see how a complete hack by FPI made to modern standards would compare. Which is, of course, what TSRP3 would have provided. In that respect, it's even more unfortunate that it's probably not going to see the light of day at this point. Ah, what could have been...

[Plutia]

broke: wishing tsrp3 happens
woke: waiting for tsrp3r instead

[S.N.N.]

FPI sent me a ROM of what he had done for TSRP3 in like, 2012, as I was doing some music for it. It was a single world that encapsulated the "fair" mentioned at the end of TSRP2R - however, pretty much all of those levels were actually already seen in TSRP2R's special world (Powercat's Castle, Fun House Deluxe, etc). There were three exceptions -

a level called "Thunder Plateau" which played a lot like that one lightning level from DKC3, a level called "Shroomgold Park" which was a fairly standard level, and a roller coaster level that I forget the name of with a really upbeat remix of TSRP2R's main theme. There were also hints at the Roboxx from TSRPR.

. Spoilered in case he ever finishes it, but the chances of that are pretty much zero now.

[Super Maks 64]

I also would like to see how would a hack made by FPI now look like, but yeah the chances of TSRP3 happenning are next to nonexistent.
FPI was last active on SMWC (as in visited it while being logged in) 3 months ago.

Also one person got a permission to make a weird SMBX spinoff TSRP called TSRPX, but that also seems to be dead.

As a final note: to be honest I didn't mind the amount or length of the cutscenes.

[warpio]

I have mine plugged in because I don't want to mess with charging and stuff

and man I hope it's not physical because I got it like this summer. It's just weird because it was so sudden. As I said, I updated the firmware but haven't restarted my pc, so we'll see how it goes in the future...

My OG Xbone controller would always be messed up when plugged in via USB, yeah. It needed to be plugged in at a certain angle, and deviating from that would disconnect it. It was bad enough that I donated it and purchased the newer model with the wireless bluetooth Windows compatibility.

man... I have no idea why so many people suggest the XBone controller as the go-to. It seems like these weird issues are not uncommon at all. I've never used an XBone controller but I used a wired 360 controller in the past, and it also started crapping out on me within a few years.

I said earlier in this thread that my Wii U Pro controller mayflash adapter has held up incredibly well, and I've never once experienced any kind of issue at all. I honestly think this setup deserves more recognition as a "go-to" choice than it gets. The driver for this thing is just so good. It even properly maps the buttons to what they are on the Wii U Pro controller in XInput mode so there's never any confusion.

[Ivy]

I don't know about 3rd party adapters but the official Nintendo WiiU gamecube adapter works perfectly for use in Dolphin, which is super nice. Wouldn't try using it for anything else though.