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

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Super Maks 64
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - horreur de l'hôtel

Post by Super Maks 64 »

Two things:
-raocow didn't read a book which said: "Don't forget: The Five is important! Don't forget: The Five is important!"
-you can kill "metroids" with fireballs even while they're attached to you

The time limit is unnecessary though.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - horreur de l'hôtel

Post by blue_kirby »

I'm a little happy that raocow has acknowledged some of the stuff he did in his 2010 playthrough ... like the whole "speaking French" subplot of the hotel level.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - horreur de l'hôtel

Post by Dragon Fogel »

Honestly, this doesn't even really feel like it resolves the world subplot at all. If Schrodering's whole plan was to trap a bunch of important people in a TV, why did he need to replace them, and for that matter, what kind of connections did he have that let him get Koopa impostors into the kingdom?

It wouldn't even be hard to connect this to the main plot. Zycloboo makes this whole big deal about being the ruler of ghosts or something like that, it would make perfect sense for Schrodering to have done this on his orders. But there's nothing here about "Zycloboo told me to get these troublesome kings out of our way, so I decided to have some fun with them", it's just "I trapped these guys in my TV and now I'm going to kill you".
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - horreur de l'hôtel

Post by Ashan »

The french hotel episode is like the only thing I remember from the original TSRP2 series.
Actually, I didn't even know that was this game (or the old version of it) until it was mentioned today
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - horreur de l'hôtel

Post by Le Neveu de Rameau »

Ah, Hotel Horror. Honestly, this was always one of my favorite levels in the game, and I never quite understood the hate for it. It's not typical SMW platforming by any means, but, well, that's kind of entirely the point. It's an experiment with a very different format, and honestly, for the most part, I think it works pretty well.

Phun Phact: The keys were actually part of the original level concept, but FPI eventually removed them because they didn't work properly at the time. This version restores them, and I tend to think it works to the level's advantage; now there's actually something to be gained from exploring some of the other rooms, as opposed to nearly all of them being red herrings. As for the Metroids...well, I'm not sure they're a huge improvement, but as noted before, they're much easier to deal with than raocow seemed to realize in this video. Gotta agree though, it would probably be better without the timer. Sure, that's about the only think likely to kill in this level, but this level's not really about the standard "conquer the obstacles in series or retry the stage" model now, is it?

One thing I'm less fond of in this level is the æsthetic revamp. Sure, it unequivocally looks better than the original, but what it gains in looks, it loses in atmosphere. The brighter, busier surroundings--and above all the music--completely rob the level of the creepy atmosphere of the original, and kind of make it a little less fun to explore even if there's a good deal more to do this time around. I was also sort of sad to see the burnable wall replaced with bog standard fireball blocks; I get that the original puzzle there was perhaps a little too obscure, but there's something so delightful about tearing down a wall to find this hidden basement which is lost by making them an obvious obstacle which exists to be disposed of. I wonder if a certain middle ground couldn't have been found, making them look suspicious while still being a "natural" barrier in the environment.

One thing I do like about the re-imagining though is Schrödinger's animated costume drop in the cutscene. It's a simple thing, and both his disguise and true form look kinda silly, but nevertheless the reveal succeeds in having a certain creepiness to it. A surprisingly effective little touch.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - horreur de l'hôtel

Post by Count Mohawk »

Don't worry, raocow, what happened after you cleared the portal stage under Marty's Secret Base was supposed to happen!
Remember, Marty outright told you he was gonna dig a path back to

Bowser's Castle

when he abandoned you after the Power Switch was pressed; you've just been following the path he dug out previously.

By the way, a "safety savestate" at the start of tomorrow's video might be appropriate, as I have no idea where the game will try to put you if you get a Game Over, and you probably don't want to have to redo Marty's Secret Base again.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - horreur de l'hôtel

Post by blue_kirby »

Hmm, was actually expecting you to go straight to Zycloboo first for some reason (which by the way, is completely different, and

Mega Munch would've given you a hint

). But yeah the game does do some foreshadowing on the Bowser's Castle sidequest, as when you went inside of the portal at Lemmox's level and it was Bowser's castle taken over.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - horreur de l'hôtel

Post by Nimono »

blue_kirby wrote: 6 years ago Hmm, was actually expecting you to go straight to Zycloboo first for some reason (which by the way, is completely different, and

Mega Munch would've given you a hint

). But yeah the game does do some foreshadowing on the Bowser's Castle sidequest, as when you went inside of the portal at Lemmox's level and it was Bowser's castle taken over.
So wait, does this mean that you can eventually save the ones trapped in Peach's Castle before the ending, too????
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Mole [pause] Station

Post by Super Maks 64 »

The only argument against having a checkpint immediately after entering the "level section" is that you would be forced to game over/reset to return to the main section of Marty's Base, but I guess that an even better solution would be to have the save blocks near the checkpoints so you could give up checkpoint progress at any time (pretty sure that the save blocks just act like beating the level and the level is set to always give a save propmt after beating it).

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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Bowser's Palace of Choices

Post by Nimono »

So since Thirlox is now defeated, does that mean the barrier at Peach's Castle is down, too? If so, I wonder what happens if you go there???
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Bowser's Palace of Choices

Post by Super Maks 64 »

Nimono wrote: 6 years ago So since Thirlox is now defeated, does that mean the barrier at Peach's Castle is down, too? If so, I wonder what happens if you go there???
The only thing that changes after beating Thirlox is the Starshine Top's portal which sends you to different place.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Bowser's Palace of Choices

Post by Grounder »

I am expecting a 5-10 minute video tomorrow depending on how much filler rao decides to keep in from the level.

If I'm wrong, and the level has actually changed beyond the boss, though, great!
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Bowser's Palace of Choices

Post by Sugar »

Grounder wrote: 6 years ago I am expecting a 5-10 minute video tomorrow depending on how much filler rao decides to keep in from the level.

If I'm wrong, and the level has actually changed beyond the boss, though, great!
There is a shortcut at beginning allowing skipping most of a level.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Bowser's Palace of Choices

Post by Dragon Fogel »

There are worse places to be trapped than a short level where most of the traps in the first half are ambushes (and therefore you can learn where they are).

The lack of a way to get more lives is unfortunate, though.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Bowser's Palace of Choices

Post by Paragraph »

I was actually pleasantly surprised that up to this point, raocow could coast entirely on lives earned normally, starting with a stock he built up in bonus rooms in the very first levels. It seems the game is really tailored exactly to his current skill level.

It's rather unfortunate that the life stockpile ran out exactly now, but otherwise I thought it was kinda impressive. I can't remember any harder hack in the last years where he didn't have to lifefarm at SOME point.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Bowser's Palace of Choices

Post by Nimono »

Super Maks 64 wrote: 6 years ago
Nimono wrote: 6 years ago So since Thirlox is now defeated, does that mean the barrier at Peach's Castle is down, too? If so, I wonder what happens if you go there???
The only thing that changes after beating Thirlox is the Starshine Top's portal which sends you to different place.
That's lame, considering it was pretty much stated the barrier was by Thirlox. :(

So if that molehole leads to Bowser's Castle...where does the other Marty's Secret lead? ...if anywhere?
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Bowser's Palace of Choices

Post by raocow »

there's another marty secret ? oh right, someone mention somethign like that!
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Bowser's Palace of Choices

Post by Le Neveu de Rameau »

And so Thirlox, after cranking the insufferability up to 11, goes down like the chump he is. It's really rather hypocritical of him to criticize Kamek for being a fan of hocus-pocus when he himself adopts similar pokean trappings in order to hide the shoddiness of his science, but self-awareness is scarcely the sort of quality we should expect from such a cut-rate stage conjurer. In any event, there's something satisfying about the fact that Kamek succeeds in being a far more dangerous obstacle in this stage than Thirlox ever was, underscoring the latter's third[space]-rate knock-off knature. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Bowser's Palace of Choices

Post by Alice »

I have to largely disagree with raocow on the flying Yoshi part. This was mostly an instance where his weird caution that pops up at the most inopportune times (yet never seems to exist when he really should be more cautious) kinda bit him. A lot of this wouldn't be so hard if he'd embraced the physics of flying Yoshi rather than trying to hug the wall everywhere. The layout of the ghosts in a lot of the level actually were placed such that you should be able to fairly easily fly between them if you've got a decent grasp of Yoshi's flying physics. The only real problem part during the first half would be that chimney portion since you don't really get a chance to line yourself up beforehand because there's a boo at the bottom of the shaft.

The second part's only real issues would be the appearing boo walls when you're clearly meant to be moving fast. They only spend 1/3rd of their time visible so it's super easy to run into them (the first time at least) because you didn't have time to see them coming.

Also the game over stuff really should have been handled better. Rather than saving your lives it should have been changed to give you the highest of your saved lives or 5 instead. Being able to screw yourself into a hopeless situation lie raocow almost ended up in is kinda shitty. I don't recall that castle level even having coins or 1-ups anywhere at all.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Legless Spherical Cycloptic Ghost

Post by morsel/morceau »

I think raocow was right to complain about the Yoshi flying physics, and it's not as if he had that much trouble with the section or used that many lives to get through it: he just hated playing it. He famously tried to make a Yoshi flying level himself once and then converted it to a water level, which is rather amazing when you see the rest of the bullshit that is what the hell. There is no clean way to 'embrace the physics': the alternative to using the walls is that you tediously line-up while cursing the momentum every single time, and raocow did the only sensible thing.

This hack is such a disappointment as a modern renovation. The test of a modern hack in my view is that the player could enjoy it on an actual console were he in a position to do so. I ended up using turbo and fast forward on all the cut scenes when I played it, and raocow ended up making a few savestates to alleviate badly thought through decisions (or were they oversights?). I'm sure a less careful and skilful player than raocow (or a less abusive one than I) would have been in a bad position with lives earlier in the game.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Legless Spherical Cycloptic Ghost

Post by Dragon Fogel »

So can you just go back into the Zycloboo level after blowing him up and it'll be like nothing happened?
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Legless Spherical Cycloptic Ghost

Post by raocow »

time is funny in video games

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.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Legless Spherical Cycloptic Ghost

Post by Bean »

raocow wrote: 6 years agounrelated: 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.
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Re: SMB4 SMW TSRP2R Zycloboo's Challenge v2.2 - Legless Spherical Cycloptic Ghost

Post by blue_kirby »

Alright, so it looks like that the final episode is tomorrow ...

Also, I kinda wish that Peach's Castle was changed after defeating Thirlox, considering how some levels are slightly altered to adjust for such changes.

I'm glad this game had a "Reloaded" treatment though, but I do think it had a few small flaws.
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