Hyper VI - Oh Haimari... Maybe It's Best We Part

[FourteenthOrder]

Oh boy, the text in this level takes a bit of explanation. Starside Hotel is a location in the gambling manga Kaiji and this whole level is a blatant reference to that. The characters have to cross over from one skyscraper to another on a narrow girder.

Mario's line is a direct quote from that segment. A more accurate translation given the context (blatantly stolen from Crunchyroll's subs of the anime because I went there to verify that it was indeed a direct quote and I'm lazy) is "Wh-What?! T-That jerk! Shouldn't this have ended already?!"

The coins in the kill room say "Sahara...!" after a character who dies from falling off after rushing to get to the end and not noticing that going straight in is a trap and the wind will push him to his doom. The others then need to find a way to get past that. (There's a barely visible glass staircase.)

The goal room coins say "congratulations" and the goal itself says "zawa", which is a sound effect used often in Kaiji and other works by Nobuyuki Fukumoto. I'm not 100% sure this is the best description, but it's basically the sound of dramatic tension, I guess. A friend of mine came up with a better way to word that in English a while ago but I can't remember what that was. ^^;

[Lockirby2]

Is it even possible to bounce repeatedly on the Lakitu in this level? He seems to move relative to the camera, so I'd think that he'd always be off to the side sometimes.

[cozyduck]

Oh boy, the text in this level takes a bit of explanation. Starside Hotel is a location in the gambling manga Kaiji and this whole level is a blatant reference to that.

I'm ashamed to admit I did not notice this in retrospect blatantly obvious reference despite being quite into Riichi Mahjong and thus well acquainted with the works of Fukumoto.

Anyways, the level itself is quite bad. I have to assume that Haimari didn't actually intend for the player to be able to reliably despawn the first lakitu, and the thought of having to do the spiny rides while bombs rain from the sky just makes me shudder. Tomorrows level is almost a fantastic one, except that a few things about it make it awful instead (mostly in the second half, which we may not get to see).

[cozyduck]

Tomorrows level is almost a fantastic one, except that a few things about it make it awful instead (mostly in the second half, which we may not get to see).

Well,looks like we did get to see it after all. Making you do the cave section twice is just so incredibly awful. Luckily, you can get the p-switch on the first go-through if you bring a cape from outside the level with you (It's somewhat tricky to take off in the limited space you have though). The sand currents also pretty much don't work, resulting in really frustrating glitch deaths, but fortunately the game itself provides a cape which you may use to fly over the worst section of it. Still, even with the cheese this is pretty hard to beat legit, and if you actually play the level by its own rules then it's just an awful experience, which is too bad given that most platforming setups are actually quite good, moreso then what Haimari usually offers imo.

[Sugar]

This seems pretty much similar to a certain level made by worldpeace, I don't know if that is a compliment or not.

(the biggest similarity is a section you have to repeat, but with a shell)

(also 2 + 3 = 5 stars difficulty)

[FourteenthOrder]

This level was another blatant reference, this time to the first Etrian Odyssey game.

Each of the five sections of the level was based on a stratum of the Yggdrasil Labyrinth.

[cozyduck]

This level was another blatant reference, this time to the first Etrian Odyssey game.

Each of the five sections of the level was based on a stratum of the Yggdrasil Labyrinth.

And for those of us who were missing Claret Hollows, there's something even "better" coming up in the future!

[BobisOnlyBob]

This seems pretty much similar to a certain level made by worldpeace, I don't know if that is a compliment or not.

(the biggest similarity is

...the name though??

[T-A-C]

okay like a lot of other Haimari stuff at this point I want to give a lot of points for novelty and creativity but then all those points get taken away for execution and not actually being fun to play

those sand tunnels are a super neat idea but they're just implemented in a way that leads to way too many cheap deaths from glitching

[FourteenthOrder]

And for those of us who were missing Claret Hollows, there's something even "better" coming up in the future!

I'm terrified.

[Jesuiscontent]

This level was another blatant reference, this time to the first Etrian Odyssey game.

Each of the five sections of the level was based on a stratum of the Yggdrasil Labyrinth.

The name of the level is straight-up Sekaiju no Meikyu (the Japanese name of Etrian Odyssey), too. Not sure whether Cup wasn't aware of that or deliberately chose a literal translation

[Kilgamayan]

Haimari Haimari F O E

[YelseyKing]

It's so funny to be watching this and YUMP at the same time, and seeing how standards have dramatically shifted in the ~7 years between the two. YUMP using these same ideas Hyper VI does seriously, except as jokes and examples of bad level design... how times have changed.

Of course, it's hard to believe "do entire stage, then re-do it while juggling a P-Switch, all on one life" was *ever* considered anything but bad design.

[cozyduck]

Of course, it's hard to believe "do entire stage, then re-do it while juggling a P-Switch, all on one life" was *ever* considered anything but bad design.

Yeah, I don't think anyone ever thought of Hyper VI as a great hack, even back when it was released. It's easy to forget that we already had almost 10 years of smw romhacking by the time Hyper VI released, and while it's easy to find faults with many of the popular hacks of that era, it's usually not as extreme as this.

[Ryrir]

Wait, did raocow mention the unused textbox in "So This Is Goodbye"?

I have nothing to say about the choices I made.
I completely open myself up to any criticisms
concerning the degree of difficulty in both the
special world and the whole of "Hyper Mari World 6"!

Forgive me if he did read it out loud and I just don't remember it, but I found it super interesting.

If you know your game is unreasonable, why not change some things around? A lot of these levels don't need a whole ton of redesigning to make them at least better than they are now, so...
I guess he would have needed to just straight up cut a lot of content in a lot of levels, and that's always a hard thing to do for a creator.

I think it also says something that - in the end - he didn't put the message in the actual game.

[raocow]

yeah I read it at the end of the video

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

I’m still in awe of your patience and diligence, rao. I’d have railgunned this romhack into the nearmost planetoid weeks ago. -_-

[ano0maly]

That level would have been better if you could see the outlines of the spheres while they were off.

Wait, did raocow mention the unused textbox in "So This Is Goodbye"?

I have nothing to say about the choices I made.
I completely open myself up to any criticisms
concerning the degree of difficulty in both the
special world and the whole of "Hyper Mari World 6"!

Forgive me if he did read it out loud and I just don't remember it, but I found it super interesting.

If you know your game is unreasonable, why not change some things around? A lot of these levels don't need a whole ton of redesigning to make them at least better than they are now, so...
I guess he would have needed to just straight up cut a lot of content in a lot of levels, and that's always a hard thing to do for a creator.

I think it also says something that - in the end - he didn't put the message in the actual game.

That sounds familiar...

[AlchemistHohenheim]

Man, I can't imagine why raocow would just naturally assume that the pain orbs in a level called Flashing Instant Death Athletic were instant death.

Also, I realize I'm viewing the levels through the lens of raocow-Vision, but so far the Special World seems far more reasonable than pretty much anything in World 8.

[Sugar]

Jump! Jump! Slide! Slide!

oh wait wrong game

[Zach808]

This felt like a midgame level. I wouldn't quite call the gimmick fair, but there are a bunch of safe spots where you can just scout out what's ahead, making the level feel much less bullshit than I'd expect from Haimari.

[Leet]

That sounds familiar...

It's not familiar until people start overreacting and reading a secret condescending meaning into it

[BobisOnlyBob]

That sounds familiar...

It's not familiar until people start overreacting and reading a secret condescending meaning into it

No, I think Haimari should probably sit down for literally six weeks too.

[Leet]

That wasn't what I was referring to, but I'm pretty sure Haimari's been sitting down for at least six years.

[Alice]

I'm pretty sure Haimari's been sitting down for at least six years.

That's really unhealthy. They should at least go for a short walk or something.