VIP 4 2018 - That was fun

[AlchemistHohenheim]

...Are we sure that The First Step was actually intended to be a reference to the boxing manga by George Morikawa? I get that the title is the same, but nothing in the stage itself seems to support that idea.

I'm somewhat inclined to think that it's meta-commentary along the lines of "yeah, the first thing anyone does with Lunar Magic is make low-effort edits of existing SMW levels" and that it sharing a title with a popular series is pure coincidence.

[Ryrir]

I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet, but you can check out the "Gashlycrumb Tinies" here.

They're kind of hilarious and the art is pretty interesting as well.

[Zach808]

So... What color switch blocks are the blue ones actually supposed to be? I’m guessing purple, but I have no idea.

Coming up next: The worst level in the game. Not necessarily the hardest, but more like a White Rabbit of Inaba kind of clusterfuck. These next 2 levels might each take more than 1 video.

[raocow]

a little bit more than an hour for both exits. gonna need an episode to like, map out a vip coin route.

[Whimsical Calamari]

argh freakin hell

DailyMotion
Pedro? (continued) - March 18, 2008
7:44 - Storehouse

because seriously - March 19, 2008
0:00 - Switch
SKIP
4:27 - Mangrove

YouTube
Where the Greenery is Kept - January 21, 2009

postproduction in the forest - January 22, 2009
0:00 - Switch
SKIP

Mangrove Forest 2 - January 22, 2009

and here we see once again the error of using rewind in busy screens. ouch.

Man, you would almost believe this is a Super Mario World game platformer - not to be confused with Mario Party or something, but if you're watching this and you think this is Mario Party or something, I question your religious beliefs.

JUMP foreshadowing??????????

[Whimsical Calamari]

DailyMotion
because seriously (continued) - March 19, 2008
9:53 - Unseen

Mr Bubble! - March 20, 2008
0:00 - Castle

YouTube
back to the grind - January 23, 2009
0:00 - Unseen
6:16 - Castle (first half)

Hello world 5 - January 24
0:00 - Castle (second half)

THREE OBSERVATIONS
1) "nothing mitigates fear like familiarity" and somehow 2009cow had less of it in these levels than dailymotioncow did. so YT-only viewers lucked out on this chance to see the trademark Panic.

2) raocow - Then and Now:
2009: "there's a coin there i can live without the coin"
2018: "what is that blue coin? normally that means something. so let's check it out"

3) I know we like to think "Oyster, you tried" but
uh

Oyster wrote 'Rally's Green Castle' but I think we know what he means

he didn't

[Whimsical Calamari]

oh man three in one day! (sorry for triplepost, everyone, but this is the hole i've dug myself into)

DailyMotion
Mr. Bubble! (continued) - March 20, 2008
7:08 - Alaska
9:17 - Mansion

episode 20 - March 21, 2008
0:00 - Forest

YouTube
Hello world 5 (continued) - January 24, 2009
3:17 - Alaska

The Ice Motel - January 25, 2009

murderous trees - January 26, 2009
0:00 - forest

2008: "Just gonna wait for Boon to get there and then i'm gonna press Escape and click on stuff to clear the way"
2009: "So I'm gonna walk down this path, and so out of pure habit, I pressed Escape here to go and get the level list"

Deep in the Cold, Cold Forest provides us with the first moment (that I've noticed, at least) where raocow faces a notable death in the same way, at the same place, in all three runs! I'm speaking, of course, about the 1up trap, which with the translated blocks, reaches new levels of comedy. Good work, VIP.

Meanwhile in the Ice Mansion, dailymotioncow gives us a masterclass in doing things the hard way because the intended method was deemed inconvenient. Somewhere down the line, it was determined that it would be too time-consuming to take a reset door and try to bring the springboard back to the P switch. So instead, we get a great couple of minutes filled with repeated attempts to toss the switch, and spingrab it in an attempt to land on a bubble that's way too high. moments like these, y'all. love it.

[Zach808]

My problem with this level is that it’s so overloaded that it’s impossible to tell what’s actually part of the puzzles and what’s just useless junk. I ended up wasting time trying to babysit useless items and explore dead end paths, and it all took a toll on my sanity. In addition, that lava at the end just refused to let me enter the pipe to the keyhole, until one time I was able to get in due to pure dumb luck.

I couldn’t imagine doing a dragon coin run of this. What I’m fearing is that there’s gonna be just 1 way to get the coins, and that it’s gonna somehow involve using all that useless junk and exploring every passage in precisely the right order. Time to abandon the dragon coins if that’s the case. Just beating the level normally makes my head hurt.

[Arctangent]

i like how rao managed to do the block duplication glitch entirely by accident early on, but didn't realize that so he just thought the level creator put down an invisible block that somehow didn't get eaten by the vine

true skill right there

[Grounder]

what an unfun level

[Lockirby2]

I was expecting something difficult, but that was just a hot mess...

[LunarRainbowShyGuy]

Well I missed a day, and man, what a level to play through after catching up on yesterday's levels. Anyway, here are my comments for yesterday's levels.

A Walk: While raocow didn't have much trouble with this level, for me it seemed like it was made to be annoying. I came in without any powerups and there are a bunch of awkward jumps if you don't have a cape. There's also the VIP coin that you need to be big to get while there are no powerups in the first half (thankfully I'm not doing a VIP coin run). Fortunately I only found the first half of this level to be really annoying. After the midpoint it just becomes a pretty average level.

Horse Cavern: I like that this level tried to do something with the red and yellow Yoshis that wasn't a puzzle of some kind. Though speaking of puzzles it seems that I misunderstood the secret exit here. I found the silver P-switch in the first room and thought you were supposed to bring it all the way to the end.

The Lift Flying Through Skyscrapers: I had some trouble with the first half of this level but that part was enjoyable regardless. The second half however, I didn't enjoy quite so much (I feel like I've been saying this about a number of levels lately). First of all there's the midpoint entrance which pretty much dumps you onto those fireballs, which is just dumb. Then there's the elevator. I feel like the space you have to work with is too small, and the switch palace blocks certainly don't help. Maybe they didn't want it to be too easy if you had the switch active, but I feel like this would be hard enough with just the two podoboos alone. Also I just think that having a different challenge with the switch active rather than just making things outright easier is a bad idea unless you have a way to deactivate the switch so that you're free to choose which of the challenges to face.

And now for today's level.

Aim for the Heavens: Well this is one big confusing mess of a level. I spent a good while just trying to figure out what to do, as well as making a mental map of the place. The secret exit doesn't really seem like that much of a secret to me though, with me finding two different ways to it before even getting the normal exit, and raocow taking a route that was different than both of the ways I went to it.

The normal exit in this level actually gave me a lot of trouble. I was spending time cloning the P-switch at the start, taking both it and the springboard into the tree, and carrying them both all the way to the top only to screw up at the end (which took most of the time limit). Eventually I was just going to watch raocow figure out how to do it, until I saw that you could just get a P-switch and springboard at the midpoint entrance. Without having to worry about climbing all the way up if I messed up, I went back and got the normal exit in just two or three attempts. Though I'm pretty sure I didn't do it the intended way, nor do I have any idea what the intended way is. The way I did it was to simply fly over to those blocks right under the goal, hit the P-switch, then jump on the springboard and hit the question mark block right in front of the goal to make an opening.

I still have more to say (this was a big level after all), but I've been typing for awhile now, and raocow's going to be returning to this level tomorrow, so I'll probably talk about it more then. Though I do have one last thing to say here. I see a lot of people calling this level bad; I don't exactly agree, though I will say that I feel that this level is out of place in this hack. I think that it would probably be better off if it was in something completely focused on puzzle levels. Anyway, I enjoyed it at least, and that's good enough for me.

[Piesonscreations]

Don't worry about the triple post Calamari, these are always fun reads.

[Zach808]

So my worst fears were almost realized. You DO have to babysit every little thing to get the dragon coins. At least the bottom of the cave remains useless, or this would've been borderline impossible. Regretting doing a dragon coins run yet, raocow?

Anyways, next level is also pretty ridiculous, but it’s a more normal type of difficulty. The secret exit is still complete bullshit, though. Overall, world 6 is kind of a dud. Such a shame, considering world 7 is so much fun and really doesn’t contain anything unreasonable.

[Sebby19]

There must be an easier way to get that 2nd coin.

I wonder where that yellow upside-down pipe went (where you need a vine from the bottom to reach).
And then there a lot to the left in the side path to hell.
And I think I saw something yellow above the actual hell ending?

[Grounder]

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[Ryrir]

There's one thing raocow could have done that would have made the journey a little bit easier:



There's a blue p-switch in the block I've circled with blue here. What you need to do to get it is spinjump on the block I've crossed out, then make sure the camera is situated roughly in the red triangle, then throw a shell in there. The turnblock on the left will not be activated because it's off camera.

Doing this means that you only have to carry the springboard from the starting area up the shaft.

It's kind of interesting because the only reason getting the VIP coins is such a thing in this level is because of that second one up there - You absolutely need two springboards and Yoshi in order to get it. (Unless you somehow manage to take flight off those four red switch blocks? That would be super annoying, though it would mean that you don't have to carry any items to this point besides Yoshi.)

[FPzero]

Oof. That was a level.

[Petzi]

I tried to run 30 minutes on the treadmill while watching episode 25, but how can you keep your motivation to run when raocow is so angry at the level? I had to switch to Street Fighter 2 music for the last 5min. Little did I know that anger would last a whole extra video.

Give yourself a break next time, raoman :(
Better to gain savestates than to lose your laughter!

[Sebby19]

No way man! Savestates would regress raocow back to a mediocre mario hack player. Plus I don't think they would have made this level easier.
If rao savescummed his way to one point, then realize he's missing a piece of the puzzle, he would have to restart anyways.

[Whimsical Calamari]

oh. oh ok we're going back to the ice floe we already saw DANGIT

DailyMotion
episode 20 (continued) - March 21, 2008
4:50 - big jump
7:15 - athletic

YouTube
murderous trees (continued) - January 27, 2009
5:40 - big jump (normal)

incomplete - January 28, 2009
0:00 - big jump (secret)
3:05 - athletic (first attempt)

pure savestateless is dead - January 28, 2009

well. absurd athletic would have been even harder to watch, but thankfully we had PPR in the first attempt video to keep spirits up.

All things considered, though, that is a super cool implementation of the "switch block changing at the top of the screen" gimmick. I always just sorta accepted the static-layer-with-a-blue-koopa approach as "i guess that's what they need to do it without ASM" but uh. this is neat. even if it did end up being infuriating in 2009.

[Zach808]

Man, after rewatching Pure Savestateless Is Dead, I have to wonder: How did we end up where we are today with tool-less runs being the norm for raocow? That video made it seem like he was ready to quit doing that forever.

[kitikami]

As painful as that dragon coin run of "Aim for the Heavens" must have been to play, I found it fascinating to watch. I had basically no idea what raocow was even trying to do half the video, and seeing how everything came together made for a surprisingly engaging video in spite of it being a long, frustrating slog though terrain we'd already seen.

Also, randomly jumping into the munchers with the clock ticking down near the end was tragic, but worth it to get the P switch trolling raocow on the eventual winning run.

[Petzi]

No way man! Savestates would regress raocow back to a mediocre mario hack player. Plus I don't think they would have made this level easier.
If rao savescummed his way to one point, then realize he's missing a piece of the puzzle, he would have to restart anyways.

I think it would have been way less mediocre than 50 minutes of raocow being miserable. I would have even been okay with him just skipping that garbage level.

[Sebby19]

So I wonder where that first bonus room with the podoboos go?