VIP and Wall and ALASKA MIX 5: It's not 99%

[The Doctor]

Why should you have to prove that you can beat one challenge again and again before you're allowed to move onto the next challenge, only to fail that and having to lose a bunch of progress? Is this really "fun" to people?

Let's put it this way. I've been trying to beat Battletoads at the same time as I've been playing this. I've given up on Vip 5 due to pure frustration, while Battletoads continues on.

[McGack]

Dang im such a derp Its that Julius from Final fantasy adventure, I didnt recognise him with colours =/
I remembered the music though

[Ometeotl]

That Julius nameplate next to his healthbar reminds me of the Seinfeld logo.

[Oracle of Wuffing]

Why not split the boss into two totally separate parts where after you've beaten the first phase you can go straight to the second?

Because part of the "challenge" of JRPG bosses is whittling your patience and will to beat the game just by having an overly long, drawn-out battle. Granted, FFA was more action-adventure than typical JRPG, but eh, it had JRPG undertones, and this is the same game where you could force yourself to start the whole game all over again if you ran out of keys in the wrong place. Programmer nostalgia takes a back seat to good game design, I guess!

But getting an occasional applecherrymushroom simply doesn't compare to having regenerating HP on demand from the original.

[Mineyl]

Y'know, some of the posts here make me wonder: just how DO you adequately punish the player for failure? Julius may not be the most well-implemented boss in the world, but for a final boss, I believe he is adequate. This isn't world 1: this is the final world (barring the special world, of course), and by now, the player is expected to suck it up and "deal w/it" for not completing the challenge. The authors were even nice enough to implement a shortcut back to him to avoid having to trudge through the (unnecessarily lengthy) second half of the stage again just for another crack at the boss.

No, repetition in excess is not "fun" to many people, but on the other hand, how would you ever punish the player in a way that would not somehow necessitate said repetition? Kill the player and he has to restart the stage/section/world/whatever again, reduce the player's points/score and he'll restart for a better one, take away the "first prize" award/ending and he'll restart for the best one. The line has to be drawn somewhere, so what do you guys think?

[The Doctor]

But Julius isn't challenging. There isn't a single aspect of the fight that is difficult in any way other than figuring out how to damage him. The fight is merely a war of attrition to see if the player has the willpower to stay awake for the entirety of the fight. The problem isn't the repetition of making the player replay the fight if he fails -- the problem is that the fight itself isn't fun so you don't want to replay it.

[morsel/morceau]

Wait. Are you telling me there's a boss in a video game that is pretty hard 'cause you can't work out how to beat him, but once you work out how to beat him he's not that hard? Holy crap.

[raocow]

The problem with Julius is that he is that... to an excess. Dude is hilarious trivial once you figure everything out, yet takes pretty long because he has to go through all these motions. It's not that he's easy, it's that he's boring to fight.

[Bean]

It's basically like watching that last King K. Rool fight in DKC2 where you have to dodge something like 40 blasts before he finally gives you the barrel and ball you can throw back at him... except that you have to do that a few times in VIP5 compared to once in DKC2.

[RobinLSL]

Bad boss was bad. Wow.

[yoshicookiezeus]

...huh. Seems like the final phase of the battle was removed somewhere between v1.01 and whatever version you're currently using. While making the battle shorter might have been a good thing, it's still kind of a pity; it was arguably the most fun part, mostly because Julius actually stays at a height where you don't have to wait around a whole lot between each attack opportunity.

[morsel/morceau]

Brutal Mario always seems to get a bad rap. In its defence, it is only a demo. The widely available version on smw central has all this stuff (like the overworld, the story, the easy initial levels) that carol doesn't have all that much interest in making. True, there are a lot of good (and bad) ideas which are barely fleshed out, but since it's just a demo, why should they be? There are other demos of Brutal which just have levels without the trappings and they are much more impressive. Also, carol can make really good levels - there's the bee one in the VIP 5 forest, or Thorny, Thorny Labyrinth and Trauma Tower in VIP 4. Judging him by 'the' demo is a bit unfair.

[Argumentable]

Also, isn't Brutal Mario kind of "old" now?

[Rameau's Nephew]

I think what happened with Brutal Mario was that constant claims of folks who hadn't played much else declaring it the greatest SMW hack of all time provoked a counter-reaction (actually started by Carol himself, who self-effacingly responded to some excessive praise on SMWC with something along the lines of, "Thanks, but I'm not sure I agree, as this hack doesn't have very good level design") which eventually got even more out of hand than the thing it was initially reacting against, to the point where it eventually became mandatory to cite Brutal Mario's supposedly mind-numbingly awful level design every single time its name is vaguely alluded to. This prompted me to replay a bit of it a short time ago, and really...the level design's honestly not that bad. It's not TSRP2 or anything, but it's hardly terrible, and while there's the occasional clunker level, the gimmicks (which are really the focus, anyway) are typically enough to keep things interesting. Incidentally, this is quite contrary to my experience with Super Demo World, The Legend Continues, which I also replayed some of around the same time, and found the level design to be far, far worse--not to mentioned crazily uneven, and filled to the brim with jerk moves--yet it typically tends to get a pass on this front for historical reasons. Curious how the reputations of certain games seems to have a very strong effect on players' perceptions.

Yeah, but Julius wasn't all the great as a final boss, I've got to agree. And then we cut straight from the battle to the default ending, which is unedited aside from the enemy names (which apparently were edited make more of them appear, which was probably harder to do than a unique ending would have been--I really don't get this game's priorities). I know that the special world is supposed to be the real end and all, but at least don't try to make the normal route look like a complete afterthought.

And what precisely do these Vip, Wall and Alaska divisions actually mean, anyway? I never could find a satisfactory explanation for that.

[yoshicookiezeus]

Just got done recording a run of v1.01 Julius, and it seems the removal of the last phase wasn't the only change: he seems to throw a lot less lightning during the first phase in the new version, and a part of the ice attack is gone as well. Also there used to be two lightning balls during the sword part, but for some reason only one spawned on my successful attempt.

And the music breaking seems to be a new addition as well, although not perhaps an intended one.

[ano0maly]

I think that if the second "space phase" was removed, and the tornado gimmick was a little improved, it would actually be a decent enough boss.

And I think the levels in Brutal Mario are largely placeholders. The bosses are the key, after all. It's not that bad of a hack, but it prompts you to skip through the less interesting parts.

[morsel/morceau]

And what precisely do these Vip, Wall and Alaska divisions actually mean, anyway? I never could find a satisfactory explanation for that.

As far as I can work out, instead of just being caled 'Anonymous', the posters on 2ch are given a default zany tag. At one time this had VIP in it, another was something like "Walls have ears", and the latest was "Anonymous King Salmon" (what's the state fish of Alaska? - see the title screen). This is why Wall joined the title screen after VIP with Alaska tagging behind another year or two. If anyone can add to this explanation I would be grateful.

[ano0maly]

So what happened the the final level creator that disappeared?

[Daarkbuu]

Also, isn't Brutal Mario kind of "old" now?

the smwc demo was released in 2006.

Bad boss was bad. Wow.

Absolutely, because raocow doesn't like it, and we all know that raocow is a god and whatever he doesn't like other people automatically have to not like.

[S.N.N.]

Absolutely, because raocow doesn't like it, and we all know that raocow is a god and whatever he doesn't like other people automatically have to not like.

I'm pretty sure most people have come to that conclusion without raocow's help, actually. It's a technical wonder, but pretty awful to play.

I won't deny that the hivemind exists, though.

[The Doctor]

Absolutely, because raocow doesn't like it, and we all know that raocow is a god and whatever he doesn't like other people automatically have to not like.

I played Julius long before raocow got to him and I hated him then. None of my opinions are formed by what raocow thinks; I play the game ahead of him and form my own opinions.

[Argumentable]

Instead of removing the final phase entirely they should have replaced it with vanilla bowser

[Daarkbuu]

SMW was never meant for custom bosses. Vanilla Koopa kids and bowser all the way!

[Money]

I dunno how it all went down, but honestly the reason I think that Julius feels so out of place is that Carol was all like "HEY GUYS I MADE THIS BOSS" and the guys were like "WOW THIS IS A TECH MARVEL GONNA MAKE IT THE FINAL BOSS"
This is a bit off topic, but this is kinda what I always felt the Toadsworth battle in SMWCP to feel like as well. It felt like someone (Roy) made a super amazing boss, but there wasn't really any place in the plot to put it, so they kinda shoved it in the final battle, editing the plot a bit. Of course, if this isn't what happened, I'd like to know what did, this is just kinda what I assumed.

[Argumentable]

I like

tanasinn (except the second part with the YI music [I don't like the music either])