NEW! SMW2 Yoshi's Island is "difficult"

[ano0maly]

I noticed that today's video tags make a reference to this thread.

To answer the tags, it's based on the description in the original NEW! thread in SMWC:

This is my YI-hack "NEW! SMW2 Yoshi's Island"!! Its difficulty level is "difficult" compared to the original.

Yeah

[EiresWind]

It's impossible to make this post without coming off as an attention whore, but would anyone be receptive to a streamlined expose of these world 6 stages raocow has been gunning through, like I did with 6-3? It ended up being way more fun to make than I expected and I've been kinda antsing to try it again. I'm in Alex's boat in thinking it's the strongest world in the hack by a pretty fair margin, and the increasing complexity and length of these stages makes trying to puzzle a consistent approach to their platforming or a trimmed path through their nonlinearity very satisfying. As long as it's not, like, viciously opposed I'll probably go with it just for the personal enjoyment.

[EagleEye]

EW, I'd like to see that.

[raocow]

Whore away, man!

I'd love to see them too!

[Sebby19]

raocow! IMPORTANT GAMEPLAY TIP THAT WILL MAKE JUMPING AND FLUTTERING 2x EASIER!

Jumping works the same way as in SMW. Yoshi will always flutter jump automatically if you just hold jump, especially when jumping off enemies.

The only time you need to release jump ever is if you want to do multiple flutters.

[Jesuiscontent]

raocow! IMPORTANT GAMEPLAY TIP THAT WILL MAKE JUMPING AND FLUTTERING 2x EASIER!

Jumping works the same way as in SMW. Yoshi will always flutter jump automatically if you just hold jump, especially when jumping off enemies.

The only time you need to release jump ever is if you want to do multiple flutters.

Uh, this is wrong. Some enemies (bandit, snowmen) do not let you flutter if you keep holding jump after bouncing off them. You have to release jump then press it again for these.

[Yoshis_Fan]

You have my O.K. as well, Eireswind. But only the levels raocow is through with, please.
I also like seeing different players beating levels with their own strategy. Blind is my favourite way, but a 100% run/walkthrough is very nice to watch, too.

[Money]

And then raocow had a 30 minute video that wasn't just him flailing and grunting and getting into "quietcow" zone.

[Jesuiscontent]

Haha wow. The completionist part of your brain is PRETTY strong, raocow.

[Sebby19]

Why did you kill yourself instead of rewinding 15 seconds at the end?

[EiresWind]

I know customarily I accompany these kinds of things with a novella apiece, but given these stages have already seen naked runs by virtue of the LP, I figure they're familiar enough in memory to speak for themselves. Not all levels are necessarily mazelike and not all mazes are necessarily lacking in self-evidence, but I do try to optimize in execution and method if nothing else. I tend to tackle Yoshi's Island hacks by letting the game's penchant for automation do as much of the work as possible, diminishing as much threat as possible.

I find the game's somewhat contentious physics to be a pretty crystal implementation, personally, and it fits precision platforming more than it might seem to at first blush. Maybe that'll come across in my gameplay, maybe it won't. I hope it does. These are fairly routine runs in that they focus on point A to point B with 100% and little frills, but I do at least attempt to show off whatever passing oddity comes to mind at a given time. Nonetheless, these are what they are, trimmed, excessive, boring, vaguely sensual or otherwise. However you take it.

These are produced the same way 6-3 was: laying save states at each mid-ring and reloading the latest until a given stretch goes satisfactorily, to allow a smoother overall flow instead of rough cuts.

6-1, "Koopa Graveyard": http://youtu.be/ilh3ITdnuIg

I tried to come up with as much abject nonsense as possible while plotting this stage since it's about three worlds prior in simplicity.

6-2, "3, 2, 1, Gone!": http://youtu.be/WzykRpDFwa0

This is a stage defined by approach if I ever saw one. The first two chomp chases border on unworkable if you don't know their behavior intimately. Especially since it's the creator's way or the pits with the latest revision.

6-4, "Byron The Bashful's Fort": http://youtu.be/AC934BxjsXI

Lots of cluttered setpieces here serve to demonstrate the usefulness of this game's railed physics and momentum. You can take the fire out of many gauntlets by not overworking your input, but some of it is bastardly in any dinosaur's shoes. Not much has been altered in the revision. A puzzle was given a kinder makeover.

6-5, "Labyrinth Of Nightmares": http://youtu.be/DaY6pNRcBsQ

I think this level's difficulty is oversold. A bit of patience and deliberation pulls the teeth from 90% of its resident gobblemouths, and the rest is clockwork visual subtlety. I show a bit of an oddball way to fish an extra egg out of the depths if you're in need, but otherwise this is all about lancing bass.

6-6, "Tropical Chilliness": http://youtu.be/PANikfvBPFE

I don't have any tricks to mediate on with this one, it's just an extended booby trap and the slower you are, the better you're off. Also, crabs are silly.

I'll upload 6-7 upon its full completion in the LP, and so forth.

[raocow]

next video undedited is an hour long and I have NO IDEA how far I am or not as it's just sewer/room/sewer/room/sewer/room for ever. I didn't even stop at a midway point!

[peteyboo]

Videos and such

6-1 and 6-2 links are switched.

[ano0maly]

Oh no, is it 7-2-3 again?

[EiresWind]

next video undedited is an hour long and I have NO IDEA how far I am or not as it's just sewer/room/sewer/room/sewer/room for ever. I didn't even stop at a midway point!

You're likely 3/4ths of the way through. The stretch between the castle mid-ring and the end of the sewers is inordinately long for the size of the sewer itself, especially if going for 100% considering some of the side room challenges are very risky.

[Yoshis_Fan]

OMG, I hate those damn Balloon Generators!! They always screw up SuperFX sprites...
In 6-6, I guess I'll just remove this one and make the player use the bats in order to go up there.

[Sebby19]

You should go back to the top of the switch block maze

[SAJewers]

Ok raocow, I'm curious. Which is worse, Poochy or Puddington?

[raocow]

Hmm. Puddington, I think. Puddington just pressing down at any point will kill you, considering when you are riding the guy you are always over things that will kill you, you know?

[ano0maly]

Are you invulnerable to spikes/thorns when you're riding Puddington (besides below your feet)?

The reason you were ducking at 11:44 is because you got smacked in the head with an egg. It does that sometimes.

[morsel/morceau]

I was watching these Japanese guys playing VIP 4 who had a little stopwatch going in the bottom corner of the recording area. When they got to Koopa's Castle they added another little counter they incremented every time they died.

[GauRocks]

I'd like to formally vote "no" on any kind of clock. You could always just mention it in a video when a recording session is unusually long or short, and you usually do that already.

Besides, the fewer things you have on screen, the easier it is to pay attention to the game and the action. You've mentioned yourself that when playing bullet hell type games, you start to ignore everything but a tiny circle around your hitbox. It's because too much on screen makes it hard to take everything in.

[EagleEye]

Voting no on the clock, for the same reasons. Speaking of which, I've noticed that SMW2YI has a lot more "stuff" on screen than SMW, even when it really has the same amount of useful objects. This sort of overload might be part of you not being good at this game.

As someone who grew up with GoldenEye and Timesplitters 1, I can't play most modern games because they have too much stuff. I can't tell in an instant if I need to shoot that guy or if that desk is an important desk or an exploding desk. Though watching my parents play GoldenEye since I was 3 or so taught me video game depth perception very well. raocow, just wondering, what 3D games do you play (do you play anything you don't Let's Play anymore?)?

Completely off topic: raocow, I've heard French has a lot of words that translate to "stuff" in English, but have subtle differences. Could you explain those some time? As someone who talks about etymology on the internet, I'm interested French words that mean stuff.

Fake edit: I need to learn to shut up and quit making effort posts about nothing, because that's still post of really nothing.

[Yoshis_Fan]

You've managed 3/4 of the gauntlet which is 6-7 pretty well.
Also, Eireswind has found a major glitch, which prevents you from 100% 6-8, so before playing 6-8, make absolutely sure to have this applied!!

CRC-32 checksum is [FC 2E 0F D7]
This time you have to download from Mediafire, since I can't reach SMWC for some weird reason (Server maintenance stuff, I think). I'll upload it there anyways, as soon as I can reach the site again.

http://www.mediafire.com/?776ta1r1j1p4kis

The downloaded file doesn't have an apostrophe in its name... Well, anyways, should work; I've checked the MD5 of both ZIP folders and they were the same.

[EiresWind]

Oh man raocow, I had all this useful awesome advice based on your first 6-7 video, then I forgot you record in the morning! I hope you didn't lose too much hair.

For 6-8, there's stuff in every section, so don't worry about whether you're wasting your time if you enter a place and don't seem to find any pertinent progress. The level's not a maze more than a SMW-Bowser-style series of room choices.

If you just wanna do the casual thing, and only if you're getting fed up/want to know where you're going, here's the way forward:

Key's in the cave section.

It's in a spoiler, Yoshis Fan, so I wash my hands.

I won't be saying word one about the important level anyway.