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It's the end of something alright. Master of Mayhem Vs. The Apocalypse of Foroze
masterofmayhem- 02/07/2014 04:07 PM
- 4057 views
Master of Mayhem Vs. The Apocalypse of Foroze
I first came upon The Apocalypse of Foroze via a trailer of the game I found on the YouTube and what it showed me was nothing shoer of amazing. Epic music was playing in the background, (Which I later discovered was from Mario Galaxy) the leaves showcased look cool and interesting, and whole thing was expertly put together. I managed to find a Demo version of the game available at the time and I couldn’t wait to play it.
I almost wish I didn’t. It was all an elaborate ruse, for hiding amongst the facade those lovely levels was one of the most brutal, sadistic and soul crushingly hard games ever devised I’m almost convinced it’s a demonic plot to rob mankind of sanity.
The Basics:
Game Type: SNES Mario style Platformer
Length: 4-6 hours depending on how good you are.
Difficulty: Schizophrenicly Hard
Initial Response: I’ve died 3 times already, and I’m still on the first level and I haven’t even reached the checkpoint yet! Maybe I should play something easier like Battle Toads?
Story:
You know what the best thing about reviewing a Mario game is? The fact that whatever sorry excuse for a plot these games come up with can usually be summed up in one paragraph.
In this case, tired of saving Princes Peaches’ narrow ass for the millionth time, Mario decides that enough is enough and abandons his friends and family to become a manly man of the sea. Dragging Luigi along with him, kicking and screaming all the while. But before you can finish singing the theme song to Gilligan’s Island Mario’s ship is hit by a storm.
...Bravely leaving his brother and Toad behind to fend for themselves.
The castaway brothers land upon a mysterious island, as opposed to the much rarer non-mysterious island, and start exploring it since they have nothing better to do. That’s it. There that’s 1/3 of the review done already.
OK there’s slightly more to it than that. Bowser is also on the island for some reason. What is with Mario and Bowser that even when there not purposefully getting into each others grill they keep randomly running into each other? They can’t even have a vacation without one of them accidentally aggravating the other. But yeah, Bowser is there and now working for someone called Foroze. Who is Foroze, aside from possibly Freeza from DBZ’s long lost cousin? No idea. But he’s obviously bad news because he’s got Bowser calling Foroze master, fetching him coffee and doing his laundry. And considering the word Apocalypse is in the title I doubt Foroze wants to cover the world in sparkles and sunshine.
So there is a story… but it’s kind of stupid. Having a new villain is fine, especially since Mario just randomly uncovers his evil plot by coincidence and happenstance. But Foroze comes off as a Merry Sue villain, at least to me. Being impossibly powerful and having Bowser his bitch instead of, you know, the king of the coopers. And then you have story points, like having a random Toad revive an injured Mario with a 1-up mushroom, that sound like they come from a bad Fan Fiction.
Bombs? That’s the best you can do? If you want to be taken seriously drop a mountain on him or something.
I’m still giving this story a pass though, simply because it’s still better than “rescue the princes again’ and nobody seriously plays these games for the plot anyway.
Aesthetics:
As this is made in SMBX – where 90% of the sprites and graphics are ripped wholesale from the SNES Mario games – it’s not so much a question of, do the graphics look good, but dose the level the graphics help build look good?
The answer: Hell yes! The levels in this game look fantastic. A lot of effort and creativity has gone into the levels and they all feel different in some way. Even the ones that share the same resources. Once again it’s the attention to details that helps sell it. Small blocks randomly inserted into lager landmasses, good background objects positioning stuff like that.
Sure it looks nice, but it’s about to be ruined by five different types of douche-baggery.
The music selection is interesting too. It’s mostly from Mario games, but there ether remixes or from the later Mario titles – New Super Mario Brother or Partners in Time for example – rather than using SNES tunes. But there is also the occasional tracks from other sources from Metroid, Pokémon, and at least one point Sonic games. Yeah it’s inconsistent and can pull you out of the game for a moment, but I never felt the music was used inappropriately and the songs are usually good enough you don’t care.
I do have to criticize something because, well I’m me. There’s the occasional level with leaves falling from the trees or butterflies flouting in the background, these are all nice touches of course, but it can be distracting at times. I’m just saying it’s hard to dodge fireballs and bats and the like when these stuff moving in the background that may or may not be a hazard. And with levels as hard as these ones that’s a problem.
Gameplay:
Alright it’s time to get to the nitty gritty, the meat and potatoes of the game and to address what I’ve been alluding to since this review started. I’ll put this as plainly as I can. This. Game. Is. Hard!
Now I usually like some challenge in my games and difficulty is subjective. Just because I say its hard doesn’t mean it is, at least it won’t be for everybody. You don’t have to take my word for it. So we won’t. Instead I’m going into painstaking detail describing why the game is hard and why it sucks because of it.
First things first though. You progress through Fozoe’s Apocalypse via a Super Mario world style world map. You beat a level to open a path (or two) that leads to the next level until you get to the castle at the end of each world. Or you can go back to any previous level and play it again if you feel like it. Like say, that Toad village you’ll unlocked along the way in each wold where you can pick up a supply of power-ups.
Now you’d think with something that simple it wouldn’t be possible to screw it up, but somehow Foroze has managed to do just that! The paths between each level are often pointlessly long and twisted. It simply takes more time that is necessary to get from one level to another. Heaven help you if you want to go back to one of the earlier levels as that will take a few good minutes.
Just look at this! There is no reason for a world map to be this large and complicated.
But that’s mealy annoying, and something that doesn’t really impact on the game itself. What about the actual levels? Well you see that quote at the top were I said I died three times in the first level? That actually happened. Now it had been a while since I played a SMBX game so I could have just been rusty, or it could have been the section where I had to hang from a chain dangling from an airship while Bullet Bill were firing at me from every direction. Either way it set a president for what I was to expect from the rest of the game. And that was irritation and frustration.
And this is just the first Level!
The goal of each level is to reach the end and collect the Special Star at the end, but it wouldn’t be a Mario game without secrets would it? So almost every level actually has two special stars to collect. That’s right every level has a Bonus Star in it. That sound you herded just now was the collective tightening of the sphincters of everyone who has ever played RMN Bro. 3. Fortunately you can get either of the stars to actually beat the level and progress and you don’t really need all the stars to beat the game (I hope).
The Stars also unlock doors in the Star Hub - It’s what I call it anyway since it doesn’t seem to have a name. It’s an area that you can use to quickly (quickly being a relative term, it really only saves time when the worlds aren’t next to each other) travel the world map. As well as having some power-ups behind the aforementioned star doors. Getting to the Star Hub is rather simple. Every world has one level with a secret key in it. Finding the key and carrying it to flouting keyhole unlocks the path to the Star Road that takes you to Star Hub (This game has more stars in it than Beverly Hills). Unless of course there happens to be another level in between you have to complete before reaching the Star Road because finding a hidden key just isn’t enough torment for this game. It’s like winning a million dollars by solving a really difficult puzzle, but in order to calm you prize you have to fight a dragon.
But none of that is what makes the game hard, no. What makes the game hard is two things: power-ups - or rather the lack thereof - and length. Naturally all levels have power-ups in them, but not in a constant manner. Some levels have more power-ups then you really need while others have way less than they should have. You can go for quite a while in some levels before reaching even the first mushroom. And then you have the length of the stages themselves. Most levels are massive, outrageously so in some cases. And of course it’s the longest levels that have the fewest power-ups and the most dangerous hazards and enemies. Alternately the stages are relatively small, but have puzzles that require copies amounts of backtracking, hitting switches and finding keys and all without the use of checkpoints, even if they do have power-ups.
This all goes to create an incredibly skewed and inconsistent difficulty curve. The first level of world 2 for example, I found way easier than any of the world one levels. Level 2-2 is not much harder than the previous one despite a prevalence of instant death lava, but the level after that, Yoshi’s Oasis, kicked my ass! This is exemplified most in the Castle levels, you know the one at the end of each world with a boss in it. The Castle from world one, with its boss, flattened me numerous times until I just got lucky and beat it. The World two Castle had an infuriating boss too, but the level itself was piss easy, and the world three Castle I cleared on my first try.
Yeah, I could be I was just getting better at the game so it just seemed easier, but I consider it far more likely it was due to the fact the easy levels where in fact easier by not being atrociously long and having plentiful power-ups in them.
Now if you are having trouble with a level you can of course go to The Star Road or one of the Toad Towns – providing you’re unlocked them of course – and pick up some Fire Flowers to help you out. But to do that you need to travel to the nearest Town or Star along the long windy paths, then enter the area, go to wherever the power-ups spawn, then leave and go all the way back to the stage you’re trying to complete. It’s an unnecessarily long, boring, progress that you will question on whether it’s really worth going through all that every single time you die (which will be a lot).
That's why I found Yoshi’s Oasis so intolerable. I couldn't find a single power-up for the entire fist third of the incredibly long stage stage. If i died I had to go all the way back to the Toad village in world 1 (I couldn't reach the star road because I couldn't find the key to unlock it). So I kept dying, because I had no power-ups for most of the level because going back to world one to get some was so tedious. I don't even want to talk about the level that came after, which was basically three regular stages centered around a huge maze in the middle with only a single Tanooki suit spawn point as your only power up through 90% of it. Fortunately that level is optional.
To the games credit though I never felt the challenge was being unfairly hard, most of the time. There weren’t any situations where I was going to get hit no matter what. You can reasonably handle almost anything the game throws at you if you’re skilled enough. Almost being the key word there. There were a few parts, mostly secret bonus parts, where I thought I could not possibly do without taking some damage. And even that ‘fairness’ still doesn’t stop the game being a frustrating pain in the ass.
See this? It's almost impossible for me to hit that ? Block without being hurt by the jellyfish.
There is one point in particular that stands out for me and is a prime example of sheer dickisness. The world 3 ghost house level. In order to progress through the stage, and therefore the game, you must to cross a massive pit. The only way of crossing it is by consistently spin jumping on an Eerie (those ghost lizard things) as it flies along. That is already a frustrating move, but what elevates it to ‘screw you’ territory is that not everyone will know you can do this! Someone who hasn’t played SMW in a while probably won’t remember or even know that spin jumping will bounce you off most things you can’t kill. And there’s nothing in this game to remind players that they can. No tutorials, no messages, no signs, (even though there are signs telling you how to solve the riddle of the house, but none telling you how spin jumping can work) nothing! I’m positive that part has been the end of some players who have given up since they can’t figure out how to cross that gap. And having to give up on a game, because you can’t figure out what to do, because it never tells you, you can do it. That is… well that’s just sad.
Verdict:
I think I can sum up The Apocalypse of Foroze in one word: Pain. This game is frustrating and annoying. Not because of the time it takes to traverse the world map. Not because of the massive levels with few power-ups. Not because the only thing consistent about it is how much it annoys me. Not even because the game is just plain hard. No, it’s because it’s all of them. On their own these things would merely be annoying, but together they form a chemical compound of pure aggravation. A drug scientifically formulated to drive you mad and piss you the hell off.
And yet I like this thing. I know, it’s insane, but despite my complaints I still like it. It could be because of the well-made and creative levels, having an actual story for a change. Or maybe, just maybe, despite being perhaps too difficult, it’s just a good game? Or it’s because playing this thing has sent me insane and I’m just delusional. Besides how much can you hate a game that has Ridley in it?
Undying space dragons make everything better.
The Last Word
Now if you don’t mind I have to sacrifice a sandwich made from fried eggs and asbestos to my Edward Conway figurine because the magical pixie that lives in my monitor told me to. Right after I have a talk to these nice men in white coats.
I first came upon The Apocalypse of Foroze via a trailer of the game I found on the YouTube and what it showed me was nothing shoer of amazing. Epic music was playing in the background, (Which I later discovered was from Mario Galaxy) the leaves showcased look cool and interesting, and whole thing was expertly put together. I managed to find a Demo version of the game available at the time and I couldn’t wait to play it.
I almost wish I didn’t. It was all an elaborate ruse, for hiding amongst the facade those lovely levels was one of the most brutal, sadistic and soul crushingly hard games ever devised I’m almost convinced it’s a demonic plot to rob mankind of sanity.
The Basics:
Game Type: SNES Mario style Platformer
Length: 4-6 hours depending on how good you are.
Difficulty: Schizophrenicly Hard
Initial Response: I’ve died 3 times already, and I’m still on the first level and I haven’t even reached the checkpoint yet! Maybe I should play something easier like Battle Toads?
Story:
You know what the best thing about reviewing a Mario game is? The fact that whatever sorry excuse for a plot these games come up with can usually be summed up in one paragraph.
In this case, tired of saving Princes Peaches’ narrow ass for the millionth time, Mario decides that enough is enough and abandons his friends and family to become a manly man of the sea. Dragging Luigi along with him, kicking and screaming all the while. But before you can finish singing the theme song to Gilligan’s Island Mario’s ship is hit by a storm.
...Bravely leaving his brother and Toad behind to fend for themselves.
The castaway brothers land upon a mysterious island, as opposed to the much rarer non-mysterious island, and start exploring it since they have nothing better to do. That’s it. There that’s 1/3 of the review done already.
OK there’s slightly more to it than that. Bowser is also on the island for some reason. What is with Mario and Bowser that even when there not purposefully getting into each others grill they keep randomly running into each other? They can’t even have a vacation without one of them accidentally aggravating the other. But yeah, Bowser is there and now working for someone called Foroze. Who is Foroze, aside from possibly Freeza from DBZ’s long lost cousin? No idea. But he’s obviously bad news because he’s got Bowser calling Foroze master, fetching him coffee and doing his laundry. And considering the word Apocalypse is in the title I doubt Foroze wants to cover the world in sparkles and sunshine.
So there is a story… but it’s kind of stupid. Having a new villain is fine, especially since Mario just randomly uncovers his evil plot by coincidence and happenstance. But Foroze comes off as a Merry Sue villain, at least to me. Being impossibly powerful and having Bowser his bitch instead of, you know, the king of the coopers. And then you have story points, like having a random Toad revive an injured Mario with a 1-up mushroom, that sound like they come from a bad Fan Fiction.
Bombs? That’s the best you can do? If you want to be taken seriously drop a mountain on him or something.
I’m still giving this story a pass though, simply because it’s still better than “rescue the princes again’ and nobody seriously plays these games for the plot anyway.
Aesthetics:
As this is made in SMBX – where 90% of the sprites and graphics are ripped wholesale from the SNES Mario games – it’s not so much a question of, do the graphics look good, but dose the level the graphics help build look good?
The answer: Hell yes! The levels in this game look fantastic. A lot of effort and creativity has gone into the levels and they all feel different in some way. Even the ones that share the same resources. Once again it’s the attention to details that helps sell it. Small blocks randomly inserted into lager landmasses, good background objects positioning stuff like that.
Sure it looks nice, but it’s about to be ruined by five different types of douche-baggery.
The music selection is interesting too. It’s mostly from Mario games, but there ether remixes or from the later Mario titles – New Super Mario Brother or Partners in Time for example – rather than using SNES tunes. But there is also the occasional tracks from other sources from Metroid, Pokémon, and at least one point Sonic games. Yeah it’s inconsistent and can pull you out of the game for a moment, but I never felt the music was used inappropriately and the songs are usually good enough you don’t care.
I do have to criticize something because, well I’m me. There’s the occasional level with leaves falling from the trees or butterflies flouting in the background, these are all nice touches of course, but it can be distracting at times. I’m just saying it’s hard to dodge fireballs and bats and the like when these stuff moving in the background that may or may not be a hazard. And with levels as hard as these ones that’s a problem.
Gameplay:
Alright it’s time to get to the nitty gritty, the meat and potatoes of the game and to address what I’ve been alluding to since this review started. I’ll put this as plainly as I can. This. Game. Is. Hard!
Now I usually like some challenge in my games and difficulty is subjective. Just because I say its hard doesn’t mean it is, at least it won’t be for everybody. You don’t have to take my word for it. So we won’t. Instead I’m going into painstaking detail describing why the game is hard and why it sucks because of it.
First things first though. You progress through Fozoe’s Apocalypse via a Super Mario world style world map. You beat a level to open a path (or two) that leads to the next level until you get to the castle at the end of each world. Or you can go back to any previous level and play it again if you feel like it. Like say, that Toad village you’ll unlocked along the way in each wold where you can pick up a supply of power-ups.
Now you’d think with something that simple it wouldn’t be possible to screw it up, but somehow Foroze has managed to do just that! The paths between each level are often pointlessly long and twisted. It simply takes more time that is necessary to get from one level to another. Heaven help you if you want to go back to one of the earlier levels as that will take a few good minutes.
Just look at this! There is no reason for a world map to be this large and complicated.
But that’s mealy annoying, and something that doesn’t really impact on the game itself. What about the actual levels? Well you see that quote at the top were I said I died three times in the first level? That actually happened. Now it had been a while since I played a SMBX game so I could have just been rusty, or it could have been the section where I had to hang from a chain dangling from an airship while Bullet Bill were firing at me from every direction. Either way it set a president for what I was to expect from the rest of the game. And that was irritation and frustration.
And this is just the first Level!
The goal of each level is to reach the end and collect the Special Star at the end, but it wouldn’t be a Mario game without secrets would it? So almost every level actually has two special stars to collect. That’s right every level has a Bonus Star in it. That sound you herded just now was the collective tightening of the sphincters of everyone who has ever played RMN Bro. 3. Fortunately you can get either of the stars to actually beat the level and progress and you don’t really need all the stars to beat the game (I hope).
The Stars also unlock doors in the Star Hub - It’s what I call it anyway since it doesn’t seem to have a name. It’s an area that you can use to quickly (quickly being a relative term, it really only saves time when the worlds aren’t next to each other) travel the world map. As well as having some power-ups behind the aforementioned star doors. Getting to the Star Hub is rather simple. Every world has one level with a secret key in it. Finding the key and carrying it to flouting keyhole unlocks the path to the Star Road that takes you to Star Hub (This game has more stars in it than Beverly Hills). Unless of course there happens to be another level in between you have to complete before reaching the Star Road because finding a hidden key just isn’t enough torment for this game. It’s like winning a million dollars by solving a really difficult puzzle, but in order to calm you prize you have to fight a dragon.
But none of that is what makes the game hard, no. What makes the game hard is two things: power-ups - or rather the lack thereof - and length. Naturally all levels have power-ups in them, but not in a constant manner. Some levels have more power-ups then you really need while others have way less than they should have. You can go for quite a while in some levels before reaching even the first mushroom. And then you have the length of the stages themselves. Most levels are massive, outrageously so in some cases. And of course it’s the longest levels that have the fewest power-ups and the most dangerous hazards and enemies. Alternately the stages are relatively small, but have puzzles that require copies amounts of backtracking, hitting switches and finding keys and all without the use of checkpoints, even if they do have power-ups.
This all goes to create an incredibly skewed and inconsistent difficulty curve. The first level of world 2 for example, I found way easier than any of the world one levels. Level 2-2 is not much harder than the previous one despite a prevalence of instant death lava, but the level after that, Yoshi’s Oasis, kicked my ass! This is exemplified most in the Castle levels, you know the one at the end of each world with a boss in it. The Castle from world one, with its boss, flattened me numerous times until I just got lucky and beat it. The World two Castle had an infuriating boss too, but the level itself was piss easy, and the world three Castle I cleared on my first try.
Yeah, I could be I was just getting better at the game so it just seemed easier, but I consider it far more likely it was due to the fact the easy levels where in fact easier by not being atrociously long and having plentiful power-ups in them.
Now if you are having trouble with a level you can of course go to The Star Road or one of the Toad Towns – providing you’re unlocked them of course – and pick up some Fire Flowers to help you out. But to do that you need to travel to the nearest Town or Star along the long windy paths, then enter the area, go to wherever the power-ups spawn, then leave and go all the way back to the stage you’re trying to complete. It’s an unnecessarily long, boring, progress that you will question on whether it’s really worth going through all that every single time you die (which will be a lot).
That's why I found Yoshi’s Oasis so intolerable. I couldn't find a single power-up for the entire fist third of the incredibly long stage stage. If i died I had to go all the way back to the Toad village in world 1 (I couldn't reach the star road because I couldn't find the key to unlock it). So I kept dying, because I had no power-ups for most of the level because going back to world one to get some was so tedious. I don't even want to talk about the level that came after, which was basically three regular stages centered around a huge maze in the middle with only a single Tanooki suit spawn point as your only power up through 90% of it. Fortunately that level is optional.
To the games credit though I never felt the challenge was being unfairly hard, most of the time. There weren’t any situations where I was going to get hit no matter what. You can reasonably handle almost anything the game throws at you if you’re skilled enough. Almost being the key word there. There were a few parts, mostly secret bonus parts, where I thought I could not possibly do without taking some damage. And even that ‘fairness’ still doesn’t stop the game being a frustrating pain in the ass.
See this? It's almost impossible for me to hit that ? Block without being hurt by the jellyfish.
There is one point in particular that stands out for me and is a prime example of sheer dickisness. The world 3 ghost house level. In order to progress through the stage, and therefore the game, you must to cross a massive pit. The only way of crossing it is by consistently spin jumping on an Eerie (those ghost lizard things) as it flies along. That is already a frustrating move, but what elevates it to ‘screw you’ territory is that not everyone will know you can do this! Someone who hasn’t played SMW in a while probably won’t remember or even know that spin jumping will bounce you off most things you can’t kill. And there’s nothing in this game to remind players that they can. No tutorials, no messages, no signs, (even though there are signs telling you how to solve the riddle of the house, but none telling you how spin jumping can work) nothing! I’m positive that part has been the end of some players who have given up since they can’t figure out how to cross that gap. And having to give up on a game, because you can’t figure out what to do, because it never tells you, you can do it. That is… well that’s just sad.
Verdict:
I think I can sum up The Apocalypse of Foroze in one word: Pain. This game is frustrating and annoying. Not because of the time it takes to traverse the world map. Not because of the massive levels with few power-ups. Not because the only thing consistent about it is how much it annoys me. Not even because the game is just plain hard. No, it’s because it’s all of them. On their own these things would merely be annoying, but together they form a chemical compound of pure aggravation. A drug scientifically formulated to drive you mad and piss you the hell off.
And yet I like this thing. I know, it’s insane, but despite my complaints I still like it. It could be because of the well-made and creative levels, having an actual story for a change. Or maybe, just maybe, despite being perhaps too difficult, it’s just a good game? Or it’s because playing this thing has sent me insane and I’m just delusional. Besides how much can you hate a game that has Ridley in it?
Undying space dragons make everything better.
The Last Word
Now if you don’t mind I have to sacrifice a sandwich made from fried eggs and asbestos to my Edward Conway figurine because the magical pixie that lives in my monitor told me to. Right after I have a talk to these nice men in white coats.
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CloseThe score you gave doesn't really match the tone of this review?
I have the same feelings about this game, though. The game was needlessly difficult and very inconsistent. Had those been addressed, this actually would have been one of my favorite SMBX games.
I think I gave up on this once I reached the ice castle. That level is just impossible.
I have the same feelings about this game, though. The game was needlessly difficult and very inconsistent. Had those been addressed, this actually would have been one of my favorite SMBX games.
I think I gave up on this once I reached the ice castle. That level is just impossible.
Yeah, this game was hard to rate. One the one hand it's difficulty will be a turn off for a lot of people, on the other outside that difficulty it's good.
It's like Dark/Daemons Souls in a way, a game series I like. If you can get past the difficulty your in for a good, if frustrating experience. So despite my criticisms I can't really say the game is bad, but do concede it will in fact be to hard for a lot of people to enjoy.
Edit: Upon further contemplation and spending some more time on this, I've concluded that my original score was indeed a little to high. I still think this game has some quality to it, but the difficulty dose override that for a lot of people.
As Such it's the sort of game that can only be recommended to Mario platforming enthusiasts or people who like really, really difficult games. Everybody else will probably get fed up with this before long.
It's like Dark/Daemons Souls in a way, a game series I like. If you can get past the difficulty your in for a good, if frustrating experience. So despite my criticisms I can't really say the game is bad, but do concede it will in fact be to hard for a lot of people to enjoy.
Edit: Upon further contemplation and spending some more time on this, I've concluded that my original score was indeed a little to high. I still think this game has some quality to it, but the difficulty dose override that for a lot of people.
As Such it's the sort of game that can only be recommended to Mario platforming enthusiasts or people who like really, really difficult games. Everybody else will probably get fed up with this before long.
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