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The Star Falls Short

ShortStar's World is an older SMBX title from the engine's heyday when everything about it was new and exciting. It's not a complete game, but based on how long its been since its last update, it's probably abandoned. Although it may seem unfair to apply modern standards to something from a while back, this is not the developer's first foray into Mario game design, so I intend to review this as objectively as I can.

In the state of the download at the time of writing, there are only two worlds in the project. Don't take this to mean the game is short, however. Both worlds are very large and contain many stages, most of which also sport secret exits. Even clearing each stage once will keep you busy for a few hours.


Man, where do I go first? Seriously, I don't know!

The world features multiple paths to just about everything. If you're only interested in progressing through the world, taking one path and sticking to it will get you there the quickest. If you want to see everything the game has to offer, well...you're really in for it. The stage design is very much in line with the world map design: sprawling. In most levels, the screen scrolls both vertically and horizontally. Exploring an entire area takes a while, and sometimes it's more efficient to play the stage multiple times rather than look at it all in one go. As before, many stages have secret exits, so this is what you'll likely be doing anyway.

As for the stages themselves, they demonstrate the experience of their creator in some ways, and their shortsightedness in others. What this game has to offer is lots of exploration and some Mario nostalgia, but it comes at some frustrating costs. Before we get to railroading, I'd like to point out that the stages themselves are fairly well put-together. Sprite styles are more or less consistent, music and sound are used appropriately, and at the surface, everything seems fine. The game's issues become more apparent as you play it.

First up, the sprawling worlds are a double-edged sword. On one hand, there's lots to see, places to explore, secrets to find, and all that good stuff that an adventurous spirit loves. On the other, levels take a long time to complete, and some of them are needlessly difficult to explore. Power-ups are scarce and enemies are plentiful. Sometimes, it seems like the developer went ham clicking in foes and just ran with it.


Do I have enough ghosts in my Ghost House? I dunno, I mean, it IS World 1...


I better put a couple spawners in the boss fight to be sure!

It's not limited to overused enemies, either. There are many instances where a monster type or platforming concept is beaten to death through repetition. It makes it feel like these levels didn't need to be as large as they are to get their point across. Going through the same challenge over and over isn't interesting. A piranha plant in every pipe != a fun challenge.


Because water levels aren't already a chore.

So, one might argue that the difficulty and fewer power-ups are mitigated by the existence of mushroom huts. Throughout each world, you can find these huts that provide you with a power-up to help you on your way. This brings us to more of the game's inherent problems.

Allowing the player to start with an extra power-up is always handy, but visiting a mushroom hut isn't usually worth it. You can only get one item per visit, which doesn't sound like a big deal because you can re-enter the hut, but the problem here is the game's load time. ShortStar felt the need to include spiffed-up versions of all the characters' graphics (the same ones seen in Talking Time Bros., if you're familiar with that). Since they aren't in SMBX's core files, the game has to load all of them every time you pull up a level. It takes about 10-15 seconds for the game to load even the single-screen mushroom huts. After I was playing for awhile, the extra loading was causing the game's music and sound to cut out, and the program eventually crashed. Not good.

But there's more to the annoyance of visiting a mushroom hut than that, and it's actually an issue throughout the game as well.


It's my house and I hate stairs.

The distance between the ledges and the ground floor of the hut is five tiles. Every character in SMBX except Luigi can only jump four tiles with a normal jump. You need momentum to make the jump up to Toad. With the entrance exactly in the middle, you'll often have to go one direction, then run the other way to gain enough speed. I've jumped all the way up from the middle before, but it took perfect timing.

This problem isn't limited to mushroom huts. There are instances throughout the game where 5-tile jumps are required for you to progress to the point where I suspect all testing was done exclusively with Luigi. In lots of places, the question mark blocks are set so high that you need to do running jumps to get your fire flower on top. Everything is scaled such that exploration becomes uncomfortable for anyone but Mario's eternal understudy.

Troubles encountered in stages are exacerbated by the existence of secret exits. Another double-edged sword; finding secrets is rewarding for the player. The problem is that the world map loops back on itself constantly, and many times you'll find the back entrance to an older stage that you never even touched. Some secret exits generate all the paths from a stage, making the normal exit moot. If you revisit the stage to see where the other exit takes you, you'll end up back on the world map and nothing will happen (but the knowledge was gained?).

Many of the issues I've talked about here are minor and forgivable in single instances. However, this game has a large smattering of all of them. You'll encounter one or two of these problems in just about every stage, and it really brings the game down, not to mention those few places where things are just broken.


YOU ARE TOO TALL FOR THIS RIDE*
*If you enter this room big, the spikes hit you before the pipe can drop you in

I feel that if the game's stages were half as large, had half as many enemies, the same number of power-ups in a smaller area, and were more linear and consistent, this game would truly shine. As it is, though, I can't overlook all the ways it keeps aggravating me. If you like exploring massive locations and your love of Mario is that strong, this game might be for you. If you want something more to-the-point, I'd look elsewhere.

I can't bring myself to give this more than 2/5.

Posts

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Its been a while since I've been here. I'll have to play it again and see if I agree with your review since I don't even remember making it at all. Perhaps I could break up the entire game, turn it into 4 worlds rather than 2 and take out enemies.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
It feels like this was an age ago...but it's only been just over a year. X_x
You're telling me. I made this thing almost 7 years ago.

In retrospect yes I should have made a simpler first world / land. That would probably be easier than splitting levels. I have forgotten everything about how to make SMBX levels. The funny thing is I may have to go back and learn from my tutorial videos from 8 years ago. Now that's a bit mind blowing.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
Gotta break off the rust!
I'll probably just keep the rust and move on.
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