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The Neo Makes It Sound Cool

  • Addit
  • 02/27/2016 11:56 PM
  • 3310 views


A Game Made By: Ratty524
Created Using: Super Mario Bros. X
It's A: ACTION PLATFORMER Game
That Roughly Takes Around: 3 - 4 Hours To Complete
And It's A... COMPLETED GAME!!!


Holy pastaroni – another review of a SMBX game!? Say it isn’t so, Addit! But yes, yes indeed, another review of a SMBX game… At this rate I’m going to have more reviews of SMBX games here than all the 2k3 games that I’ve reviewed on here combined – but I digress!

So Ratty524 may not be known around here that much persay for his gaming prowess but there’s no denying that the man at least tries his best, as he has released a plentiful of many different games over the years…most of them being quite stupid, but there’s the odd hidden gem here or there if you cycle past all the crap that he has. And when he’s not divulging in that, he also participates and makes various Super Mario Bros. themed levels for the many different Super RMN Bros. themed events over the years, with some of his levels being regarded as some the best.

- So how ‘bout an entire game made by this one said talented individual with around 33 different levels of fun and torture following the original, classic Super Mario Bros. themed formula and pack it all into one neat little package - does that all sound good to you? Well…!!!

Started waaaaay back in 2013, Neo Retro Super Mario Bros. was a little side project that eventually got waaaaay off-track, probably due to other responsibilities that popped up along the way, and took Ratty524 almost around three years to finally complete. And when it finally got completed just a little while ago – nobody wanted to review it at all. But then I decided to step in and answer the call to justice. And unlike the last time that I stepped in to do a review for a SMBX game, Corfaisus didn’t beat me to the punch!

I swear, he’s either the fastest reviewer alive or I’m one of the slowest, most laziest reviewers alive… Ehhh…I’ll call it a draw.

Sooo…does this game hold up to rest of the SMBX legends, like Super Talking Time Bros. 2.5 – The Last Levels or Super RMN World? Or is this just another rusted cog cemented into Ratty524 long winded history of crap.

Well – let’s not waste any more time, shall we?

The Story


I hope it involves a Princess of some kind!


Since this is a Mario themed game and it’s based off the original – I’m sure this is pretty much all you need to know about what’s going on here:



“’Sup, bitches.”

“So, I like, um...got these crystal balls, or something, that have great vast importance to the land, or whatever, and I’m holding them ALL hostage in all of my seven luxuriously made castles. I’ve paid good money for that shit, just to let you know.”

“And apparently these things are worth some serious money, or something, because that Wario chick won’t stop calling me.”

“So if YOU wanna take them from me instead – just go right ahead, make my day!”

“You may have beaten me a hundred thousand times before in the past, but this time – I know it’s gonna be different!”

“Muhahahahaha!!!”



Yeahhh…I think Bowser’s running out of ideas…

So…basically you have to go through EIGHT castles, not seven – Bowser - to not only retrieve the seven crystal balls but also along the way rescue Princess Peach – again – from the clutches of that filthy snake. Basically your basic standard Mario plot.

Although there is a more detailed story found on the game’s gamepage, I’m only counting what happens in-game and not what happens in an instruction booklet. Basically, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before from that sinister reptile. Just replace the word “Crystal Balls” with “Stars” or “Shines” and you basically get the idea of what you have to do.

The Gameplay


Who puts these things down here!?


Neo Retro Super Mario Bros. basically plays similar to the classic Super Mario Bros. games of the past where you basically have to reach the end of a particular stage and in the fourth stage of each world drop or defeat one of the many Bowsers to move on to the next. There are no secret exits, like in Super Mario World, and no Warp Zones in sight, so it’s basically get to the end of a stage and move on to the next. Simple, but effective.

The levels themselves do follow the classic formula very well and don’t tend to go off the wall or do something totally crazy that isn’t in the classic game’s motif. It’s basically like the title promises: Super Mario Bros. themed levels with a slight hint of challenge in them, just the way I likes it.

The thing is, though, the first three quarters of the game is structured pretty well; the levels are generally short, interesting enough to be fun and playable and provide a nice challenge that, to me, is fair and nicely balanced. While I died more often on World 3-4 and 5-3 a few more times more than I could count, I did eventually complete those levels with a little bit of memorization and re-focusing my tactics a bit to overcome them. Those levels featured some really tight jumps – but whatever. So far good, right?

Then we get to World 6-4, oh my god… I didn’t realize that I was playing Castles Masterpiece Set again!

This level, and I could also argue that World 6-3 as well, kick-started the whole difficulty shift from the rest of the levels that suddenly made it like I was playing a whole new beast altogether.

World 6-4 features a part early on in the stage where you have jump over a pipe with a red piranha plant sticking out with spikes above the ceiling and two fireballs coming from the lavalake below that move at the same exact time where you have to jump all of that and then have a running start to jump over this massive gorge! If you take your sweet time and be patience throughout all of this, you’ll miss the jump and plummet straight towards your fiery death. You need a good jolt of speed, but you also need to find a Mushroom power-up to take the initial hit from the piranha plant otherwise you’ll get hit and die! I died on this part probably around 36 times or so, but holy shit… And that’s not all! There are spikes literally EVERYWHERE here, so every god damn jump that you make could be your last jump. Oh. My. God… What the hell happened!?

And the rest of the levels after that, holy shit! It’s almost like Castles Masterpiece Set came back from beyond the grave to corrupt the last two worlds of this game and truly make it hell! I thought we killed the b*tard!!!

Now, there’s nothing wrong with making the last two worlds a bit harder than the rest of the game, but I don’t think it was done quite right here. The first three quarters of the game were handled great! But these last few levels, holy shit! Although beatable, almost half of my entire playtime was spend on these last 10 levels or so, and by the time that I was done I was extremely tuckered out from the whole thing. I didn’t seem to have this problem earlier on or so, so it really dampened the entire experience towards the end.

Luckily, though, most of the levels themselves were not too badly structured and featured some nice gimmicks along the way. World 8-3 with the scrolling airships and tanks trying to take you down was a nice throwback to Super Mario Bros. 3, and World 6-2 with those falling ice blocks in that water level was a nice touch for a water level. World 7-2 had an interesting pipemaze harkening back to Super Mario Bros. 3 again – and even World 3-3 was pretty cool as well! Some of these levels were definitely a lot of fun to go through and really switched up the pace quite a bit. It’s just a bit of a shame that some of the later levels became a bit off-putting with its intensive difficulty.

Power-up’s this time only feature Mushrooms, Fire Flowers, Super Leafs and Ice Flowers, so it’s not quite as in-depth as some of the newer Super Mario Bros. games with all of its power-up’s, but they do provide you with some nice added protections and a way to make some of the levels a bit easier. There are also some bonus, hidden 1UP’s found in some of the stages that definitely help. And after completing World 8- 2 I got like an extra 20 lives for the rest of the way through completing it that made the last two stages not as bad but still pretty punishing.

The Soundtrack


- Nobody better be touchin’ my pot leafs!


Well, its Super Mario Bros. themed music, alright, and there’s nothing wrong with that here considering it fits the bull just fine because of the source.

This game uses the Super Mario Bros. All-Stars themed remixes of the classic overworld theme, the underground stages, the castles theme and pretty much everything else from the original Super Mario Bros. There’s also the sky theme remix from Super Mario All-Stars from Super Mario Bros. 3 used for a couple of stages, a remixed version of the second world from Super Mario Land for the original Gameboy and even the airship battle theme from Super Mario Bros. 3 as well. I don’t really mind a couple of songs being used from Super Mario Bros. 3 here, even though that this game is trying to promote itself more along the lines of the original, but I probably wouldn’t have used the song from Super Mario Land here personally, as it’s the only song not from the original NES games to be here and it doesn’t quite fit to me and kind of sounds like something that’s not really necessarily needed here. I know it’s a bit odd saying that, considering it is a Mario game, but I don’t think it works here like it does with the rest of the songs.

The only other weird song selection that was totally out of place for this game was the final level where it used the final level theme from the original Mega Man for the NES out of all things. Like…why, why Mega Man 1? Why not use something more along the lines of this:



Or even this:



Any of these two types of songs would have worked a hell of a lot better than using something from another series altogether like Mega Man. And, look – I like Mega Man music, but if you’re making something and presenting something to me that is trying to be a Mario game, I kind of want something akin to a Mario game. I know that Super Talking Time Bros. 2.5 – The Last Levels and Super RMN World had some songs from other franchises used in it but that worked just fine because it wasn’t presented to me like a straight-up Mario game and it was more along the lines of a celebration of Nintendo’s history since it featured other playable characters like Link. Either way, it’s not a big deal or a major gamebreaker for me, but I just found it quite odd.

The sound effects here though are your typical stuff ripped straight from Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. All-Stars, as everything here is how it should sound. I really don’t have any problems with this.

The Aesthetics


Woo boy…


Graphically speaking, though, the game uses the Super Mario Bros. All-Stars graphics pack, along with some minor renditions used here or there throughout, and I think the game generally looks great. Everything here looks like it came straight out of a Super Mario Bros. game, and I think it looks nice. Nothing that really stood out that looked extremely off-putting or really noticing to me, as everything here looks as it should. Nice work.

The only really weird oddity that I could find here was when you spin jump Mario and Luigi are spinning using their victory poses for when you finish a level off in Super Mario Bros. 1 for Super Mario Bros. All-Stars instead of using the more altered spin jump found in other SMBX games. I found that this was a little bit weird, but it’s not too much of a problem, as it’s the only real graphical hiccup that I could find.

The End Result


Bowser: - Don’t you touch it!
Mario: Oh – I’m-a gonna touch it.


This was a weird game as it felt like it was two different beasts to me throughout the entire experience. The first three quarters I felt were great with good levels, balanced difficulty and generally was the more entertaining part of the game and really captured the classic feel of the original Super Mario Bros. games. And then the final ten levels, with its difficulty spike, leered its ugly head and it almost reminded of that god awful Castles Masterpiece Set again – and I don’t really wanna remember that game because it was so hard as balls…! Luckily, though, those levels were beatable after many, many, many deaths and weren’t as extreme as that other game was, but still…

Overall, though, Neo Retro Super Mario Bros. left me a bit tuckered out after finishing it but the overall experience of playing it wasn’t quite as bad and I had a bit of fun with it. I definitely would recommend giving it a try for those who are looking for another platformer or another SMBX game to play in the meantime. It’s not as good as some of the legends on the site, but it’s not half that bad, either.

OVERALL GRADE:
3 / 5 - C ~ Just Makes The Cut.

Posts

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Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
02/28/2016 05:28 AM
I kind of suspected that the levels after world 5 would be ball-crushing to some players, especially Bowser's castle (probably the most sadistic level I've made so far in SMBX). I probably should have toned down the difficulty of those final levels, but after the hiatus I put this project on I was kind of in IDGAF mode and released it anyway for the sake of moving on... Welp :x

e: As for the Megaman music, I think I heard it playing in Bowser's Castle in Super Mario Bros Crossover and it sounded so epic I apparently had to mimic it. I kind of wanted players to feel particularly tense in that level, though maybe that was a bad idea on my part.

Anyway, thank you for the review! You're stuff always manages to both entertain and inform really well.
Addit
6394
02/28/2016 06:28 AM
Well, if it makes you feel a little bit better, at least you single handily beat out the score that I gave out for Castles Masterpiece Set a long time ago, so you’re already one step ahead!

And you’re welcome for the review, though. Despite those last couple of levels and all the countless deaths that I had, I still had fun. And it was nice to play another SMBX game again - so thank you.
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