| Game Reviewed | Super Mario Country, by DJ Coco |
| Review Author | ~CaMtEnDo~ |
| Created | Aug 2 2014, 6:28 PM |
| Pros | The visuals are fairly nice at times, and the overall creativity with level themes is a welcome throwback to the charming absurdity of Super Mario Land 2. |
| Cons | The hitboxes are a bit screwy, leading me to my doom on far too many occasions, with enemies having larger hitboxes than what they should have based on their size (pro tip- always make enemy hitboxes slightly smaller than the actual sprite, it works a lot better in the long run), and staples such as the fire flower/fireball not functioning as intended- it seems like fireballs have a way of vanishing when they hit the floor at times or the edges of things, instead of bouncing along like they should. |
Gameplay 5 / 10 |
The levels can feel tight and claustrophobic at times, highlighted by the enemy placement. It doesn't help that there are points where Mario almost has to take a hit to continue, which can be partly blamed on the poor hit detection. Other than that, it's a Mario fangame. It feels like a Mario fangame. It's the Mario norm that we know and love but just a tad bit less, with a distinct lack of momentum in the physics. The game is playable, yes, but please do consider altering the physics to make it just a bit more enjoyable and to ditch that stiff feeling the current physics present. |
Graphics 6 / 10 |
There's a few problems regarding how certain sprites are animated, such as Mario's walk cycle, as well as the Goomba, notably. In Super Mario Land 2, the walk cycle for the Goomba was two frames- foot to the right, foot to the left. The eyebrows raised. It seems like Coco has mistakingly used the static Paragoomba frame with this animation, leaving a rather unfitting inbetween. I'd recommend removing it in a future release if possible to make the Goomba animate more fluidly and accurately, as well as fixing Mario's walk cycle so it doesn't reuse any frames, as it shouldn't. The enemies from SMW and YI and so on could benefit from being edited a good bit more so they don't seem to have been just recolored Shamrock Shake green to fit in with the Game Boy aesthetic. Other than that, the environments are interesting and visually pleasing, regarding both the tilesets and backgrounds. |
Sound 5 / 10 |
Most of the tracks seem to be taken from the Land games, with some exceptions, such as the Starman theme. As much as I'm down for another Starman variation of "You Spin Me Round" by Dead or Alive (see: An SMWCentral Production for the original use of this star theme), I'd appreciate if it were actual chiptune instead of just FL Studio fakebit as it comes off as instead. Consider redoing this theme in a Game Boy tracker program such as Little Sound DJ for an authentic interpretation instead to reduce auditory clash. I could even supply a copy of LSDJ if necessary. But overall, considering most of the music isn't original (as is the case with most fangames, honestly), it's kinda hard to really judge the music for what it is. It fits the levels, yes (sans the castle that plays the Ghost House theme from SML2), but it isn't really original enough for me to form an opinion. |
Replay 7 / 10 |
The game isn't that difficult to pick back up and get back into, but after completion I don't think it's quite the kind of game to keep you willingly coming back. It does hold its own however as an easy to play and replay game. |
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It's an alright game, but it needs a lot of work, spit and polish still before it's the best game it could be. Don't give up! |
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