Review Information
Game Reviewed Super Mario Flashback - DEMO 2, by Mors
Review Author DJ Coco
Created Apr 2 2016, 5:12 PM

General Commentary and Game Overview
Another Flashback Demo? Well, I gotta take a look at this. After all, all the teasing screenshots over at the forums really got me interested in this game, as it looked really promising. Just how good is it really so far?
 
Pros + Silky smooth controls
+ Lots of graphical effects
+ Nice new sprites
+ Cool music remixes
+ Occassionally good level design...¹
+ Polished UI
 
Cons - Tons of bugs
- Questionable design choices
- ¹...but also sometimes weak level design
- Unskippable cutscenes
- Knockback
 
Impressions
Gameplay
7 / 10
The gameplay is great, for the most part. Mario controls really well and has moves most other fangames are missing. However, walljumping sometimes feels a bit awkward, as I feel like Mario clings onto walls I didn't want to cling onto. I'm also not a big fan of forced walljumps above pits. Another issue is the knockback. I can understand the creator trying to make the game more challenging that way, but let's just say, I don't like it personally. It doesn't really add challenge, just frustration.

The level design is occassionally pretty good, especially in the first world. However, there are quite some questionable design choices. The most obvious one is the final part of Mission 2-3 where you navigate past the pipe that lead to the cavern in the previous levels. Afterwards, you have to perform some pretty pixel-perfect walljumps to get back if you wasted all of the throwable blocks. Then there's the gaping pit with a single pipe you have to jump onto with a piranha plant in it. If it hits you, it's game over because it knocks you into the pit. A bit harsh for the second world in the game. I also noticed various coins in the sky that lead me to believe there were invisible blocks to get to them, but apparently not. My guess is you can somehow obtain them by runjumping, but it's just odd design to me. Aside from level design, it should also be noted fireballs can jump over enemies - not sure if intentional, but it sure is annoying. The lakitu race also was way too hard for a first world.

Let's go back to World 2-3 for a second for another good example of questionable design. There was a piranha plant looking different from the rest - I approached it with caution just to find out it was an NPC you could talk to. Talking to it, it told me to find three berries and dispose of them, not explaining how though. Later in the level I found more plants looking identical to the NPC. My first though: Give the berries to them! As I wanted to talk to it, I got hurt - I couldn't interact with it. My only clue was that his mouth was more rapidly moving than the first piranha plant's, but that could've just meant it was more hungry. If I had approached it with caution, I could've seen you can't talk to it before getting hurt, but given the similar appearance I expected it to be an NPC as well. Aside from not being able to talk to it, I also couldn't feed the berry to it. The plant was also stationary and easy to avoid as an obstacle, so that raises the question: Why is it there to begin with? I couldn't find another way to dispose of the berries, so I just tossed them in a pit. Nothing happened; no sound or anything signaling I was doing something right, so I had no idea whether that was what I was supposed to do. I could never find the third berry either, so I eventually gave up.

Then there's the tons of glitches. There's minor ones like the clipping and occassional jittering in the HUD, or the pause menu refusing to let you change the option. What I believe to be a rounding error when it comes to HUD drawing doesn't stay in the HUD though - because sometimes when Mario runs into a wall he'll warp right on top of it. Sometimes Mario also can't seem to groundpound all of the spin blocks below him - I groundpounded two spin blocks - one was already spinning, the other remained solid. These are still pretty minor bugs, but when I ran into a spiny in shallow waters while holding a throwable block I got thrown an error message that abruptly ended the game without saving. That's a tad more gamebreaking. Perhaps some more testing would've been nice.

Also, if I may make a suggestion, the piranha plants in the SMW level should jump.
 
Graphics
9 / 10
The graphics are great. It's a mix of custom graphics, edits and rips, and overall it all blends together really nicely. The plenty of little graphical touches like smoke particles, groundpounding effects, butterflies, etc. all really help the world feel more alive. The UI also is really polished visually and nice to look at. Overall, it's a really good looking game.

It's not the prettiest on the site, granted, as there's some minor clash, some particles look a bit cheap and the HD doesn't go too well with pixelated art, but it doesn't matter in the slightest. It's gorgeous.
 
Sound
10 / 10
The music consists of known themes from the Mario series exclusively remixed for this game as far as I know. The remixes all sound very nice. The various sound effects are all great either. They're all high quality and there's plenty of them. Mario's also got a voice, but thankfully it's not as annoying as you might've thought it was.
 
Replay
7 / 10
It's a demo, there's not really much replay value yet.

There's the green stars you can collect, but they don't unlock anything yet, so I can't really label them as something that would grant this demo replay value.

However, I could see the final version of this game being worth a second playthrough.
 
Final Words
7 / 10
A mixed bag when it comes to polish, but a very promising demo nonetheless. If the creator fixes all the bad stuff, this could turn out to be one of MFGG's best games.

Comments
User Icon
Mors
Apr 3 2016, 2:17 PM
Hmm so the main problem is 2-3 huh? Well, it's actually made in 2 days, and kind of rushed. When I decided to release the demo 2-3 was only half complete and I had 5 days left. As you see, I had to rush that level and leave some bugs in. And when I got testers, none of them bothered to play until 2-3 (Except Blu, but he thought one of the glitches prevented him from finishing 2-1. Don't worry its already fixed.). I was already planning to release a bug fix update soon, so I guess I should redesign 2-3 on that update as well.

Also, I would like to learn what's clashing in the game, and which particles look cheap. I'm not aiming for perfection, since that's not possible, but I always want to make everything better as much as I can.

Seriously, you can't believe how helpful this review is.
 
User Icon
DJ Coco
Apr 3 2016, 2:44 PM
I'm glad my review is helpful. I'm afraid I might've been coming across as harsh, but I just want to provide useful feedback, because I think this game has great potential.

The clash is really minor - it's mostly the SMW backgrounds look a tad out of place, especially the very pillow-shaded cave background. And as mentioned in the review, the menu combines really HD-like visuals with pixelated stuff which is mildly jarring. The particle I meant for instance is the one when you grab a mushroom, that circle effect is one of GM's standard particles if I recall and it looks a bit out of place too, because other particles like the smoke are pixelated. Really though, the graphics are not really in need of fixing; it was just something I wanted to point out to justify the not-quite-perfect score.

I'm looking forward to the bug fix update. 2-3 has a neat concept, but its execution so far does indeed feel rushed. With the design issues addressed, this could be really good.
 
No Icon
BlimpFruit
Apr 3 2016, 7:22 PM
"I also noticed various coins in the sky that lead me to believe there were invisible blocks to get to them, but apparently not. My guess is you can somehow obtain them by runjumping, but it's just odd design to me."

Those coins can be obtained by throwing a block up at them.
 
User Icon
DJ Coco
Apr 3 2016, 7:38 PM
Quote (BlimpFruit on Apr 3 2016, 8:22 PM)
"I also noticed various coins in the sky that lead me to believe there were invisible blocks to get to them, but apparently not. My guess is you can somehow obtain them by runjumping, but it's just odd design to me."

Those coins can be obtained by throwing a block up at them.
Ah, I didn't try that. I noticed throwing up things into spinning blocks doesn't make them spin, so I didn't think tossing blocks into coins would collect them.
 
No Icon
radgamer
Jun 29 2016, 1:13 PM
How to win 2-3?
 
Pages: (1) 1 | Last Unread