Review Information
Game Reviewed Super Mario Broz. Lost 2, by JomasterII
Review Author Guinea
Created Mar 17 2014, 11:33 AM

General Commentary and Game Overview
I haven't written a review in a while, but I also haven't played a fangame in a while that is so blatantly bad, but bad on purpose. So this is going to be an interesting task.
 
Pros - Really captures the spirit of the beginnings of fangames
- Creative, in a way
 
Cons - Bugs
- Glitches
- Bad collision
- Clashing graphics
- Bad quality music
 
Impressions
Gameplay
5 / 10
It's a standard platforming game you control with your arrow keys. The physics aren't particularly refined, you can get stuck in the ground and need to jump to free yourself. Enemy hitboxes are a bit off, and there is one part in the 2nd level where a trail of coins lures you into a death trap. The levels just randomly end and you win by jumping down into the nothingness that lies beyond.
The camera doesn't move until you're almost at the edge so you can't look ahead far enough, especially in the 2nd level.
Still there is a quite large variety of enemies and this weird oldschool fangaming vibe about it that just makes it all work.

So how do I evaluate this? I think you need to know exactly what you're doing to recreate this kind of terrible gameplay with such great accuracy, but at the same time it's simply bad and it would feel wrong to give it a high score. So let's go with a 5.
 
Graphics
5 / 10
They clash, the tiles tear, they're badly resized. The view is larger in the second level than the first, there are invisible floors you can fall through, and there isn't really any eye candy in this either.

Very reminiscent of the games we had 10+ years ago.
 
Sound
4 / 10
Bad quality music, there's not much to say here. Again reflects the "good" old times.
 
Replay
1 / 10
Once you completed these 2 levels of the demo you saw everything there is to see.
 
Final Words
6 / 10
This game is bad in a good way. Because it shows that the author knows what he's doing, applying a lot of the tropes that made the old broken games what they were, and at the same time showing hints of creativity.

It is a nice proof of concept. A full game based on this idea could indeed be very fun to play, especially for those who have played the older games that inspired this one.

A recommendation though: if you're already trying to recapture all the bad things about old fangames, also try to recapture all the good things about them, one of which is originality. If you're not tied to any quality standards, you can do some really interesting and unexpected things.

Good luck.

Comments
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Ryan Silberman
Mar 20 2014, 3:39 AM
But...What older games have had the issues that were implemented into this parody? I think the game is going for different groups of problems.
 
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