Bunker 20XX

35th: Bunker 20XX Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

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Overview Creator(s): Yoshiatom Composer(s): Ukiuki Uribo Statistics Scores: 76 69 41 67 Total: 63.25 / 100 Rank: 35th Elements: 1 Box Items: Darspider Fukuhorn Togehero Quick Lighting Super Cutter Revenge Enemies: Darspider Fukuhorn Hothead Togehero Walking Bomb Gimmicks: Quick Lighting Reflect Block Super Cutter Revenge Bosses: Bomb Man & Toad Man

Theme Music Soldier Blade - Operation 1 Boss: Soldier Blade - Boss 4 Stage Order Location: Tier 8 Previous: Ancient Ziggurat Next: Frozen Lab

Bunker 20XX is the 35th place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. Graphically evocative of Enker's stage, it largely focuses on fighting enemies in a series of narrow winding corridors. At various points, Quick Lighting turns the level dark, save for a few enemies giving off light — which includes the explosions from Walking Bombs. Spikes are often lurking on the floor in the darkness, with only Darspiders and enemy lights as the only reliable means of finding safe ground.

Strategy

Mega Man starts the level with a drop down next to Fukuhorns, before quickly leading into a long enemy-filled corridor. This contains Togeheros that float in from the right side of the screen, Darspiders patrolling the ceilings trying for ambushes from above, and Super Cutter Revenges that can deflect shots meant for other enemies. With how crowded the screen can get, the Rain Flush is useful for quickly clearing away enemies; it can also destroy the Super Cutter Revenges to make avoiding them easier. The Flame Mixer can also be used to defend against Darspiders, as it kills them in one shot, and they can easily drop straight onto it; both the Homing Sniper and Beat can also one-shot them while homing in on them from a distance. Not long afterwards is the first Quick Lighting section, which only has a few Hotheads as a light source in the long winding corridor. Despite the darkness, though, there is only one instant death hazard to watch out for: a pair of spikes directly in front of the second Hothead. Otherwise, the Search Snake is very useful for outlining terrain in the dark, as well as taking out enemies up ahead.

After the halfway mark checkpoint, another enemy-filled corridor needs to be traversed; the Flame Mixer is even more useful here due to a lack of fire-resistant Hotheads that stand in the way. Super Cutter Revenges are located in trickier positions, including a pair next to a set of narrow platforms over spikes, and so keeping an eye on their positions is crucial (unless the Rain Flush is used to destroy them outright). Down another vertical drop is the second and final Quick Lighting corridor, which is significantly harder than the first. There are more spikes hidden in the darkness and almost no light sources to illuminate the path, save for the explosions from a few boxed-in Walking Bombs, which don't last for very long. The only safe platforms over a long bed of spikes are marked out by Darspiders crawling along their undersides. Memorisation and careful movement is vital to making it through in one piece; though it's reasonably short, dying here is very easy to do. The level ends in a battle against Bomb Man and Toad Man simultaneously; since Toad Man's Rain Flush affects the whole screen if left alone, he should be taken down as soon as possible before fighting Bomb Man.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 76 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 28 / 35 10 / 15 10 / 10 18 / 25 10 / 15 Honestly, this level starts out okay, but the longer it goes on the better it gets. The darkness gimmick starts off okay where it's more of a nuisance than anything, but after playing the end of the level I appreciate it way more. The whole level switches between fast and slow, which is a neat feel. Anything with the Super Cutters is fast, since it's most of the time easier to just rush through them, whereas you take the darkness slowly and it works well. It keeps the level from being too slow and boring, or too fast and exhausting. It feels really good to play, and even if the last section is tricky, it feels really rewarding when you pull it off.
PKWeegee  : 69 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 21 / 35 11 / 15 10 / 10 15 / 25 12 / 15 There was some cool stuff going on, especially with the walking grenades in the darkness; more of that would definitely not have hurt the level. Maybe even put the cutters into the darkness; that could have worked. What didn't work, though, were the blind jumps where the only gauge were the spiders on the bottom of the platforms. Maybe I'm just bad, but I had a hard time guessing where to jump.
M-Jacq  : 41 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 9 / 35 8 / 15 10 / 10 4 / 25 10 / 15 This level has an awful lot of enemies. It feels like on every screen, at least three enemy types are being used simultaneously, often without proper introduction beforehand. Now, I'm not a hardliner when it comes to enemy introductions, and I think it's entirely possible to have a good level where assets are used together at the start rather than laboriously introduced one by one. This level does not do a good job at that. It's one thing to, say, have Togeheros wafting by harmless-ish-ly while you're introducing enemies. It's another thing to have Hothead show up over a pit of spikes while you're being chased by a Darspider. Honestly, while it's tempting to say the level's problems are due to "enemy spam" and move on, I think it's much more problematic that so many of the enemy types in this level require space to maneuver in order to avoid getting hit, but more often than not they're placed in spaces with, e.g., low ceilings over spikes, or in tight hallways full of cutters. I've never struggled with Hotheads so much as I have in this level. The level, perversely, seems to get easier towards the end. This is partially because by the time you reach the halfway point you've acclimated to the enemies everywhere; weirdly, though, the two halves of the level feel like mirror images, except that the second half of the level has some screens which are markedly easier than their equivalents in the first half (say, the "staircase" room before the darkness section). And of course, this level that goes ham with enemy placements has a dual boss. Thankfully this is one of the more tolerable setups, using two fairly easy bosses with similar attack strategies. To conclude: this level's very "extra," and probably would have benefited from some restraint.
Freems  : 67 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 21 / 35 10 / 15 10 / 10 15 / 25 11 / 15 The thing about using Quick Man lighting is that you have to reasonably be able to see what's ahead of you for more than half a second at a time. When it's used in Quick Man's stage itself, the only real obstacles are the Hotheads themselves so it's easy to feel your way out if it does get dark for a little too long. Here there are other obstacles and it's never really a puzzle about not killing the Hothead, they're almost always positioned right in your way so the lights are going to go out and you just kinda have to deal with that. Though I did like how later on you started using other means such as the spiders to have a tell where the floor was. Meanwhile, certain rooms felt way too crowded with enemies, the Super Cutters' placements are more obnoxious than anything else, and there's really nothing fun about fighting two bosses in a cramped room. On the bright side, the stage length was healthy and I do appreciate some of the ideas used such as the grenades turning on the lights for a brief moment. Some problems to iron out here and there, but there's definitely a solid foundation here.

Trivia

• In the original release of MaG48HMML, a bug related to setting NPC sprite origins made it possible for the walled-in Walking Bombs in the level's final darkness section to clip out of their confines, depriving the player of a light source and making the level much harder than intended.
• Although not a gimmick in the level itself, Maze Warps are internally used in Bunker 20XX's room file to connect multiple disconnected segments together as a space/time-saving measure.