Forgotten Fortress

59th : Forgotten Fortress Make a Good Mega Man Level 2

That skip teleporter is here for a reason...

Overview Creator(s): BBLIR Artist(s): BBLIR Composer(s): Deathro, Takashi Tateishi (originals) RushJet1 (cover) Statistics Scores: 14 35 14 36 19 Total: 23.6 / 50 Rank: 59th Elements: 1 Collectables: Enemies: Baby Metall Big Eye Bolton and Nutton Bomb Thrown Crazy Cannon Curlinger Drillun Fatool Flying Shell Jumbig Mega Met Metall Metall Dance Metall Mommy Neo Metall New Shield Attacker New Shotman Petit Devil (green, yellow) Picket Man Returning Sniper Joe Ring Ring Sniper Armor Spine Telly Telly XL Up'n'Down Gimmicks: Acid Drop Auto Scroller Block Train Bouncy Tile Building Platform Concrete Platform Conveyor (MM2) Cossack Platform Count Bomb Crash Lift Destroyable Block (Jewel Satellite) Drop Platform Falling Platform (MM5) Guts Lift Gravity Change Gravity Flip Key Barrier Lever Plantman Platform Pole Egg Quick Laser (drain) Reflect Block Sheep Block Sparkman Platform Yoku Block Sub-Bosses: Gangly Crash Man Other Information: Skippable snoruntpyro's least favorite

Theme Music Mega Man Infamous Intent - Famous Stage 4 Gangly Crash Man: Mega Man 2 - Crash Man Stage Order Location: Tier 3 Previous: Candy Panic Next: Alien Temple

"There is one absolutely massive flaw in this level in that it has literally no idea what it's doing."

―snoruntpyro, summing it up perfectly.

Forgotten Fortress is the 59th place level in Make a Good Mega Man Level 2. It is a large, maze-like level with multiple paths to explore, each one often branching off into another path. Although only one path is needed to get to the level's end, each path has a Noble Nickel hidden within it, thus collecting all of them requires a lot of backtracking. Fortunately, the final screen contains a key and a one-way teleporter to the beginning of the level; taking both unlocks a hub with teleporters leading to each individual path, making it easier (though still time-consuming) to hunt down the Noble Nickels within the labyrinth.

Forgotten Fortress is also where the Beck costume can be unlocked; to do so, Mega Man must find a developer room hidden within the level, at which point the costume becomes available for purchase.

Strategy

Click here for the map, here for a playthrough and here for the post-100% map. The stage has a total of five paths. First off, the Purple Path, which is accesed by going one screen right and going down in the first path split, more specifically, in the room with the two Metalls and Building Platforms. This path does not split up further and does not connect to the other paths until the very end (the room below the Wily statues). There lies a Noble Nickel at the end of this path. Then the Blue Path, which is accesed by going right in the first path split, above the two Mets and Building Platforms.

Choose here.

This path splits up into the Primary and Secondary Blue Path. The split is right after the pit with Up'n'Downs and Building Platforms. The player can go down, to the Primary Blue path or right, to the Secondary Blue path. The Primary Blue path can also be accesed through the Purple Path, if you slide right instead of jumping down. The Secondary Blue Path contains a Noble Nickel (can also be accesed via the Orange Path, more on that later) and the Primary Blue Path contains a hidden Yashichi.

Hm...

The third possible path is the Orange Path. This path also splits into a primary and secondary path. It is accesed by going left where going right would take you to the Blue Path. The path splits after the Up'n'Downs and M-Tank. Going right takes you to the Primary Orange Path and going down to the Secondary Orange Path. The Secondary Orange Path ends with a hidden Yashichi and a chance to get the Noble Nickel at the end of the Secondary Blue Path. The Blue and Orange paths connect and take you to a Quick Laser section, where the Gangly Crash Man fight and The Lab can be found. Both contain Noble Nickels, and the Lab Nickel is hidden under a Jewel Satellite Block. Gangly Crash Man's fight is the same as regular Crash Man, but with a bigger hitbox, slightly different weaknesses, and a two-screen wide room. The stage ends with a set of Wily statues, the giant one in the center holding a ? Can in each hand. The one to the right contains Mega Met, the "boss" of the level, and the one to the left contains the level's Energy Element.

Let's take this to the start...

If you ignore it, you can go right to get a key and go left to a teleporter that takes you to the beginning of the stage, where going left takes you to the teleporter that takes you to the teleporter room. This room has teleporters that take you to the paths. This allows for a run where one can get all the items in one run.

Go left and you go to infinity.

If you're a speedrunner, you're in luck too. There is a shortcut. The Lab has a teleporter that, like sliding left in the room with the Crash Lift + 2.0 gravity combo, takes you to the Dev room, containing all but one NPCs. The last NPC is a Wily Statue at the end.

I wonder what will happen if I slide left...

A speedrunner can go to the devroom, teleport to the Lab and finish the level from that. It should also be noted that the Primary Blue Path has an exellent grinding spot for Bolts.

BOLT YOU SHOP!

Skip Status

The judges deemed Forgotten Fortress skippable due to the level's absurd size and length; particularly with the amount of alternate paths and secrets, and the large time investment needed to find all of them even with the fast travel system.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
snoruntpyro  : 14 / 50
Design Fun Creativity Aesthetics Functionality Skip Teleporter? 3 / 15 1 / 10 5 / 15 3 / 5 2 / 5 Yes Oh wow. Um. Wow. This is pretty awful. There is one absolutely massive flaw in this level in that it has literally no idea what it's doing. Virtually every gimmick in the engine appears at some point (or at least it feels like it), and the level is so insanely unfocused that I don't even know what to think of it besides 'it's really messy'. None of the gimmicks are ever focused on or used well, and they constantly just fly in and out of existence. Nonsensical design is everywhere, like an excruciatingly long autoscroll with a black background and almost no enemies (but plenty of Knight Man bouncers), a random section where there's a block train that seems to want to crush you but you can blow past it before it gets close to you, and asinine amounts of split paths. The latter is what utterly kills the level for me. Everything sprawl everywhere in every direction you can think of and it makes it completely impossible to have a sense of where you are at all, and this is amplified by the utter lack of focus. It took me over an hour to slog through the entire thing and get the energy element and all four noble nickels, and it was an incredibly unpleasent and absolutely boring experience. And on top of that there's a bajillion weird secrets too, like some room with a ton of NPCs and a bonus fight with a strangely drawn Crash Man with actually a kind of creative arena but not really. This level is just a giant mess and I did not enjoy it in the slightest.
JupiHornet  : 35 / 50
Design Fun Creativity Aesthetics Functionality 10 / 15 7 / 10 14 / 15 3 / 5 1 / 5 I really enjoyed the nice platforming challenges this level provided. There were so many different gimmicks used in this stage, and they were all used so well! The best part for me was the Force Beam section, because there were clear outlines showing where the force beams were. THIS is how you make a challenging level without having it be exceedingly difficult. My main issue was that the level lagged. A lot. It wasn't game-breaking, but it did make some parts the stage pretty annoying. Also, the Crash Man fight...what even was that?
Enjl  : 14 / 50
Design Fun Creativity Aesthetics Functionality Skip Teleporter? 6 / 15 0 / 10 6 / 15 1 / 5 1 / 5 Yes I tried my best to like this level, but unfortunately, the heavy lag I had when playing through it made this pretty much impossible. Couple that with the maze-like structure of the level and playing it felt more like a chore than a fun experience. Which is a shame. This level has ideas that it proposes and it has a lot to offer. Maybe even to the point where it becomes too much. The confusing layout of the level made me lose all sense of direction and even after several playthroughs I wasn't able to build a cognitive map of the level. When I got to the ending room the first time I picked up the key and completely missed the exit. Heading back to the door I thought the level only just now got started, and while somewhat scared I was also excited to look through the level in order to find Crash Man, who I assumed would hold the Energy Element. Sadly, Crash Man's room is a mess and getting to him didn't feel very rewarding. I eventually found the energy element on my third visit to the end room. On a more general note, the level doesn't do a very good job at ramping up its difficulty or maintaining any kind of consistency. This level has everything, but doesn't really play around with anything, which is a shame.
Garirry  : 36 / 50
Design Fun Creativity Aesthetics Functionality 10 / 15 6 / 10 11 / 15 5 / 5 4 / 5 Not excellent. The problem isn't really the level design itself, it's that the multiple paths concept was executed pretty badly and getting the Noble Nickels is really annoying The stage itself is fun. But it gets annoying when you play it over and over again in order to find all the paths and get the NN. I liked the concepts here. Nothing too interesting but it's good. Great. Works well, but has a few deadly bugs. This is a complicated one to review. Generally, it's good; the level design is mostly solid and it's pretty fun to play through the first time. However, this level splits into so many paths it becomes hard to even replay the stage without feeling annoyed at repeating the same section again. This is especially a problem if you're trying to get the Noble Nickels, which are scattered around the whole level, so getting them is a pain. Otherwise, it's a good stage. Ideas are interesting and the level's graphics and music are good.
ACESpark  : 19 / 50
Design Fun Creativity Aesthetics Functionality Skip Teleporter? 8 / 15 0 / 10 4 / 15 3 / 5 4 / 5 Yes There comes a point... where you need to stop. This was a slog. I had so little fun playing this stage I wanted to quit part way through. So, I'm going to get the positive out of the way first: Your original assets are well drawn (although the colour scheme is absolutely garish), and your opening area was great! Good conveyance, good design, really well thought out. And then I got to the second area. And the third. And the fourth and then... Why. I know there is a lot in the dev kit but you didn't need to use... Every. Single. Sodding. Gimmick. Later on in the stage, you seemed to stop thinking and did the bare minimum required to implement a segment. In all fairness, there is nothing wrong with any of these rooms aside from how easy they are (this is actually to your stage's benefit believe me.), and a lot of these areas, introduce themselves well. Pick a gimmick, pick a second gimmick, maybe a third, and stick to them. Start doing clever stuff with them and maybe this would work. Everything in the dev kit though? Blerugh. You have the makings of a good designer - just scale back next time! This, wasn't fun. Finally: Poor Crash Man. I'm not sure what good making him so gangly was, but it didn't help matters.

Trivia

• At 114 total screens, Forgotten Fortress is the second-largest MaGMML2 entry, right behind Escape Sequence (which has four more screens).
• There is an inaccessible room near the beginning containing a Proto Man NPC. If talked to, he says, "HOW DID YOU GET HERE!?!?!?!?!?".

An inaccessible screen with Proto Man inside it.

• Forgotten Fortress went through six different versions during development; the very first version was only 87 screens long, but lacked the various path splits, and had fewer checkpoints, no devroom, and a Frost Sled section that is absent in the final level. The teleporter hub and Gangly Crash Man were only added with the level's sixth and final revision.
• Following MaGMML2's release, BBLIR created and released a revised version of Forgotten Fortress in response to the judge comments. Though the download link has since gone offline, footage of this revision exists on BBLIR's YouTube.
• The devroom contains multiple references:
  • The Flash Man statue references Flashman85, who playtested the level and suggested the unlockable fast-travel teleporter room at the start.
  • Mr. Bleh originates from an unfinished Rockman 7 FC character swap.
  • The Zap Met originates from the cancelled Mega Man X: Y.
• The Energy Element is inside a ? Can because of a devkit bug afflicting the Energy Element pickup, where it would fly offscreen at high speeds and become unreachable, softlocking the player.