Mega Man Saves Canada from the Evil Clutches of

75th: Mega Man Saves Canada from the Evil Clutches of Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

Bet ya were expectin' an ice level, eh?

Overview Creator(s): MiniMacro Composer(s): MiniMacro, Ludwig Van Beethoven (originals) Unknown Remixer (cover) Statistics Scores: 27 63 50 59 Total: 49.75 / 100 Rank: 75th Elements: 1 Box Items: Butterdroid Metall EX Okosutobon Blade Man Seesaw Daidine Enemies: Butterdroid Diarn Metall EX Okosutobon Gimmicks: Blade Man Seesaw Daidine Key Barrier Bosses: The City of St. Petersburg

Theme Music Stage 1 Element: Ode to Joy Stage Order Location: Tier 4 Previous: Stormy Tower Next: Gettin' Out Of Dogecity

"Sometimes I wish Canada was real..."

―The City of St. Petersburg

Mega Man Saves Canada from the Evil Clutches of is the 75th place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. The level is set in a (presumably Canadian) hydroelectric plant filled with a number of platforming setups (many of which were noted as "feeling unfinished") based around Daidines and Blade Man Seesaws, as well as many Okosutobons that have to be avoided. It is also notable for its memorably esoteric ending.

Strategy

Right from the start, going left leads to a surprise: a Diarn that drops an E-Tank when destroyed. The Diarn and its payload both respawn when scrolled offscreen, making it convenient for farming E-Tanks. After a couple of screens with some Daidines and Butterdroids (including a Butterdroid that spawns a Daidine when killed), you'll come across a pit with a large Life Energy in front of a cluster of Okosutobons. Dropping down the pit lands Mega Man on one end of a Blade Man Seesaw. You can continue jumping on the seesaw to reach the ledge on the right to progress, or let it reset and ride it to the beginning of its track on the far left to pick up another E-Tank (just in case you need one) along with a Daidine that will take Mega Man back to the right. Further up ahead is a complex platforming section of Daidines and seesaws that, unfortunately, doesn't serve much of a purpose as most of this section can be skipped by jumping down in the right spot, into a spike drop lined with many Okosutobons.

At the bottom of the drop is an underwater section and, progressing to the left, a Key Barrier you'll have to find the key to to get past. Shoot down the enemies ahead of you, jump to the first seesaw over the spike pit, then immediately jump to the second. Hop on the seesaws other platform to activate it, then let it reset to the left. Jump to the third vertical seesaw and quickly shoot the Metall EX on the platform by the ladder, then jump to it to climb out of the water temporarily. You'll see a second Key Barrier in the room above, but for now hop on the Daidine in front of you to ride over the corridor and the Okosutobons in it to grab the key for the first barrier, and you'll be deposited right in front of it. Unlock the barrier and climb up, then ride the Daidine over to the waterway above the corridor from before. Get rid of the Okosutobon by shooting them one at a time and dodging them until they explode, then kill the Metall EX in front of you for the key to the second barrier.

Past the next checkpoint, you can head to the left to progress, or drop down the pit on to an alternate path: a system of Daidines above a spike pit that eventually leads to yet another E-Tank, this one guarded by another Metall EX on a ledge. After grabbing it, leap to the ladders and climb up to return to the main path. The final challenge of the level requires you to platform across several Blade Man seesaws to climb a short vertical shaft. This can be somewhat tricky as the second and third seesaws' platforms can overlap, making it difficult to land on the one needed to move the seesaw along, as well as the row of spikes in the middle forcing you to control your jump height. Once you're past it, shoot the Butterdroid while riding the Daidines to the next vertical seesaws, then keep ascending the shaft until you're at the top. Destroy the Butterdroid here to make another Daidine spawn, then head into the next room and ride one last Daidine over the spikes and the large nest of Okosutobons, then get ready to defend the Great White North from the menace of...

...yep.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 27 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 8 / 35 4 / 15 5 / 10 4 / 25 6 / 15 The geometry of this level just doesn't make sense to me. There are so many skips and pointless side paths that make no sense. For example, before the first main vertical room, you can skip a really simple room by going to the right before you go up to enter the same room maybe 5 tiles above. Same deal after the later checkpoint, you can skip a room if you just go to the left instead of down to the left and up. I just don't understand this whole level. There are legitimate challenges, so it isn’t a troll level, but I do not understand most of the decisions when it came to making this, or the boss at the end, or the hidden music. What the hell?
PKWeegee  : 63 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 20 / 35 9 / 15 8 / 10 16 / 25 10 / 15 Aside from the Butterdroids that spawned the Spinning Platform when defeated, and a few super-fast Spinning Platforms, not much really stands out in this level. It would have been cool to see more usage from that Butterdroid idea, and it would have given the level a lot of creative opportunities. As it is, there’s nothing fundamentally bad or broken about it, except for the first key door, which you can just jump over, making the first key useless. Also, there was one ladder that you can’t go back down on, as it acts as a pit. Nothing too bad, but it’s still there. The ending...confused me. It’s probably some reference I’m not getting, but it left me confused, and wishing for an actual boss battle. One big question still lingers though...if you die in this stage, do you die in real life?
M-Jacq  : 50 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 11 / 35 12 / 15 5 / 10 11 / 25 11 / 15 This is a very Canadian level - spacious, low-key, and kind to a fault. Honestly, though, it's that very kindness that makes me think less of the level, because it feels like most of the level discourages effort. For instance, after you fall on the first seesaw, you're rewarded with an E-tank for not progressing. The section where you move downwards on the seesaw is easy to skip with a blind jump. Rather than get the first key legit, you can hop out of bounds and over onto the ladder (which got this level a big functionality dock, incidentally). The boss fight is a literal joke, albeit an admirably restrained one. This isn't offensively bad by any stretch - some of the seesaw setups towards the end are fun, for instance - but the entire level felt like it was hedging. "Here's a platforming challenge you can do if you want. Or you can, like, not do it. Whatever floats your boat, uwu." I suspect a lot of people will appreciate the level for that; me, I found myself wishing you'd been a little more assertive.
Freems  : 59 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 20 / 35 8 / 15 7 / 10 14 / 25 10 / 15 Baffling ending aside, there were definitely a few oddities with that level. It was overall put together well, but just a few things were not thought through completely. For example, the long vertical screen with a bunch of seesaws and spinning platforms taking you down is nice in theory, but most of that screen can just be ignored by, well, dropping down. The other vertical screen doesn't share that problem as you're going up, but man is falling down annoying as a result. The usage of keys was also just strange considering it really didn't add much to the level at all. It was just a weird way of splitting a room in half, and then making sure that you do absolutely kill this one random Met. The spinning platforms speed being so all over the place from platform to platform can also easily mess someone up when it's their first time playing through the level. That and for some strange reason, in one room (where it was nothing but spinning platforms and a large bed of spikes on the ground) one of the platforms just didn't spawn properly. You can guess how well that ended up. There are definitely good ideas going on here, it's just that not every idea exactly worked in execution.

Trivia

• At nine words and 39 characters, this level has the longest stage name in MaG48HMML, and the third-longest in any MaGMML game (only beaten by Make a Good Mega Man Level 2's But It Lacked the Depth to Convince Me That This is Really Hell and Quirky Unconsistent Incomprehensible Nonsensical Track, respectively).
• The flowing water in the level was animated much faster in the original version of the game. Version 1.1 would slow it down a tad due to complaints about the speed of the animation being hard on the eyes.
• The screen transition from the ladder beneath the second Key Barrier is mistakenly flagged as one-way, so trying to climb down the ladder again is treated as falling into a bottomless pit.
  • It is possible to skip past both Key Barriers by jumping off this ladder to the left. This will put you on the next screen and trigger the checkpoint, but will also trap you beneath the level geometry and force you to respawn, making it unideal for speed runs.
• Both the portrait of The City of St. Petersburg and the music that plays just before the Energy Element come from the main menu of the Russian Dendy game Lines.