Scissors 'n Shrimps

51st: Scissors 'n Shrimps Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

Anyone hungry for chopped shrimp?

Overview Creator(s): SpoonyBardOL Composer(s): Yasuaki Fujita Statistics Scores: 66 61 55 52 Total: 58.50 / 100 Rank: 51st Elements: 1 Box Items: Scissascissor Shrimparge 91 Teck Fork Block Strike Man Soccer Ball Enemies: Big Stomper Gabgyo (jump, swim) Lyric Scissascissor Shrimparge 91 Spring Head Teck Gimmicks: Fork Block Strike Man Soccer Ball Sub-Bosses: Lantern Fish Bosses: Cut Man

Theme Music Darkwing Duck - Moliarty's Tower Boss: Darkwing Duck - Boss Stage Order Location: Tier 6 Previous: Wily Station Next: Tesla Coil

Scissors 'n Shrimps is the 51st place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. It is a dam-themed level that, as the name implies, has Scissascissors and Shrimparge 91s as the main two enemies – although ironically, they rarely appear together on the same screen. Another frequent obstacle are Tecks that fire from ceilings, as well as harmful platforms that must be used to move throughout the level.

Strategy

Starting outside the dam, Scissascissors are introduced alongside Fork Blocks, while Spring Heads patrol the ground below, waiting to punish anyone who falls off. In a few spots, Gabgyos jump out of the pools of water below in an effort to bite Mega Man. Beyond a trio of Strike Man Soccer Balls is a water-filled corridor, where Shrimparge 91s begin to chase after Mega Man. The ceilings in this section are lined with lethal spikes, limiting the range of movement to avoid the rocket-powered shrimpbots. If possible, it's recommended to kill them before they get too close. After a battle with a Lantern Fish assisted by a Teck, the checkpoint lies past a screen with Fork Blocks and a Teck, with a small room to the left containing an M-Tank.

The rest of the level is fairly easy to go through, with underwater jumps under spiked ceilings being the only major difficulty spots. Otherwise, most of the enemies are easy to destroy, and even Tecks can be taken out from afar using the Flame Mixer, Rain Flush, or Homing Sniper. Scissascissor ambushes, meanwhile, can be avoided with jumps or slides, or even neutralized completely by a Charge Shot. Towards the end, a pair of spiked soccer balls block the path, but can be bypassed by shooting them, then running under them and jumping before they fall. The last enemy before the boss, Cut Man in an aquatic arena, is a Big Stomper that can be destroyed or evaded at Mega Man's leisure.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 66 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 24 / 35 8 / 15 10 / 10 16 / 25 8 / 15 This is one of those levels that doesn't really do anything majorly wrong. It's extremely functional. That's not necessarily bad, but it doesn't go super far in making something amazing. You know how to do level design and make something that scales well, looks nice, and plays well. It just doesn't go further at all.
PKWeegee  : 61 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 18 / 35 6 / 15 10 / 10 16 / 25 11 / 15 This is a fine example of "good, but not groundbreaking". It presents some fun challenges that, at the end of the day, are kind of mediocre in the big picture of the level. Nothing really stood out, except for some kind of frustrating scissor placement, which was especially magnified by the fact that shooting one half just lets the other one rush at you without stopping. I'd say more, but you didn't really give me much to work with.
M-Jacq  : 55 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 17 / 35 5 / 15 10 / 10 12 / 25 11 / 15 Well, everything here works, more or less. I think this level does a commendable job juggling a wide variety of enemy types while making the level feel like a coherent whole. And they're placed more or less perfectly: there's tells for the Gabyoalls, for instance, and I never felt ambushed by the scissors 'n shrimps. I think some of the Tecks were maybe on the cruel side with their placements? That was probably the only bad thing on the enemy front. Oh, I guess Big Eye came out of nowhere at the end, but that's forgivable, since he kind of always feels out of place. But I wasn't enthused by how many perilous jumps this level had. There's a lot of moments here where I'm like... jeez, that sure is a lot of spiked soccer balls on the floor. Or, gosh, ain't that spiked ceiling on the low side? Things like that bothered me, especially because they usually felt detached from the enemies, except in the aforementioned cases where Tecks were shooting at you while you were trying to do aerobics. To conclude: nice seafood smorgasbord; but I'd maybe sand off some of the spiky bits.
Freems  : 52 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 15 / 35 8 / 15 10 / 10 10 / 25 9 / 15 So many small things about this level that just confuse me. It opens with a tell for the Plant Man fish by using Concrete Man blocks (which ignoring that it's something you're pretty much guaranteed to get hit by the very first time, is alright) but then that just kinda stops appearing early on. Both gimmicks are there and accounted for but sometimes just felt pasted in for the sake of having them there (real winners are when there's a soccer ball to lift you up... when you're underwater so you can just jump out naturally) and boy some of the enemy placement here is just obnoxious. The Tecks can easily be set up in a way where trying to get through buster only is the biggest pain ever and the Scissors have their moments where they're either in a very unfortunate spot causing them to respawn constantly, or in at least one time where one of them isn't even visible til it slaps you right in the face. A lot of weird smaller design choices just kind of bog this own[sic] down. The platforming itself is well and good though. It's just with the lack of interesting use of the gimmick, all you really have to go for is basic underwater platforming and annoying enemy placement which does more harm to the level than good.