Seahorse City

55th: Seahorse City Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Overview Creator(s): Cresh Artist(s): Cresh Composer(s): Kinuyo Yamashita Statistics Scores: 80 48 50 51 Total: 57.25 / 100 Rank: 55th Elements: 1 Box Items: Big Eye Dompan Wander Bell Needle Press Oil Slick Enemies: Big Eye Dompan Wander Bell Gimmicks: Needle Press Oil Slick Bosses: Toxic Seahorse?

Theme Music Mega Man X3 - Toxic Seahorse Boss: Mega Man X3 - Boss Stage Order Location: Tier 6 Previous: Orbital Assault Next: Combustible Alien Variable Events

"Toxic Seahorse is the greatest being to grace this plane of existence"

―Cresh

Seahorse City is the 55th place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. A midnight city-themed level, its major gimmick is frequent blackouts that cover the level in darkness, with a Dompan's fireworks as the only way to dispel them. Oil Slicks frequently cover the ground, and while they limit Mega Man's movement, they remain visible during a blackout, making them useful indicators for solid ground whenever a blackout occurs.

Strategy

Buying the Beat Rescue upgrade from Deleuze Pipi before attempting the stage is advised, thanks to the likelihood of falling into a pit while a blackout is in effect. As a general rule, the Search Snake can be very useful as a guide to finding solid terrain during a blackout. Waiting for a short while will cause the terrain to be visible for a brief moment, allowing Mega Man to regain his bearings.

The level begins with an introduction to the blackout gimmick (and Dompan's ability to dispel it), before also introducing Oil Slicks and Needle Presses. To move across the oil without slipping, move forwards only after jumping and while the Needle Press is retracting into the ground. Reskinned Wander Bells and Big Eyes make their debut in the next section as another blackout hits. If possible, try not to kill the former as they can denote the edges of a platform and where a pit is. Beyond the first checkpoint are a series of oil-covered floors in a blackout; the Flame Mixer can burn the oil and allow Mega Man to walk normally, but this makes the ground impossible to see in the dark. Alternatively, the Rush Jet or Concrete Shot can also be used to avoid standing on the oil.

After a single screen with a Dompan shielded by two Needle Presses is a single screen with a Big Eye and a Wander Bell. Jump before reaching the other side of the screen, as the darkness obscures a ledge next to a one-tile wide gap. In the next screen, try again to keep the Wander Bells alive to see each platforms' edges, and in the screen after that, look for a ladder close by the bottom-most Oil Slick; going all the way to the right will lead to a pit. The same trick is played after another checkpoint, with a ladder in the middle leading upwards while a pit punishes those who keep going right. After dodging some Big Eyes, the last area before the boss is comparatively well-lit, and mostly centres on avoiding Needle Presses and a final Big Eye, though a blackout spawns before the end to complicate things a little. Fortunately, Eddie appears in the boss corridor with some fireworks, getting rid of the blackout before fighting the true and honest Toxic Seahorse.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 80 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 31 / 35 10 / 15 10 / 10 20 / 25 9 / 15 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. This level really shows the issue of the box system. You got a really awful gimmick. I don't think this is a great box. BUT, you made it work. PU Oil gets obnoxious super super fast, but throughout this whole level I never felt like it was used unfairly. When mixing it with the Big Eye it was a threatening challenge, but still in the realm of reasonable. Also putting more focus on mixing the dark gimmick with the oil, rather than mixing the oil and needles, was a good choice. They go much better together. Your checkpoint placement was also on point. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
PKWeegee  : 48 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 13 / 35 11 / 15 10 / 10 6 / 25 8 / 15 TOXIC SEAHORSE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. OK, now that that's out of the way...I didn't like this level. Pairing darkness with the annoying Powered Up oil spells annoying. The oil in itself is already tedious, even more so in this engine compared to Powered Up, since falling on your butt pushes you back here. Granted, you pretty much always put something in place to let me see where a pit was, but my brain is the size of a pea, and if I kill an enemy, I may not remember it anymore. But that's my own problem. All in all, I can say...WOOOOOOO!
M-Jacq  : 50 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 15 / 35 7 / 15 10 / 10 8 / 25 10 / 15 Here we have a level that provides an elegant answer to the wrong question. Yes, it's very cool that there's all sorts of ways for the player to figure out where the platforms' edges are when the level is thrust into darkness - loose oil, enemies walking back and forth, etc. This level doesn't have problems when it comes to conveying where to go, even in total darkness. The real problem is, instead of asking "how do I make the level layout visible when the stage goes dark," you should have answered the real question: "why does the stage go dark?" I mean, we're outdoors with a full moon in the background. Why do we need Dompan to brighten up the space when there's a perfectly good light source just chilling there in the sky? That's the problem with this level: I just don't think the central gimmick is justified. The other problem with the darkness in this level is that despite all the enemies put there to illuminate your path, there's still no way to figure out where the ladders are in this level without just groping in the dark. But again, that just makes me wonder why the darkness gimmick needed to be here in the first place. Maybe if you had Watton present to go along with the Dompan it'd make more sense? I'm skeptical. Still, I gotta hand it to you: this level gets an A in conveyance. It just suffers elsewhere.
Freems  : 51 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 15 / 35 6 / 15 10 / 10 12 / 25 8 / 15 I'm so interested in why so much of this level was in the dark. I suppose a part of that has to do with the inclusion of Dompan, but more dark rooms than not didn't even rely on Dompan's inclusion, instead using other enemies or the other gimmicks as a way to tell where the ground is which is... alright. It's just strange to me that the darkness felt more prominent than any of the other box gimmicks, and the enemy tied to the darkness gimmick in the first place wasn't even around most of the time. Now that I'm done playing 48hour[sic] police, let's look at the rest. The Big Eye resprite was cute and despite how weird the whole darkness thing felt, it was never awful. I do feel like there were a few times where there wasn't enough telegraphing where the ground was located, and the level would just plop you in a dark room, give you a brief 2 second flash of light as you enter and say, "go nuts". A few more indicators of where to go (or more creative use of Dompan so turning back on the lights is a bit of a challenge) could have done the trick. But overall, it certainly wasn't a bad time.

Trivia

• Prior to and during MaG48HMML's submission period, Toxic Seahorse and his stage music was an inside joke on the MaGMML3 Discord server associated with Cresh.
• The blackouts are created from custom spawners creating the same blackout effect that 100 Watton uses.
• The boss was originally intended to be Oil Man reskinned into Toxic Seahorse, but the tight 48 hour deadline meant the sprites weren't finished, resulting in Dark Man 4 with a Toxic Seahorse disguise as a substitute.