Super Pipe World

25th: Super Pipe World Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

This is the last time Mega Man offers to fix a clogged drain.

Overview Creator(s): Zatsupachi Composer(s): Koji Kondo, Hirokazu Tanaka, Kazuki Muraoka Statistics Scores: 75 77 68 49 Total: 67.25 / 100 Rank: 25th Elements: 1 Box Items: Molier Petit Devil Shadow Clone Top Lift Wave Man Warp Enemies: Molier Petit Devil (green, yellow) Shadow Clone Gimmicks: Dustman Block Top Lift Wave Man Warp Bosses: Quick Man Duo Other Information: 16 Minutes Late Weapons disabled (Rush Coil, Rush Jet)

Theme Music Part 1: Super Mario Bros. 3 - Overworld Part 2: Metroid - Silence Part 3: Super Mario Bros. 3 - Underground Boss: Metal Gear (NES) - Alert Stage Order Location: Tier 9 Previous: Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmoon Base Next: Central Computer

Super Pipe World is the 25th place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. As is seemingly MaGMML tradition, it is the game's obligatory Super Mario Bros. reference level. However, unlike previous Mario reference levels, it goes for a primarily underground-themed aesthetic, and is specifically based on Pipe Land from Super Mario Bros. 3. This includes Warp Pipes that use Wave Man Warps to move Mega Man around, with the second half of the level featuring a giant maze of pipes to navigate. Other hallmarks of the stage are Top Lifts that travel upwards, and sprite-swapped Dustman Blocks that look like the shimmering Brick Blocks from Super Mario Bros. 3.

Strategy

After a trip down a long Warp Pipe (passing by many sights such as Samus on an elevator), Mega Man enters an underground area with free vertical scrolling and a network of pipes that can take him further upwards. Pipes that can be travelled through have an arrow inscribed on their entrance, and each of them are one-way. In between the pipes are grey rectangles with a blue border; touching one of these will cause a Shadow Clone to appear and start chasing Mega Man down. One pipe leading upwards is blocked off by a number of bricks, but by shooting them out of the way, it can be travelled through, leading to a high shelf with an E-Tank and an M-Tank; this room also contains a checkpoint. The next few sections take place in a wooden area that uses Top Lifts as elevators, and their spawn points are clearly marked in the background. They appear without warning, however, so jumping onto them can be tricky. One jump of note occurs on a slow-moving Top Lift (from the previous room), in an area with Top Lifts quickly rising up from a spiked floor. Because the level disables the Rush Jet, timing this jump successfully is rather difficult without using the Concrete Shot as a brief safety net. The weapon can also be used to reach a W-Tank on the other side of the spawner, but it largely isn't worth the effort.

The summit of the Top Lift climb leads to another checkpoint, which itself leads into a wide open area, with a large maze of pipes taking up most of the space. This maze can be a little tricky to navigate, especially with Shadow Clone spawners tucked in between pipe entrances/exits, but it can also be cleared quickly. The top right of the maze contains a Yashichi and an M-Tank, which is blocked by a pair of fake Brick Blocks that can't be destroyed; reaching it requires using the Concrete Shot to slide over the fake bricks. The maze's exit is a pipe with a yellow and black construction barrier on top; to reach it quickly, first take the bottom pipe, then enter the middle pipe on the left. After going down the marked pipe, Mega Man must battle the Quick Man Duo, consisting of a normal Quick Man and one with a darker palette, in a wide but cramped arena with Top Lifts. Both have different weakness values from vanilla Quick Man and from each other, but both are weak to the Spark Shock. After defeating them, the pipe in the bottom opens up, which takes Mega Man back to the pipe at the very start – now cordoned off by Guts Man, who directs Mega Man to a Magic Ball to the pipe's right.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 75 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 27 / 35 9 / 15 10 / 10 19 / 25 10 / 15 Normally, I'm really not a fan of just mixing graphics from different series like this, because it's not even a reference to a game and feels like Mega Man is somewhere else. It's just a mish mosh that usually feels out of place. Thing is, you executed it really well. Using the Wave Man pipes for Mario pipes is super clever, especially the fact that it feels like a pipe maze. The Metroid graphics don't do much for me, but that's okay. All of the graphics are telegraphed fairly well, especially with the Top Man tops and the shadow clones. The big room near the end where you have to figure out where you are going is excellent. It's hard to navigate, but you're never walking around in a circle. It feels like stumbling around, but it really isn't. I have two complaints about this level otherwise, but they're not a huge deal. 1) The shadow clones being in a really confined space is really annoying, I'd maybe give one more tile of leeway in some of those areas so they're less cramped. 2) The Top Man lifts should spawn one tile lower in several cases because you can miss the top too often and have to sit around waiting since there's such a small window for something that shouldn't be a challenge. These small changes would be really nice, but that's not to say this isn't a good level, just that another edit to it would bring it a step up.
PKWeegee  : 77 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 25 / 35 14 / 15 10 / 10 15 / 25 13 / 15 That's a really cool usage of the Wave pipes! The level screams personality, and it was pretty fun to play through. Although...the Top platform climb was rather...frustrating at times. Other than that, though, it was a fun time, with cool moments that made me go, "woah what?"
M-Jacq  : 68 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 12 / 35 15 / 15 7 / 10 21 / 25 13 / 15 Historically, Wave Man pipes have been used not as legitimate stage gimmicks in their own right, but as fodder for fancy cutscenes. This is a little odd when you consider that arguably the most famous video game franchise of all time uses pipes as a key element in nearly all its stages. Which is to say that while usually I'm skeptical of stages that import their aesthetics from other franchises, the Mario theming in this level is actually pretty inspired. Certainly, I got a giant belly laugh from that opening cutscene. (Even though it raises some questions of identity, re: whether DOS Mega Man is a separate entity from Blue Bomber Alpha.) And the maze that serves as this level's centerpiece is a bit confusing, but I really enjoyed exploring it. Of course, all the creativity in the world can't mask this level's big flaw, which is that every single thing having to do with the Top Lifts is bad. The windows to hop on/off them are invariably too small; your horizontal movement on them isn't taken into account; they persist through screen transitions and interact strangely with the destructible blocks... my enjoyment of the level just screeched to a halt every time one of those tops showed up. The enemies are pretty negligible too - what did Molier add to this level, for instance? Really, more so than Mario, this level reminds me of an entry from MaGMML past. Remember "A Mega Man for All Seasons", and how that wasn't a platformer so much as it was an... art piece, I guess? I loved the level for its abounding charm, but it was extremely difficult to evaluate from a level design perspective because it operated in an entirely different mode than the run-n-gun action I'm accustomed to from Mega Man. This level is in a similar spot, where I honestly don't know where to start with criticizing it from that perspective, or whether criticizing it from that perspective is even worth it. Thankfully, the score rubric as I choose to interpret it gives me an out in cases like these - dock the level in design, but give it high marks in fun. Which is what I'll do.
Freems  : 49 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 14 / 35 9 / 15 9 / 10 8 / 25 9 / 15 I'm not an expert on Mario level design by any means. There's a lot of differences between designing a Mario level and designing a Mega Man level. However, if there's one thing I can say with a good level of confidence, it's that pipe mazes aren't fun in Mario games, and it sure isn't fun here. That entire last stretch of the stage felt pointless and just like a time waster. The first pipe section was probably the best part, although it doesn't go much farther than introducing the pipe gimmick to you. The first top section is incredibly obnoxious, has some jumps that are way more annoying for their own good, and felt really janky with the tops interacting with some of the destroyable blocks. Lastly, I just want to know if anyone ever sat down and thought to themselves that they really wanted to fight two Quick Men at the same time, especially when they inexplicably have different damage charts from one another. It's just sort of a rough experience at the end of the day. The main thing this level really has going for is the Mario aesthetic... and it's certainly an aesthetic that's not new at this point. Maybe with more cues taken from actual pipe levels from Mario, things could have ended up a bit cleaner.

Notes

• Super Pipe World was submitted 16 minutes late, but its score wasn't high enough to be affected by the score cap penalty.
• The Underground music was evidently intended to play as soon as the level itself began (with the Metroid item room music only playing in the descent down the first pipe as a joke), but issues with the Megamix Engine's music changer object causes the music to not switch over correctly until the first checkpoint.
• Super Pipe World is the only level in MaG48HMML to change the appearance of its Energy Element.