Wily Station

52nd: Wily Station Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

A true Wily stage punishes those who use the buster and nothing else.

Overview Creator(s): Dippy Composer(s): Kinuyo Yamashita, Akari Kaida (originals) Dippy (cover) Statistics Scores: 74 58 59 42 Total: 58.25 / 100 Rank: 52nd Elements: 1 Box Items: Doncatch Skullmet Wall Blaster Falling Platform Wily 4 Laser Enemies: Big Stomper Cannopeller Colton Doncatch Hammer Joe Metall Swim Petit Devil (green) Shield Attacker Skullmet Wall Blaster Gimmicks: Falling Platform (MM5) Gravity Lift Sparkman Platform Wily 4 Laser Yoku Block Sub-Bosses: Giant Metall Cannon Kabatoncue Bosses: Iron Ball

Theme Music Mega Man: The Wily Wars - Wily Tower Stage 4 Boss: Mega Man & Bass - Boss Stage Order Location: Tier 6 Previous: Void Quest Next: Scissors 'n Shrimps

Wily Station is the 52nd place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. A "my first level" by the author's own admission, it has the aesthetics of a generic Wily stage (mostly using tiles from Mega Man 9's Wily stages). Like such stages, it lacks much in the way of a single central gimmick, instead using multiple gimmicks and enemies at once, although weapon usage is often required thanks to the presence of Wily 4 Lasers.

Strategy

Beyond a set of easily dealt-with enemies on open ground are the first instances of the level's box gimmicks; Wily 4 Lasers, and Falling Platforms. A sign reminds Mega Man that the Concrete Shot can block the lasers; however, dashing through them with the Tengu Blade is another viable option, and is preferable in some areas where there's no room to fire the Concrete Shot onto the laser. One such area occurs in a corridor with jumps that are four tiles wide, which are usually better crossed by using either Rush, or the Concrete Shot. Be careful upon reaching the first checkpoint, as a Big Stomper right in front of the screen transition will try an ambush attack on a small stretch of ground next to a pit. The screen afterwards contains a Gravity Lift area with a few rows of lethal spikes, followed by another checkpoint at the top.

The corridor with water, despite appearances, only has actual water on the top tiles, with the bottom being empty air (with a pair of Metall Swims unable to do anything other than hide back in their helmets). Shortly afterwards, a Skullmet stands on the other side of a spike pit, and lies below the Mega Buster's range; to conserve Concrete Shot ammo, the Search Snake can be used against it. The next screen contains a pair of lasers, a single Shield Attacker, and a four-tile wall that cannot be climbed without using a utility. This leads into another checkpoint and an introduction to Yoku Blocks over a bed of spikes. This leads into a series of perilous challenges which have either them or Falling Platforms over spikes or death pits. The Yoku Blocks' patterns, meanwhile, are rather simple to understand. The last Yoku Block puzzle leads to a slide passage, behind which is a Giant Metall Cannon, followed by a Kabatoncue guarding the boss door; the latter of these lacks its platform, and thus can be very quickly killed. The boss itself, meanwhile, is a standard Iron Ball battle.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 74 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 27 / 35 10 / 15 9 / 10 19 / 25 9 / 15 For a first level, good job. When you use the Wily 4 laser and the Gyro Man platforms, I really do think the level excels. While it is possible to run out of Concrete Shot ammo, it's honestly fairly forgiving and was never an issue when I played the stage. The amount of weapon energy to make this doable is good. If you wanted to keep the level feeling smooth but add in extra energy, you could force certain enemies to drop them. That would be a nice touch, but it's far from necessary. The Gyro Man platforms mixed with the Yoku blocks worked, although the rising section felt out of place and disjointed, especially in the context of this contest. Otherwise, the enemy variety mostly worked, as you really filled in holes in what enemy types you lacked. It was a bit odd to use both Coltons and Hammer Joes as they essentially fill the same role. These criticisms don't make the level bad, but they are ways in which the level could have been better. Good job on your first level.
PKWeegee  : 58 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 15 / 35 7 / 15 10 / 10 16 / 25 10 / 15 It's not bad, just a tad...unfocused. Although the main concern I have is that Concrete Shot is required to get past the lasers, so giving it unlimited weapon energy may have been a better choice. Then again, that could have made enemy challenges trivial. But then again, the stage could have been built around Concrete Shot more. Am I rambling? Maybe. The Yoku block challenges were fine, and they did pick up in difficulty and complexity a bit as they went on, so good job there. One thing that felt odd was having the hippo midboss on flat ground. That...made him useless, as you can just shoot and he dies without being able to attack. But that's a nitpick. Overall, it was fun, and for a first level, it was a good start. Keep at it!
M-Jacq  : 59 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 16 / 35 8 / 15 10 / 10 18 / 25 7 / 15 Oh man, how much better would this level have been with infinite Concrete Shot ammo? To misquote Sam Jackson: I recognize that in Mega Man 9 Capcom decided to have the Wily 4 lasers without infinite ammo, but it was a stupid-ass decision, and you should have elected to ignore it. Or at the very least had some way to farm energy off Tellies. Because large parts of the level would have been more fun if you had access to infinite Concrete Shot - there's a four-tile jump in one part of the level, for instance, that strictly speaking can be done without the Concrete Shot but is way more fun if you use it. And there certainly could have been some sadistic set-ups with the lasers used in concert with Yoku blocks. Good sadistic set-ups, I mean. (It also would have given this level a bit more of an identity, as right now there's not much of a theme to it beyond "generic Wily fortress.") Like a lot of levels in this contest, this one struggled to put enemies in spaces where they were relevant but not unfair. I got jumped by the Big Eye variant from MM9 placed a little too close to the edge of the platform, for instance, but other than that most of the enemies posed little if any threat. Even the Hippo miniboss could be killed by just mashing X. Luckily, the platforming in this level made up for that, in my opinion: not too challenging, but it felt good to pull off those mad dashes on the Gyro blocks. And for the most part they avoid unfair "gotcha" moments, with every screen giving you a safe space to figure out what you have to do. So the base of this level is pretty solid; it's just got a bunch of little flaws that could be fixed, and it could probably use some sort of overarching theme to make the challenges feel more cohesive. Oh, and one minor but interesting flaw with this level that bears mention: it had a couple instances where screen transitions that should have been one-way were two-way instead, meaning you could accidentally backtrack and faceplant into an enemy (as I did with the aforementioned Not A Big Eye).
Freems  : 42 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 12 / 35 5 / 15 8 / 10 9 / 25 8 / 15 This level was just so incredibly unfocused. Every other screen there'd be a new gimmick thrown at you then completely forgotten. Here's a gravity well, here's some water, here's some Yoku blocks. It just made the whole thing feel so segmented and strange. And the stretches without any of these gimmick of the days were more or less just boring straight-aways with a bunch of enemies, some from the box, others just seemingly picked at random that just kinda stand to get shot by you and for the most part, serve no threat whatsoever. The lasers appear a number of times but there's never really a clever use of them besides "Use Concrete Shot" and if you run out of ammo by some chance, then uh oh. It doesn't help that a handful of the jumps are surprisingly tight and weirdly difficult to make. It's just one of those cases where you should have focused a lot more on the box elements you were given and expanding upon them, rather than just doing a little taste of so many different things.

Notes

• It is impossible to clear Wily Station using only the Mega Buster, as even if the player tanked damage from the Wily 4 Lasers, the four-tile wall next to the level's single Shield Attacker cannot be scaled without using a utility.
• When submitted, Wily Station's first checkpoint area had four checkpoint objects right next to each other; for the final game, all but one were removed.