| Judge Comments
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 Mick Galbani : 45 / 100
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| Design
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Fun
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Creativity
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Aesthetics
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Functionality
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| 19 / 35
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5 / 25
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8 / 15
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5 / 15
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8 / 10
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...What? Okay seriously... what? This was easily one of the most baffling concepts I've seen in a while, and I had to look it up to make some sense of the whole idea. I see what this was going for... but I'm not sure if it works. Mega Man looks extraordinarily out of place, and the rock remix, while awesome, distracted me from the level enough that I'm not sure it works as background music.
The level starts interesting, riding in on Rush Bike just like the soy sauce superhero. It can take some getting used to, but it's an excellent start to the level... or at least it would be if this was a Rush Bike level. Unfortunately, the bike is abandoned after the intro, which is a crying shame as there were definitely opportunities for more speed-platforming with the doggo-cycle.
To make matters worse, the ASCII lair is a lot less fun than what's before it. Granted, the final room with everything over a pool of 'water' is a fun time, and the : 3 block puzzles are entertaining, particularly with wind. However, while the Cat-tops get entertaining set-ups-namely the fourth token-dealing with them and Pendulums at the same time can be a bit frustrating. Thankfully, that's really only one instance, so the level by itself really isn't bad, just less fun than it could've been.
But then there's the boss... oh good land, the BOSS! I'm not much of a Heinz guy to begin with (I prefer French's myself), but ye goodness that was a mess. High-pressure, continuous bullet spam that kills you in 6 hits. Barriers every time you shoot it (which creates a LOT of waiting). You can't clear the ridiculous spray of minions with Tornado Blow because that causes a near-undodgeable barrier to form. The inconsistent guarding behaviour makes it really unclear if any weapons are effective. And the boss takes barely any damage, especially considering its vulnerability time. Approximately half of my personal recording is spent on this travesty, and I pretty much just brute-forced the thing. If there's a trick to this? I'd love to know, otherwise the heints bottle is such a terrible boss that I genuinely would've preferred an energy element anti-climax.
It's a shame, this started out kind of fun, but once we dropped Rush Bike it turned into a completely different level, and the boss just... it was such a catastrophe of a fight that I genuinely dread playing this level again.
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 Shinryu : 67 / 100
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| Design
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Fun
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Creativity
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Aesthetics
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Functionality
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| 21 / 35
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16 / 25
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12 / 15
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8 / 15
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10 / 10
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I'm pretty sure there's an underlying joke here that I'm just not getting. Either way, this was...uniquely odd. I don't mean that in a bad way, mind you. This is actually a fairly interesting stage with a lot going for it.
The most stand-out thing here is easily the aesthetics. It's actually pretty charming, what with everything being made out of ASCII characters. The renditions of classic Mega Man enemies in this style is also pretty amusing, even if some of them feel a bit underutilized (the Mono Roader in particular doesn't seem to show up much here). For as fun as the ASCII art is to look at, though, it doesn't forgive how lacking most of the background is. The few screens that have background details actually look pretty nice, and I wish they had a greater presence over the flat, slightly-off shade of white that makes up most of the backdrop here.
Visuals aside, the stage itself actually plays out fairly well. While I wasn't really a fan of the opening Rush Bike segment, everything after that is a well-constructed series of platforming challenges. My favorite aspect of all this is how the enemies complement the room layouts and gimmicks, especially the Fan Fiends and the Komasaburos. They're set up in a variety of ways that contribute something to the platforming (rather than just being there for the sake of it), which is always a plus in my book.
My only major complaints with this stage come from some of the tokens, as well as the end boss. In the case of the former, I found the first three tokens to be a lot harder to obtain than the final two, as you can easily lock yourself out of them just by missing some jumps (or by raising a platform too high in the case of the third one). As for the boss, his fight is just pure chaos. He spits out far too many projectiles, deals massive amounts of damage, and only takes one point of health from most weapons. Certain ones don't even hurt him, but still trigger his counter shots (such as Tornado Blow, which ends up flooding the screen even more). It's a bit of a sour note to end an otherwise decently good stage on, but for what it's worth, I still enjoyed most of my time with it.
...And as a final-side note: The song used in this level is unbelievably catchy, and I'm probably going to be humming it for the rest of my days. Thank you, Kikkoman, for the everlasting earworm of a theme song.
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 Pachy : 68 / 100
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| Design
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Fun
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Creativity
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Aesthetics
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Functionality
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| 24 / 35
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15 / 25
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13 / 15
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9 / 15
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7 / 10
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Soup Alphabets Unleashed, Craziness Ensured.
I don't get the reference here at all, I guess it's uhh... cute? The aesthetics remind me of the Syobon Action game, probably not a good thing since that game was notorious for cheap deaths. Though it's probably just a coincidence since this and that are both based on Japanese emoticon art.
Pretty frustrating first part of the level that you have to replay the whole part for if you fail to retrieve the token because you don't have Rush at that point. It's not so bad to do it slowly, but not when you need to retry and do the jump again and again.
Kinda odd checkpoint placement on the first screen with the swinging platform, it puts you at the BOTTOM of the swing so you instantly get tossed into the bottom screen checkpoint without a way back. This basically never really comes into play because the top section has nothing dangerous that can kill you, but still weird...
I kinda like the platform you have to step on to raise the other one, there's some clever implementation here for sure, especially with that one token room
The last portion of the stage can get pretty frustrating with all the Fan Fiends and respawning airborne enemies happily knocking you into the instant-death pit as you try to do the jumps.
Also the boss... cool off with the enemy spam, please? So you're meant to fire pretty much always because of how many hothead-likes are spammed, but you are also punished if you hit the boss itself that spawns these waves at you.
Also, don't ever use Tornado Blow in this battle...
It also seems like my shots don't do damage sometimes? But they still spawn the invulnerable wave the same, it's almost like the wave deflects the shot before it can register the boss
taking damage...
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 Flashman85 : 74 / 100
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| Design
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Fun
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Creativity
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Aesthetics
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Functionality
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| 23 / 35
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17 / 25
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13 / 15
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14 / 15
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7 / 10
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I love when irrepressible charm is backed up by good game design. From the cat car to the statue to the cleverly simple stand-in for the Wily logo at the boss gate, there's no shortage of delightful surprises, and the stylishness and clarity of the art more than make up for its simplicity. Moreover, the level features good introductions, appropriate checkpoints, and other buzzwords that keep showing up in my reviews.
Going into this, I was unfamiliar with the main song and its sauce material. I mean, *source* material. Now that I've gotten some culture, I think I'd like to see even more of the video represented in the level. As much as I love puzzles, a miniboss shooting lasers from its chest and a ride on a fish blimp would better fit the easy, breezy feeling established by the "this is how you do a Rush Bike section" Rush Bike section.
The level doesn't feel disjointed so much as unrefined in how it evolves. Split paths overcomplicate the layout. Infinite bike energy abruptly and unceremoniously disappears. The water (soy sauce?) gimmick looks promising but goes nowhere, and the block-breaking puzzles go somewhere too quickly--more of a learning curve is needed. The final stretch feels underbaked; being able to reset the vertical platforms without dying or using weapons would be a huge improvement. However, swinging platforms + tops is impressively clever. Honorable mention to the fans as well.
My most serious gripes are with the overly long and hectic boss fight. High-pitched whistles ruin the music. The health bar is illegible (brighter colors, please). Indirect (reflected) hits unfairly trigger a counterattack. To its credit, this is about the only place in the contest where launching Water Shield is as fun and damaging as it should be.
Criticisms aside, the best parts of this level are *fantastic*.
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 ACESpark : 63 / 100
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| Design
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Fun
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Creativity
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Aesthetics
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Functionality
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| 18 / 35
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12 / 25
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12 / 15
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15 / 15
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6 / 10
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This is honestly one of the most disappointing levels of the competition, because I want to love this. The graphics, music and theme of the level are wonderful, as is the humour throughout, which is incredibly rare in this competition. The inital Rush Bike segment is so very stupid and yet really fun. It's hard, but hey, fun hard is still fun.
I'll keep the other positives short - most of the level just kind of works as a fun romp. It doesn't push boundaries, but you have a stupid grin throughout and that charm really carries this stage... and unfortunately also carries the score.
I'm glad we're showing individual scores in this game because that aesthetic carries almost a third of this stage's total score - and this stage does have some areas where it swings and misses.
As soon as the Fan enemies show up, the combination of the enemy types and the Swing often feels incredibly janky, and the fact that you have to do precise platforming sections with them around can get especially frustrating in a few rooms when it's harder to control your character.
Dishonourable mention to the long vertical climbing room - unfortunately one of the first places you encounter this combination - and Mega Man's respawning rules makes any sort of misplay in this room highly punishing.
Most of the time it's not too bad, but, here? Oof.
The Diamond token puzzle was a really cool idea, but in practice? I'm not sure how to get it to work properly? I nailed it quickly on the first attempt but further runs were not so lucky.
The player seems to have very little control over the situation, from the Top's direction, to the imprecise nature of the Swings, the Tops respawning, and getting the Top off the final swing correctly. This room would have worked much better without the Swings.
The biggest problem with this stage though? The ending.
That boss was AWFUL. When the player's reaction is 'Oh Screw You' after their tenth death, something has gone wrong somewhere, or in this case a lot of things. The boss does an absurd amount of damage, the main attack is completely random and spawns an overwhelming number of minions, and it has really high defences - charged shots and weapons do bugger-all damage.
The fact that this boss counter-attacks on hits means certain weapons will flood the screen with indestructible projectiles - use Tornado Blow at your peril.
Mega Man's limited movement and vertically challenged shooting abilities make this boss incredibly unpleasant to fight. Paradoxically, it gets easier in its second phase, due to the increased speed of the projectiles and minions, actually opening safe gaps on the screen. There is a sweet spot to projectile speed, which the first phase falls far below.
You want to know just how much this boss affected our perception? If you're seeing this sentence, then know that it got this stage listed among the Judge Skip Vote Potentials up until the very last minute. I'm literally adding this the day we're announcing to the development team our Votes. Ultimately brutE-tank force is a viable strategy in Mega Man bosses... so...
An incredibly sour note to end on and colours the perception of the rest of the stage - and means this review ends up spending most of its time having to recount the negative aspects, which is unfortunate.
There was a lot of potential to this level, and it is a shame bungled key segments meant it did not live up to it.
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I'll beam you out after I finish my soap opera.
Mick Galbani 
Shinryu 
Pachy 
Flashman85 
ACESpark 