Celestial Resort

12th : Celestial Resort Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

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Overview Creator(s): snoruntpyro Artist(s): MiniMacro Composer(s): Christa Lee Statistics Scores: 94 78 70 66 Total: 77 / 100 Rank: 12th Elements: 1 Box Items: 100 Watton Brain Break Handoo Falling Platform Fire Spike Enemies: 100 Watton Brain Break Handoo Gimmicks: Falling Platform (MM5) Fire Spike Key Barrier Reflect Block Other Information: ParmaJon's Favorite

Theme Music Celeste - Celestial Resort (Good Karma Mix) Stage Order Location: Tier 10 Previous: Cloudy City Next: Realm of the Lich Lord

"I'd stay away from that so-called "resort" over there. I went there for a single night, and what was it like? There were fires everywhere, the guests kept punching me, the staff were anger-prone, the lights were broken - as were the floors, and I'm pretty sure it's haunted, too! I give it 0.5 stars."

―Hoohoo, TripAdvisor's new mascot

Celestial Resort is the 12th place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. Based off of the level of the same name from the video game Celeste, it is a dark hotel-themed stage focused strongly on platforming, with Fire Spikes patrolling many of the floors, and constantly-moving Falling Platforms often being used to climb tall areas or cross long pits. Key Barriers are a frequent obstacle in the stage, and collecting their keys often involves performing tricky jumps near enemies and hazards. The amount of tricky platforming and tough enemy placements make this level one of the hardest of all the entries.

Celestial Resort is also the central focus of the Occultics Witch sidequest, where Mega Man must continuously tag the ghost of Acolyte Joe's deceased lover as it flees to various spots throughout the level. Like the keys, the spirit will often hide itself in areas that are difficult (or even impossible) to reach without good timing or the use of Rush. Fortunately, the spirit's current position is retained even after quitting the stage before it reaches its final destination. While the spirit is active in the level, a set of Reflect Blocks partway through the level prevents Mega Man from finishing it.

Strategy

Brain Breaks and Fire Spike setups are gradually introduced over the first few rooms; it's best to have either a Charge Shot or a Special Weapon ready to one-shot Brain Breaks without making them angry. Each Fire Spike's start and end points can be discerned at a glance by a set of candles in the background. After a wall of Fire Spikes that can't be jumped over or slid under, 100 Wattons first appear; destroying them is not recommended as there is no way to light up the darkness created upon their deaths without leaving the section. Instead, avoid their shots while dealing with the Brain Breaks from a safe distance. At the first checkpoint, moving Falling Platforms spawn from a wall, and are required to jump onto a ledge in one screen, then over a Damage Spike pit on the next. Because the platforms drop after being stepped on, it is critical to time jumping onto one so that it won't drop before it reaches where it needs to go. This is further put to the test in the next few sections, which contain vertical scrolling and several jumps across moving platforms to reach higher areas.

Two notably tricky areas afterwards include a spike pit which requires jumping onto multiple platforms while waiting for an additional one to spawn, and a Key Barrier with the key floating in the air while a wall of Fire Spikes constantly moves to the right. After another checkpoint, more platforming challenges occur, including another spike pit with a constantly moving "bridge" of Falling Platforms next to a Fire Spike. Most of these can be bypassed with the Rush Jet if one wishes to spare themselves the hassle of constantly jumping from one platform to the next. Before long, however, is another vertical scrolling area much like the first, only Fire Spikes are a more active obstacle. One in particular can easily snipe Mega Man while he rides a diagonally-moving platform, if he doesn't jump on one that spawns while the flame is close to the right. The section after this tones down the platforming in favor of enemy usage; in particular, 100 Wattons and their spreadshots return.

After that is a checkpoint with Eddie and an E-Tank next to a very fast Fire Spike; the safest way to collect it is to either use the Rush Jet and fly over the flame, or use the Tengu Blade's dash to pass through it. From this point onwards, the level frequently blocks the path forward with Key Barriers, with the keys floating close to Fire Spikes or over pits that need Falling Platforms to cross. Additionally, 100 Wattons frequently fly overhead, out of the Mega Buster's reach. Their shots can very easily fill the screen and become almost impossible to avoid, so using the Flame Mixer to shield Mega Man from them when possible is a wise move to make; without it, this final stretch is much harder. This is especially true of the final set of six Key Barriers, which unlock much more slowly than usual while an infinite number of 100 Wattons fly overhead. If Mega Man can get through the doors in one piece, the Energy Element sits by itself in a single room.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 94 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 33 / 35 14 / 15 10 / 10 23 / 25 14 / 15 I love this level. It's really creative and has phenomenal uses of all of its assets, especially the gimmicks. The falling platforms on generators are amazing and feel like a new idea without getting rid of what the gimmick really does. The flames are always telegraphed and predictable while still being challenging. The level's highlights are the individual challenges, as almost all of them are amazing. Making the camera focus on different screens without having real transitions gave the level the kind of polish that you usually don't see in this contest. The level also looks great, it has a consistent atmosphere and it just felt really fitting the whole way through. I have two issues, though. One, sometimes the flying enemies' shots get too chaotic and it's too difficult to dodge the flurry of bullets. Not always, but just a mild reduction, especially near the last key gates. Two, checkpoints are too scarce. The individual challenges are really good, but there are too many in each section. Making each section have one less challenge or so would make the level so much more manageable. I wouldn't even remove any of them, just make it so that you go through the first few challenges less times, as they are fun for a while, but after doing them ad nauseum they get a bit dry. Despite that, this is still a highlight of the whole contest. Good job.
PKWeegee  : 78 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 27 / 35 13 / 15 10 / 10 16 / 25 12 / 15 That's a good usage of the fire spikes. Clearly marked areas where they appear, making it reasonable to dodge them. And, oh boy, the Gyro platforms were used really creatively. And dang, it worked really well. The one gripe I have is the last stretch with all the keys. It got a bit bullet hell–happy with the enemies at the top, which distracted from the main challenge of getting all the keys, sadly.
M-Jacq  : 70 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 30 / 35 12 / 15 9 / 10 19 / 25 10 / 15 With every death I faced in this level (and there were a lot of 'em!) there was only one thought coursing through my head: you should know better than this! Because this level clearly is not the work of an amateur - its core gimmick requires somewhat advanced knowledge of custom spawners to pull off, and the use of soft borders and animated tilesets wouldn't even occur to someone who hasn't spent some time screwing around with the Megamix Engine. And the actual challenges in the level are interesting and mostly fair. So why is this level's checkpoint placement so bad? I mean, there's evidence in this level to suggest the designer was aware the level was hard, what with how little damage the spikes do (4?!? "Four" real?!?) implying that there was some last minute number change meant to make the level easier. But the level's not hard because of the spikes, it's hard because of the lack of checkpoints, and the omnipresence of bottomless pits in a level with really finicky platforming. And, you know, it's not like there was a lack of places to put checkpoints in this level - there were plenty of places they could have been inserted that wouldn't have been awkward. (Before that long vertical section, for starters.) Other than the lack of checkpoints I think this level presents a really cool and novel set of challenges, both with the falling blocks and the fire spikes, and occasionally with those two gimmicks in concert. (This level struggles a little to have their cycles match up, albeit not to the extent of some other levels.) I was not super enthused by the rapid-fire falling block sections, which feel like they were banking on the player having as many platforms to stand on as they need but don't take into account that the platforms stop spawning once you get out of the spawner's range; I was actively angry at the final "challenge," which replaces the level's cool gimmicks with a featureless hallway where you have no room to dodge an egregiously large swarm of Wattons' projectiles. I think this level *could* have been Top Ten material with some very minor fixes - the gimmicks are cool, the aesthetic is low-key cool, and there's a lot of rad challenges. But it falls short on account of some unforced fouls. A real disappointment, despite all the good stuff here.
Freems  : 66 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 23 / 35 14 / 15 10 / 10 6 / 25 13 / 15 It's kinda funny. This game took so long for anything to get done that I went from thinking this was just some random design to getting the reference. Funny how that works. I think out of all the levels in this contest, this is the one that makes me the most sad. It makes some really solid use out of its two gimmicks. The fire finds ways to stay engaging despite being so simple, and the unique use of the Gyro Man blocks put some spice into how the level design works. Both of them at the same time sometimes sucks because the two aren't always aligned but it's not the end of the world. Everything is introduced well enough, the enemies are generally in good positions, so on and so forth. In a perfect world the worst thing I'd have to say is that the very vertical screens are annoying because they're super punishing given how the Gyro Blocks work and falling down these things is always the worst thing ever in Mega Man games. Except the level just keeps going, and going, and going and by the end I'm just so completely burnt I don't want anything to do with these things anymore. The difficulty curve reaches its natural peak and then it keeps going. It goes from, "Oh, there's another section?" to this section where you get key after key and it's so very easy to make one mistake and fall in the pit (especially the two Gyro Blocks firing towards the key about halfway through) that it just sapped all enjoyment I was having straight out of me. To the point where I open three key doors in a row, realize there's more and I just want nothing more than for this to end. It goes beyond what's fun into a tedious mess and I wish with all my heart it just ended earlier. It just ends the entire thing on this huge sour note. Alas, our hubris of what we can do versus what should be done will always be our downfall. Quote from someone really fancy, I'm sure.

Trivia

• Prior to v1.1 of MaG48HMML, the Mapper upgrade couldn't be used in Celestial Resort due to an error where a non-existent part of the level would be drawn on the map.
• Ironically, between MaG48HMML's submission period and its eventual release, snoruntpyro's opinion of Celeste significantly soured as a result of Chapter 9, which was added to the game roughly a year after the contest ended.
• An obstacle snoruntpyro faced during development was 100 Watton's projectiles, which in the Megamix Engine are hardcoded to detonate semi-randomly; she has since stated that if she had more control over them, Celestial Resort's "key hunt" near the end would have been much easier than it ended up being.