Obligatory Enemy Spam Level

87th: Obligatory Enemy Spam Level Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level

Well, at least it's being honest.

Overview Creator(s): DeltaMudkip Composer(s): Kouji Murata Statistics Scores: 50 49 25 42 Total: 41.50 / 100 Rank: 87th Elements: 1 Box Items: Irucan Jet Buton SRU-21/P Super Cutter Revenge Uranus Platform Enemies: Dachone Ltd. Ed. Fatool Irucan Jet Buton SRU-21/P Gimmicks: Reflect Block Super Cutter Revenge Uranus Platform Wave Man Jetski Sub-Bosses: Komuso Man Proto Generator Spark Man Bosses: Punk Duo Other Information: -2 Functionality Penalty Weapons Disabled (Rain Flush)

Theme Music Mega Man V - Uranus Sub-Boss: Mega Man V - Unused Track Boss: Mega Man III - Weapon Get Stage Order Location: Tier 3 Previous: The Abyss Next: Tower

Obligatory Enemy Spam Level is the 87th place entry in Make a Good 48 Hour Mega Man Level. As its name would suggest, it is a level that is mostly focused on fighting a large number of enemies, including three Robot Master fights and an enemy-rush midboss. Even so, quickly clearing screens of enemies is difficult, as the Rain Flush is disabled. Platforming is otherwise fairly minimal, although there are a few Wave Man Jetski ride areas, and Uranus Platforms are occasionally used as a minor obstacle. The level is also fairly long, albeit generous with checkpoints.

Strategy

A swarm of Jet Butons fly in from the right at the start of the level, which includes a short jetski ride over water. Most can be jumped over easily, but they can otherwise be killed with two Mega Buster shots. A Dachone Ltd. Ed. guards the door to the first midboss, Komuso Man; because the level disables the Rain Flush (his weakness), the Tengu Blade is the next best weapon to use as it does as much damage as a Charge Shot. Defeating him drops Mega Man into a corridor populated with Super Cutter Revenges, and with no way of damaging or freezing them, all he can do is avoid them. Shortly afterwards, what looks like a split path beneath a Uranus Platform and two spikes shows up, but this is really a death pit. The true path forwards is to the left, where Irucans and Jet Butons leap in to attack. The Flame Mixer works well as it oneshots both enemies, and the Tengu Dash can let Mega Man pass through them and avoid damage. The following area has SRU-21/Ps that drop down into pools of water, which are best dealt with using either the Flame Mixer or the Homing Sniper. This area ends with a drop down into a battle with Spark Man, with a checkpoint right after.

At a long Uranus Platform above spikes and water, Mega Man needs to go right past the Jet Butons, as the area below the platform is a pit. This leads to a set of Uranus Platforms over water, with large numbers of SRU-21/Ps falling in from above. Slow, careful movement and/or the Flame Mixer are almost essential to avoid damage, as the enemies are grouped close together and drop as soon as Mega Man gets close to them. Down a pair of slow-spinning Uranus Platforms guarded by a Dachone Ltd. Ed. is another Wave Man Jetski, and Irucans join Jet Butons in attacking Mega Man from the opposite end of the screen. A few SRU-21/Ps also drop down a few spaces ahead of the jetski, and are best avoided by jumping over them if possible. The end of the jetski leads to a SRU-21/P ambush, with enough falling to cover the entire screen; one even spawns on the bottom right to sneak attack Mega Man if he tries to slide his way past. The only reliable way to counter the ambush is the Flame Mixer or the Homing Sniper.

In a single drop screen filled with infinitely spawning Jet Butons flying close to slow-moving Uranus Platforms, damage can be best avoided by using the Flame Mixer, if it still has enough energy by this point. After going down another set of Uranus Platforms to avoid spikes, a single Jet Buton flies in from the right screen transition to catch Mega Man unawares, so he'd better look out for it. On the next screen, an Proto Generator spawns in. Nothing can damage it, and it forces Mega Man to fight 20 simple enemies to proceed, making the miniboss more tedious and long than difficult. While Irucans and Jet Butons are likely to despawn themselves, SRU-21/Ps need to be manually triggered in order to destroy them. Once the enemy gauntlet is eventually cleared, only a Super Cutter Revenge stands in front of the boss door. The boss, a pair of Punks, is almost impossible to defeat with the buster, as they regularly desync and attack in undodgeable ways, and said attacks inflict a lot of damage quickly. As such, liberal use of the Salt Water to take at least one of the Punks out as soon as possible is strongly encouraged.

Judge Comments

Judge Comments
ParmaJon  : 50 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 19 / 35 6 / 15 5 / 10 15 / 25 5 / 15 Of all the issues with the stage, enemy spam was not the main one. The "enemy spam" was done fairly tastefully. Having lots of weak enemies thrown at you gave the name a fair meaning, but it was never unreasonable. You were always able to deal with them as long as your reflexes were good enough, even with the Buster. While the enemies were generally fine, the bosses felt extraneous. They didn't really add much other than being a break in pace. They included neither gimmicks nor enemies, so they just kinda existed and felt disconnected from the rest of the level, although the final fight was fun, even if simple. The other main issue is how the level is vague with directions. First main offense is a drop where it seems like you should fall between two spikes by lining up on the Uranus platforms, but you just die. Thankfully you are near a checkpoint, but that just felt like the natural thing to do. Then later, when you fight AT-AT on the Uranus platform, it seems like you should go right but you just go down. These don't make this a bad level, but the level also doesn't do anything that really makes it stand out from the better ones. It just made me scratch my head and go "huh, that's odd".
PKWeegee  : 49 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 14 / 35 8 / 15 7 / 10 13 / 25 7 / 15 Well, someone forgot a few stop scroll objects ( ''). Anyways, uh, with a title like that, I was expecting more enemy spam. It was pretty...tame? The real spam was all the boss battles, which really didn't add anything of value to the level, except dragging it on for longer than it should. Also, that Punk fight at the end was just disgusting.
M-Jacq  : 25 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 5 / 35 3 / 15 9 / 10 3 / 25 5 / 15 Now that's a dread-inducing title. Surprisingly, outside of that one room with the straight-up row of SRU21Ps, this level is actually pretty light on enemy spam. In fact, I'd say enemy spam is the least of its problems. Because really, what this level is is *boss* spam. Komuso Man! Spark Man! A DOUBLE Punk fight (which is actually exactly like a regular Punk fight, just twice as long)! And worst of all, that... squid thing... from CFTF, which wastes 90 seconds of your time spawning easily-dispatched enemies. All of this, combined with the wait-heavy Uranus platform sections, results in a level that drags on for a very long time, without a clear sense of progression. And while some of these segments are kind of fun - I liked the Wave Bike bits, for instance - but all things considered, this level just stretches on forever, without a clear idea of what it wants to be, other than "a level with a lot of enemies all at once." Which is *an* identity, I guess, but not a very compelling one.
Freems  : 42 / 100
Design Creativity Function Fun Aesthetic 12 / 35 7 / 15 9 / 10 8 / 25 6 / 15 I don't know why one would pride themselves on being the level with enemy spam. And while there was some of that going on, I think the amount of bosses was more of a pace breaker than anything else. Three bosses, and a very loooong and sloooow enemy gauntlet. And when that wasn't happening it was just kind of... boring? Most of the enemies didn't pose a problem at all unless they popped out in ways you can't predict (like the room after the boss doors with an avalanche of those falling guys). There were some clever uses of the Uranus platform closer to the end. I liked the idea of having to fend off enemies while the platforms lower, but you had to wait for a lot of nothing before going down there and it was really the only neato application of it in the entire level. I also don't quite understand why parts of the 3 Wily background were used as a platform you can stand on. It just caused confusion that wasn't needed. Also no one should have to deal with two Punks at the same time. It's just silly.

Trivia

• On submission, the level was completely unbeatable; because there were no walls for either Punk to slam into during their spin attack, they would simply fly offscreen and never return. The final game added two invisible walls to fix this, and the level was hit with a functionality penalty.
• The reason the Rain Flush is disabled is because of its effect on Super Cutter Revenge: an engine bug causes it to ignore the gimmick's invincibility and destroy it.