Mario Maker 2 Self Promotion: Super World and Sky Tower Saga
So getting back into Mario Maker 2 and for those who don't know I freaking love Mario Maker. I currently have 80 levels uploaded in the second and forgot how many I have uploaded in the first. Never as many cause I never got enough likes to expand my upload pool in that one. Glad 2 through that mechanic in the trash.
Anyway, this post is just to blow my horn and talk about some of my favorite levels I've made. I'm far from the best or most popular level designer but I do put my heart into them! If any strike your fancy it means the world to me if you play them! So let's go on.
First off if you want to find me and pull up all my levels
Can use that to pull up my profile. If you see the name Calex and my little guy wearing the cat suit you got the right one!
So first up, my Super World found on my profile.
This follows basic 8 world progression, made in the Super Mario world style. I did my best to make it feel like a Mario game while adding in some unique twists. Worlds 1-6 have four stages including a boss stage, and world 7 and 8 have 5 levels including boss stages. I try to stay true to form with fighting the Koopalings and progressing but giving them unique mechanics or battlefields to fight on to freshen the fights up.
The levels start on the super easy side as I've attempted to scale the difficulty up as you progress through the worlds. I'd say world 7 is where you notice a big bump up.
I recently redid the final level of it 8-5: Seat of the King. Mainly, while I liked the original version the boss fight with Bowser took way too long. I wish they had a way to adjust his HP. So I updated it so Bowser will get damaged much, MUCH more quickly, as well as adding in a couple secrets that can let you skip round 1 with him. It's not nearly as hard, but I'll take fun over difficult any day of the week.
Most of the levels I'm proud of are later in the games as I made them more complex as part of turning the difficulty up. 7-1: Blast Off! might be my favorite of the set. As for hardest, for me personally I think 8-4: The Koopaling's Last Dance! As it contains rematches with each Koopaling that you fought throughout the game and then a fight with Bowser Jr. I put two checkpoint flags right on either side of a pipe for this one so you can reactivate them any time you want to save your progress in this level.
I could gush about each level but there are 40 of them total in the Superworld so going to move on so we're not here all day.
Sky Tower Saga is a series of levels I made back before the game had Super Worlds using the Mario 3 layout. Sky Tower Saga contains much more and often difficult twists on its boss fights and each of the levels has its own boss.
Sky Tower Saga is a five level collection that basically tells the story of Mario's journey to Sky Tower after it mysteriously appears in well, the sky, and his effort to stop Bowser from seizing the tower's strange powers for himself.
Sky Tower Saga Part 1: Journey
Journey has you start in a winter themed level, as you platform your way along before reaching the Tower's entrance. Once inside you climb the first few floors before facing Boom Boom. This level is the only completely normal boss fight in the series, as it serves as a warmup level before you enter the tower proper. So Boom Boom has no mechanics. There is sadly a Soft Lock in it, there's an area you can go down under after hitting a P Switch and find a 1-up. But if you don't have the Super Leaf then it's not possible to get back up and eventually you die once the P-Switch runs out.
Sky Tower Saga Part 2: Ascent
Ascent where the series starts using vertical levels as you climb higher and higher into the Tower. This level also has far more secrets in it than the first, including eight key coins that if you gather you can unlock a special bonus door right before the boss fight. You can also use the key to skip the boss fight if you want, but kind of ruins the fun. Up to you if you want to get through faster or if you want to fight it! Whatever you feel like! But the fact the boss can be skipped is why I later stopped using red coins in boss stages to prevent that. I just like putting in secrets for people to find. XD I feel it makes things more fun.
Anyway, this time the boss fight is against a Flying Boom Boom but now we start to have new mechanics introduced. This fight has a time limit beyond the actual course timer. As the fight continues one of the walls will closely close in giving you less and less room to move around in. You need to defeat Boom Boom and unlock the exit door before the wall closes in completely and squashes you flat. I left the timer very generous.
I designed it by using a Bill Blaster as the wall. It doesn't shoot anything, but I put it on a conveyor belt that tries to carry it right. However there are switch blocks in the way blocking its progress. Below it is a shell that is fired onto a conveyor belt that tries to carry it right but the shell is shot left making it travel very slowly. At the end of it is a Switch Block. So each time it hits the block the Bill Blaster is released from a switch block and moves right. Meanwhile the shell is quickly delivered back to where it started before bouncing and slowly moving towards the switch again. During the fight you can see it moving so you can see exactly how much time you have before the wall moves again.
Sky Tower Saga Part 3 Secret
Sky Tower stretches so high into the sky you start to leave the atmosphere. As a result any time you are physically climbing the outside of the tower there will be less gravity. Thankfully it seems the Mushroom Kingdom invented artificial gravity so inside you're fine.
Once again we have red coins to unlock a secret room as you travel up. And once again it can be used to skip the boss fight if wanted. But surprise twist! There are two boss fights! More on that in a second.
Secret introduces something important in the form of the three Fire Orbs with wings that will be seen again. These are used to represent an entity called Tower Soul who will be a problem in a later stage, but for this one you just get a glimpse of them. Meanwhile, the challenge takes in the form of scaling the place while managing the lowered gravity. There is also a snake block to ride, but don't worry there's a two-way pipe right before it so you can exit and re-enter if you fall off and need to respawn it.
As for the fights. It's Bowser Jr with a round 1 and a round 2 against him. The first round is simple, some Throwmps slam down activating an on and off switch which drops Bowser Jr and two red Bill Blasters into the room. You have to hit Bowser three times while dodging homing Bullet Bills and you're done. But round 2 things kick up a bit. Bowser Jr is now protected in the safety of the Tower and you must fight him while dealing with the Tower's defenses. Your only platform is a seesaw that goes up and down but this is to your benefit once you realize what you need to do. You need to jump on Koopa Troopas and then shoot their shell into a small hole where they'll travel down and hit Bowser Jr. If you stand on the left side of the seesaw it will form a perfect ramp that you can slide the shell along right into the hole instead of having to jump into the air and fire it. While you continue to fight the tower will release other defenses including buzz saws so watch yourself as you take it down. This fight is good training for a future fight that's a much bigger problem.
Finally you reach the apex of the tower. But as you reach the top, you will find none other waiting for you than Bowser! Charged up with the Tower Soul the entire Tower is now at his command as he attempts to destroy you!
Once again, up in space so low gravity when climbing the exterior of the tower, but most of the platforming takes place in the interior as you climb up the last few floors. Beware of Bullet Bills as they'll be a constant threat when you climb. When you have to charge forward towards a Bill Blaster remember to look for holes in the area you can jump or duck in to dodge the bullets. Also, as you navigate flying beetles and other surprises there might be a chance to grab an unintended upgrade along the way.
Apex is where the red coins stop as I realized I was undermining the levels, as well as this is where you face a much bigger threat for the boss. Bowser himself is the boss fight this time. When you finally make your way up to him, the arena will look familiar. You fight Bowser in the same was as you did in Mario 3, but with a slightly simplified arena. Naturally a you can guess from the previous fight this is just a warmup for the real fight.
Grab the Fire Flower after round 1, it will make your life much easier, I promise. For fight 2, you'll be facing Bowser in a Fire Car, but you have a Fire Car of your own. If you grabbed the Fire Flower you shoot three fireballs instead of one which will make things much easier. Dodge Bowser's attacks and take him out with your own fireballs to proceed forward! However, Bowser is probably the smallest worry you'll have at the moment. The Tower Soul will be seen flying around the map damaging you if it impacts you, as well as there are tons of cannon balls being fired. Navigate the maze of obstacles carefully as you fight Bowser and finally finish off the fight... Except, not quite. At the end of the level you'll see though Bowser is gone, Tower Soul remains.
Sky Tower Saga Finale: Soul
It's the final level. With Bowser defeated Tower Soul has gone berserk. If the tower is left unchecked its destruction power will spread to the Mushroom Kingdom. Are you ready to fight an entire freaking tower? Cause you're fighting an entire tower. Or at least the heart of it.
This is a boss stage, no platforming to get here. Instead, you get some power ups and then are instantly thrown into a battle with Tower Soul. That's right, the final boss is a completely original thing instead of being Bowser again! I know it turns out I am capable of originality at times!
Now then...This is what the Bowser Jr fight earlier was practice for. You will see the Tower Soul inside a huge contraptions once you step into the heart of the tower. The ticket is once again to kick shells into a small opening so that it can damage the tower. But it's going to be much harder this time. There's no ramp you can shoot it up through. Now you'll need to either throw the shells from the air, jump up to the hole or time it perfectly off a moving platform to get a hit in. Each time you land a successful hit you'll see the tower start to fall apart as bricks fall from overheard.
This fight took a long time to design and went through a lot of versions. First I had to get it to actually work so that you could get a key for defeating a thing the game doesn't regard as an actual entity. I hit an enemy that's never visible on screen but is killed right after you land your final hit on Tower Soul. That enemy holds the key so that's how I made it look like defeating Tower Soul gives you the key. After I got this working though the fight was too insanely hard. So believe it or not this is the tuned down version of it. Keep aware of the threats around you and practice your timing with shells until you earn victory.
But the level isn't over yet. The Tower Soul flees as the entire tower begins to collapse. It's time for a Metroid this place is gonna explode escape sequence with some fun music. But, how do you escape Sky Tower? Well... You'll see when you get there. Defeating Tower Soul is the hard part the rest of the level is super easy and I don't want to spoil the fun of what's happening.
Anyway that's stuff about my Super World and Sky Tower. I may post more of these with other levels I worked on and their course IDs as it goes on. We'll see how it goes. Will also be trying to come up with some new level ideas cause the itch to make levels is bugging me like crazy now. Thanks for taking the time to listen to me rant, and super special thanks to anyone who plays any of the levels too!
