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Actually, I really did believe that the WiiWare version was the definitive version, with the others being ports of it, just the impression I got at the time.

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Also, I don't see the issues with either the minecart level or the midi music; the level looks fine, albeit, a bit confusing near the end and I figured the midi music gave the game a more retro feel.

Blacklightning

Jan 1 2012, 11:12 AM

There was not a single interesting thing that actually happened in that level. All it really consisted of is moving right. That's all it consisted of. I mean, you could say that about Splash Hill with some reasonable amount of justification, but even that had a few cockblock walls and motobugs if you abused the equisite art of holding right irresponsibly. Here, nothing else happens. Nothing. It's practically "Straight Line Zone: The Zone". Any attempts to the contrary that I can see are just plain futile - the enemies can't kill you (hell, if I'm not mistaken, the touch of death mechanics are actually completely inverted, which entirely defeats the purpose of having enemies to begin with), the cart struggles with any form of coherent platforming (you SAW that bit within the first few seconds of the level, right? There is literally no way the cart should clear a step jump so obviously only for the hitbox to somehow be still rubbing up against it), the switch sections are a detour that takes all of two seconds in the opposite direction followed by an auto-guided spring chain, and the only form of challenge that even exists is the occasional (most likely bottomless) pit, which is literally the most binary kind of difficulty you could possibly inject into a level like this. It's also hilarious to note that the physics are so broken that not only can you spontaneously detach from the ground by flying off a slope less that 20 degrees off the previous one, in true Sonic 4 fashion it even kills nearly all of your momentum every single fucking time it happens.

This looks fine to you? This is your definition of "fine"? I'm just baffled that I even had to go to all this effort to explain exactly how ridiculously wrong you are about this, because every single quality I can possibly gather about this level is either horrendously bland and repetitive, or blatantly and offensively bad level design, on top of being an absolute batfuck stupid and nonsensical level gimmick bordering on outright genre twist that even special stages of all things somehow obey the game's rules more than this trainwreck (if you'll pardon the awful pun).