[ti]Hard[/ti]Elliptical By Verification (Youtube Video)

Hello! I recorded a video for you!

Name: Elliptical
Creator: [DW] Verification
ID: 34441412
Song: Fairy Tail Theme Glitch Hop by dj-Jo www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/575477
Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1jc8pn1Cro&feature=youtu.be


Gameplay:
Gameplay was pretty fun! There were not many issues and for the most part, I really liked it! A few things, though. At the beginning, I would suggest getting rid of the triple spike jump. It would be better if it was just two spikes or one spike with two mini spikes at the side. It is a bit too hard for a Hard 4* level right now.

Fair enough

Also, you used the shake trigger perfectly, it was a nice touch and to be honest I forgot to add about it in my review until I started on decoration.

No, the shake effect was not used perfectly imo. It was annoying and made the level a lot laggier and harder to see upcoming obstacles. They synced alright with the music, but imo made the gameplay a lot worse.

 The first ship part I really like. There's nothing too special about the gameplay, but there seems to be nothing wrong with it either. I think this might be my favorite part of the level in terms of gameplay.

The ship part is ok, but too hard for a 4* level. This makes the level somewhat inconsistant.

The transitions are smooth, too. One the ship part ends, you have the short cube section right before the wave. There is really nothing wrong, however when I anticipate the black orb I often go down fast and jump right off the edge of the block under without touching the pad. Luckily, this has never caused me to crash or get thrown off due to the black orb throwing the player down so fast, I guess that's a bit lucky for you.

I don't see how it's lucky for the creator just because you never failed there...? Anyways, I noticed this too, and I suggest to the creator to make a way of alarming the player a bit earlier that the orb is coming up. I've died several times there unnecessarily. Imo the gameplay should be completely clear without any unexpected things when we're talking about a 4* level.

The wave part after doesn't really have anything wrong, however my one complaint is that it is too slow. The parts before it seem like the level is leading up to a pretty fast and intense part, but it does not and is a bit disappointing. I think it could be a lot more fun if you made it triple or quadruple speed.

You got a point here, the wave part is a lot easier and more boring than the previous parts, and it would probably fall into a 2-3* part. However, quadruple speed would make it too hard again.

The ball section I have no issues with, it is really just a normal part, nothing too great, nothing too bad.

Agreed.

After, we have the UFO section. This was the weakest spot in terms of gameplay. The yellow spikes around the black spike balls were confusing. At first, it just seems like decoration which ended up causing me to die a couple of times. I'd suggest replacing them with decoration or making them more clear and darker. The gameplay at this part is also too hard. This section I personally think belongs in either a Hard 5* or Harder 6*, but I think many people would disagree with me on that.

I agree, but I hope you're not missing the important point here: You shouldn't care whether or not the level is a 4* level even if the creator says so. If a creator suggests 4* as the main difficulty, but he level consistantly is a 6* level, there is nothing wrong with that. However, if the level is inconsistant in terms of gameplay (some parts are 3*, others are 8*), then that is a major flaw. If the level's gameplay is consistant, but is not the same difficulty as what the creator suggested, it doesn't mean it's a flaw. I don't know if you already knew this, but I thought I'd just remind you of this

Halfway through the section it suddenly goes into reverse gameplay. Barely anyone finds this enjoyable and it makes the gameplay way harder than it should be. The transition to it was also too sudden.

Exactly! I agree with you

Once I got the hang of it it was easyish, though. Lastly, the last two spike jumps should be made more clear and visible, as they blend together too much with the decoration. Coins were fine for a Hard 4* level, but the first two were to close together in my opinion and the last one just seemed lazy to me.

Overall, pretty solid work here, you clearly know how to make good gameplay, you just gotta perfect it. There was only one part that had a major issue (The UFO section) and that really just had to do with difficulty balancing and obstacle placement. 9/10 as all the other parts were solid. I'm going to ignore the nitpicks as they weren't too bad.

In my honest opinion the gameplay wasn't that good. The shake effect was overused, too much copy+paste, the music sync wasn't that good and there were a lot of bugs. In addition to this the creator should definitely have added an effective LDM because the last part lagged a lot for me. I would say this gameplay is Good-worthy.


Block Design/Decoration:
First of all, the first section is pretty good. I like the backgrounds and effects, they looked cool. The bubbles coming from the ground I liked. It's the little things that make this part nice. The only issue was with the block design. It's nice, but it seems a bit too empty. Might wanna work on this one section a bit.

I agree that the block design wasn't good, but you also forgot to mention that the custom background has too much copy+paste, and the design in this part is really unoriginal.

The black screen moving in for the transition was cool, and it surprisingly didn't make the transition bad or anything, good job! Block design in the ship and small cube section after that greatly improved, it seems a lot more filled than the first designs. You continue with similar effects, but the background this time was amazing! I really liked it!

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree here as well. Neither this background was that amazing and included a lot of generic and unoriginal effects. In addition to this there was too much copy+paste.Other than that I agree that the block design improved and the colors of this part is overall great.

With the wave section, the background is way worse, far more empty and uninteresting, and you didn't seem to carry on with the very cool effects you had earlier.

I noticed this as well, good job.

The block design is sub-par too. The beginning was nice with the techno pillars in the middle, but that doesn't occur for the rest of the section, which is disappointing. However, this section still looks pretty cool despite all this!

Exactly! This is how I felt as well, because the techno block design was really cool, but disappointingly enough weren't followed up in the later parts.

The ball section after, is just amazing. Block design, so detailed. Backgrounds were interesting, and deco was very nice. I have no complaints about this section.

The pillars, block design and background all suffer from too much copy+paste, so this part isn't that good imo unfortunately. 

I love the planet in the UFO section after, this whole background looks amazing, I can't really think of a way you can improve it. Of course there's ways to change it up a bit to make it cooler, but the way you have it now has this strange feeling to it that I don't want it to change. You could have made little patterns in the obstacles, but that is really it for the complaints in this section. The last short section looked very cool with all its deco. Again, no complaints.

What I agree with you here is that the background was actually really good, probably the best thing about the design of this level. However the planet/circles were all copied and pasted over and over, not to mention reversed as well which is a huge flaw.

Overall, everything was well executed. I've pretty much said everything I need to so I'll leave you with a 9.5/10, with a half point being deducted due to the wave section.

Sync:
There's really nothing to say here. Overall, sync is pretty good! One tip is to make the effects sync to the music more, which I already saw some did. The wave section could use better syncing up. At the beginning, it seemed like it would, but it drifted apart fast, I think it would be an amazing section if you sync it up with the long notes. 9/10 for the stated reasons.

The gameplay could be a bit more synced to be honest, especially the ufo part. Otherwise I agree.

Originality: x1.0
Nothing seems too original to me, but nothing seems unoriginal, so I'm leaving you off with a normal score.

This level is very unoriginal actually. The planets are unoriginal, techno block design, the style, the backgrounds, the block design, this level is unfortunately a generic level. However, there were some cool twists in this level, like the last background.

Overall: 9.167/10 (Or 9 and one-sixth) Feature-Worthy

I'm just going to leave you off with Great Job!

@fireblizzard Review my Review? (I didn't want to bother repeater13 as I already tagged him today)