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HideofBeast

Wily 1

Nov 6th, 2011
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  1. Welcome to Joe Country. wait, why in the fuck is that a thing?
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  3. I don't think it takes much to figure out where I stand on joes and enemies like them as a concept, so to have an entire level themed after them means you have gone incredibly wrong at some point during your game's development. This entire experience is the worst blend of tediousness, unintuitive approach and stupidly precise maneuvers while you stare an entire history of failed ideas in the face. This is a painfully difficult, painfully unfun experience from start to finish and it should've never seen the light of day because the very notion is flatly impossible to make good. So why have I already thrown the title of worst level in the game elsewhere? Well, that's because this isn't close to the worst level in the game. In fact, it's a good level. Actually, it's pretty damn awesome. Is that self-evident right now? No. But give it some time and I'm sure you'll see where I'm coming from.
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  5. For now, we suffer. Things start off statically and you get the impression this might be joe-themed in the strictest sense; monotonous, flat and long. That'd be equally stupid, but no, the creatively serviced conceptual tragedy evidences itself shortly in. The biggest offense in this stage is congestion. Every walk of joe is situated near to, on top of and, in the case of this game's ridiculous respawn rate, pincered with two or three others to ensure every screen is as unnavigable as possible. Several of these individual encounters take on the role of freakshow puzzles that require several seconds of micro-management to eek past, and even then you're not always out of the woods.
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  7. An armada of near-invincible enemies ensures said enemies will be present for extended periods of time to give their full effect, and some of the dodges forced by these asinine waiting games defy reason. Not solely in timing, but in convolution, and in ambiguity. There are approaches to individual sections of level here that are entirely and elaborately crafted by my own failures because an obvious, logical or even alternate solution simply doesn't exist by virtue of joes being a worthless enemy. This hacker's insistence on incorporating every facet of every Mega Man game without a modicum of restraint means we get the worst of all worlds, and joes like those from Mega Man 1 stand out as obnoxious even given their stiff competition.
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  9. Most of this overlong experience blends together into a generic mishmash of extended pauses and games of Simon. Remembering sequences is essential and even then, the brutality of the timing necessitated by a lot of these situations ruins their consistency even given enough practice to recite your actions verbally. However, there are several particularly maddening examples I feel deserve mention.
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  11. Any walker is almost invariably a shitshow because the involved nature of their exploitation does not lend itself whatsoever to them being combined with other enemies, least of all a joe's bullets. The room immediately after showcases just how little these immobile, cumbersome enemy types lend themselves to fluidity. Just look at the extended parlor trick required to safely bypass this. The helicopter/space rover combo proves that even unique enemy ideas fuck themselves if a joe's involved by virtue of way too much health, and this combination in particular makes you suffer for that fact.
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  13. Next is a nice poster child for the bulk of how joes are employed in the regular games: as bland, unthreatening roadblocks. There's zero point to the spikes here. You're never going to near them in a million years. The maneuver to cross between levels of terrain isn't remotely tricky. So, again, all you're left with at the end despite all the crafting that went into the setup is standing around waiting for invincibility to conclude itself. This is the overarching problem with these enemies. They castrate their own considered implementation just by virtue of what they are. The next screen is a nice example of just how obscure some solutions to these configurations need to get. After this we see what's maybe the singular positive use of a joe in this hack: as a punchline.
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  15. When we conclude our climb we start seeing Mega Man 1 sniper joes combining with others, and that's where things are unspeakably awful. Every inch forward, few steps back, jump, shot and delay is measured in this storm of thickheaded placement. No deviance can be afforded. This is the kind of compounding that will see you summarily hit by the slightest alteration of whatever obscure path PureSabe has lain out for you to die remembering. It's so overbearingly disheartening and the absolute antithesis of good design. Notice how at one point things gets so overwhelming I need to abuse PureSabe's own shoddy enemy placement just to temporarily eliminate a walker from the screen.
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  17. Just to really top everything off, because what other stage would it happen in, he presents a tank that's too close to kill with the buster before he reaches Mega Man, which means you have a set amount of time to hope he presents an opportunity to slide under him, and believe me, he doesn't give you long to think. There's a reason I outright avoid or go out of my way to destroy these things when I have the chance.
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  19. But after that, we enter the final stretch, and a concept so cool it actually mitigates the first half's torture with room to spare. Here is where you turn the joes' vehicles against them, and that is every bit as rewarding as it sounds. This is a trivially easy section designed solely for therapy purposes and the hacker knows it. Enemies are only here as an excuse to ravage them with your well-coded, extremely badass machines, and you really do get all the flavors. Now, this not only trivializes the challenge (however cheap that challenge happens to be), it essentially eliminates it, and that includes the level's boss. So, because I love you all very much, we're going to be tackling this solo. Don't worry. We'll be back for revenge before the video's up.
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  21. I think I'll let this lunatic ordeal speak for itself. I've more than illuminated the myriad ways joes fail conceptually and staunchly in any execution, and the pain this specific assortment can breed. Is this stretch brutal? Yes. But not particularly moreso than the moronic nonsense leading up to it. It's more reinforcing the obvious than introducing new avenues of aggravation, and after a fairly involved journey, we've reached the boss. Who, of course, is a joe.
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  23. Much more surprising than his origin is that he's interesting. This joe takes his inspiration from Proto Man in Mega Man 7, and he's a lot more effective in his application of those tactics. Joe will choose between his moves ostensibly at random. He can fire three quick shots, charge up a large one, do the standard three jump sweep, slide along the ground, or summon two hammer joes to protect him. These are what really complicate the fight in conjunction with his own projectiles, and especially because of one new property: this joe's shield will reflect any attacks that connect while it's held out back toward Mega Man. When you're trying as fast as possible to clear out the hammer joes, well, you're less focused on what's happening with his shield. This is nonetheless a relatively easy fight to learn, and outside of one very cruel trick at the end that could screw you if the joes decide not to play nice, we're finally through this torture, and we can have our fun.
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