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HideofBeast

Skull Man

Nov 6th, 2011
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  1. Skull Man's stage is this hack's classic example of not knowing when to stop. It's an interesting concept executed reasonably well. This stage is an ode to platforms. Platforms of almost every form and function from the classics are included in this stage in at least some regard, and on the surface, there's nothing wrong with that. It tests your memory while never devolving into expecting you to know how one will behave in advance and punishing your lack of foresight with death. But there is one glaring, glaring issue that sullies the entire experience considerably, and the most damning thing of all is it takes place in an otherwise reasonably, even commendably well-designed area. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.
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  3. Things start off with a leisurely introduction to the stage's theme, with a few otherwise hard-to-fit platforms gotten out of the way and placed with relatively little danger outside of some ineffectual skulls. We detour from this bit to pull a tricky maneuver between two (now invulnerable) skull joes to find ourselves faced with Beat, who will be a great boon in this level, as he will fulfill his Mega Man 7 purpose of saving Mega Man from a pit for a moderate loss of health. I don't intend to see this, obviously.
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  5. After this the level starts exposing its fangs, and here's a rather ugly example of things that really just should've been left out altogether. You don't necessarily need to include every item on the checklist when you're theming a level. Some of them are bad, and it's why you don't see them repeated in later Mega Man games after their original misfired inclusion. Well, that might be wishful thinking considering some of the other horrible design ideas Capcom shoehorns into Mega Man time and time again, but I digress.
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  7. This is a pointless little bit of annoyance that serves to waste nothing but your time. It concerns a stupidly precise array of jumps with zero in the way of punishment, so why include it? The inbound enemies from either side of the room are complete afterthoughts. Maybe if this had been put to more punishing prospects and less demanding timing it could've worked, but these platforms have a pretty short list of ways they might be implemented entertainingly.
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  9. Next comes a cute assortment of enemies who were completely useless in their native game put to somewhat more effective placement, taking advantage of their back-facing shield to prevent destruction and get adequate chance to trip you up over the dangerous assortment of platforms. Following this is a thoughtful shoutout to the end of Top Man's stage, although those platforms in particular were really begging for more crafty use, and then another pointless relic. Why bring back such a broken mechanic just because you can't stand the thought of excluding a single bloody platform type? Now granted he fixed their glitchiness, but he sure didn't fix their AI, which means you'll still fall asleep waiting for one to line itself up properly. It's a minor annoyance in effect, but the principle reaches a bit farther.
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  11. This next stretch is where things get really mean and also where the level's at its best, because it's a relentless gauntlet that gets good use out of three simple components and never crosses into obnoxiousness. The pipis are really at their absolute worst here. Normally a mere checksum to see if you could keep a basic rhythm down, they now serve as an unwelcome distraction from the precarious platforming you're concerned with pulling off properly. It's devilry at its finest and fairest, and the tight race across dropping platforms rewards the agile by letting them skip a prolonged fight and grab some goodies.
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  13. And now for one of the bigger disappointments in the game. This is unabashedly the hardest and also most thought-out trek in the stage, a carefully assorted gauntlet of platforms, enemies and horizontal scrolling that borrows more than a little inspiration from a certain Super Mario Bros. 3 level. There is nothing overtly unjust or even annoying about this section from a layout perspective. A good deal of care obviously went into keeping it reaction-based without need of foresight. You could feasibly see yourself through this your first attempt with a really clear head. 90% of the way to a good thing, and he screws the pooch with one thoughtless last-minute inclusion.
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  15. The missile enemies in this section are not only deliriously out of place, they are also unspeakably unfair and poorly coded with respect to the obstacle you're dealing with. They spawn at set intervals after one has been destroyed/left the screen, and also at minor variations of level height with wherever Mega Man happens to be. The problem (outside of the simple overcrowding in a sufficiently hectic section) is that no care is paid to sync these enemies up with the maneuvers you'll be instinctively making to navigate the terrain. This turns a strict reflex-based challenge into a necessary trial-and-error pile of nonsense, because you are going to be hit and plummeted into the pit unless you actively memorize and map out where to be when with respective to the bombs, a completely unintuitive set of actions that contradict the point of the gauntlet. I don't mind trial-and-error in moderation, but it needs to be clever, and it needs to be interesting. This is neither, and certainly not in moderation in an already difficult stage. Again, this is a telling example of how much good a second opinion can do for a hack's QA, because PureSabe has no reason to recognize the inherent fallacy in such an incongruous enemy as when he playtests it, he already knows where they'll be and what to do.
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  17. At least it's mitigated by an interesting and apropos recreation of the miniboss from Slash Man's stage. Certainly fits a prehistoric-feeling level, and he's been transposed reasonably well. In fact, he's been improved, because he doesn't take an age to kill and his attacks have been made much more manageable while still being tricky to sneak in shots around. The stage concludes with Beat getting his 15 minutes. This is plenty doable, even easy, without Beat, but come on, he's too cute to pass up. It's such a minute thing I don't feel any harm showing him off.
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  19. Skull Man goes a long way in excusing that unfortunate hiccup in his stage, and he's probably the funnest of the eight robot masters. I really can't speak highly enough of this boss. He's Shadow Man in spirit and exemplifies everything that was good about that fight. A pair of simple tricks put to absolutely genius effect to create a frenetic heartstopper of a battle. This is very, very hard to do damageless (but then, there's not all that many bosses in the game that aren't), and demands what's probably the strictest timing outside of Toad Man, but it is beautifully fair, and consistently about reaction. Skull Man puts his Hell Wheel, probably the best weapon in the game, to damn good effect here. Whenever he enables it, he turns the arena into his personal skatepark. He zooms across the floor, up the wall, and back, or, if he's feeling sassy, does a jump from the edge to the middle of the room. Your cue for which he'll do is blatant but because of this battle's insane speed, much more challenging to recognize and react to in practice than in theory. Your small window into hitting him is when he stops to fire his projectiles, and this is where the fight really gets cruel.
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  21. Skull Man can fire off an absolutely random number of bullets that are difficult enough to bunny hop on their own, but the real danger inherent in that random number is it means you have no consistent knowledge of when he's going to reinitiate Hell Wheel. And let me tell you, when he uses it, he uses it fast. The visual cue on this is a lot subtler and marginally stricter than merely differentiating between what path he'll take on his rampage. This really is a triumph in simple but effective design. You grasp the particulars of this fight in the first five seconds, there's zero to its complexity and little to no patterns to figure out. It's sheer guts reaction, and when he enrages, you're pushed to the absolute limits of reasonable strictness. I'd criticize the fight for being the third in a row to provide a simple speed boost, but Skull Man is so transformed by an increase to his already massive agility that it stands on its own unique, painful merits. He was actually even kinder than he might've been to me on this successful run, because he never altered his amount of shots while enraged, which he totally can, and it's pure panic when it happens.
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  23. I adore this fight. On top of everything else, it's just really stylish.
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