Bobbing Barrel Brawl

View an interactive map courtesy o’ DKC Atlas

It’s shocking to see an Ellie level so high up, but for once we have a level that focuses on her abilities ( & not just the ability to throw barrels, which the Kongs can already do themselves ) & not her weaknesses. E’en better, this level adds many variations to her shooting & sucking skills & breaks up this theme with basic platforming to keep this level from feeling 1-dimensional, making this level feel like it came out o’ DKC2. The only caveat is that this level does have mo’ stopping & waiting than a normal DKC2 level, Ellie’s sucking ability doesn’t have many variations, & Ellie’s shooting ability is just a weaker version o’ Squitter’s, since it requires you to stop & suck up water for fuel, which doesn’t add much to gameplay other than slowing you down.

A few o’ the variations:

In addition to shooting forward, upward @ an angle, & jumping & shooting upward @ an angle, @ 1 point you need to shoot a Booty Bird to drop a TNT barrel onto a Zinger to unblock a bonus barrel.

Suck up a steel barrel & shoot it thru a rather narrow hole to hit Koin.

Jump up beetles to fall onto a lake o’ water with greater force & go deeper down to reach a bonus barrel lower down. ( Note: if this is too tricky to find, you can go back with the Kongs after losing Ellie & pair-throw someone up the 1 cliff in the way & then just swim down to the bonus barrel ).

The bonus challenges are all right: the 1st is just a basic challenge dropping barrels into the water to cross to the bonus coin, which I guess is mo’ challenging ’cause you have a time limit, but still feels a bit redundant gainst the level itself. The 2nd challenge requires you to cross barrels o’er water while collecting ornaments, which are laid out in an arc, which is not a huge challenge, but does feel mo’ different from what the main level offers while still fitting the level’s theme & does offer something o’ a challenge, specially for a rather early level, in that you have to make sure you grab the ornaments.

Krack-Shot Kroc

View an interactive map courtesy o’ DKC Atlas

This level finds the best balance DKC3 e’er has ’tween a gimmick that feels fresh, but doesn’t feel like it puts you into a different game, but with less polished controls ( like, say, “Rocket Rush” ). On the surface, this is just a normal, somewhat repetitve level where you play as Squitter & use web platforms to cross o’er boiling pots o’… ¿Pepto-Bismol? while dodging Zingers & Re-Koils. Howe’er, thruout this level there is a reticle chasing you, which stops every few seconds to charge up & shot & then shoots 1 o’ the fireballs that the owls in “Fire-Ball Frenzy” shoot where its reticle has stopped. These shots are so telegraphed, with such a delay after they stop to shoot, that it’s easy to dodge the shots, but the player will still likely want to stay ’head o’ the reticle, giving the player something o’ an urgency to keep moving forward, which thankfully, for once, DKC3 obliged with a level layout that ne’er forces the player to wait. Also, this isn’t an autoscroller, so there’s ne’er a time when you’re forced to wait round.

This level’s shape is similar to a lot o’ other levels’ in that it snakes in 1 direction, with only 1 small branch where there’s a bonus barrel. Howe’er, this being a level that encourages you the keep going, making you explore branching paths would only slow you down & be annoying while constantly dodging shots fired @ you, so it works better here than in other, mo’ slow-paced levels. Also, while this level is as long as most levels, the fact that you’ll be usually trying to keep moving makes it feel like it goes by faster than most, the reverse o’ the problem e’en DKC2 levels had ( “Castle Crush” being a prime offender ) o’ having levels feel too long ’cause they were slow & didn’t have their length readjusted. Since DKC levels tend to be on the long side, anyway, here it feels like a +.

That bonuses are ’bove average, too. The 1st bonus barrel is in a surprisingly hard to find thin niche in the ceiling o’ some seemingly random part in the middle o’ the level. But while it’s hard to find, it’s perfectly fair, without resorting to using move-thru walls, which DKC3’s otherwise superior predecessor succumbed to, including in 1 o’ its strongest levels, “Bramble Scramble”. The 2nd bonus barrel isn’t nearly as well hidden, but it does require somewhat tricky maneuvering round a red Zinger while still dodging the reticle’s bullets.

The 1st barrel’s challenge is all right: you have to collect appearing & disappearing presents using Squitter & use Squitter’s web platforms the reach the higher presents — tho a clever player will realize they can just put a web in the middle o’ the area & always be able to reach a present no matter where it appears. Part o’ me’s kind o’ disappointed they didn’t have you collect presents while dodging the reticle’s shots, like they did with the owl shots in “Fire-Ball Frenzy”, which would’ve been mo’ challenging than just using Squitter’s web, but it also would’ve been mo’ predictable, & maybe it’s good to give the reticle gimmick a break.

But the 2nd bonus’s challenge is the best challenge in the entire game: in an entirely new mechanic, you control the reticle & shoot fireballs @ enemies, desroying them all to reveal the bonus coin, which you also have to shoot a fireball @ to collect. In a game where bonuses fall into either extreme o’ having a bonus that has no relevance to the level or is just the predictable level’s gimmick, but also collecting presents or ornaments, this twist on the gimmick both feels like it fits this level perfectly & feels fresh.

That said, Koin’s placement & “puzzle” is lame: he’s right in plain sight, just on the other side o’ the Squitter end sign, & he has a wall right ’hind him. The only “challenge” is that you only get 1 steel keg, so if you somehow mess it up, you have to replay the whole level, which is mo’ an annoyance than an interesting challenge. This is specially disappointing as there’s an obvious better puzzle: make Koin die to fireballs & make it so you have to lead the reticle to aim @ Koin & shoot him.

The other quibble I have with this level is that it is a bit too repetitive & generic, what with all the verticle sections with Zingers, horizontal sections with Re-Koils & Bristles, & the multiple vats o’ boiling bubble gum you have to cross, with a red Zinger here or there to block your way — specially when most o’ the time they weren’t blocking your way, allowing you to just create platforms way ’bove them & cross without any true danger. I’m sure they could’ve come up with a few mo’ variations, such as having Re-Koils o’er the vat sections. I don’t know if they couldn’t handle having mo’ enemy types than these, but it seems like other levels have a greater variety o’ enemies. If ’twas technically feasible, it would’ve been interesting to see how this level’s gimmick might play while battling gainst, say, Bazukas, or, hell, have you dodge fireballs from the reticle while also dodging fireballs from the owls.

Also, if it wasn’t clear ’nough yet, I like this level’s weird palette. While the previous 2 factory levels have predictable vats o’ red lava & green acid, I love seeing vats o’ mysterious pink substances in this level, bordered by purple walls, which hopefully does some work toward rehabilitating that color after Quawks & “Poisonous Pipeline” has made it look so bad.

Bramble Scramble

“Bramble Scramble” is 1 o’ those levels like “Tick-Tock Clock”, “Rusty Bucket Bay”, “Grunty Industries”, & the F.L.U.D.D.-less challenges in Super Mario Sunshine that some people hate on simply ’cause it’s hard, not due to genuine design flaws that make difficulty unfair or tedious.

“Bramble Scramble” is lucky in that it gets the least criticism ’mong this list, probably thanks to its aesthetics. Anyone reading this is probably already familiar with Donkey Kong Country 2’s famous bramble theme¹ — an uncommon level theme — & the serene symphony music that contrasts with these areas’ reputation for difficulty. This juxtaposition hadn’t been done much @ that time, — the closest I can think o’ is the Lost Levels title screen music in Super Mario All-Stars — probably due to Donkey Kong Country 2’s particular era o’ gaming & its relationship to difficulty. During the NES & early SNES era, video games in general were just difficult with not much focus on certain games being hard & others easy. As for its particular relationship to difficulty, the Donkey Kong Country series had a steep difficulty curve, making it easier to emphasize hard levels. Unlike Lost Levels, where every level is hard, or Kirby games, where everything is easy, Donkey Kong Country 2 could have easily made the easy levels have “Stickerbrush Symfony”; the choice to not do so is conspicuous.

But a good level isn’t just aesthetics ( message to those who call Tropical Freeze’s “Grassland Groove” — or truly just any level from that game — the greatest level in the whole series ). After all, the 1st bramble level, “Bramble Blast”, is not mentioned in this article title. Anyone who has played it will know why: it’s something o’ a slog that requires you to shoot yourself from barrel cannon to barrel cannon mo’ than 30 times. It’s not a terrible level; but the fact that this is, essentially, a gimmick already well-worn in the 1st game & the fact that this level sticks a bit too closely to its gimmick, like a Donkey Kong Country 3 level, knocks it quite a bit down from “great stage” level. Similarly, “Animal Antics” isn’t nearly as bad as people say ( in fact, its wind section is far better than “Gusty Glade” or “Windy Well”’s; a’least “Animal Antic”’s wind follows a consistent pattern so that if you know it, it’s impossible for the game to suddenly zip you by surprise ); but take ’way the wind & it’s just a generic, half-implemented “Bramble Scramble”. & that’s just 1 part o’ the level. ¿Does anyone remember any o’ the other sections o’ that level nearly as well? No, ’cause mo’ than half o’ that level is just Rambi & Enguarde charging through everything & Squitter being able to just skip everything ’cause he can basically fly.

In contrast, “Bramble Scramble” avoids the polar extremes o’ “Bramble Blast” & “Animal Antics”: it’s much better @ creating variety by interweaving breaks in the main Squawks theme o’ the level with on-ground sections, but still feels like a cohesive level. Succeeding @ both o’ these seemingly opposite ideals is done by having 2 themes: the general bramble theme, which fills the whole level, & the mo’ specific squawks theme, which gets breaks. & peppered throughout are e’en smaller themes, like dealing with Krooks on land, on rope, & on Squawks, or Zinger formations.

In particular, “Bramble Scramble” holds 2 sets o’ Zingers flying in place, crowding space so that the player has to weave ’tween them. The 2nd set packs the Zingers in mo’ tightly with less space ’tween them, but with yellow Zingers that the player can destroy if they can balance shooting with fluttering through tight space. It also has 3 sets o’ Zingers spinning in circles, the 1st o’ which mainly has yellow Zingers you can shoot down ( since the space before it is wide-open, shooting these Zingers is much easier than the packed-together Zingers mentioned before ), the 2nd all invincible red Zingers that force you to fly a half-circle through the space round them, & the 3rd the same, but forcing you to go in a full circle thanks to 1 red Zinger flying in space, blocking 1 direction.

Neither o’ these are unique to this level, ’course; but “Bramble Scramble” uses them just ’nough that they don’t feel thrown in arbitrarily & don’t feel like they don’t belong, but also don’t feel too repetitive.

Something not so oft brought up is the shape o’ bramble levels. Most levels in the Donkey Kong Country series are linear left-to-right paths. In fact, the 1st Donkey Kong Country & Returns only have linear levels, while Tropical Freeze only has maybe 1 or 2. “Bramble Scramble” is notable in that it zigzags all o’er the place, but is technically linear. This apparently tricks quite a few players, as I still regularly read commentators call this level a “maze”, despite the dearth o’ meaningful branching paths: 2 o’ the 3 branching paths are just bonuses that merge with the main path right @ the beginning, no different from half the bonuses in every other level. There is an interesting branch wherein you can choose to either maneuver a particularly tight bramble tunnel or dodge a Kannon’s downward cannon balls; but these, too, only merge with the main path less than a screen afterward.

Despite all the zigzagging in this level’s map, it does a remarkably good job o’ filling in the rectangular map’s space, with only empty space in the top left corner, while still hiding that the map is a rectangular ( by necessity, thanks to how level data is held & the rectangular shape o’ the screen ) & without conspicuously adding padding or having sections that feel awkwardly short. I can say from my own experience trying to do this with a level I’m working on for Boskeopolis Land that this is not easy to do.

While Donkey Kong Country games are known for their gimmicks, Donkey Kong Country 2 could create some excellent setpieces using just the basic mechanics, too. For instance, I always found “Bramble Scramble”’s beginning quite memorable. For 1, the right path is to go left ’stead o’ right for once, with the right just leading to bonus — a harmless trick on the player that still rewards the player a li’l for their trouble ( a lamer game would’ve just wasted the player’s time, giving them nothing, or outright killed them ). Past the small hole in the wooden floor under you with a bramble path ’neath, basically telling you that touching the brambles hurts you, you have a jump that’s rather precise for this early in the game, requiring you to go quite far to make it o’er the short bramble wall, but not so far that you smack into the Zinger just ’bove & to the left o’ the wall, forcing you to weave ’tween them.

The only weak point ’bout this level is its hero coin placement ’hind a bramble wall that you can magically move through safely, with only a wooden platform & a banana on the other side as a hint. The logical assumption would be that you can reach that area from ’nother side in the maze & that this is just a sneak peak, not that terrain that the game up to that point had consistently treated as solid & deadly is suddenly as secure as air. But they couldn’t e’en leave it @ that: you have to go through 2 ghost bramble walls, the 2nd o’ which makes the puzzle mo’ obvious by having a banana inside a bramble wall, which looks janky & rom-hackish.

Finally, I like the subtle subtext o’ the darker palette this has from “Bramble Blast” from the previous world, as if trying to warn you that this would be much harder than a cute li’l barrel maze. Embarrassingly ’nough, I only just realized that this level was probably s’posed to take place @ night, — or a’least twilight — since it’s in the nighttime “Krazy Kremland”.

Screech’s Sprint

While “Screech’s Sprint” also balances its gimmick with mo’ traditional platforming, it does it in the opposite way, focusing the 1st “half” ( in truth, the section before the midway point is mo’ 1/4th the size o’ the level — but then, flying is faster than monkey movement, so it doesn’t feel that much smaller ) on traditional platforming, while the 2nd half is all dedicated to racing through the bramble maze gainst the eponymous Screech.

Howe’er, like “Bramble Scramble”, “Screech’s Sprint”’s traditional platforming isn’t boring. In fact, it requires some o’ the cleverest, trickiest maneuvering in the game to pummel into your mind that this is the final level. Right after the 1st jump you’re faced with a Cat-O-9-Tails in an alcove too small to jump, forcing you to rush back into the open space without letting the Cat-O-9-Tails grab you ( where it will definitely throw you into brambles ) so you can get space to go round it. After that we have what I think is probably the only time a Donkey Kong Country game requires you to roll off a platform & jump in midair to simply beat a level. Then you have to jump rather high up to avoid hitting a bramble wall, but not too high so you don’t bonk your head on the ceiling dipping down, & you have to not go too far forward so that you bonk a Klinger hanging on the 2nd rope on the row o’ ropes. After this, you have to jump ’tween a bramble wall & Zinger, jump o’er ’nother high wall, zip past 5 Zingers going up & down in a horizontal line, dodge 2 Cat-O-9-Tails without smacking into the low-hanging bramble walls, & finally, after a simple climb past a bunch o’ Mini-Neckies, make a couple tricky jumps ’cross the small wooden planks floating in the sea o’ brambles, including ’nother jump that requires rolling & jumping while in midair if you’re Diddy.

Other than maybe the rope climb past the Mini-Neckies ( which is a clever breather if you realize you can just rush forward & the Mini-Neckies will ne’er be able to touch you before you pass them, but already done in “Bramble Scramble” ), every 1 o’ these mini challenges is a clever twist on challenges you’ve experienced since “Topsail Trouble” that test your platforming aim without being unfair.

The bonus is well constructed, too: you have to pay attention to your surroundings & notice the wooden plank platform near the top o’ the screen as you go through the last land section & throw your partner ( which means getting through the whole 1st half o’ this level without getting hit, as the only DK barrel before the midway point o’ no return is @ the start o’ the level ) up @ the plank with precise aim to avoid throwing your partner into brambles, & then you have to jump ’cross wooden plank platforms while holding a canon ball weighing you down. The bonus itself is the ultimate challenge to using Dixie’s helicopter twirl to weave through thin passages ’tween bramble walls.

& all this great level design is just the build up to the main attraction, the ultimate squawks challenge. Yes, e’en mo’ than “Animal Antics”. While Squawks sections are notorious, they can all be rendered much easier with 1 simple trick: move carefully. What makes squawks hard to control for those not used to him is his traction ( very similar to novice’s negative reaction to Luigi’s controls in Lost Levels ). But with slower, mo’ careful movement, the slowdown delay is reduced, making Squawks easier to control. This applies to “Animal Antics”’s wind section, too. People oft get screwed by the wind ’cause they just rush through the level, leaving them vulnerable to sudden wind changes throwing them in its direction. Howe’er, if the player doesn’t crank down the arrow button in any direction, wind changes won’t be so extreme, making it easier to adjust to them.

“Screech’s Sprint” doesn’t allow these mitigations, howe’er, ’cause you can’t go slowly — you’re in a race. So you have no choice but to sharpen your flying aim.

Much like the rest o’ the level, the ensuing maze is full o’ clever twists. For instance, the designers threw in a few risk/reward sections with narrower shortcuts, including 1 right after the midway point, that is harder to squeeze through, but will give you mo’ distance in front o’ Screech ( or get you closer to him if you’ve fallen ’hind ).

In contrast, you have the devious placement o’ the hero coin, which requires you to go through a detour, losing you time in the race. ’Course, Donkey Kong Country 2 is nice ’nough to allow you to keep the hero coin once you grab it, whether you die or not, so you can just grab it, die, & then focus fully on the race hereafter. Still, there’s always that urge to challenge oneself to grab the hero coin & still beat the race in 1 try.

Round this point, in the middle o’ the race, the designers introduce an actual mini maze with dead-ends with banana coins. These would be unfair if the designers weren’t merciful ’nough to put trails o’ bananas leading you through the correct passageways. Howe’er, some “wrong turns” are, in fact, shortcuts; so while it’s easy to avoid dead-ends to beat the level by following designated paths, the level still offers rewards to those who risk unmarked paths.

The last 3rd o’ the maze begins throwing in “Bramble Scramble” Zinger challenges, culminating in 1 area full o’ Zingers flying in place with thin space ’tween them — but now the player has to weave through them while still racing forward.

In terms o’ aesthetics, “Screech’s Sprint” is the best-looking bramble level, & probably the best-looking level in the game, applying an autumnal brown-orange to the brambles & making the sky purple. Autumn, being associated so well with endings, works well for this end-game stage.

What stands out most is that, despite this game taking place in the Mushroom Kingdom & having plenty o’ mushrooms in ?-blocks, the terrain is rarely composed o’ mushrooms, but more oft those contradictory blocks that are a mix o’ natural cracked rock & unnatural perfect square shape ( or grass, if playing Super Mario All-Stars ). Having much mo’ red & yellow & a li’l less brown & green certainly makes the level feel mo’ colorful than most other daytime levels, ’specially in All-Stars with the mushroom platforms in the background.

But graphics aside, this level’s arrangement o’ elements seem mo’ modern than most other levels in this game. Other than the green hill levels ( World 1-3 probably being the most well-known example ), most o’ this game’s levels are flat land with a few walls & holes here & there. But e’en most o’ those levels are just a horizontal line o’ hills going from left to right, with slight variances in height, such as the other level with prominent weight pulleys, World 6-3, or merely use multilayered hills to create proto-Sonic alternate routes, like World 1-3, 5-3 ( which is just a clone o’ 1-3 ), & 3-3. But World 4-3 uses multilayered mushroom towers not as a means for alternate routes, but as a challenge itself. Just after the 2nd mushroom, you see a mushroom tower @ just the right height to stymie you. It grants alternate routes, but unlike the other levels, the alternate routes aren’t arbitrary, but have different challenges: if you go below the mushroom tower, you have to jump low ’nough not to bonk your head on it, but high ’nough to make it to the next platform under it; to go ’bove the tower, you must run & jump high ’nough to reach it.

& in this level, the red Koopa is, for once, a greater hindrance than the green Koopas, as you have to time jumps so that you don’t run into them during their patrol back & forth o’er the mushroom. Thanks to the timing & placement o’ the red Koopas on the 2nd mushroom, the jump to it will leave li’l space & time to jump o’er them before they reach you ( which is very tricky to pull off in Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, thanks to its much smaller screen, allowing e’en less reaction time ).

& then there’s the weight pulleys, an early version o’ a “level gimmick” that makes this level feel like a proto Super Mario World level, which used just ’bout every type o’ moving blocks or platform you could think o’. Their key strength is how much control they give you. The most obvious way is that they let you move them up & down all o’er; but the subtle version o’ this strength is how they don’t force you to slow down, a problem with many level gimmicks in games. If you know what you’re doing & have the maneuverability to do so, you can pass pulleys onto the rest o’ the level without stopping.

I also like the way the mushroom block is positioned on the edge o’ a mushroom platform with a thin platform just below. It’s the 1st time the game truly threatens you with destroying your mushroom before you can get it. Compare this with 4-1’s 1st mushroom position: it has a much larger plot o’ land to move before falling into a pit, & the Spinys offer a greater obstacle than gravity. The lower mushroom platform softens the challenge, which fits this level’s placement difficulty just after the middle o’ the game.

The ending is 1 o’ the few without the iconic staircase, replaced by a platform moving up & down. This does not make reaching the flagpole harder in the slightest, but it does make reaching the top o’ the flagpole a bit harder, & makes doing so while getting 6 fireworks much harder, which those gaming for the score medal in Super Mario Bros. Deluxe’s challenge mode will know all too well.

’Mong the pulley levels, this is the weakest ending, with 3-3’s pulley @ the end with the end closer to the flagpole lower down the best. A platform moving up & down doesn’t have much to do with this level, which only has 2 other vertical floating platforms, thrown in the middle so that they’re easy to forget ’bout. 6-3 focuses much mo’ on these types o’ platforms & ends with a series o’ vertical platforms leading to a hill seen in almost every other world’s 3rd level, just wintry white. I think 4-3 should’ve had a series o’ mushroom hills leading to the flagpole while 6-3 should’ve ended with a vertically rising & falling platform, but with a gap ’tween the platform & the flagpole to add some actual challenge ( since we’re moving 2 worlds later, after all ).

Honorable Mentions

In fact, 6-3 is a strong competitor to 4-3 — perhaps e’en better, looking @ it with fresher eyes. Its wintry white & gray blocks o’er a black background is arguably rarer than 4-3’s red mushrooms, since they also appear in the warp zone in 4-2 ( though you can’t see both in the same playthrough ), though you do see this same palette in every castle level, just with a different tileset.

Sadly, this level loses this special color scheme in the Super Mario All-Stars, whose Super Mario Bros. remake otherwise had superior graphics & music — though inferior gameplay, thanks to errors the programmers made with the brick-breaking physics, ’less you use the brick-fix rom hack. Why they didn’t make snowy graphics for the hill tileset like they did for evening levels that weren’t e’en wintry-looking in the original, like 3-1, I have no idea. Super Mario Bros. seems to be a game destined to be plagued by imperfect remakes.

It also arguably has a mix o’ mo’ exotic elements, replacing common red Koopas with a few red springs & Bullet Bills. Howe’er, the red Koopas allow for mo’ fine-tuned jumping challenges, while the Bullet Bills just come in @ random places, which can make certain circumstances outright unfair, rather than clever. The use o’ the spring is well done: the 1st is just for bonus coins & a higher vantage point, which you can still reach with careful jumping without it, while the 2nd is, save for some particular expert maneuvering, mandatory to reach the next platform high ’bove. They don’t do much else with this element, which, quite frankly, is only meaningful as a challenge in how janky timing jumps off it can be.

6-3’s mushroom block is e’en better than 4-3’s, & fits its moving platforms theme well. It is positioned just under a horizontally moving platform, upping the challenge from 4-3’s mushroom by making it much easier to make the mushroom fall into the pit without a safety platform below to give an extra chance.

Like 4-3, you can race through the whole level without stopping if you know what you’re doing. Like Sonic games later on, if you keep to the top the level goes smoothly, but if you let yourself fall to the bottom, you can run into tricky jumps, such as those wherein the weight pulleys are so high that they’re hard or impossible to reach, but are still low ’nough to threaten to bonk you as you try to jump under them & interrupt your jump.

I’m also quite partial to 6-2, though it’s definitely a 3rd to 4-3 & 6-3. It’s a rather long long full o’ tricky arrangements o’ pipes with Piranha Plants — usually only emphasized in underground levels. This makes this probably the greenest level in the game.

Piranha Plants are the most common enemy in the game ( yes, they are mo’ common than Goombas ), making this level feel less fresh than the 4-3 & 6-3 with their rarer weight pulleys, & Piranha Plants, who are slow & easily-telegraph their moves are not nearly as tricky. Worse, if you don’t have a fire flower, they can easily delay you, ’specially in this level.

Still, this is definitely the most interesting Piranha Plant level, which calls to mind the clever arrangements found in Lost Levels levels like 5-1, 7-1, A-1, & C-1.

I also like the nighttime twist on the coin heaven, with a slightly trickier arrangement o’ cloud blocks, making it harder to collect all coins — though this coin heaven appears in 3-1 1st.

I also like the way the ending staircase adds both a hopping Paratroopa & a Piranha Plant.

Introduction

I’ve always been interested in appraising level design for various reasons:

1. Levels were always my favorite part o’ video games & level design was the part o’ game development that interested me the most.

2. It’s not focused on as much by most reviewers as what seems to me much mo’ shallow elements o’ a game, such as story or aesthetics ( ne’er mind the fact that the average video game praised for its story comes nowhere close to the storytelling quality o’ great literature, while literature can’t come close to doing what well-designed levels can ).

3. A lot o’ the work I find online is, not to poison the well to make my own pitiful work look good, not good. I don’t mean that they have bad opinions — that their conclusions are “wrong” — but that they don’t bother to go into detail on the “why” — the most important part. Most just say their favorite or least favorite levels & leave it @ that; others give shallow reasons like “too hard / too easy”.

The problem is, whenever I try to make some grand series appraising every level o’ a game, I can ne’er finish it. Mainly ’cause, honestly, most levels in every game aren’t worth writing ’bout. ¿What’s there to say ’bout that 2nd tank level in Super Mario Bros 3.?

Thus, I’m cadging a chip from some random YouTuber & just writing ’bout particular levels worth writing ’bout, ’cept with words ’stead o’… words o’er video, ’cause video-editing is ’bout as palatable as having my wisdom teeth yanked out. Technically, I already did that with my hyperbolic article ’bout that terrible level, C-3 o’ Lost Levels, eons ago. So let’s balance that out with a good level.

Super Mario Bros. 3 – World 6-5

Map courtesy o’ KingKuros @ The Video Game Atlas.

I’ll start by defending an oft-criticized level. World 6-5 is that infamous cave level wherein you have to get a Raccoon Leaf ( if you don’t already have 1 ), grab a Koopa shell, & fly up into an alcove & throw the shell to kill some Nipper Plants blocking the way to the pipe to the end o’ the level. This is 1 o’ those levels that’s “bad” ’cause it’s challenging. Worse: it’s not challenging in the typical “keep trying pixel-perfect jump till you robotically learn it through muscle memory”, but a puzzle that requires creative thought.

But it’s 1 that’s perfectly fair & intuitive. Once you find out the level wraps round, you know there’s an alternate way to win. There’s also a high chance that just before it loops, you’ll get a Raccoon Leaf; if not, there’s ’nother respawning ?-block with a Raccoon Leaf just after where the pipe drops you off @ the start o’ the cave. The game has consistently taught you that you can reach different areas by flying; ¿why shouldn’t it finally expect you to have to fly to beat a level by now? Eventually, flying round, you’ll find the alcove with that tantalizing other pipe, blocked by Nipper Plants. Whether you already realize you can’t attack them with your tail from ’bove or learn it the hard way, you’ll ’ventually run out o’ options up here & ’ventually have to go back down to search for mo’ answers, & ’ventually you’ll notice that conspicuous lone Koopa in a sea o’ Buster Beetles.

Despite this level’s challenge, it’s nice ’nough to ne&rs

Actually, e’en the many Buster Beetles & the weirdly special throwable bricks they toss @ you work well. In addition to providing many ways for them to make you lose your Raccoon Leaf, challenging you to defend 1 o’ the keys to victory, they focus the level on the issue o’ throwing, which hints to you that throwing something @ the Nipper Plants is the answer. You may e’en try flying up with a throw block & fail, — or maybe succeed: I’ve ne’er tried, actually — only to later stumble ’pon the lone Koopa.

Despite this level’s challenge, it’s nice ’nough to ne’er completely screw you out o’ it — ’less you die, ’course: @ the end o’ the main path there’s a perpetually-respawning ?-block with a Raccoon Leaf before a pipe that leads back to the start. So e’en if you get hit & lose a Raccoon Leaf, you can always get ’nother. Koopa shells, ’course, also respawn ’pon entering & exiting a pipe, in case you accidentally kill the only Koopa.

I think this level shows a prototype for Super Mario World’s generally superior puzzle-based level design. It feels right up there with the kind o’ memorable puzzles like Yoshi-jumping under the goal post o’ “Cheese Bridge Area” or bringing a Yoshi to the end o’ “Valley of Bowser 4” so you can lick the key through the solid blocks. But it also has Super Mario Bros. 3’s brevity & focus, whereas Super Mario World levels sometimes had a tendency to be o’erly long & have jarring, unfocused, irrelevant extra parts — you know, those side rooms that don’t fit, like that pointless coin snake in “Donut Ghost House”, that P-balloon cave section in the underwater level, “Donut Secret 1”, or that outside section with the single flying Hammer Bro in the otherwise underground level, “Chocolate Secret”. Thus, this level combines the best elements o’ Super Mario Bros. 3 & Super Mario World’s level design.

It can also be rather fast-paced if you know what you’re doing. E’en if you start small, you can pop in the pipe near the beginning to grab a Mushroom, & then grab a Raccoon Leaf in the ?-block in the cave. Then just dodge all the enemies to the Koopa & fly up to win. Super Mario World, & some levels in Super Mario Bros. 3, infamously had a tendency to have ploddingly slow levels, as Sonic ads relished pointing out, ’specially Super Mario World’s puzzle levels. The fact that the aforementioned puzzles from World required you to get to the end o’ relatively long levels a 2nd time to get the 2nd exit doesn’t help. I almost mentioned the secret exit to “Valley of Bowser 2”, with its subtle clue that you can stay on the edge o’ 1 o’ the rising blocks you’re s’posed to be running from to reach a secret area ’bove the room… but that exit requires you to go through a direly long & slow autoscroll section, which should ne’er be encouraged. That this level was able to have a creative puzzle without needing to bog down the player’s momentum makes it deserve extra puntos.

If this level has anything you could call a flaw, it’s that, other than the graphics, it doesn’t truly fit the icy theme o’ its world. I guess the throw bricks look kind o’ icy… but these have appeared since World 3, & they don’t make sense as ice blocks. ¿What ’bout ice makes it mo’ susceptible to being picked up & thrown? & if they’re s’posed to be ice, ¿why aren’t they affected by fire when other ice blocks are?

But that’s the most anal-retentive o’ complaints, & there’s something to be recommended in a li’l mid-world variety. It’s not as if this level is jarringly contradictory to the ice theme; it’s just theme-neutral & could fit in any world.

I probably mentioned it already in my big article comparing Super Mario Bros. 3 & Super Mario World, but I consider World 6, ’long with 7, to be the high point o’ Super Mario Bros. 3’s level design, with tricky, clever block arrangements, so it does fit in that way. A’least it fits better than the 2 underground water levels in this world ( whose existence admittedly undermines my “high point” point before ).