First, I want to echo a few points Violet said.
>>First, don’t use such generic
>>filenames. Both the level and
>>the .zip overwrote earlier files. And
>>don’t say it’s 1.23.
I agree. I’ve had countless really good old and impossible to find tilesets overwritten by new common ones (same goes for levels) because the author did not go to the trouble of choosing a creative filename. I hate when people do this.
>>One of the things that strikes me
>>about this level is that it’s kind of
>>a remake of Colon1, in that several
>>areas in the level are directly from
>>it, and others look based. (The coin
>>warp is even for 50 coins)
While playing, I did notice this. It seems that some of this level was directly stolen from Colon1 while other parts took great influence from it. I don’t know exactly what to make of it. While Colon is a hard tileset to use, I dislike when people rip off of levels. But you don’t often see a case where someone takes such great influence from a level outside of a direct edit. I’m still not sure what to think about this, but I would have preferred to have an original level.
So, on to the level. This reminds me a lot of what the author has previously made – especially his Colon level. That’s because there really isn’t a huge amount that is new from them. Sure, the level is different, but there isn’t anything to distinguish this level from any of the other levels that he has so far made. An improvement I did notice, however, was that the eyecandy was better than in the last one, so there’s certainally improvement. It’s just another somewhat long level using Colonm though. While I’m not sure if “a start, an exit, and stuff inbetween” does justice to some of the interesting features of the level, it is unfortunately true. There isn’t much here to differentiate it from all of the other levels the author has made, which is disappointing. Still, this level does show improvements over the previous level, and improvements are always good. There were a few areas where layer 3 was used badly, notably in a section where it concealed an enemy, but that’s not a terrible thing.
In summary, this is an OK but uninteresting and long-ish Colon level. Very little more. If you liked the first level and don’t mind repetition, you’ll like this, as well. But don’t expect anything new.
+ PROS: It’s a solid level and shows improvement.
- CONS: Parts are ripped, and the level just isn’t anything new. Annoying layer 3 use.
VERDICT: If you have nothing better to do, play this level. You probably won’t find much new from the past level, other than that it has improved somewhat. It’s a solid level, that much is true, but it’s just nothing new – and that’s the level’s weakest point. Other than that, it’s a good level. If you didn’t see the first, download this one instead. Overall, a 7.2 and download recommendation for those who haven’t seen the first. Those who have, however, probably won’t find much new in what could be very accurately summerized as “just another solid Colon level consisting of a start, an end, and some stuff inbetween.”