Let's Revisit Super Talking Time Bros.!

Part 12: Dark Matter



It seems only appropriate that it would be a Madhair level that finally broke me. I eventually BEAT The Void, but the red star still eludes me.

I remembered to go back and play Storm Fortress, which is another hard level, naturally. But a fantastic concept that's well done and doesn't overstay it's welcome. My kind of "hard" level.

I try again to get the Red Star for The Void, but eventually rage quit and go back to beat the game. By this point I'm pretty worn out, so I end up just kinda cheesing it with Link, as you do.

Bravo to the amazing credit roll. Great work all around.

So next time I have to find the Red Star for The Void, and then hit the bonus worlds. SO, my question for you, dear readers, is this: Do I do Content or Discontent first?

Discontent first. If it gets to be too much, you have Content to look forward to.

Also vote Discontent. Might as well rip the band-aid off now rather than later.

OKAY, Discontent it is! Gonna try to stream tonight.

Madhair also strongly hinted (basically told) me where to get the Star in The Void, so I'll knock that out first. And I'm PRETTY sure I know where the entrance to Content is, too, so if I get frustrated I'll jump into some of those levels.

HOME STRETCH, TEAM! I'm shocked I got this far, TBH

Part 13: The World of Random Discontent



This world is making me super salty.

Bubbling Boiler is a solid intro to the area. Manic music and fast action, relatively short but balls hard. My kind of "expert" stage.

Poltergeist Playground is probably my favorite of this bunch. Super clever stuff. My only issue is the "invisible" walkway bit, but it's clued enough that I figured it out, so it is probably alright.

Platform Games is a good short challenge and works kind of a preview for Cutterman Symphony, which is made of sharpened metal evil.

Mines of Morgue is terrible and I hate it. Sorry, that's mean, and I was getting tired and salty when it came around, but the requirement for the red star is ... not my favorite.

Gofer: Mariodius 2 is kind of a sequel to one of my levels from STTB, and does the idea a lot better if for no other reason that it manages to make the auto-scroll work properly. It's a little frustrating trying to keep the shoe afloat after several deaths, but overall it works. I do wish that the boss battle didn't dump you into lava like that.

I burned out before I could finish Moderately Mean, had to switch gears to Random Content to finish the stream on a good note.

Talking Time Trip is cute but kind of wears out its welcome, and I don't look forward to hunting the red star.

I really like New Super Luigi Bros. 2, especially the red star gimmick. It's a nice nod to NSMB2 in general and SMBX Red Star nightmares.

Sorry there's so much salt in this video. But to be honest, this is the level of frustration I was kind of expecting for the entire TLL, so it's kind of nice that it only really comes on in the bonus world.

Cutterman Symphony back to back with Mines of Morgue is enough to crush anybody's spirit. If you don't want to go back for the star you won't see me complaining.

The thing with that stage is that it pushes you to rush for the star, and literally every aspect is designed with the expectation that you take your time. The terrible and evil secret is that you're actually supposed to take your time. Originally there wasn't a message box telling you what the gimmick is, and since I put that in everyone immediately tries to gun for the star on their first couple attempts. But my original idea was you play through the stage slowly, and when you go around for a second pass you try to find little shortcuts to get there faster - but not by sprinting through the whole thing; by spinning on the right things and making bigger leaps. It's literally a test of patience and its the most stressful thing I could conceive of. In conclusion, I really should've put the message box at the end instead of the beginning.

...I really shouldn't have made the stage at all. BUT THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS, MAN. People wanted harder levels from Talking Time and I was really dedicated to making that happen. Artificial difficulty is an easy trap to fall into. Even I don't know what the hell I was thinking with that buzzsaw at the end.



I remember when New Super Luigi Bros had that ABBA song and its a total shame we couldn't use it.

Congrats on making it (mostly) through Random Discontent, McClain!

Bubbling Boiler: Yeah, aside from that one overly tricky jump (we should have caught that), a solidly difficult but not too long format.

Platform Games: Same. As McClain mentioned, it's really impressive that this level works both forwards and backwards.

Cutterman Symphony: I continue to be impressed with the varied challenges that Isrieri managed to create using just Grinders and fences.

Mines of Morgue: Honestly, I like this level (even though, yeah, the Red Star is hard). What I like about it is that there's no big gimmick to the level. It's just solid enemy placement. You often have to figure out how to manage >1 threat at a time rather than progressing in a completely linear fashion.

Poltergeist Playground: For what it's worth, the invisible bridge does have a visual clue(s). All of the platforms cast a shadow where they meet the pillars supporting them, and there's also always a cobweb:



With that said, I think most players just did what McClain did, which was to just assume there must be an invisible bridge down there without deducing it from the visual clues, so this wasn't a very well-designed puzzle.

Part 14: FINALE



At long last we come to the end of our journey (at least until STTB3 is complete).

I'm honestly pretty surprised that I got 100% on The Last Levels without rage quitting. There was plenty of salt, but we did a good enough job making sure there were always other paths to take that it never was a roadblock. As much as I prefer the style of STTB2, TLL is a solid game that TT should still be proud of.

Prismatic Peaks is a fantastic final "real" level for this game. It's not close to the hardest level, but it's one of the most clever and involved. I especially love the extra detail of the entire background color changing in the caves.

The STTB2 Boss Rush is a perfect final challenge. It's not overly hard, though it will likely take a few tries just to get the order down, but once you learn when to cheese it with Link your only real challenge will be the Mega Bowser fight, and I could have gone and powered up someone with hammers or something.

I think that's a really good thing about this postgame. Yeah, it's hard as hell in a lot of places, but a lot of times it's not TOO bad if you just take a breath, go power up, and try again with a clear head.

I ... have no idea what happened with the invisible door at the very end there. I guess Percy lives on to terrorize the universe.

Thank you everyone who read this thread, commented on youtube, and/or joined in on the streams. This was a lot of fun, revisiting the old games, and it seems to have helped jump-start the STTB3 development again (which I need to participate in now that I'm done with this LP).

If you enjoyed this, please drop me a follow on Twitch and/or Youtube. It might be a while until I do another forum LP, but I'll still be streaming and uploading stuff pretty regularly.

See you next mission!

Sorry, Boss, I dropped the exit door while I was climbing up the boss rush.

Congrats on 100%ing The Last Levels (despite your initial misgivings about not even finishing the game at all). I think it's a testament to the fact that the game, although challenging, is generally still fair. Plus, as you said, we give the player opportunities to go power up if they need to.

Prismatic Peaks is definitely one of my favorite creations from STTB2 (even if, as you pointed out, it's basically two smaller levels stapled together), and it was a huge honor to have the last conventional level in the STTB trilogy. The music track in the cave is from Xenosaga III, btw.

Unscrew Attack remains the biggest disappointment in my SMBX career. The idea of using each power-up to obtain the next one in the sequence seemed like a good Red Star challenge when I started building the level, but it turned out to just be way too unintuitive for most players, even after adding several more clues (the special glass blocks containing the power-ups, the inscription at the level start, an NPC on the starbase). Also, I unintentionally made it possible to duck-jump into the beginning of the level without discovering how to pull up the screws, which then makes the rest of the level being needlessly confusing and difficult. At least the level is still nice aesthetically.

I'm bummed I missed the last stream live but have thoroughly enjoyed this series on Twitch and on YouTube. Hope to see you over in the STTB3 thread :-)