MFGG - Mario Fan Games Galaxy

Review Information

Game Reviewed	Super Mario Bros: Dual Dash, by Hello
Review Author	Black Squirrel
Created	Jan 12 2008, 12:52 PM

General Commentary and Game Overview

Harsh review ahead. Why? Because Hello dishes out games every few weeks and simply won't benifit from just praise alone. Super Mario Bros: Dual Dash is the 20th(?) game Hello has come up with, and about the 15th platformer. But surely the 15th attempt can't be that bad right?

Pros	-A semi-original concept -Engine's still good -Sound's still good
Cons	-A "Haven't I played this before" atmosphere. -Lag

Impressions

Gameplay 6 / 10	There's no point going into great detail about the gameplay. It hasn't really changed that much since the last few games. It uses Hello's own engine which although isn't quite as good as the works of ultramario or Guinea, it's far from awful and contains pretty much everything you'd expect in a Mario engine. I could go into great detail about the flaws of said engine, but this particular revision is out-of-date and no doubt many of the flaws have been picked up on in the many games Hello's made with it. The gimmick this time? You play as both Mario brothers at once. They need to use the power of TEAMWORK to progress through the stages, which isn't a bad concept I guess but it hasn't quite been executed perfectly. Unless you've got a friend, one player controls both characters, so essentially you're playing the level twice. But before I say that this method means the game is slow, let me remind you of a common flaw of GameMaker games - lag. Duel Dash, like seemingly every other GameMaker Mario platformer worth talking about, lags unnecessarily. The FPS counter default to Hello's engines has been replaced with a nice piece of text that tells you it lags if it's not performing at about 60FPS. My question is, "why hasn't this lag been avoided instead?". Games like these should not chug along at 30FPS or lower on computers like this, even if said computer is half a decade old. I am simply not able to enjoy games like these at those speeds, and I don't see why I should have to replace my computer to play something that's techincally inferior to other games that run at full speed... and I doubt I'm the only one with this view. But aside from lag Duel Dash does a good job replicating the two-person formula. However, when Luigi leaves the screen we're treated to a small window showing where he is on the level. That's nice and all, but as the resolution of that window is so small, it's stupidly difficult to move around and time jumps with Luigi when it's active. It would have been much better just to make a vertical split-screen. Then again, since both players do pretty much the same thing, you do tend to wonder why we're forced to play as two characters anyway. Overall the gameplay's not too shabby, but it's not that impressive since it's been done several times before. It's not easy to see an improvement over Hello's last games, so really it's just a clone with an extra player.
Graphics 5 / 10	I made some tilesets, and they've been used a lot by Hello. Now to be honest, I've had thoughts about taking them off since people have stopped putting effort into fangames because of them. With my 2007 set, used here, I gave the sheet an awful palette in the hopes that those willing to make good games with it would GIVE IT A RECOLOUR. ...and yeah, I suppose Hello has done this after pressure from pretty much everyone... but he hasn't recoloured the whole thing. He's changed the orange ground. That's what? Three or four colours changed? Not much... and from the looks of things said colours were included elsewhere in the palette as well. Now I suppose I sound a bit ungrateful, I mean here I am complaining that people have used my work. But what actually bugs me is the amount of potential lost through laziness. 16 million colours to choose from and all that's picked is the 32 default ones I included... which suck... and should always be replaced if the sheet is to be used. Come on man, be imaginative! Change the grass colour too! It hurts to see that months of work can be abused by others to the point where you really don't want to see them anymore. I'd also like to point out my tileset has tiles to stop the rocky parts of the ground looking as boring and flat as Super Mario World's. I included indents and outdents yet nobody seems to use them... are they really worse than nothing? Because some parts of Duel Dash's level design look about as bland as it did in Super Mario World, which was constantly fighting limitations that aren't present here. Sprites themselves are straight from Super Mario Advance 4, which we've all seen a dozen times in Hello's works and don't really scream "original" either. I don't mind them that much, but I suppose we could use something fresh. If there aren't any with the required animations then make them - Game Making shouldn't be easy.
Sound 7 / 10	Sound however, is always something that Hello manages to get right. He doesn't use MIDIs or anything as equally crappy and although most of his games only have one or two tracks, they're usually very good in comparison to the overused garbage we often hear. Hello's score goes down a bit this time because it's not that original. Super Mario Bros. 2 music. Nothing quite wrong with this, but considering Hello's used stuff from outside of the Mario series before now, this seems like a step backwards. Sound effects are as you would expect and I've got no issues here either, apart from Mario and Luigi's voices which could be considered a bit annoying.
Replay 4 / 10	There's not a lot of depth in Duel Dash so it's just like any other linear platformer in terms of replay value. Lag ruins the experience if you're not equipped with the best computer ever, and there are better examples of Hello's work out there. To be honest the only time I would play this game again is when Hello finally snaps and gets all these levels/gameplay gimmicks, fixes them, and sticks them into one big amazing lagless compilation.

Final Words

Duel Dash is still great, but it's frustrating that the same flaws from previous titles still exist. There's better games by Hello at MFGG, but you shouldn't be too displeased with this.

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Comments

	ShadowLuigi64 Oct 16 2008, 12:28 PM
Nice man. Big too. >.>

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