MFGG - Mario Fan Games Galaxy

Review Information

Game Reviewed	SMB - Raiders of the Painting Realms, by Guinea
Review Author	toodles_team
Created	Feb 28 2009, 4:46 PM

General Commentary and Game Overview

Raiders of the Painting Realms is certainly an above average fangame, which really isn't a surprise seeing who made it. It's not perfect, but fangames rarely are. What it is, however, is an excellent semi-sequel of sorts to Super Mario 64 with lots of new touches thrown in. I eagerly anticipate the full game!

Pros	-Good music -Excellent engine! -Has that Mario "feel" to it -Bro swapping for puzzles is clever -decent graphics -Good boss!
Cons	-switching between Mario and Luigi between levels is tedious -Levels are a little bare in their design -Swing bars are a bit awkward to use

Impressions

Gameplay 9 / 10	Excellent. The engine is super polished and it really shows. Mario and Luigi run and leap brilliantly. The majority of Mario's moves from Super Mario 64 made the transition here, so all his back flips and wall kicks are present and easy to pull off. Luigi really doesn't have any of his own moves, though, which is a bit disappointing, but I can understand why the creator would do this, as it could throw off puzzle design. This demo also features switch block puzzles that require switching back and forth between Mario and Luigi to solve. It's a great concept and it is really well done here, but I worry that too many of these puzzles could become tedious in a hurry. (And I'm speaking from experience here!) Hopefully the full game will feature many diverse types of bro switching puzzles as the concept is really great. It almost reminds me of the split pads from Banjo-Tooie, which is really cool. Level design is solid, if not a little bland at times. It's fun to leap around the levels, but there isn't a whole lot in them. I imagine this will change later in the game as these are only early levels. They are excellent recreations of the locations from Mario 64, though, so in that respect, I can't complain.
Graphics 8 / 10	The graphics are clean and simple. They're mostly custom, which I always like, and the sprites that aren't custom don't clash and mostly look good as well. The locations are a little plain, but they look nice, so I really can't complain much here. The graphics are certainly a notch above most fangames.
Sound 9 / 10	Very good! High quality music, which is always a plus. Most of the songs are pulled from Super Mario 64, which makes perfect sense given that this game features the same locations. The sound effects are also very nice and fitting, and they're pretty diverse as well, so you won't get tired of hearing the same sounds over and over.
Replay 6 / 10	Not a ton of replay value, but it's a demo, so I expected that. I actually did go back and play it again after my first try, and I don't usually do that for demos, so clearly it's doing something right!

Final Words

An excellent demo of a game with lots of promise. Raiders of the Painting Realms isn't perfect, but it is an incredibly fun homage to Super Mario 64.

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Comments

	Guinea Feb 28 2009, 8:28 PM
Thanks for the review. As for the cons: - Turning automatic switching between levels on or off is planned - Levels definitely need more life - Never had problems with the swing bars myself, but if I get enough complaints about them, I might consider changing the controls for them.


	toodles_team Feb 28 2009, 9:41 PM
Sounds like you've got it covered then!


	ShadowLuigi64 Mar 4 2009, 1:35 PM
Nice game. I love it.

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