Bowser's Ultimate Armada

Bowser's Ultimate Armada is a Make a Good Level X3 contest entry, submitted by Super Maks 64. The player is automatically filtered to Mario at the start.

This level contains 21 stars - far more than any other entry in the contest. Besides the level-ending star, one is acquired after defeating Bowser, and the remaining 19 are collected in rapid sequence after entering a door in the final room.

Sturg
I liked how you whined about SMBX and not getting the tech you wanted, that was my favorite part. It's odd that so much level here exists despite your distaste with SMBX and ignorance to the contest gimmick. Like, I appreciate taking the time in designing something for the contest, and there were parts I found fun and enjoyable. It just feels a bit mean-spirited of you to make an incredibly large level that ignores mostly every chosen gimmick, and then dedicate the ending complaining. I guess I'm somewhat confused as to what your intentions here were. Anyways thanks for submitting what was essentially a slightly cursed, tacked-together version of SMB3's entire World 8, inflating your level file-size with 9 long MP3s, and attempting to unnecessarily pump the star count by 20.

Zatsupachi
I WANT to love this level but, I'm greatfully sorry-- the level outlived its welcome. It is a cool representation of the final levels of SMB3. Bowser's fortress should've been a separate level, to be honest. The second phase needs a better challenge than homing projectiles because, my goodness, is that the glitchy rideable AIRSHIP piece? It has NO precision at all and you can easily zip out of it by ramming a solid wall from any direction. Also what is up with that door before the level-ending star? A dev exit? I don't know.

Rameau's Nephew
I spent much of this level wondering if I was playing a serious entry or a mild troll level. On the one hand, a good number of the sections taken by themselves are pretty competently made and playable; on the other hand, it goes on for five years, starts introducing decidedly more annoying elements in the later parts, like the great cloud of unstompable silent cannonballs or the pressure-plate activated statues which give you minimal let to work around, and there are also a few outright trolly bits like the level seemingly going out of its way to place a mushroom at a point where you can easily zip through the wall and fall in to an (otherwise pointless, thus clearly created for this trap) pool of lava near the first midpoint. There's also the strange music in the first sections, the mock-epic tone everywhere else despite a general feeling of emptiness that seems deliberately designed to undercut this, and the sarcastic note on which the whole affair ends. Like, you *could* have easily made a pretty decent level out of some of the pieces you have here, but instead you seem to have expended a *great* deal of effort in order to create an overextended drag of a pseudo-epic you don't seem to take seriously yourself. What exactly was your goal here?

+ Some perfectly competent design among this weird overextended affair

- Falls in to deliberate trolling at times

- Way, way too long.

Other: I admit I did laugh at the idea of putting tanks on boats. Surely the ultimate weapon.

Author's notes
Stars:21

Filters: Mario, no powerups, no mounts

Location: Desert

Adjective: Deadly

NPC: PaddleWheel Platform

Extra: Rocks

Trivia
The high amount of stars in this level is the reason why later contest tiers in the compilation are unlocked by numbers of exits (to better preserve pacing).