Determination gets you good things.

Moving along in the SDGQ 2025 block, I headed over to Super Mario Maker 2 to check out the SGDQ 2025 levels created for the marathon. Now when that game was played during the event, they had 2 groups of 4 and any time a player in one of the groups died, then all players in that group would cycle over either clockwise or counterclockwise. I don't know which. I'm not checking.

The first level I played was Commatose. A light autoscroller platformer music level. I admit, the music was pretty damn good! I don't know whether the song is called Commatose. Either way, it was well crafted! Right off the bat you are running as you bounce off a note block to ground pound on an item block that spits out a spike shell to which then you have to bounce off of a floating Bowser Jr. Double jump, twirl, spin jump, die several hundred times which is what I did. It's hard to grasp what you're doing while trying to play a level that goes at high scrolling speeds. I'm not sure why there's a P-Switch in the level given you don't use it after you collect the first of two red coins since then you have to land in a dry shell boat thingy which makes you automatically eject the P-Switch. After taking some wall jumps, you're supposed to grab the spring, jump off the big buzzy shell, I didn't realize at first you had to go in kind of a C path motion even though I probably should've. You're supposed to do that from how I played it so then you can hop on to the conveyor belt. After taking a shit load more deaths that were very avoidable, I finally make progress. Not much though as like... okay there's a giant thwomp, I have a spring, there's a red coin guarded between spikes... what do? Well you're supposed to throw the spring so the Thwomp bounces on it, jump up bash your head at the solid blocks so you can fall and get the red coin, then jump up and boost yourself on the spring. You think I did that all my first try? No of course I fucking didn't.

Now granted I eventually did. I got the key, jumped off another floating koopaling, did some more wall jumping, and finally got... a checkpoint. Yeah there's more to the level. Including a double jump which lands you on a noteblock you can jump on to get you to an item block which spits out a buzzy shell to which you're supposed to C path over and hold on. Not first try for me of course. Once I did do it right, I took the shell, broke the brick after releasing it at the indicator, died to spikes... yeah I wasn't supposed to do that. I was actually supposed to jump on a Goomba. and then bounce off the buzzy shell at the indicator. After doing that, I ground pounded to another block which spit out a spike ball, and then did a regular jump... yeah my brain died. What I was actually supposed to do was spin jump. Duh doy. After doing that successfully, revealing another spike ball to break a brick, slide on some icicles boinging on a note block, and going through a pipe... another checkpoint. Oh boy more to the level? Yep. After starting with a triple jump to let me hit an ON/OFF block I regular jump at the end of the red blocks despite clear as day there being a spin indicator. After spinning I had to bounce a bob-omb to the right, carry it, full jump off of a note block, twirl down so I can get to the next platform, release the bob-omb to kill the big plant, drop the bomb down to an on/off block jump off of some weak icicles, do another triple jump, pick up a buzzy shell and release it at the indicator, shell jump, spin off a thwomp, jump off of Roy, and get through a pipe to finally the end of the level. To which that all took me... several times to perfect. Shocking right?

Oh if you thought that level took me a while... well... buckle up... there's still 2 and a half hours left of the stream I somehow have to describe in this fucking article. Oh goodie. So here we go. The next level I played was called Heavy Lifting. This level had a lower completion rate at 1.32%... that sounds fun. I can see why. I was doing the first jump all so wrong. I thought I had to bounce off the buzzy beetle and some how sqhweammier my way into little hole between the spikes. But that seemed nearly impossible to do. Even when I got in that little crack I couldn't bounce off the shell. That's when I realized... I was doing it all wrong. I had to bounce off the shell, go left, bounce off a spike that was flung up, bounce off that, then bounce off the buzzy shell which then let it go right, bounce off it again, off another spike to a blue falling platform. It's sad it took me that long to figure that out. After getting on the blue falling platform, I had to first kick off a big buzzy shell, carry a small buzzy shell, bounce off the big shell, throw the small shell at the indicator, bounce off it via shell jump, all that took me a few attempts to get it down. When I did... oh boy it was chaos. Boom bounce off a small buzzy, boom bounce off a galoomba boom not know what you're supposed to do once you jump off the buzzy shell that was bounced by the springs carried by the Thwomp like let's please slow this down!

Oh yeah there was also a pattern where whenever I tried throwing the small shells at the indicator, I would throw the shell up. Yeah the D-Pad on the Switch Pro Controller is... sensitive... But that wasn't my only issue. I still had to get the shell jump down, and then try to figure the fuck out why I wasn't getting the shell to jump on the springs after it was launched. And even when I did get the shell to bounce, I would panic and then die a horrible death. It felt like no matter what I did I was just missing something horribly and any sense of timing I once had was thrown out the window. There were a shit load of deaths and like... zero progress being made. I could've ended the stream here. But for some reason... something was telling me to keep going. That's when I finally realized, now 13 minutes overtime in the stream, if I waited just a TAD longer on the falling blue platform and then did the jumps, that would give the launched buzzy shell a bigger chance of jumping off the springs, letting me jump off it, hit the on/off blocks, grab the shell, release it at the indicator, die, shit my pants, etc. Hey, subtle progress! Eventually like 10 minutes later I did get the shell bounce. I didn't hold jump but I got the bounce. 5 minutes later, I get the bounce, do hold jump bounce off the 2nd buzzy shell, bounce off the big mole, die to the spike, shit my pants again, etc.

Every time I make progress I just fuck up horribly. Like when I make it past the 3 jump section with the mole, spike, chomp post, I thought I could just regular jump... I couldn't. I had to spin off the thwomp. Wish there was a fucking indicator. Oh yeah. I do a regular jump again at that part as if I thought the first try was a fucking fluke. The 3rd time I get to that part I don't even bother to jump apparently. This time I do get the spin jump off. Hell I even jump off the spike. But of course I fucking fail to go in the pipe. Thinking I could just hold up. Nope. I had to grab the vine. Finally... now 43 minutes overtime I make it through the pie and... checkpoint. Yay... more... time to jump off the big bob-omb and then die because I missed a spike I was supposed to jump off of. So I do that and go left afterwards because the arrow points left. But in reality I was supposed to kick the bob-omb to the left while I spin jumped off the thwomp, squeezing through the 1 block gap, jumping off a small bob-omb while also kicking it the wrong direction, restarting, kicking the bob-omb the right way, not going over the wall, going over the wall this time jumping on the mole but not letting the weak icicle drop, taking too long to realize I can do that, finally realizing I have to do that, even kicking the other bob-omb in the correct direction dying to the muncher holding the other bob-omb... hey... slow and steady wins the race!

At this point I felt like I was understanding everything I was supposed to do. Until I get to a small buzzy being carried by a couple boos. Thinking the thwomp would help push me up, I found myself actually getting stuck there while a big bob-omb ended my suffering. Like what the fuck do I do? That's when I realized... I'm just really stupid and I had to spin jump off the bomb to make it go to the right, kill the spike which drops the muncher so then the thwomp can fling me upwards to which I jump off the beetle and die to spikes... welp here we go again. This time I make it to the falling blue platform, take the small shell, bounce off the big shell a couple times, throw the small shell at the indicator, die. Oh this will be a tough series of events. Well... more or less the shell jump part. I was still struggling with parts of the 2nd half too. It wasn't easy getting back to the falling blue platform. At least it didn't take me stupidly long times to get back there. Though I did eventually start getting more consistent. It was just a matter of getting the jump. Easier said than done. I think at the time of releasing the shell I also let go of A which causes my jump to be short, causing me to die. Trust me, in that moment it is way harder to just let go of X. I was definitely getting closer though. I felt like I was bound to get the jump sooner rather than later.

Oh no actually it would be much later. At this point the fatigue was kicking in. Which led to one thing... at that moment... I did what no Mario Maker 2 player ever wants to do... I... hit... start... over... hell I didn't even realize it until after I died after I start over. Fuck me. Thankfully it didn't take me long at all to get back to the checkpoint. Now I just had to get that damn shell jump. Again, easier said than done. It didn't help that I was constantly throwing the shell up at the indicator which was getting annoying. Of course once again fatigue is a bitch and makes me start over again. I hope I don't keep doing that. Once again I quickly get back to the 2nd half. Eventually, you don't see it but I actually end up disabling the up button on my controller. It's so random but so nice that Nintendo lets you remap buttons including disabling them on your controllers. That didn't help my shell jump area problem though. I kept releasing A every time I released the shell. I needed a new strategy. Perhaps when I got to the beetle on the boos, I would pause the game, have my left hand on the D-Pad like it had always been. But with my right, instead of my thumb on X and A, I'd have my middle finger on A and pointer finger on X which I found to be... a hell of a lot easier.

What wasn't easy, was thinking I could just stand right above the mole below me at the end of the section and have it bounce me up. Nope. I just die to muncher breath. Well... it was fun being past the shell jump! I do make it there again and once again die to muncher breath. 3rd time, I actually jump before the munchers do and I still get dead by muncher breath. (sigh). This time I make sure I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT FUCK UP. I stand right above the mole, jump before the munchers do, land on the chomp post, enter the pipe, let the big fish out of the item block, die, start the level over, HAH JUST KIDDING I GOT YOU! No no I didn't restart, That goal tape was mine and I beat the level. Only an hour and 54 minutes overtime! HUZZAH!