While TASing this I closed the game to watch how it looked from the beginning, but I realised I had 969 rerecords so I decided it was finished.
In order to understand the following explanation of this TAS-Assisted Superplay, I will first of course have to talk about the story behind this game:
Super Cristpohe Bros was released by someone named Pouetpu in 2005, it features 4 levels each with a unique theme and gameplay obstacles.
This game looks very similar to the critically acclaimed Flash game "Super Mario Flash", which is because this game was released as a sort of preview version to give people a taste of how "Super Mario Flash" was going to be like and how it was going to play.
While "Super Mario Flash" did not live up to the same quality that Super Christphoe Bros had delived 2 years prior to it's release, it still somehow managed to accumulate more players than Super Crstiophe Bros ever did. But we are not here to talk about "Super Mario Flash", so I will not explain anything about that game any further
While TASing this game I found myself perplexed at just how ahead of it's time this game actually was. In fact, I think this game is so ahead of it's time it is even ahead of current games. Let me explain:
The piranha plant hitbox is exactly the same width and height as the sprite, which makes total sense, I hear people talking about how "I was literally inside of him" and this completely fixes that issue.
After landing from a jump, you are unable to jump for 3 frames after landing (4 frames if your pixel positioning happens to make you clip inside of a block for 1 frame while falling), this is a mindblowingly simple addition to the controls that make it so much realisic. I mean, do you ever see a human jumping literally instantly after they land? No of course not!
Another mechanic with jumping is that you can only jump every other frame, this mechanic really makes every single obstacle exciting as you wonder if you will be able to clear it or not.
The fireball button is mapped to the 5 key, this is another example of incredible thinking, as having your index finger on the 5 key is more ergonomically sound than having it on spacebar.
If there is at least 1 firebar on-screen, you will not be able to shoot a fireball. I am guessing this was added for realism as doing that in real life would certainly overheat the player.
Talking about realism, can we just talk about the graphics in this game? Games nowadays try to be sharp and high resolution all the time, but clearly a game doesn't need that to look good. This game looks the exact same no matter if you look at it from a distance or up close, just like in real life. A photograph is not gonna have 1 pixel of #000000 outlining around people, or the same color palette everywhere.
Like idk how people didn't think of these mechanics because after playing this game I just miss them while playing any other game, I don't think I can ever go back to playing something else because I will just not find the same enjoyment I get from this game.
This game is so cool, the game is so challenging. While the game can be completed in just under an hour, I keep going back to it just so I can finally get a good challenge again with interesting gameplay.
I wish more people knew about this game, I told all of my friends and family about it but they didn't seem to understand just the amount of geniusness behind the game design. Really unfortunate to see people so manipulated by the "standards" of the newer games
In the end, I would Super Christohpe Bros a solid 4/5 stars, it misses out on a single point because I had this annoying death that made no sense, I think it was because hm wait what happened again? Oh yeah wait no wait that was something different ok well I don't know actually. Anyways a solid 9/10. And that concludes this game review. Hope you enjoyed watching and don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, it helps me out a lot and if you could, like the video as well. Bye!
feos: Claiming for judging.
feos: Fixed framerate.
feos: Delaying while the author is investigating improvements I posted.