Make a Good Mega Man Level Contest 3 Blind Playthrough Part 103 - Mirror Woman
This stage is certainly ambitious and from an objective stand point, it should be incredible since the idea and concept it has chosen to run with is spectacular. The key word that I used was "objectively" since I can see where the love and thought for this stage went however from a subjective stand view, this won't be one of my favorites since I personally don't enjoy puzzle concept stages like this as others may do.
Don't get me wrong, the mirror gimmick that this stage implements is fantastic, its novel and plays well but its a kind of stage that I simply won't enjoy as much as others, that's nothing against this stage but rather, my different kind of preferred type of Mega Man stages
The mirror gimmick is super trippy, disorienting and all around wacky, there's plenty of creativity done with it as well, as many of the set-ups are cleverly thought out and feel satisfying to solve, the latter half is a perfect example of this as it truly pushes this gimmick to its limit.
I didn't notice at the time, but the player plays through this stage backwards in the latter half, that only occurred to me after the judges mentioned it as well as looking back through my footage as I was editing it. The only difference in the backtrack is that its done in reverse gravity which only adds to the already confusing gameplay at times.
The backtrack is certainly far more dangerous than the first, and although the player plays through the same stages, everything is mirrored and gravity is flipped adding extra spice to this level. Naturally, with that comes reverse controls which adds another thing to be vary of, you can see how remembering all this can get a tad bit extreme for some players.
The mini boss is a good fight, has some very neat and cool attacks, the reverse gravity fight is a whole another matter making it far harder than one would expect, although the battle is the same, there is much more added confusion from the simple fact that we're upside down.
The extra mini boss is well...kind of too much to buster only...considering there is a supposed skin to unlock by beating it using this method. The biggest flaw of this extra boss is the fact it has 4 arms which means the boss' weak spot is protected for most of the battle, from the few battes I had against it, the attack which uses all 4 arms is the best chance to counter as the weak spot is left completely unprotected.
After a while I searched for a weakness and found one in Laser Trident but then I found a super weakness in Tornado Blow which completely trivializes the battle as it hits right through the arms. I don't mind difficult bosses but this extra boss is more tedious than difficult since your chances to counter-attack are so limited, honestly I'm not too sure how to feel about this extra boss but my impressions are mostly not great.
Finally, Mirror Woman herself is a good battle, she utilizes the mirror gimmick which we've been dealing with as part of the fight which is great to see, the last part of her battle requires the player to shoot off slopes to hit the boss which is a smart idea. The boss feels mostly fair in all her attacks, even when there's plenty of bullets on screen, it feels manageable.
Overall, I leave this stage feeling that the concept and execution here was pretty great, I may not be singing this stage's praises like others because I normally prefer a different kind of Mega Man stage, as I said right at the beginning, objectively this stage is far better than I'm probably giving it credit for, since subjectively I found the stage to be fascinating but this isn't my favorite and I will prefer simpler and more linear stages since puzzle gimmick stages are not normally my preference. Credit where its due, this was a wonderful concept and the execution is pretty damn good, so great job on that.