YMMV / Make a Good Level X

• Arc Fatigue: Due to the number of levels in the second contest compared to the first one, the playthrough of the contest lasted from July 1, 2015 to December 15, 2015, making it roughly 5 and a half months. This is very long, compared to the first one, which only lasted two months. People have been comparing the second playthrough to Mr. Bone's Wild Ride. The contest itself started in February, meaning that the whole project lasted almost a whole entire year.
  • The third tier of the postgame has been seen as this for many viewers. It is an advertisement for the upcoming SMBX 2.0 coming out, and each level features a new character that will be coded in the game. Some people are feeling it like is stretching the already long game way too much.
• Broken Base:
  • Anything about the Top 10 Levels in both contests. Many people, including the authors of the levels themselves, will argue about how the levels shouldn't deserve to be there or how there were better levels. Discussion of Top 3 is even more controversial.
  • A notably controversial level is "I Do Like My Mysterious Levels, Do I?", the second place winner of the first contest. Horikawa came under incredible fire for giving a flavour-based level with little gameplay a perfect score.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • "Let Me Show You What I Think of Deep Kitchens In The Hyrule Lake" is a joke level with poor-looking graphics and Luigi resprited to have the face of Charles Barkley.
  • "Hey Everybody, This Is Toad and I'm Playing the Latest Romhack 'Unbecoming Link'!" is an insane acid level with an absurd interpretation of Toad, 'Toaf', random midair Blaarg cannons, Link enemies that walk backwards, and Canadian flags strewn everywhere. The level is made by none other than SLIME MINISTER of Tumblr fame.
  • "Psychedelic Magnificent Waluigi" is a crazy acid level with rainbow enemies and an elaborate lights show for the secret exit. Not to mention Waluigi thwomps.
• Demonic Spiders
  • Any level that's oversatured with these kinds of enemies will most likely get a very low score from at least one of the judges. An infamous example are Rinkas.
• Ensemble Dark Horse
  • Level-wise, "Dudes" in the first contest is considered one by a long shot. It wasn't rated high compared to the higher-tiered levels (Horikawa gave it a relatively high score), but it was very enjoyable with Koopas along with averting a Mother Brain fight.
• Memetic Badass: Umbra. He has become an extremely popular character on the Talkhaus thanks to his "great" writing, usage of real-life guns, and reeking of OC. He's enough of a meme to get his own "Umbra Mission" remixes in the MaGLX1 Improved Hub.
• Older Than They Think: The "Full Blargg" boss from the first Make a Good Level X is considered a Talkhaus inside-joke, but Blarggs have had their whole bodies shown as early as the Super Mario World cartoons.
• Padding
  • The Super Mario Bros X 2.0 tier on the moon, especially for those that wanted the relay levels to be done already.
  • The Yacht of Opinions 2.0 is actually considered this by one of the hub designers. If there weren't so many levels, they would've just gone from the City world to the final Festival/Cow world.
• That One Boss: There are custom bosses in the contest (either at the end of the levels or at MAFABs) that have been extremely aggravating.
  • "Ikarugouu", MaFAB 30th place. You have to fight a Ludwig von Koopa clone with 5 hits and fast projectiles all while tiny projectiles that hurt rain down from the sky at a constant rate. Good luck.
  • 'It's a Fish Silly', the second place entry for MaFAB, even shows that a well-designed boss is considered tedious. The boss battle involves trying to survive a series of terrain changes while throwing things at a fish that's trying to kill you. These terrain changes include trying to dodge firebars and Rinkas while throwing pumpkins at the fish, swimming through an autoscrolling section full of blocks and Jelectros (considered the hardest one), jumping up small clouds while avoiding airships, going through a cave with spikes, lobsters, and glitchiness, going through a grassy area with nothing but coins (that can't be thrown) and a throwable fish, a lava area with Bob-Ombs constantly spawning, and a breather area full of mushrooms that you can either use to recover or to damage the fish. Fortunately, you get a 1-Up each time you fight the boss, so Death Is a Slap on the Wrist.
• That One Level: Plenty of examples. Most of these are actually designated in-game via "Angrycow Warning" popups in the first contest and judges telling you what's up next to the levels in the second contest.
  • Make a Good Level Contest X
    • "Starry Ocean Pipes", an extremely frustrating and poorly-designed level that has lots of extremely tight jumps and enemy spam. On top of that, there is a severe lack of powerups, and if you lack a LunaLua-hacked version of SMBX, this level could crash your game due to the huge amount of background objects.
    • "A Waltz in the Scarlet Devil Mansion" is an incredibly difficult and unfair Touhou-themed level, with constant use of Rinkas (tracking enemies from the Metroid series), Bullet Bills, and hammers spawning out of pentagrams, with long segments of nothing but dodging huge swarms of projectiles just to continue in the level.
    • "I Hate Assassinating When It's So Pleasant Out Like This", a frustrating, powerup-starved Stealth-Based Mission where you have to kill enemies past "security coins" to proceed. The catch? You have very limited ammo. And you have to be precise.
    • "A Dreamland Castle Ship", an extremely difficult, very long, precision based level. Only one midpoint. Have fun.
    • "Koopa Devil Mansion", another Touhou-themed level with tons of Roto-Discs, Rinkas, and laser-firing Bowser Statues, along with two impossibly hard bosses that have a ton of attacks that are extremely difficult to dodge. Thankfully, if you fail to one of the bosses (Flandre), you can try again thanks to how the level works.
    • "Carefully and Forcefully Jump", an borderline-kaizo precision-based level with bullet jumps, segments where you have avoid touching P-Switches, and a secret star that involves getting all five of the extremely tricky Dragon Coins in one go.
    • Swimming in the Sinking Ocean. An incredibly long level with VERY little powerups, difficult enemy placement, and a secret exit that requires you to find a palmtree-stealing Koopa five times in a row in one shot, and catch up to him in a Timed Mission.
    • "Dreamland's River of the Damned" is an astronomically difficult level with hard-to-dodge fake blocks and precise jumps, with a two-phase boss fight over lava at the end.
  • Make a Good Level Contest X2
    • "Woebegone Cheep Cheep of the Scarlet Devil Mansion Volcano", yet another Touhou level with tons of Rinkas, ridiculously fast Grinders, random projectiles out of nowhere, a segment where you have to dodge half a dozen Rinka cannons and Cheep Cheeps for a very long time, tricky placement of firebars, powerup starvation, and a fight with Flandre again, who has 200 HITS. Fortunately, you have a beam of hammers during this fight, but you still have to deal with tons of projectiles.
    • "My Mom Said That Sub Zero Is of the Devil. I'm Inclined to Agree" is considered to be one of the worst levels due to the player graphic and its lack of connection to the level. The player graphic? A Mega Man/Pony fusion that plays as Mario (nobody makes mention to the fact that the character is a pony, and just calls them Mario). The character has a horrifically awkward hitbox when they're big and there are several parts where you have to do precise jumps between spikes. There are even a lot of untested mistakes including a pit that you can't get hurt or escape, meaning the only ways you can get out are to die via code or restart the game.
    • "Demonic Gathering", an extremely long level that has incredibly confusing level design. It does have a saving grace, though, in its hysterical cutscenes.
    • "The Last Tragedy of Dr. Snifit", an obnoxiously cryptic puzzle level that involves lots of item-babysitting, along with a custom-made, just as obnoxious Fishin' Boo, returning from Super Mario World.
    • "Hey Buddy! Get Your Rip Van Fish Off My Keep!" is another very long level with gravity-flipping ala VVVVVV as a core mechanic, along with a difficult escape sequence and an easy-to-miss secret exit.
    • "Personally, I Think Mario is Missing is a Very Observant and Fantastic Experience. I Captured That Here" - an exploration level with no indication of where you're supposed to go, accompanied by a Dragon Coin hunt, item babysitting, blind jumps, and an absurdly long length. Even worse is the fact that there are no midpoints at all (until the end), making you beat the level in one go.