As the creator of the Mega Man series, Keiji Inafune is no stranger to making difficult platformers. That makes him a perfect candidate to tackle making a level in Super Mario Maker, which is exactly what he does below.
The video comes from Polygon as part of its "Devs Make Mario" series. Inafune sits down to discuss how he approached his level for a few minutes, talking about inspirations and his design choices. Then, the video gives a full walk-through of Inafune's creation.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn't look easy. Inafune says he wanted to emphasize difficult jumps in his level, taking inspiration from the original Mario games as well as his own Mega Man levels.
"I purposefully made the platforms small in order to challenge the player," he says. "I want to kill them in a single blow as often as possible — whether it's making them fall, or throwing them to be eaten by piranha plants."
There are definitely a lot of piranha plants on Inafune's stage, but they can be dealt with via clever use of turtle shells. The small platforms, on the other hand? Those can only be conquered with pure skill. He says he went for a retro feel for the stage, choosing the Super Nintendo-era Super Mario World graphic skin for the level.
"The recent ones feel too ... what would you call it, modern maybe," he says. "The Mario game that had the biggest impact on me was the first one I played, the original on the NES. In my level, I tried to make some connections to that original game."
The results speak for themselves. While it's not as nefariously difficult as some player-created Super Mario Maker stages can be, Inafune's level still requires plenty of platforming precision to make it all the way to the end.
You can check out the full video below. Inafune's latest game, the Kickstarted Mega Man successor Mighty No. 9, is expected to release sometime this summer. In other Mega Man news, it looks like Capcom is testing the waters for a new entry in the franchise, if a recent poll is to be believed.
