i think it's really neat how this mod goes to try and add every recognizable pizza tower character, and it's clear they were made with love. i don't want to discredit that, and i hope to see future updates of this pack! however, there's a lot that bothers me about the execution. i'm gonna split this up into sections and be as constructive as possible.
MODELS & TEXTURES
there's a lot with the models that really, really bother me. a lot of the characters do not look right when facing the side or from above, which is a lot more common than one might think! you'll mostly see who you play as from the back, but you'll see a variety of angles if you're playing with friends. a lot of the characters have a triangle-build face when you look at them from the top, which doesn't feel right. i understand it's to make the mouths look the way they do from the side, but it ends up giving the models really awkward shading. it's the most obvious on vigi. the eyes are modeled most of the characters, leaving them to often jut out in a really odd way, like pepperman's. they feel less like eyes and more like gumballs put onto a pepper. this actually works in favor of fake peppino's model, as his eyes don't correctly fit into his sockets. i think out of all of the models, fake is my favorite for this alone! however, there's another huge problem with the models: their proportions. compared to mario, the human characters's heads are HUGE. it makes the character models themselves feel really big compared to the rest of SM64. the worst offender is mr. stick, who's body feels really awkward and blocky.
the texture work fts pizza tower's style pretty well, but it doesn't fit too well with the SM64 style. it's hard to tell what style the mod is going for, since while it uses the pizza tower art style for its textures, the models will use the skin tone of mario, which gives the human characters a bit of a de-saturated, odd look. i think the best looking textures are the life icons, as they do fit the SM64 style, but it clashes with the rest of the mod in art style.
the noises have unique death/hurt heads, which is an amazing detail!! i love it when mods do that. however, some of their textures don't look right (i.e. noise and noisette's UpEyes texture having their right eyes lack a pupil but their left has both).
overall, the models feel a bit sloppy, but you can tell they genuinely were made with love.
SOUNDS
because this pack sources its voice clips from pizza tower, it leads to a lot of clips being either too long or unfitting. i can't exactly blame the pack for it, since getting voice actors fit for each character can be very hard. however, it makes playing as a lot of the characters feel incredibly awkward. i think the one i have the least issue with here is brick for the most part.
CODING + MISC
strangely enough, this mod doesn't add its characters with its main.lua, but adds each character through their own lua file. thankfully, it's not a big deal since it only handles adding the characters, but it leaves things really messy. in my experience, i utilize a loop to cycle through all the characters i want added in the main, and if i have multiple preset palettes, i add a colors.lua file to keep things organized.
something i find really odd is how almost all of the text for this mod is incredibly inconsistent. most of the names in the mod menu are written in caps except for the stupid rat and noise, and the descriptions all overflow off screen with their text. it's a bit jarring when placed in junction with most other character select mods...
OVERALL...
i think it's okay at best. i like that they're aiming to add every recognizable PT character, it's admirable! i hope a lot of fun was had while creating for this pack, as that's the most important part!!
