Thank you for choosing to play Crossfire! I am the author, NeptuneNeon.

This hack has been in the making since August 2019 and it was an incredible experience. I had a lot of fun making this hack, I hope you have fun playing it. 

Crossfire consists of 22 exits and 4 switch palaces that do not count towards the exit count. It is a mix of old-school vanilla kaizo with new school chocolate. Everything I find fun in kaizo mario hacks are put into Crossfire. There are no water, cape specific levels. However, you will find motor skills and other various chocolate features.

There is some lore I put in the hack, a lot of James Bond references, especially the movie Skyfall. I am a huge 007 fan, and the lore is set up to be a "Redemption/Comeback story". 
 
I was heavily inspired by the level designs of Invictus and Grand Poo World 2. I chose to primarily focus on tight platforming, and tried new and creative ways to link them. I don't think I'm an accurate judge of my own difficulty, but I would not suggest this hack for beginners. 

I want to thank everyone in the Kaizo Mario community for helping me put this all together and making it work, seriously you all are the most generous people I've known. 

Special Thanks goes out to VLSkoot and Westslasher2, you took all my questions and did help for me out of your own will, and that I am deeply appreciative of, and I'm sure most of you will be too, as this hack would not be like it is without them.

Please take the time to read all the credits at the end of the game to see all the wonderful people who help make this game and this community one of the best. I'm sorry if I forgot anyone! 


Good Luck and Have Fun! If you enjoy the game, come stop by my twitch channel at twitch.tv/neptuneneon for more Kaizo playthroughs and some Lunar Magic streams!. Thank you again for choosing to play this!



SOME THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE PLAYING:

- Start+Select is enabled in all levels.

- the PlayerXSpeedFix patch is applied to the entire game, meaning your cannon/slope speed will not be slowed down or altered if holding the right or left d-pad buttons. This is for certain parts in the game where you are moving faster than p-speed and have to make a jump, this patch makes jumping more consistent.

- Everytime you enter the Overworld, or make a move on the OW will automatically save the game. Midway checkpoints are also saved, just remember to Start+Select out to go to the OW where it will auto save.

- Pausing the game mid-level will still keep the music on but volume is lowered and the screen is dimmed.

- I tried to make every setup to be first-cycled, if you are confused at any point, try just going with no hesitation.



*VERSION 1.2 Changes/Fixes*

 -[For England, James?] Ground at the end of the level is raised up to show you can walk off and go underneath the bullet bills.
 -[Polaris]- 2nd half goes back to vanilla cam, no longer centering mario, new camera panning blocks were added in the dry bones and thwomps section to appropriately move the camera up with Mario. First dry bone is also changed to be less tight.
 -[No Parachute] The wall to the right at the yoshi fall section has been removed. Invisible sprite killing blocks are lined against the wall on the left. Raised the exiting pipe up in the orb room one tile to give more time and changed both arrows to point directly to the cloud.
 -[Quartermaster] Changed the first two 2-tile wide grey falling platforms out. It now has a solid ground for landing and a new ball and chain moving clockwise to jump on. Ceiling was also raised where the last 3 rotating grey platforms are in the first half, and invisible blocks preventing a 2-tile jump onto the saw was removed. Ceiling also raised at the two thwomps in the 2nd half. Some falling spikes were removed.
 -[Mystic Cave] No longer can wait on the first layer 2 moving object in the 2nd half, death blocks were there to prevent that in 1.0, forgot to bring them down just one more tile. Some spikes were moved to soften up jumps.
 -[Metro Madness] Indicators changed at the end of the level.
 -[Ultra Shell] CP mushroom platform slightly adjusted with the kaizo block to make jump more consistent.
 -[1-up palace] Some death blocks either removed or slightly moved, ceiling raised at blue koopa section, final jump softened to increase consistency.
 -[Last Rat Standing] Some kaizo blocks were removed. A new on/off switch was added at the beginning of the 3rd section to reset switches back in case you one-shot. 



----SPOILERS-----



 -All boom booms were nerfed, they no longer spew fireballs or throw bombs.
 -Added in most boss rooms a starting block that will disappear once you jump off to give more reaction time. Some were outfitted with a snake-eating block.
 -In the Chicken Switch boss room, the boom boom now stays on the ground and does not jump. The switch-block platform was raised up one.
 -Some boost blocks were removed in the Extraterrestrial boss room. 
 -Added a 2nd grinder in the Metro Madness boss room.
 -Moved the fuzzy in the Late Arrival boss room down on its on line and added one more reznor. (Now 5 htis)
 
   Double Spin Jump fix patch has been applied.
   Various munchers/spikes moved to polish tight jumps. 
   Some ceilings were raised in a lot of regrab jumps throughout several levels. 
   Also some carefully choiced kaizo blocks were removed.

	#This will be the only accepted version of Crossfire for valid speedruns.# This is mostly because:
		-Some version 1.0 copies do not have the rope glitch patch applied, allowing for cheese.
		-Version 1.1 has a CP in the middle of the 2nd and 3rd round in the boss rush. It has been removed in version 1.2