The One Room Hack

The One Room Hack
Release date: Nov 20, 2007	Author: Digital_Mantra	Download: Version 1.0 [UH] (421 downloads) Download: Version 1.0 [H] (344 downloads)
Genre: Unknown [?] Game:	Difficulty: Unknown [?]	Average runtime: 0:00 Average collection: 15%
Read Me: [None]	Forum Thread: [None]	Rating:

Description

It took me a long time but I'm finally satisfied with this hack. Thanks for bearing with all the versions, if you've already played them, this newer edition will mess with you.

* Additional items, secrets, puzzles, final message, and continuity pathways have been added.

Known Bugs:
* Some items have appearence of others
* Ship still looks messed up

This hack is for experienced players, all the tough moves are necessary to proceed.

Screenshots

Ratings and Reviews

By Aran;Jaeger on Dec 08, 2016 (

)

15% in 0:00

No animals to be saved.

Quick Summary of the meaning of my SM hack ratings:
5 orbs: SM hacks within the 80% to 100% (90% ± 10%) range of perceived perfection; SM hacks for outstanding wholesome playing experiences and at most minor inconveniences.
4 orbs: SM hacks within the 60% to 80% (70% ± 10%) range of perceived perfection; Well done SM hacks with noticeable design problems.
3 orbs: SM hacks within the 40% to 60% (50% ± 10%) range of perceived perfection; Normal decent average SM hacks.
2 orbs: SM hacks within the 20% to 40% (30% ± 10%) range of perceived perfection; Overall messy, confusing, or punishing SM hacks with some upsides.
1 orb : SM hacks within the 00% to 20% (10% ± 10%) range of perceived perfection; Ruthlessly unplayable, broken, or barely from the original game changed SM hacks.

Judgement parameters summary:
° Creative ideas and features, polished design, how enjoyable and fun the hack can be, lack of hard to find or cryptic required game elements, the difficulty, and if the hack can be finished without major guides or tools.
° Note that the length of a SM hack will not necessarily contribute to my rating of the SM hack, since instead the averaged out experience over the whole hack will be taken into account to get a relative comparison between SM hacks.
° Besides this, lack of impactful changes from the original SM game also went into the evaluation of SM hacks (otherwise one may consider them among the 3 stars hacks) as follows: Ultimately, for my ratings I consider a situation in which an SM enthusiast that already has, knows about and is familiar with the original game and its prominent mechanics could only choose 1 new SM hack to play and thus would really want to make sure he/she will get a fresh and fantastic experience or journey out of his/her 1 choice.

The goal of all these SM hack ratings is so that rather new players have an overview of the whole spectrum of SM hacks and how to sort them in, in relation to each other, where SM hacks that are rated lower might still be enjoyable for more experienced players.

Finally, sometimes for SM hacks it can be relevant that they may be significantly more enjoyable from a player standpoint at which the player is well practiced and familiarized with Super Metroid's game mechanics in general, and that in particular some of the best SM hacks may not be the outright best first SM hack choices to play otherwise because of this, and for beginner SM hack players this typically steers the best first SM hack choices towards some of the SM hacks that I rated with 4 orbs instead of 5.

Rating for some hacks may be off by 1 Star, but arguably not more, and ratings are not attempted to be provided within the precision of ''half orbs''.

By Sapphron on Jul 25, 2019 (

)

No completion stats.

Digital Mantra's tiling skills are shown once again, but it's just another one room hack with a ton of spikes, crumble grapple blocks and limited health. Did not finish because I just got frustrated and the hack was stupid.

By MetroidNerd#9001 on Nov 27, 2019 (

)

No completion stats.

Nice tiling, not so nice hack.

By Sickwood on Mar 31, 2021 (

)

No completion stats.

Well, I can at least tell myself I've completed every Dman hack. It should have been called 'needle in a haystack' hack. Pretty neat ending message for the time, Dman always did like using map stations for lore and stuff.

By ClaireDiviner on Mar 26, 2024 (

)

No completion stats.

Every hack maker has to start somewhere, and that start is always their first ever hack. Some hack makers debut with a hell of a strong start; others debut with a rough-as-hell game. Digital_Mantra needs no introduction to anyone who is in the Super Metroid rom hacking community, either as a creator, a player, or both, and has become one of the more respected high-tier makers around.

All that said, however, I'm going to review this hack fairly, and from what I've played here, yeah, it really does show that this was a first ever hack for a maker. As the name implies, it's exactly that: A One Room Hack, not unlike Landing Site Abuse. Like Landing Site Abuse, this hack has a lot of problems, and all of them stem from one main issue: A lack of transparency. Just like with other hacks before it, including Super Metroid: Gravy, and Super T-Metroid (to name a couple), this game's progression is incredibly cryptic, with zero hint as to how to progress. Worse still is the tired gimmick of having hidden Grapple blocks that even Bombs can't reveal.

Another issue, and probably the biggest, is a PLM issue involving the gates. It's never made clear to the player if the lack of function on the gate is supposed to be a feature or not, and yeah, it's actually a feature. The most egregious being required to open a hidden door behind a Gadora eye at the top part of the room. Only then will the upper-most gate be operational. I had thought I broke something in the game, and ended up restarting a fresh file multiple times, when it's the game gaslighting the shit out of me. I swear, makers have no idea how uncool that shit is.

The last issue I have is the lack of a clear win condition. The description doesn't mention anything of the sort, and you wouldn't really know where the end was, unless you found it by accident. Long story short: You must find a hidden map station that looks nothing like a map station, where you will see a message that essentially congratulates you, and that's it. That's the end of the game. Can't say it's the worst win condition, but it's still quite anticlimactic, but I'll get to the map thing in the next paragraph.

Let's talk about the things that are cool in this hack. It most certainly is not the challenge/obstacles, because they're too convoluted. The things I found cool were the aesthetics, and the message received when activating the map station. Those have since become staples of DMan's hacks. A signature, if you will. From the unique use of the Chozo assets, to the structure of the tiles. It screams Digital_Mantra. I do wonder if the lore presented in each of DMan's hacks ties in to one another, or if they're all standalone. Either way, it's those aspects that do make me appreciate, at the very least, that part.

Overall, though, I have to rate it as the game that it is, and the game that it is isn't good. A 1/5, which while unfortunate, given the hack maker, it is his first attempt at a hack. I reiterate: Not every artist's debut can come in strong, but it's still interesting to see the major difference in growth between DMan's first hack, and his later masterpieces, like Eris, or V I T A L I T Y.

But yeah, this hack sucks.

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