Legacy
Release date: May 12, 2005
Author: Banana Oyaji
Download: Version 1.06 [UH] (2502 downloads)
Download: Version 1.06 [H] (1003 downloads)
Genre: Exploration [?]
Game: SM
Difficulty: Vanilla [?]
Average runtime: 3:52
Average collection: 91%
Read Me: [None]
Forum Thread: [None]
Rating: Star Star Star Star Star
Description
This is a complete Super Metroid hack, that alone makes it worth playing. It features new maps, layouts, item placements, and enemy placements. The areas in the beginning are similar to the originals, the farther you advance the more it changes. The difficulty is about the same as the original, and the puzzles are decent. There is a minor glitch where parts of the map won't be displayed when reloading your save.

Screenshots
Screenshot Screenshot
Ratings and Reviews
By Bloodsonic on Mar 30, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 2:24
Legacy is more or less the granddaddy of all super metroid hacks. As far as I'm aware, it's the first full hack to ever come out. Detail-wise, Legacy's constantly minimal design hasn't aged well, but that does NOT take away from the excellent simple and vanilla gameplay. I recommend this hack to everyone, but most especially to new hack players. Its excellent difficulty setting makes it a good foot-in-the-door for newer players.
By thedopefish on Mar 31, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
A quality vanilla-ish hack that due to its age is missing some of the small touches we take for granted these days, but still holds up. It's relatively small and not very difficult, but still manages to give you freedom to explore.

Just... don't try to race it. It will end badly for you, trust me :(
By MetroidMst on Apr 06, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
93% in 2:01
Legacy is probably THE hack to get into playing Super Metroid hacks in general. There is not another hack out there which is so close to the original game in difficulty and length. It has aged pretty well for being one of the old hacks, because it kept to similar concepts of the original game. There is a silly map error, and some things might be a little obtuse to find, but otherwise it is a definite play.
By squishy_ichigo on Apr 11, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
By Elminster on Apr 19, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
The oldest hack worth playing. If you want to rediscover Super Metroid and feel like you're playing it again for the first time, this is the hack to do it with. It's very good for what it tries to be, but don't expect anything new or fancy. Only complaints I really have are that the level design is a bit blocky, and there is a little less potential for sequence breaking.
By Vismund Cygnus on Apr 20, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
I tried to enjoy you Legacy. I really did. Too many contrived puzzles and stuff that ruins the flow of gameplay. The whole thing seems very obnoxious in the end.
By Cirno on Apr 26, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
While it's not the best overall in quality.. Legacy is still something I'd highly recommend to anyone who wants to play Super Metroid hacks. It's perfect for newer players.
By Black Luster Soldier on May 10, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 2:16
Great hack for those who want to get into playing Super Metroid ROM hacks. Just don't expect too much change from the original game (especially since this hack came out about a whole decade ago).
By Sheoldred on Aug 08, 2016 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
I never could understand what the author was going for with this hack as far as level design. Super Metroid comfort food perhaps. It's got a rearrangement of the rooms, but no significant changes in the way Super Metroid's graphics assets were used originally and many rooms are extremely simple in that regard. For some this may be a plus since it is very close to the original game in design philosophy, but I don't like when a hack is close to retread of the original even if it does have a different layout. It's also unexpectedly short for a hack with a new map. I'd play it if it was my first time trying a Super Metroid hack before I knew of the other things which were possible, but not after.
By Aran;Jaeger on Dec 08, 2016 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 2:24
[Watch Video]  
Animals 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 Syphon on Feb 01, 2019 (Star Star Star Star Star )
85% in 3:59
One of the first hacks I played about 6 years ago. Very nice entry hack together with SM: Nature.

Play this if you are new to Metroid hacks, like vanilla-style hacks or are interested in seeing what a 2005 hack looks like.
By JamieWebb16 on Sep 17, 2019 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 4:50
A Decent hack for it's time, and worthy of the name legacy. Definitely worth a play-through.
By caauyjdp on Nov 11, 2019 (Star Star Star Star Star )
81% in 7:11
Map doesn't save, so I'd recommend trying to apply that patch before playing if you can't play in one sitting(or use save states). Not going to rate it worse because of this specifically, tho it did greatly inflate the playtime.

Tons of one way paths for seemingly no reason. Lots of fake walls with no hints(and hints of fake walls where there are none). No hint for path to grapple? Sudden area changes from regular door transitions. Terrible multisegmented maridia. Path to draygon not hinted as far as I can tell. Forced mockball to access lower norfair for no reason? Lots of rooms recognizably vanilla despite extensive changes, usually for the worse.

No spikes use tho, and some of etanks were placed nicely to give you a refill exactly when you might need it.

Wouldn't recommend completing it, but playing till you'll get frustrated might be worth it.
By PHOSPHOTiDYL on Dec 27, 2019 (Star Star Star Star Star )
79% in 5:17
Legacy is one of the best hackz out there. Paths are pretty hard to find though...
Highly recommend it. Thankz for the hack!!
By CanadianOwl on Jan 15, 2020 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
For the first full-hack of the game, this is actually something cool. It has flaws for sure (the map being screwed up from a save is annoying), but it has good character. The split maridia is a double edged sword. While it's fun to completely skip East Maridia with speedrun tech, it also feels like a wasted part WAY out of the way, only visited in 100% runs.

The idea of required Spore Spawn is the mirror of East Maridia. It's nice that I'm forced to do a boss not normally done in vanilla speedruns, but it is annoying to do spore spawn with only missiles no matter what.

It does freshen up the game by tweaking the boss order, rearranging the expected places for items, and changing where does each area connect to. I recommend this to new people who want to play ROM hacks. It has vanilla physics, so you don't need to relearn anything about moving, and it just feels like a new map of Super Metroid, and I think that is the type of ROM hacks I like. New maps of similar difficulty.
By nodever2 on Apr 22, 2020 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
Very good for it's time. As a piece of history, I'm glad we have it.
But would I recommend anyone play this now? Not really, unless you've already played many of the other great hacks on here. There are a lot of little things in the level design that frustrate me that add up quickly, and it in my opinion doesn't do enough new things to justify that frustration. (Not that I'd blame the hack for it, again there just wasn't the resources nor the years of hack design iteration that we have now in hindsight, and again I respect the hack for what it did with the resources it had, it's just that nowadays you could make better use of your time, I think).
By Kandier on Mar 07, 2021 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
Boring & tedious hack, the layout is confusing & annoying, inferior than original & the map screen is shit
By Demonskunk on Jul 11, 2021 (Star Star Star Star Star )
81% in 5:30
The hack is unintuitively designed with secrets that require an unreasonably attentive eye for detail. There is a lot of backtracking across the entire map to get progression items.

I was stuck for an hour trying to figure out how to progress through Maridia because the area is split in two.

I don't recommend it. It's an interesting bit of history, but it's more frustrating than fun.
By LetsPlayNintendoITA on Jul 23, 2021 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 4:39
[Watch Video]  
Really liked it.
You can see the recognize the original's rooms but they're all new and a fresh paint of everything.
The boss order is what threw me off, not in a bad way, but I had a hard time getting to where Maridia starts for real (unless you do a close quarters short charge). Draygon before Botwoon lol. One of the complaints I've is, it kinda needed some shortcut cause traversing a region whole sometimes, with how big it is, it feels kinda slow. For the rest really enjoyed.
p.s. sometimes the map breaks big time erasing progress in it lol
By Sapphron on Feb 13, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
90% in 2:50
[Watch Video]  
This is a pretty historical hack, basically the first full hack ever. It's pretty good except for the map breaking, really frustrating which knocks it down to 3.
Finished.
Recommend.

note: This is retroactively reviewed, from July 13, 2019
By neen on Dec 03, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
76% in 4:38
pretty good for an ancient hack. not without its share of bad design though. pretty sure i sequence broke early on for power bombs. there is one puzzle that seems like a required mockball but isn't. grapple was one of the last items i found. there's one false door puzzle that kept me from finding progression for a long time.

its progression can be confounding: i am pretty sure that the intended boss order was not kpdr, but i ended up killing them in that normal vanilla order out of pure chance from stumbling around.
By RX-78-2 on Jun 23, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
96% in 3:06
nice hack, 7/10 would recommend
By Tower on Oct 21, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
I played it until i get to spore spawn. I can forgive many things in hacking. But a bomb block that isnt at the corner of the screen, that isnt hinted in any way and has to be bombed directly near to him is too much. Now i know people will say its old hack and we made improvement and it was impressive at the time but i dont care.
By ClaireDiviner on Feb 23, 2024 (Star Star Star Star Star )
88% in 3:11
[Watch Video]  
Another major hack that isn't a half-hack. This one appears to be Well put together, and with no hidden Grapple shenanigans. There are a few moments where they hide the path forward behind fake walls, which is annoying, but the progression feels like a little higher than vanilla difficulty, which is fine by me. If I had one critique, I'd say it should've made the path to some major items a little more apparent, like Speed Booster, Wave Beam, or the way to Wrecked Ship. Also, the map breaking when loading a save also sucks, but it's the curse of old hacks. Overall, compared to some of the other old hacks, this one is by far one of the most robust. I thought about a 4/5, but I'm giving it a 5/5, and it's probably more than I should give.

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