“Where only clever quotes need apply”
| Hyper Metroid | ||
Release date: Apr 18, 2015 |
Author: RealRed
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Genre: Exploration [?] Game: 
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Difficulty: Vanilla [?]
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Average runtime:
7:14 Average collection: 86% |
Read Me: [None] |
Forum Thread: Forum Thread |
Rating:
 
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Other Links:
Website |
Awards:
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Description
http://hyper.metroidconstruction.com/
Samus Returns again for her third adventure, but things aren't quite the same this time around...
Relive the amazing Super Metroid in a whole new light!
Hyper Metroid is a complete overhaul of the original game, featuring:
- A dark twist on the original Metroid storyline
- A brand new zebes to explore with several brand new areas
- A new, highly customized weapon system featuring JAM's Spazer + Plasma
- Grime's fast paced, highly fluid Project Base used as a base for the game
- carefully balanced difficulty to satisfy all ranges of players
Samus Returns again for her third adventure, but things aren't quite the same this time around...
Relive the amazing Super Metroid in a whole new light!
Hyper Metroid is a complete overhaul of the original game, featuring:
- A dark twist on the original Metroid storyline
- A brand new zebes to explore with several brand new areas
- A new, highly customized weapon system featuring JAM's Spazer + Plasma
- Grime's fast paced, highly fluid Project Base used as a base for the game
- carefully balanced difficulty to satisfy all ranges of players
Screenshots
Ratings and Reviews
This was an excellent hack, but like every hack hack there, there's always a few cons.
PROS:
-Great Level Design
-Good Resprites
-Possibly the most exciting Escape sequence ever
-Non-linear
-HUD and Ammo System was very well done
-Even the READ_ME was impressive
-Custom Into movies
-Custom Credits, I don't know if other hacks have done this, but it is really excellent
-Good Use of Project Base. This hack blew out of the water the potential that Project base has for a hack.
-Easy IBJ for easy sequence Breaking
-Tourain Gate system was nice. Not once did I get frustrated while looking for them. Hints are placing in many spots to tell you where to look.
-Fast Paced
-Mini-Phantoon
-Most bosses were fun to battle
-Spazer + Plasma
CONS
-WS after beating phantoon before getting varia was very annoying. The WS ghosts were a hassle.
-Draygon was a joke.
-Were a couple bugs, but none really worth noting.
-A WHOLE LOT of enemies during the escape.
All in all, amazing. While WS and Draygon made me very frustrated, this is a 5 star hack. Many times I came across something and said "What was he thinking by doing this?" Only to come back later and discover why and call it genius. The mprphsound wasn't really annoying to me, but having the item jingle for major upgrades would be nice. Great job RealRed, amazing hack! It almost makes me want to give mine up because topping this is not possible. (Don't worry I 'm not giving up, I said almost.) Can't wait to see you next hack.
PROS:
-Great Level Design
-Good Resprites
-Possibly the most exciting Escape sequence ever
-Non-linear
-HUD and Ammo System was very well done
-Even the READ_ME was impressive
-Custom Into movies
-Custom Credits, I don't know if other hacks have done this, but it is really excellent
-Good Use of Project Base. This hack blew out of the water the potential that Project base has for a hack.
-Easy IBJ for easy sequence Breaking
-Tourain Gate system was nice. Not once did I get frustrated while looking for them. Hints are placing in many spots to tell you where to look.
-Fast Paced
-Mini-Phantoon
-Most bosses were fun to battle
-Spazer + Plasma
CONS
-WS after beating phantoon before getting varia was very annoying. The WS ghosts were a hassle.
-Draygon was a joke.
-Were a couple bugs, but none really worth noting.
-A WHOLE LOT of enemies during the escape.
All in all, amazing. While WS and Draygon made me very frustrated, this is a 5 star hack. Many times I came across something and said "What was he thinking by doing this?" Only to come back later and discover why and call it genius. The mprphsound wasn't really annoying to me, but having the item jingle for major upgrades would be nice. Great job RealRed, amazing hack! It almost makes me want to give mine up because topping this is not possible. (Don't worry I 'm not giving up, I said almost.) Can't wait to see you next hack.
Amazing from start to finish. Difficulty and open-endedness are very well balanced and felt true to the original, which I find very uncommon in a hack. I loved the way the fetch quest was done and how some parts of it even helped you out outside of Tourian. The gates were hidden well enough to make you work for them a little, but not so well that you had to x-ray everywhere to find them. Some were revealed on the map and some weren't, but during my search at the end of the game, I always had a decent idea where one might be. I also don't remember finding anything where x-ray was really needed, the hints were enough to let me know something was there that needed to be searched. I x-rayed a lot of places that seemed ever so slightly suspicious and never found anything in these spots, so I figured it isn't your style to hide stuff without a decent hint. I could be wrong since I didn't go for 100%, but as for major items and required stuff they were hidden very well and never in a frustrating way. Ammo system was really neat and solved a couple of the problems that plague Super Metroid: the "*yawn* another missile" and the "I need a power bomb and nothing around here will fucking drop one".
I was expecting this to be a pretty good hack, and what I got was an amazing hack. Most of the areas looked really nice, and I'm glad to finally see a hack with an escape that spans most of the submaps. I've been wanting to see something like that for a while, definitely wanted to put it in a hack myself someday. Also Tourian was really fun to play through despite being fairly predictable (kill a bunch of metroids lol). I really liked the room with the super slow shutter because it was like a survival mode type thing, even though that far in the game it's extremely trivial, it's something I've never come across before in a hack. Also splazma is sexy. Nice to see it put to good use finally. Also nice to finally see an awesome full hack made on top of Project Base. I respect PB but personally don't care for it a whole lot because it feels like Super Metroid easy mode, and I'm not a huge fan of the palettes, but a new hack being designed around it, without a vanilla version to constantly compare to, makes the changes complement the game a lot more and helps me see more potential in PB.
I was expecting this to be a pretty good hack, and what I got was an amazing hack. Most of the areas looked really nice, and I'm glad to finally see a hack with an escape that spans most of the submaps. I've been wanting to see something like that for a while, definitely wanted to put it in a hack myself someday. Also Tourian was really fun to play through despite being fairly predictable (kill a bunch of metroids lol). I really liked the room with the super slow shutter because it was like a survival mode type thing, even though that far in the game it's extremely trivial, it's something I've never come across before in a hack. Also splazma is sexy. Nice to see it put to good use finally. Also nice to finally see an awesome full hack made on top of Project Base. I respect PB but personally don't care for it a whole lot because it feels like Super Metroid easy mode, and I'm not a huge fan of the palettes, but a new hack being designed around it, without a vanilla version to constantly compare to, makes the changes complement the game a lot more and helps me see more potential in PB.
10/10
Really awesome in any way possible!
The level design is really well made and the new ammo system is a great idea, for the first time i didn't get frustated when i see a missle.
Also, the escape sequence is iconic!
Really awesome in any way possible!
The level design is really well made and the new ammo system is a great idea, for the first time i didn't get frustated when i see a missle.
Also, the escape sequence is iconic!
I really enjoyed this hack. It showed that Project Base had the potential to be a good base for future hacks. The idea of Spazer + Plasma was awesome as well. I haven't ran into any bugs which crash the game. Overall, this was a very fun hack.
First off, I like this hack, and I highly recommend you play it. It does have some faults which could really impact how people feel about it though. Hyper is very exploration based, where enemies try to dictate to you if you should be there or not. It is also very open ended, without a real set pattern. There are options for when to get your items pretty much when you feel like it.
Being very open ended leads to multiple issues with any hack that goes for that. First is the lack of direction. Exploration is fun, but what happens when you have no idea where to go, and you feel like you've crawled over everything twice already? Second is that a player has no real idea where they should be and shouldn't be. There are supposed to be "hard" enemies if you go to a place earlier than perhaps you should, but they really don't thwart the player from advancing. (It's an exploration hack, remember?) There is nothing stopping the player from going to a place they can't advance other than themselves. Hyper masks this well with two things. The inter-connectivity of the areas, and the fact you have to go the end-game area early on. The fact you know where the ultimate goal is, and the fact you can get around faster greatly helps to reduce the frustration of blindly running the long way around aimlessly looking for anything to advance.
While I enjoy exploration and running around blindly a lot, this could pose a serious and legitimate issue for some. The "powerful enemies" that are supposed to deter people really don't do their job well at all, as they seem like slightly more powerful versions of the weaker enemies.
This hack looks great, and manages to be the first one to make the Wrecked Ship look like something other than #trash. Tourian looks nice with what appears to be seeping brain growing over things, but it is otherwise your usual Tourian fare, Metroids and advance. I don't get what people see is so special here, other than how it looks, it is the same as pretty much 99% of every other Tourian out there. Plus a pointless "survival" room, where all it does it make you wait needlessly. The other areas have all been touched up nicely, especially Maridia, and provide a great look to the hack. Credit to RR for his artistic ability.
In the end, I do highly recommend the hack, but in a lot of places, it is a lot like other hacks, except it has Project Base underneath it all. It offers a really fun experience, and as long as you don't get too lost and frustrated with exploring, you'll enjoy it the whole way through.
Being very open ended leads to multiple issues with any hack that goes for that. First is the lack of direction. Exploration is fun, but what happens when you have no idea where to go, and you feel like you've crawled over everything twice already? Second is that a player has no real idea where they should be and shouldn't be. There are supposed to be "hard" enemies if you go to a place earlier than perhaps you should, but they really don't thwart the player from advancing. (It's an exploration hack, remember?) There is nothing stopping the player from going to a place they can't advance other than themselves. Hyper masks this well with two things. The inter-connectivity of the areas, and the fact you have to go the end-game area early on. The fact you know where the ultimate goal is, and the fact you can get around faster greatly helps to reduce the frustration of blindly running the long way around aimlessly looking for anything to advance.
While I enjoy exploration and running around blindly a lot, this could pose a serious and legitimate issue for some. The "powerful enemies" that are supposed to deter people really don't do their job well at all, as they seem like slightly more powerful versions of the weaker enemies.
This hack looks great, and manages to be the first one to make the Wrecked Ship look like something other than #trash. Tourian looks nice with what appears to be seeping brain growing over things, but it is otherwise your usual Tourian fare, Metroids and advance. I don't get what people see is so special here, other than how it looks, it is the same as pretty much 99% of every other Tourian out there. Plus a pointless "survival" room, where all it does it make you wait needlessly. The other areas have all been touched up nicely, especially Maridia, and provide a great look to the hack. Credit to RR for his artistic ability.
In the end, I do highly recommend the hack, but in a lot of places, it is a lot like other hacks, except it has Project Base underneath it all. It offers a really fun experience, and as long as you don't get too lost and frustrated with exploring, you'll enjoy it the whole way through.
Hyper Metroid is a culmination of all the best aspects on the roster of hacks put into one game.
It's made for players of all skill levels, rewarding them equally in whatever path they choose.
Every replay introduces you to a new route or sequence, a new experience that never seems to feel forced or contrived.
Everything just comes together. The layout design is structurally sound, and exploration never gets tasking or dull for a moment.
You can tell this was fleshed out with labor and love. The beautiful, lush level design embellishes from the best,
whilst retaining it's own absolute originality. Hyper Metroid's use of Grime's 'Project Base' physics bonded symbiotically to form
the most fluid gameplay experienced yet. I felt thrust into a new game, a new planet, a new Zebes.
So.. don't get Hype. Get Hyper!
It's made for players of all skill levels, rewarding them equally in whatever path they choose.
Every replay introduces you to a new route or sequence, a new experience that never seems to feel forced or contrived.
Everything just comes together. The layout design is structurally sound, and exploration never gets tasking or dull for a moment.
You can tell this was fleshed out with labor and love. The beautiful, lush level design embellishes from the best,
whilst retaining it's own absolute originality. Hyper Metroid's use of Grime's 'Project Base' physics bonded symbiotically to form
the most fluid gameplay experienced yet. I felt thrust into a new game, a new planet, a new Zebes.
So.. don't get Hype. Get Hyper!
I've always felt that exploration is the entire point of the Metroidvania experience, and Hyper Metroid is probably the most well done exploration hack I've ever seen. It also never becomes ridiculously hard; I had a lot of trouble with Draygon and Ridley, but not enough to sour the hack.
Every area looks very nice. The Wrecked Ship and Maridia are really improved from the original. Tourian wasn't the most amazing area gameplay-wise, but the design was pretty good and the escape sequence was awesome. Crateria, Norfair, and Brinstar were ok. The game had a lot of the original assets, but there was a large quantity of new stuff and none of it looked very out of place. The enemy choice was good and overall I liked pretty much everything in the way of level design and so forth.
If there's any cons... it's nothing really big I can think of. There's a few awkward mandatory speed booster areas, but that's probably just because I suck at using speed booster. This is the first metroid hack I've ever completed, and I enjoyed it from start to finish!
Every area looks very nice. The Wrecked Ship and Maridia are really improved from the original. Tourian wasn't the most amazing area gameplay-wise, but the design was pretty good and the escape sequence was awesome. Crateria, Norfair, and Brinstar were ok. The game had a lot of the original assets, but there was a large quantity of new stuff and none of it looked very out of place. The enemy choice was good and overall I liked pretty much everything in the way of level design and so forth.
If there's any cons... it's nothing really big I can think of. There's a few awkward mandatory speed booster areas, but that's probably just because I suck at using speed booster. This is the first metroid hack I've ever completed, and I enjoyed it from start to finish!
Version 1.0 (for future reference, in case anything I complained about gets changed)
See http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3492.msg44639.html#msg44639 for my full thoughts on the hack. My rating is based on my experience with the hack, and sadly I can't recommend it due to the path I took.
See http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3492.msg44639.html#msg44639 for my full thoughts on the hack. My rating is based on my experience with the hack, and sadly I can't recommend it due to the path I took.
Yes.
A few more words, fine. This hack has the 2nd best Tourian of any hack (the first best belonging to Z-Factor).
The only thing that I feel the game did wrong.. was the morphing sound. I think all that BANGing eventually gave me a headache...
A few more words, fine. This hack has the 2nd best Tourian of any hack (the first best belonging to Z-Factor).
The only thing that I feel the game did wrong.. was the morphing sound. I think all that BANGing eventually gave me a headache...
Move aside Eris, you just got replaced as my favorite hack ever made.
Hyper Metroid was such an overwhelmingly enjoyable ride. I didn't feel like I was being punished for playing the game, certain areas where hard early on, but that's my own fault for trying to sequence break! And this hack is insanely nonlinear, I didn't know where to go sometimes, but that's because there was always something new to explore!
Overall difficulty was very spot on. You get punched in the face if you try going in certain areas, but only enough to discourage you from going there, and not enough to actually keep you from going there! Not sure on item order, since I think I got several things out of order, I just couldn't help myself! Exploring was so enjoyable, and constantly rewarding. Some may say this hack is too easy, but I'd say its just right, the perfect balance. Project Base physics combined with several other additions, made this hack feel very fluid. The new ammo system is so good, that I almost want to steal it for myself! Move aside Redesign and Z-Factor, there's a new best escape sequence!
There are a few polish things that I'll want to discuss with RealRed that I feel should be in v1.1, but otherwise, I have no complaints.
Hyper Metroid was such an overwhelmingly enjoyable ride. I didn't feel like I was being punished for playing the game, certain areas where hard early on, but that's my own fault for trying to sequence break! And this hack is insanely nonlinear, I didn't know where to go sometimes, but that's because there was always something new to explore!
Overall difficulty was very spot on. You get punched in the face if you try going in certain areas, but only enough to discourage you from going there, and not enough to actually keep you from going there! Not sure on item order, since I think I got several things out of order, I just couldn't help myself! Exploring was so enjoyable, and constantly rewarding. Some may say this hack is too easy, but I'd say its just right, the perfect balance. Project Base physics combined with several other additions, made this hack feel very fluid. The new ammo system is so good, that I almost want to steal it for myself! Move aside Redesign and Z-Factor, there's a new best escape sequence!
There are a few polish things that I'll want to discuss with RealRed that I feel should be in v1.1, but otherwise, I have no complaints.
This hack literally revived me when I played it. Thank you for everything you did, RealRed.
I'm biased because I like RealRed's hacks, but here goes: this hack is one of the most fun least difficulty hacks I've ever played. Fuck Oxide and vanilla, vanilla especially because there are items hidden in stupid places in that hack.
This hack is big as hell, and really pretty to look at. I liked the lack of a linear path, but it also made me pretty frustrated, particularly when I got to Golden Torizo and Ridley and didn't have Gravity Suit... but that was partially my fault for not exploring well enough ;)
I would have given this 4.5/5 if I could, but I'll just round up. It's not perfect, but it's as close as any hack I've ever played.
I would have given this 4.5/5 if I could, but I'll just round up. It's not perfect, but it's as close as any hack I've ever played.
For the record, this is a review of v1.00
The good:
- Looks great, the new graphics in Lower Norfair etc. are fucking fantastic, the palettes are generally great too, new enemies graphics look good on average
- Mechanically sound beside the few things I already dislike in Project Base
- Item progression is pretty fast
- If you're good at vanilla you can get stuff early/sequence break (lol) which is nice
- The escape sequence was kinda fun. I don't mind either 'escape the zone in the quickest, most direct way' nor 'escape the fucking planet' e.g. Prime 2-style, so this isn't a huge plus or a greatly welcome change but it's implemented pretty well.
The bad:
- The difficulty I would not consider vanilla. Enemies are beefier in general and deal more too which can definitely be a chokepoint when exploring for stuff.
- Fucking super missiles took me forever to find
- Fucking power bombs took me forever to find
- Fucking Draygon, seriously. Too little space, the room is weirdly shaped which fucks a lot with the player, especially if they're straight up coming off vanilla, cannons can't be disabled afaik (not being able to cheaply grapple him to death is fine), approaches from solid tiles, if you screw attack (which you're doing constantly because of the cannons) the jizz he fucks off and starts swooping again. His hitbox is small and you can't plasma through his back. Overall the fight feels really fucking cheap as you can either try to tank it (he'll tank you better), try to avoid it (he'll avoid you better) or carefully try to juggle these techniques (which turns playing an otherwise good hack into a game of stress management). People have similar criticisms for Phantoon but once you get him down, you actually get him down. Ridley ended up being the easiest fight (Mother Brain doesn't count lol)
- The map is compact (which lessens readability from the map screen) but has a lot of artifical barriers which you need items for (supers, power bombs, speed booster) which leads to a lot of complex backtracking around areas you feel you should be able to open up, especially when on the hunt for said items. This gives a bit of a Fusion-y feel, but less compartimentalized. It gives you a lot of red herrings in the sense of item tiles and gate tiles which you'll probably have to backtrack for. I think this could be addressed by something like Drewseph's map tiles and perhaps even SMRA's hint system (which would do you a huge favor in both backtracking and oversight), though I'm not sure if either are public. This segues into...
- The level design. Overall pretty good, you integrated the graphics with the actual rooms really well. The one thorn in my side this has given me it the few one-way doors, some of which there are two in a single room. One way doors lead to frustration and often needless backtracking. Here and there you took a hint from SMRA and had permanently removable obstacles, which I'm a big fan of as, again, this improves the flow of the areas and the world. Removing the same barriers again and again in any of the vanilla Metroid games always felt like an unnecessary chore, but I think it has to be said that you did apply that kind more. This sort of segues into...
- The ammo system... I feel like vanilla did a good job with seperate ammo counts. It made sure that you were always equipped for whatever lies ahead. Unifying that and doubling the cost each 'tier' has you be real careful with your ammo count, which I think hinders exploration, and that's what this hack is all about. Even with near 300 ammo, I felt like I had way too little to deal with Draygon properly. Once you get all beams you feel like you should be really powerful, and you are, to most enemies and Ridley, but juggling that psychological value with switching off to ammo weapons and seeing that counter lowering real quick is frustrating.
- The gate system... I don't know what I'd do personally. Final guardians are reached either by disabling generators or collecting the 8 McGuffins or beating all the other bosses, or just plain progressing through the levels and the game. Final bosses and how to reach them is a concept designers have to innovate in more and more, or do exceedingly good executions of what groundwork there already is. This isn't a big minus, but I do have to say that exploring and backtracking for gates could have felt better overall as they quickly become one of the main goals.
Overall, I'd give this hack 3.5 Chozo orbs out of 5 if I could. It's generally well excuted and a good experience to play, and I think it could be even better if it improved on some of the key criticisms. I'd definitely recommend playing it and finishing it, but 100%ing it might be a bit of a stretch for most. Go take your well-deserved rest and praise, and I think we're all looking forward to whatever you come up with next.
The good:
- Looks great, the new graphics in Lower Norfair etc. are fucking fantastic, the palettes are generally great too, new enemies graphics look good on average
- Mechanically sound beside the few things I already dislike in Project Base
- Item progression is pretty fast
- If you're good at vanilla you can get stuff early/sequence break (lol) which is nice
- The escape sequence was kinda fun. I don't mind either 'escape the zone in the quickest, most direct way' nor 'escape the fucking planet' e.g. Prime 2-style, so this isn't a huge plus or a greatly welcome change but it's implemented pretty well.
The bad:
- The difficulty I would not consider vanilla. Enemies are beefier in general and deal more too which can definitely be a chokepoint when exploring for stuff.
- Fucking super missiles took me forever to find
- Fucking power bombs took me forever to find
- Fucking Draygon, seriously. Too little space, the room is weirdly shaped which fucks a lot with the player, especially if they're straight up coming off vanilla, cannons can't be disabled afaik (not being able to cheaply grapple him to death is fine), approaches from solid tiles, if you screw attack (which you're doing constantly because of the cannons) the jizz he fucks off and starts swooping again. His hitbox is small and you can't plasma through his back. Overall the fight feels really fucking cheap as you can either try to tank it (he'll tank you better), try to avoid it (he'll avoid you better) or carefully try to juggle these techniques (which turns playing an otherwise good hack into a game of stress management). People have similar criticisms for Phantoon but once you get him down, you actually get him down. Ridley ended up being the easiest fight (Mother Brain doesn't count lol)
- The map is compact (which lessens readability from the map screen) but has a lot of artifical barriers which you need items for (supers, power bombs, speed booster) which leads to a lot of complex backtracking around areas you feel you should be able to open up, especially when on the hunt for said items. This gives a bit of a Fusion-y feel, but less compartimentalized. It gives you a lot of red herrings in the sense of item tiles and gate tiles which you'll probably have to backtrack for. I think this could be addressed by something like Drewseph's map tiles and perhaps even SMRA's hint system (which would do you a huge favor in both backtracking and oversight), though I'm not sure if either are public. This segues into...
- The level design. Overall pretty good, you integrated the graphics with the actual rooms really well. The one thorn in my side this has given me it the few one-way doors, some of which there are two in a single room. One way doors lead to frustration and often needless backtracking. Here and there you took a hint from SMRA and had permanently removable obstacles, which I'm a big fan of as, again, this improves the flow of the areas and the world. Removing the same barriers again and again in any of the vanilla Metroid games always felt like an unnecessary chore, but I think it has to be said that you did apply that kind more. This sort of segues into...
- The ammo system... I feel like vanilla did a good job with seperate ammo counts. It made sure that you were always equipped for whatever lies ahead. Unifying that and doubling the cost each 'tier' has you be real careful with your ammo count, which I think hinders exploration, and that's what this hack is all about. Even with near 300 ammo, I felt like I had way too little to deal with Draygon properly. Once you get all beams you feel like you should be really powerful, and you are, to most enemies and Ridley, but juggling that psychological value with switching off to ammo weapons and seeing that counter lowering real quick is frustrating.
- The gate system... I don't know what I'd do personally. Final guardians are reached either by disabling generators or collecting the 8 McGuffins or beating all the other bosses, or just plain progressing through the levels and the game. Final bosses and how to reach them is a concept designers have to innovate in more and more, or do exceedingly good executions of what groundwork there already is. This isn't a big minus, but I do have to say that exploring and backtracking for gates could have felt better overall as they quickly become one of the main goals.
Overall, I'd give this hack 3.5 Chozo orbs out of 5 if I could. It's generally well excuted and a good experience to play, and I think it could be even better if it improved on some of the key criticisms. I'd definitely recommend playing it and finishing it, but 100%ing it might be a bit of a stretch for most. Go take your well-deserved rest and praise, and I think we're all looking forward to whatever you come up with next.
I thoroughly enjoyed this hack. I loved the combined ammo system. The custom graphics and overall artistic design look very nice. It's easy to get around the world and there's always more places to explore. I kind of felt like I was wandering around aimlessly at the beginning, but I didn't mind because I kept finding items and new areas. I finished with 80% and I never really did any backtracking to go look for more items (I also never found x-ray). I had a little bit of trouble finding PBs, but not enough to really bother me.
My boss order was Phantoon, Kraid, Ridley, Draygon. I felt like the boss difficulty was pretty good (Ridley killed me 3 times, GT once), but this will obviously vary significantly for different players because the hack is so open-ended. My beam order was wave, ice, plasma, spazer (I was pleasantly surprised to see that spazer+plasma was a thing). The escape sequence was pretty fun, though I feel dirty for being tricked into saving the animals.
Overall this is a really great hack and you should definitely give it a play.
My boss order was Phantoon, Kraid, Ridley, Draygon. I felt like the boss difficulty was pretty good (Ridley killed me 3 times, GT once), but this will obviously vary significantly for different players because the hack is so open-ended. My beam order was wave, ice, plasma, spazer (I was pleasantly surprised to see that spazer+plasma was a thing). The escape sequence was pretty fun, though I feel dirty for being tricked into saving the animals.
Overall this is a really great hack and you should definitely give it a play.
Hyper Metroid is the first SM ROM hack that I have played through to completion (though I am familiar with several others), and I found it thoroughly entertaining, even though I had some mild frustrations along the way. Since I have not played Project Base, I was worried in the beginning that the altered physics might spoil the hack for me, but I found them easy to adapt to, and it didn’t take me long to see how the Zebes of Hyper Metroid was aptly designed around these particular physics. The new physics combined with the overhauled graphics made this game feel very fresh to me, thus setting it apart from most other ROM hacks of this game. I loved the reimagined Wrecked Ship and Maridia particularly. The escape at the end was another high point, as many others have said. Here are specific pros and cons, in my opinion:
Pros:
* I enjoyed how open-ended the game felt. I wasn’t trying to sequence break, but I did, for example, pick up Gravity before Varia just because I decided to mockball into Maridia and do some exploring there before entering the Wrecked Ship. In the end, it looks like I did defeat the major bosses in the “intended” order of this hack, but I wasn’t even sure about that until I started reading posts on this thread after I completed the game.
* Visually, I loved Wrecked Ship and Maridia. I thought the design of the Wrecked Ship was altogether better than that of vanilla SM, which is not a praise I would give lightly.
* I loved rooms that required using the non-hostile creatures to assist in getting through the room.
* I am not a big fan of the Tourian gates approach to SM ROM hacks, but in spite of that, I felt that feature was implemented well in this hack.
* Mini-Phantoon and mini-Crocomire were wonderful additions.
* The escape at the end was incredibly well designed. Such a satisfying end to an awesome ROM hack!
Cons:
* By far my top criticism is that the map does not display unopened doors that lead into rooms which are not initially visible on the map. In many cases these are gray doors that I saw, couldn’t pass through, and then forgot about. This resulted in me wasting way too much time re-exploring all the rooms I had visited before, searching for new doors that I could open. Because of this, it took me absolutely forever to get power bombs, and made it harder to find gate 10 at the end than it needed to be (I think this also caused me to miss early Screw Attack, which would have been fun to pick up). It would be awesome if this could be addressed in some way for the 1.1 release.
* Ridley managed to get himself stuck in his platform on my second attempt at him. I know that this can occur in vanilla SM, but given how rare it is, I would guess that something about this hack may make it more common? Something to look into, I suppose.
* I recall noticing at times that the X-Ray Scope did not reveal destructable blocks. I’m not sure whether this was intended or not, but I found it a bit annoying, and this left me wondering how much time I spent pointlessly X-Raying walls (I used X-Ray more than I probably would because it is given so early in the game that it gave me the impression that it is meant to be used throughout the game).
* There are Speed Booster corridors that looked to me like they were designed for shinesparks which change direction mid-spark. If that is true, I actually couldn’t figure out how to do such a shinespark (I feel like I’m probably missing something obvious). At least once, I made it through one of these areas by means of short charging. I thought it was fun to try to charge up shinesparks in super short distances in this hack, but it wouldn’t be fun for less experienced players.
* Changing the default controls to those that the hack author prefers was a pointlessly egocentric modification. I won't belabor this, but they should be changed back to default controls in future versions.
All in all, I thought this was a really excellent ROM hack, and everyone who was involved in its creation deserves massive congratulations! My criticisms above really amount to nit-picky stuff, and if those issues could be addressed with some polishing for v1.1, this will be a truly incredible hack. Well done!
Pros:
* I enjoyed how open-ended the game felt. I wasn’t trying to sequence break, but I did, for example, pick up Gravity before Varia just because I decided to mockball into Maridia and do some exploring there before entering the Wrecked Ship. In the end, it looks like I did defeat the major bosses in the “intended” order of this hack, but I wasn’t even sure about that until I started reading posts on this thread after I completed the game.
* Visually, I loved Wrecked Ship and Maridia. I thought the design of the Wrecked Ship was altogether better than that of vanilla SM, which is not a praise I would give lightly.
* I loved rooms that required using the non-hostile creatures to assist in getting through the room.
* I am not a big fan of the Tourian gates approach to SM ROM hacks, but in spite of that, I felt that feature was implemented well in this hack.
* Mini-Phantoon and mini-Crocomire were wonderful additions.
* The escape at the end was incredibly well designed. Such a satisfying end to an awesome ROM hack!
Cons:
* By far my top criticism is that the map does not display unopened doors that lead into rooms which are not initially visible on the map. In many cases these are gray doors that I saw, couldn’t pass through, and then forgot about. This resulted in me wasting way too much time re-exploring all the rooms I had visited before, searching for new doors that I could open. Because of this, it took me absolutely forever to get power bombs, and made it harder to find gate 10 at the end than it needed to be (I think this also caused me to miss early Screw Attack, which would have been fun to pick up). It would be awesome if this could be addressed in some way for the 1.1 release.
* Ridley managed to get himself stuck in his platform on my second attempt at him. I know that this can occur in vanilla SM, but given how rare it is, I would guess that something about this hack may make it more common? Something to look into, I suppose.
* I recall noticing at times that the X-Ray Scope did not reveal destructable blocks. I’m not sure whether this was intended or not, but I found it a bit annoying, and this left me wondering how much time I spent pointlessly X-Raying walls (I used X-Ray more than I probably would because it is given so early in the game that it gave me the impression that it is meant to be used throughout the game).
* There are Speed Booster corridors that looked to me like they were designed for shinesparks which change direction mid-spark. If that is true, I actually couldn’t figure out how to do such a shinespark (I feel like I’m probably missing something obvious). At least once, I made it through one of these areas by means of short charging. I thought it was fun to try to charge up shinesparks in super short distances in this hack, but it wouldn’t be fun for less experienced players.
* Changing the default controls to those that the hack author prefers was a pointlessly egocentric modification. I won't belabor this, but they should be changed back to default controls in future versions.
All in all, I thought this was a really excellent ROM hack, and everyone who was involved in its creation deserves massive congratulations! My criticisms above really amount to nit-picky stuff, and if those issues could be addressed with some polishing for v1.1, this will be a truly incredible hack. Well done!
Hyper Metroid for me was an overall excellent hack. I would highly recommend it to anyone getting into SM hacks or just anyone wanting a great metroid game. (Version 1.0)
Pros:
+Boss fights were fresh and tweaked in a good and proper method
+Physics and movement were tight and fluent
+Exploration was great and rewarded you justly for your efforts
+Had a good range of difficulty (but mostly easy to vanilla)
+Very open
+Intriguing and new weapon's system and beams create a whole other way of how you think about your equipment
+The variety of puzzles was superb and I felt like there was always something new to discover
+escape sequence and tourian were both exciting, unique, and well-done (albeit maybe a bit too easy)
+Some of the best graphics I've seen for a hack by far, and easily my favorite part about the entire hack.
Cons:
-Only a little lacking in direction of next goal
-size seemed to slow the hack down a bit too much for me and I sometimes felt like I had to search for hours for major upgrades in the middle of nowhere.
-Draygon was very irritating (though I'm sure it would've been a bit easier with screwattack)
-map sometimes left doors unfindable because it lack any indication of the door's existence.
Terrific hack with plenty to offer to all players. I would definitely rate this around a 4.5/5 but I can't quite give it a full five due to some of the cons. Also, palletes used weren't my favorite, but dem graphics were sick as fuck!
Pros:
+Boss fights were fresh and tweaked in a good and proper method
+Physics and movement were tight and fluent
+Exploration was great and rewarded you justly for your efforts
+Had a good range of difficulty (but mostly easy to vanilla)
+Very open
+Intriguing and new weapon's system and beams create a whole other way of how you think about your equipment
+The variety of puzzles was superb and I felt like there was always something new to discover
+escape sequence and tourian were both exciting, unique, and well-done (albeit maybe a bit too easy)
+Some of the best graphics I've seen for a hack by far, and easily my favorite part about the entire hack.
Cons:
-Only a little lacking in direction of next goal
-size seemed to slow the hack down a bit too much for me and I sometimes felt like I had to search for hours for major upgrades in the middle of nowhere.
-Draygon was very irritating (though I'm sure it would've been a bit easier with screwattack)
-map sometimes left doors unfindable because it lack any indication of the door's existence.
Terrific hack with plenty to offer to all players. I would definitely rate this around a 4.5/5 but I can't quite give it a full five due to some of the cons. Also, palletes used weren't my favorite, but dem graphics were sick as fuck!
Overall, this is one of the greatest Super Metroid hacks out there. The map is well designed, if a bit tedious to get from one end to the other (particularly in Norfair). The graphics are quite pleasing to look at and the room designs take full advantage of the different colours project base offers. The item progression doesn't leave you searching for most items for TOO long (with the exceptions being the Super Missiles and the Power Bombs), and the Plasma+Spazer is definitely neat. You can tell a lot of love went into making this hack.
Perhaps my favourite part about the hack, however, is that it's well-balanced in terms of difficulty. A lot of hacks like Redesign and the original Eris (which I consider to be more difficult than Eris 2012) punish the player for exploration with enemies that shave off massive chunks of damage. There are enemies like that in Hyper Metroid, particularly in Maridia if you mockball across the bridge you're intended to use the Spring Ball's speed ball mechanic. However, they're not too extreme and are meant to be light pushes in the right direction without hampering exploration. In Eris 2009 and Redesign, most enemies hit hard anyways and tough enemies were placed in easy-to-access locations that most players would naturally come across.
The atmosphere is mostly similar to Super Metroid, though the new tiles in "Lower Norfair" or rather Ridley's Lair, lend themselves to a Phazon Mines sort of feel, which is great. I love when hacks strike out on their own in terms of atmosphere and separate themselves from Super Metroid--Eris is a standout example of this--though Hyper Metroid is supposed to be evocative of the original, and it's no big deal either way, so it's no harm done.
As for my criticisms, well, they're nothing too major. My biggest criticisms lie in how unintuitive the Project Base Speed Booster mechanics are, particularly in how you can essentially reverse and slow down your boost with the spin jump. It still doesn't make much sense to me and I had to look up a solution for a particular room because I still didn't understand the new mechanics fully at that point, though I knew something was up when I could sometimes slow down my charge. I don't recommend taking this out because I imagine it's integral to many skips and sequence breaks (especially if you're brave enough to take down Ridley early), but I'd put some effort into making the mechanics more well-known, as they're easy enough to understand once the player is told. I don't know how I'd solve this issue myself, personally, though I'd definitely change up the room in which you get the Speed Booster to more properly teach the player how to use it.
The Spring Ball is handled a bit better, though it does have some of the same issues. I personally had no problem learning them, but other players have. I'd personally change the name of the item itself, as "Spring Ball" essentially makes Super Metroid veterans (the only people playing the hack) think "oh, this will let me jump as a ball!" and nothing else. Giving it a different name will make players think "Oh, there must be some new functions to this thing!" Maybe "Hyper Ball" would work? In fact, I'd do the same with the Speed Booster--maybe something like the "Speed Unit" or the "Kinetic Engine" or something weird. Something that will inform players that the mechanics are different in some respect. Maybe even button prompts like the backflip, despite their heavy-handed nature, would be good.
Other than those, my complaints are minor; Draygon sucks as a boss and the bullet hell projectiles plus Draygon's mechanics don't really combine very well... plus all the graphical glitches. Getting 100% items was a bit tedious, but such is the completionist life. Certain doors should also be notated on the map; it's fine once you actually enter them, but there is an abundance of doors you simply cannot enter until you either collect the right power up or access them from the other side and they're not notated at all on the map. For example, the power bomb door in upper Brinstar that leads to a gate switch can only be opened with Power Bombs, but on the map there's no indication of a door in that room. This is a minor complaint, but addressing this would just cut down on the tedium. Finally, I'd say that there is an overabundance of locked doors for me, personally. I realize this is not easily fixed and is meant to section off certain parts of the map for later exploration, but it's still a bit disappointing to explore a bit, only to be stopped by a gray door.
Overall, I'd give this hack a 5/5. It's fantastic, but has a few issues that can be ironed out in a later release. Great work!
Perhaps my favourite part about the hack, however, is that it's well-balanced in terms of difficulty. A lot of hacks like Redesign and the original Eris (which I consider to be more difficult than Eris 2012) punish the player for exploration with enemies that shave off massive chunks of damage. There are enemies like that in Hyper Metroid, particularly in Maridia if you mockball across the bridge you're intended to use the Spring Ball's speed ball mechanic. However, they're not too extreme and are meant to be light pushes in the right direction without hampering exploration. In Eris 2009 and Redesign, most enemies hit hard anyways and tough enemies were placed in easy-to-access locations that most players would naturally come across.
The atmosphere is mostly similar to Super Metroid, though the new tiles in "Lower Norfair" or rather Ridley's Lair, lend themselves to a Phazon Mines sort of feel, which is great. I love when hacks strike out on their own in terms of atmosphere and separate themselves from Super Metroid--Eris is a standout example of this--though Hyper Metroid is supposed to be evocative of the original, and it's no big deal either way, so it's no harm done.
As for my criticisms, well, they're nothing too major. My biggest criticisms lie in how unintuitive the Project Base Speed Booster mechanics are, particularly in how you can essentially reverse and slow down your boost with the spin jump. It still doesn't make much sense to me and I had to look up a solution for a particular room because I still didn't understand the new mechanics fully at that point, though I knew something was up when I could sometimes slow down my charge. I don't recommend taking this out because I imagine it's integral to many skips and sequence breaks (especially if you're brave enough to take down Ridley early), but I'd put some effort into making the mechanics more well-known, as they're easy enough to understand once the player is told. I don't know how I'd solve this issue myself, personally, though I'd definitely change up the room in which you get the Speed Booster to more properly teach the player how to use it.
The Spring Ball is handled a bit better, though it does have some of the same issues. I personally had no problem learning them, but other players have. I'd personally change the name of the item itself, as "Spring Ball" essentially makes Super Metroid veterans (the only people playing the hack) think "oh, this will let me jump as a ball!" and nothing else. Giving it a different name will make players think "Oh, there must be some new functions to this thing!" Maybe "Hyper Ball" would work? In fact, I'd do the same with the Speed Booster--maybe something like the "Speed Unit" or the "Kinetic Engine" or something weird. Something that will inform players that the mechanics are different in some respect. Maybe even button prompts like the backflip, despite their heavy-handed nature, would be good.
Other than those, my complaints are minor; Draygon sucks as a boss and the bullet hell projectiles plus Draygon's mechanics don't really combine very well... plus all the graphical glitches. Getting 100% items was a bit tedious, but such is the completionist life. Certain doors should also be notated on the map; it's fine once you actually enter them, but there is an abundance of doors you simply cannot enter until you either collect the right power up or access them from the other side and they're not notated at all on the map. For example, the power bomb door in upper Brinstar that leads to a gate switch can only be opened with Power Bombs, but on the map there's no indication of a door in that room. This is a minor complaint, but addressing this would just cut down on the tedium. Finally, I'd say that there is an overabundance of locked doors for me, personally. I realize this is not easily fixed and is meant to section off certain parts of the map for later exploration, but it's still a bit disappointing to explore a bit, only to be stopped by a gray door.
Overall, I'd give this hack a 5/5. It's fantastic, but has a few issues that can be ironed out in a later release. Great work!
Long completion time because I left the game sitting idle a few times and wandered around lost a few times.
This is the best super metroid hack currently available! Nothing else needs to be said.
This is the best super metroid hack currently available! Nothing else needs to be said.
NOTE: This review was based on the first playthrough I did, and not the one that is currently up on my channel (in which I got 100% in 2:39).
Easily the best Super Metroid ROM hack that I have played so far. There was a lot of love that was put into this hack. The exploration was top notch (aside from the fact that new unsuspecting players might encounter the Gold Torizo too early and get absolutely wrecked), the graphics are neat (palette choices could have been better for some parts), Maridia was a great experience, and the escape sequence was the best I have played through in any SM hack.
However....
- The Draygon fight needs some fixing.
- The Bomb Torizo gets stuck on the spikes once it gets there. Not cool, especially when you run out of missiles (your beam does no damage to it).
- Lack of a nearby Save Station after the Phantoon fight, as you are likely to not have a lot of energy left after defeating it. Move carefully.
Despite those flaws, and a few others (mostly small), I'd give this a 5/5.
Easily the best Super Metroid ROM hack that I have played so far. There was a lot of love that was put into this hack. The exploration was top notch (aside from the fact that new unsuspecting players might encounter the Gold Torizo too early and get absolutely wrecked), the graphics are neat (palette choices could have been better for some parts), Maridia was a great experience, and the escape sequence was the best I have played through in any SM hack.
However....
- The Draygon fight needs some fixing.
- The Bomb Torizo gets stuck on the spikes once it gets there. Not cool, especially when you run out of missiles (your beam does no damage to it).
- Lack of a nearby Save Station after the Phantoon fight, as you are likely to not have a lot of energy left after defeating it. Move carefully.
Despite those flaws, and a few others (mostly small), I'd give this a 5/5.
Flawless. Transcends hacks and becomes one of the best games ever made. I can't put it plainly enough.
0/10 - Game Informer
Fake and gay - Youtube
terrible - EGM
Hacks like these are the reason why videogames will never be progressive - Polygon
This hack is rape - Patricia Hernandez, Kotaku
The epitome of misogynistic rape culture - Anita Sarkeesi- *AHEM* Jonathan McIntosh
Not enough ponies - /mlp/
[serious]Very, very good hack. Few times am I compelled to keep going after landing in Crateria and getting the first missile pack. I liked the Tourian gate system and felt they were sufficiently out of the way to the point that you have to look for them, but aren't completely hidden. Area design was magnificent and was crafted well enough that it never felt like it clashed. Bosses were adequate, although Draygon can be a dick without screw attack. I did get stuck a couple of times though, once while looking for the Super Missiles, once while looking for the Powerbombs and then when looking for the Speed booster. Other than that, 9/10 it was ok.[/serious]
Fake and gay - Youtube
terrible - EGM
Hacks like these are the reason why videogames will never be progressive - Polygon
This hack is rape - Patricia Hernandez, Kotaku
The epitome of misogynistic rape culture - Anita Sarkeesi- *AHEM* Jonathan McIntosh
Not enough ponies - /mlp/
[serious]Very, very good hack. Few times am I compelled to keep going after landing in Crateria and getting the first missile pack. I liked the Tourian gate system and felt they were sufficiently out of the way to the point that you have to look for them, but aren't completely hidden. Area design was magnificent and was crafted well enough that it never felt like it clashed. Bosses were adequate, although Draygon can be a dick without screw attack. I did get stuck a couple of times though, once while looking for the Super Missiles, once while looking for the Powerbombs and then when looking for the Speed booster. Other than that, 9/10 it was ok.[/serious]
v1.0
Hyper Metroid is one of those extremely well polished hacks. The graphics are the strongest point, places in Maridia, Wrecked Ship and Tourian have a really unique feel. The hack has a good difficulty balance and exploration is never frustrating. Despite taking place on Zebes again, the map layout has little to do with the original so that's a complete new world with tons of secrets and rooms to explore. The physics changes makes Samus super fast (hyper fast I should say ;) which is really convenient to navigate through those large rooms. The hack provides a decent amount of free exploration akin to Ice Metal.
Now what does this hack have to offer aside from exploring a brand new Zebes with stellar graphics ? Well, don't expect anything more than that. There's no really memorable moment I can think of. The hack also suffers from a lack of direction due to his open-endness nature. Let me clarify, you never get lost but you have no idea where to go and if you are actually in the right place. Phantoon is the first major boss I encountered, he destroyed me so hard, so I had to turn back to find what I was missing... but in the end, I learned this was the intended way. The same could be said about Gold Torizo, Ridley, Maridia before Gravity and a couple of tricky speedbooster sequences (mandatory unfortunately)
These downsides shouldn't detract you from playing this well-done ROM hack really.
Hyper Metroid is one of those extremely well polished hacks. The graphics are the strongest point, places in Maridia, Wrecked Ship and Tourian have a really unique feel. The hack has a good difficulty balance and exploration is never frustrating. Despite taking place on Zebes again, the map layout has little to do with the original so that's a complete new world with tons of secrets and rooms to explore. The physics changes makes Samus super fast (hyper fast I should say ;) which is really convenient to navigate through those large rooms. The hack provides a decent amount of free exploration akin to Ice Metal.
Now what does this hack have to offer aside from exploring a brand new Zebes with stellar graphics ? Well, don't expect anything more than that. There's no really memorable moment I can think of. The hack also suffers from a lack of direction due to his open-endness nature. Let me clarify, you never get lost but you have no idea where to go and if you are actually in the right place. Phantoon is the first major boss I encountered, he destroyed me so hard, so I had to turn back to find what I was missing... but in the end, I learned this was the intended way. The same could be said about Gold Torizo, Ridley, Maridia before Gravity and a couple of tricky speedbooster sequences (mandatory unfortunately)
These downsides shouldn't detract you from playing this well-done ROM hack really.
v1.0
This is the first Super Metroid hack that I've played and I made an account just to say how much I enjoyed it. I would like to start with a big Thank You for RealRed and his team for making this hack! I beat the game at 7:30 ingame time with 93% items collected. Playing through this was very much like reliving my nostalgia of when I first played Super Metroid. The map design/layout was phenomenally well done, complimented with the textures, colors, palettes really made for a great experience. It was said this hack was made through the author's depression and I could see that in how this hack was so well made. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how to beat Golden Torizo and Ridley (I fought them both early through sequence breaking). With this being my first hack I can't compare it to others, but I would find it hard to believe that there are many that are up to par with this one. I look forward to more from RealRed and his team should they ever create more!
My few complaints would be:
-Bomb torizo got stuck in the pit to the right which was a hassle to deal with
-I don't think the current sound effect for going in and out of morphball fits. It sounds too loud/explosive to me. I think it would be better to either remove it or change it to something a little more mild
-There's the chozo statue in maridia that just really threw me off. I wasn't sure if it was a puzzle I was supposed to figure out but after a while I figured it wasn't. It seems so troll to have him there i just didn't see the point
-I think this hack could be difficult for people who have never played Super Metroid before. Some parts I don't think I would have gotten passed had I not played Super Metroid before/dabbled in SM speedrunning a bit (or maybe I'm just awful at SM).
This is the first Super Metroid hack that I've played and I made an account just to say how much I enjoyed it. I would like to start with a big Thank You for RealRed and his team for making this hack! I beat the game at 7:30 ingame time with 93% items collected. Playing through this was very much like reliving my nostalgia of when I first played Super Metroid. The map design/layout was phenomenally well done, complimented with the textures, colors, palettes really made for a great experience. It was said this hack was made through the author's depression and I could see that in how this hack was so well made. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how to beat Golden Torizo and Ridley (I fought them both early through sequence breaking). With this being my first hack I can't compare it to others, but I would find it hard to believe that there are many that are up to par with this one. I look forward to more from RealRed and his team should they ever create more!
My few complaints would be:
-Bomb torizo got stuck in the pit to the right which was a hassle to deal with
-I don't think the current sound effect for going in and out of morphball fits. It sounds too loud/explosive to me. I think it would be better to either remove it or change it to something a little more mild
-There's the chozo statue in maridia that just really threw me off. I wasn't sure if it was a puzzle I was supposed to figure out but after a while I figured it wasn't. It seems so troll to have him there i just didn't see the point
-I think this hack could be difficult for people who have never played Super Metroid before. Some parts I don't think I would have gotten passed had I not played Super Metroid before/dabbled in SM speedrunning a bit (or maybe I'm just awful at SM).
One of the best hacks released to date, for sure. The main problem with it is you never know where to go. You'll get one thing in one area, then have to traverse the map all the way back and into the next to get the other. It's open-ended, but there's also the price you pay for the experience. Still, I gave it a 5/5 because everything else was nailed so wonderfully.
I left my main thoughts (for v1.0) here: http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3492.msg45743.html#msg45743
Unfortunately this could've been the best hack out there if not for a few annoyances. Anyway, 4/5 and worth a play for anyone. Nice job RealRed, I hope you update this hack at some point.
Unfortunately this could've been the best hack out there if not for a few annoyances. Anyway, 4/5 and worth a play for anyone. Nice job RealRed, I hope you update this hack at some point.
100% High Polymer Permanent REAL RED
Professional Grade
No Fake Red
Professional Grade
No Fake Red
I only have good things to say about this hack, save for when I got all kinds of lost looking for Power Bombs... Either way I would 100% replay this hack again... if only to get 100% of the items. (I think I was only missing 3 missile tanks had 485 ammo)
Either way that escape sequence was pretty well done and enjoyable. I would rate it higher but it only goes up to five...
Either way that escape sequence was pretty well done and enjoyable. I would rate it higher but it only goes up to five...
I first started playing this hack towards the end of April, and was quickly blown away with the level of graphical detail put into the hack. Being based off of Project Base helped that, possibly, but it's just as likely that RealRed put that much effort into it as well.
The hack's biggest selling point is the ammo system. Missiles, Super Missiles, and Power Bombs all use the same ammo. To that end, it's always worth picking up any expansion you find, since all it does is add to how many of each you can use.
Level design: 3/5
Done fairly well, but with a good number of flaws. It's extremely open-ended, leaving you countless possibilities of where you can go and what you can do. But that strength is also a great weakness, since a lot of exploring will be met with dead-ends or situations where you'll have to come back later. To that end, there's no general hints of where you can realistically go, you just have to figure it out for yourself. That will likely happen with many players when it's time to pick up Super Missiles.
Difficulty: 3/5
This is mostly going go to depend on which beams you pick up, as well as how much ammo you have. Bosses can wreck you, but you can also wreck bosses. Enemies can wreck you, but you can also wreck enemies. There are spots where it can be balanced better.
Plot/Progression: 4/5
The gate system used as the "fetch quest" was implemented extremely well. You are introduced to it early, it tells you exactly how many there are, the locations for most are on the maps, and there's no crazy puzzles blocking them. That said, there is a decent amount of backtracking for a couple of them at the endgame.
Aside from that, the only real troubling spots were getting the Super Missile, and then GT. You'll probably find GT very early on, and then if you proceed to fight him you will get absolutely destroyed. The hack gives you a save point right before him, so that aspect of it isn't a big deal, but the game is almost suggesting you fight him, which can turn people off since he's next to impossible at first. The readme does state to stay away from him should you find him, but that requires people reading the readme.
Depending on if you can "sequence break," if there's any sequence to actually break in this game, the grappling beam can be useless almost before you pick it up, or shortly thereafter. On my first playthrough, Grapple and Charge came quickly, then Space Jump was next. Grapple Beam is never really required through the hack, since you can wall-jump to almost everywhere you want to go, but the grappling REALLY helps in a few spots. It's great for those that aren't that good with wall-jumping, so perhaps this is just a safety net aspect. If so, it's a great fallback.
Also with the "sequence breaks" is how good you are at getting around stuff. If you're really good, the game doesn't really try to stop you from going places that you likely shouldn't be at yet. As of the typing of this rating, some people have managed to get themselves incredibly stuck because the hack didn't do enough to prevent players from getting places they shouldn't be in. This mainly applies to Norfair and Maridia.
Puzzles: 4/5
There's just a couple of puzzles that have Metroid Zero Mission stupidly-precise speedblock sections, but other than that it's all great.
Replay: 4/5
As big as the areas are, there's likely a lot of places I haven't explored yet, and I only got 80% on my second playthrough. The depth of this hack will leave you wanting to play it again and again.
The hack's biggest selling point is the ammo system. Missiles, Super Missiles, and Power Bombs all use the same ammo. To that end, it's always worth picking up any expansion you find, since all it does is add to how many of each you can use.
Level design: 3/5
Done fairly well, but with a good number of flaws. It's extremely open-ended, leaving you countless possibilities of where you can go and what you can do. But that strength is also a great weakness, since a lot of exploring will be met with dead-ends or situations where you'll have to come back later. To that end, there's no general hints of where you can realistically go, you just have to figure it out for yourself. That will likely happen with many players when it's time to pick up Super Missiles.
Difficulty: 3/5
This is mostly going go to depend on which beams you pick up, as well as how much ammo you have. Bosses can wreck you, but you can also wreck bosses. Enemies can wreck you, but you can also wreck enemies. There are spots where it can be balanced better.
Plot/Progression: 4/5
The gate system used as the "fetch quest" was implemented extremely well. You are introduced to it early, it tells you exactly how many there are, the locations for most are on the maps, and there's no crazy puzzles blocking them. That said, there is a decent amount of backtracking for a couple of them at the endgame.
Aside from that, the only real troubling spots were getting the Super Missile, and then GT. You'll probably find GT very early on, and then if you proceed to fight him you will get absolutely destroyed. The hack gives you a save point right before him, so that aspect of it isn't a big deal, but the game is almost suggesting you fight him, which can turn people off since he's next to impossible at first. The readme does state to stay away from him should you find him, but that requires people reading the readme.
Depending on if you can "sequence break," if there's any sequence to actually break in this game, the grappling beam can be useless almost before you pick it up, or shortly thereafter. On my first playthrough, Grapple and Charge came quickly, then Space Jump was next. Grapple Beam is never really required through the hack, since you can wall-jump to almost everywhere you want to go, but the grappling REALLY helps in a few spots. It's great for those that aren't that good with wall-jumping, so perhaps this is just a safety net aspect. If so, it's a great fallback.
Also with the "sequence breaks" is how good you are at getting around stuff. If you're really good, the game doesn't really try to stop you from going places that you likely shouldn't be at yet. As of the typing of this rating, some people have managed to get themselves incredibly stuck because the hack didn't do enough to prevent players from getting places they shouldn't be in. This mainly applies to Norfair and Maridia.
Puzzles: 4/5
There's just a couple of puzzles that have Metroid Zero Mission stupidly-precise speedblock sections, but other than that it's all great.
Replay: 4/5
As big as the areas are, there's likely a lot of places I haven't explored yet, and I only got 80% on my second playthrough. The depth of this hack will leave you wanting to play it again and again.
I loved this hack from start to finish. I enjoyed the exploration of this game.. you aren't just tethered to one path that involves back and forthing between items. The escape was really good and long but was tense and had me worried when that timer was dipping below 1 minute xD... the only problem i had was where i had to go after getting space jump/Spazer/JumpBall but that's just my bad sense of direction.. All in all i give it a 5/5.. Damn that was amazing Real Red.. I really look forward to more stuff by you!
I actually plan on Let's playing this in the near future so i can show anyone i can this amazing hack.
I actually plan on Let's playing this in the near future so i can show anyone i can this amazing hack.
So many people saying this was their favorite hack and that nothing could ever top it. I think I'll play evil's advocate and say otherwise.
Hyper Metroid had some good ideas, ideas I really liked:
-Project Base physics. Never want to play a Super Metroid hack without them. (except for Redesign)
-New Morph Ball sprite. Is that the one from Smash Bros Brawl? Noice.
-New Screw Attack Sprite. Likely to make up for Grime screwing the palette up in Project Base? Regardless, looks great.
-Cool area layouts. Though I do wonder how the hell all of Brinstar could be above Crateria when it's supposed to be the surface...?
-New map sprites. Connections shown, 'nuff said.
-Steady difficulty curve. Always good to provide a nice incline of challenge, I didn't die too often... but there was one boss, which I'll get to later.
-New palettes and enemies. Though I do have a few gripes with the new palettes. The new enemies though, *JonTron air kiss* byoutful. (No homo.)
-The escape was indeed amazing. It's just a shame the same can't be said for the rest of Tourian.
And there were some really bad ideas, really stupid ideas that should never show themselves in public.
-No sense of direction. OK, I get it, hand holding and being treated like you can't figure stuff out is bad... Being left to die on your own on a hostile alien planet without any direction or hints as to where to go is worse. I got to Gold Torizo early and was absolutely ass raped by him. Aside from that...
-The Bosses. Unlike the rest of the game, the bosses are pretty schizophrenic about how hard they wanna be. Spore spawn? Easy as pie. Phantoon, FML.
-Item direction. You get Space Jump a little too early as it completely removes most of the platforming challenge early. And don't even get me started on the Speed Booster...
-Too many warm colors. So many reds, oranges, greens, and the blues didn't really help, giving the colors a "washed out" feel. It's good to use a balance of warm and cool colors to make your world feel more real.
-Tourian. "Oh Tourian was great! It was super nice and it had good appearance and good challenge and this and-" NO. Just, no!! OK, got that out of my system. Now where was I? Tourian was way more frustrating and boring than it was actually challenging. Rinkas were a huge pain with their high re-spawn rate and Metroids (RED METROIDS TAKING MORE THAN 5 MISSILES WHAT IS THIS BLASPHEMY?!) were way too slow to be much of a threat. And the layout wasn't really that impressive to me, it just felt kind of dull. Also, beam shoot-able Zebetites: stupidity.
-Draygon. Seriously, fuck this boss. I had to get all of the possible items before I beat this guy with only 8 health left! The fact you can't destroy the wall turrets only makes it worse!
Now that I've finished this hack I have to say that while I enjoyed it, it's not exactly the best hack I've ever played. I would recommend it though.
PS: One big problem I found after I played the game. "She was successful, and happily married, soon to start a family with her husband, Adam Aran." Samus is sterile, as in, can't bear children. Please do your research next time.
Hyper Metroid had some good ideas, ideas I really liked:
-Project Base physics. Never want to play a Super Metroid hack without them. (except for Redesign)
-New Morph Ball sprite. Is that the one from Smash Bros Brawl? Noice.
-New Screw Attack Sprite. Likely to make up for Grime screwing the palette up in Project Base? Regardless, looks great.
-Cool area layouts. Though I do wonder how the hell all of Brinstar could be above Crateria when it's supposed to be the surface...?
-New map sprites. Connections shown, 'nuff said.
-Steady difficulty curve. Always good to provide a nice incline of challenge, I didn't die too often... but there was one boss, which I'll get to later.
-New palettes and enemies. Though I do have a few gripes with the new palettes. The new enemies though, *JonTron air kiss* byoutful. (No homo.)
-The escape was indeed amazing. It's just a shame the same can't be said for the rest of Tourian.
And there were some really bad ideas, really stupid ideas that should never show themselves in public.
-No sense of direction. OK, I get it, hand holding and being treated like you can't figure stuff out is bad... Being left to die on your own on a hostile alien planet without any direction or hints as to where to go is worse. I got to Gold Torizo early and was absolutely ass raped by him. Aside from that...
-The Bosses. Unlike the rest of the game, the bosses are pretty schizophrenic about how hard they wanna be. Spore spawn? Easy as pie. Phantoon, FML.
-Item direction. You get Space Jump a little too early as it completely removes most of the platforming challenge early. And don't even get me started on the Speed Booster...
-Too many warm colors. So many reds, oranges, greens, and the blues didn't really help, giving the colors a "washed out" feel. It's good to use a balance of warm and cool colors to make your world feel more real.
-Tourian. "Oh Tourian was great! It was super nice and it had good appearance and good challenge and this and-" NO. Just, no!! OK, got that out of my system. Now where was I? Tourian was way more frustrating and boring than it was actually challenging. Rinkas were a huge pain with their high re-spawn rate and Metroids (RED METROIDS TAKING MORE THAN 5 MISSILES WHAT IS THIS BLASPHEMY?!) were way too slow to be much of a threat. And the layout wasn't really that impressive to me, it just felt kind of dull. Also, beam shoot-able Zebetites: stupidity.
-Draygon. Seriously, fuck this boss. I had to get all of the possible items before I beat this guy with only 8 health left! The fact you can't destroy the wall turrets only makes it worse!
Now that I've finished this hack I have to say that while I enjoyed it, it's not exactly the best hack I've ever played. I would recommend it though.
PS: One big problem I found after I played the game. "She was successful, and happily married, soon to start a family with her husband, Adam Aran." Samus is sterile, as in, can't bear children. Please do your research next time.
Story – 5/5 -> 100%
Hyper Metroid gives the standard SM storyline a new & dark twist. To summarize, Space Pirates attack and devastate Samus's home colony of K2L, and she vows to exact revenge on their entire race for her fallen loved ones; as expected, the present time is her third mission. I have never been more motivated to kick Space Pirate butt.
Graphics – 4/5 -> 80%
If the name 'Hyper Metroid' gives you the idea that things will be sped up, you'd be half right. Right off the bat, you will notice that enemy animations have been sped up, making the game fit in better with more modern games. Nothing in the game felt like an eye-sore, and there are plenty of custom graphics to keep the game from getting bland.
Unfortunately, Hyper Metroid loses an entire point here for having M-rated content without any advanced warnings. The consolation prize? Don't die, and you'll never see it.
Sound – 4.5/5 -> 90%
The sound effects are just as you would expect for an SM hack for the most part. The item collection jingle was replaced with the weapon switch sound, most likely because most players are getting sick of it (I am not one of them); this is understandable, especially since it supports the sped up nature of the game. The one problem is the obnoxiously loud morphing sound effect. You might want to not use headphones the first few times you use Morph Ball, until you adjust to it.
Exploration – 9.5/10 -> 95%
While having a predetermined route is nice (and this game still has a standard order for collecting the upgrades), this game excels at allowing players to go wherever they want. Aside from the usual morph ball and bombs, every major upgrade can be obtained in at least two different ways, which is a definite plus for a Metroid game. Aside from a few powerbomb doors that don't actually block access to areas and are just an annoyance, there is nothing to complain about here.
In addition to the major upgrades, there are gates switches that need to be found in each region in order to open the path to Tourian. They are conveniently numbered based on location, so if you are missing a gate switch, you can get a good idea on where to start looking, meaning you never have to feel lost.
Resources – 5/5 -> 100%
Due to the above point, it can be very difficult to ensure players will always be able to refill their resources no matter where they go. Fortunately, RealRed did a good job balancing this aspect of the game. Not only are there sufficient recharge stations, but even projectiles can be shot for refills, which provide players more ways to farm resources, if necessary.
The biggest plus is that the separate missile/bomb types have been ditched for a universal ammo system. No more do you need to wait for that dang powerbomb drop when you can just gather some missiles to make up the difference. However, the drop rates of the supers and powerbombs were still increased (for good measure).
Player Growth – 5/5 -> 100%
Even with the ability to freely explore, you never ever feel like you are significantly underpowered or overpowered whenever facing off against the many adversaries in the game (except Golden Torizo, but RealRed provides advanced warning in the readme, so I'll let it slide).
Learnability – 3/5 -> 60%
This is where Hyper Metroid fails the most. While backflipping is taught in-game to make up for the lack of instructions in the readme, there is no corresponding 'training' for the new spring ball and speedbooster features. Both are required to beat the game, so from what I heard, you may want to try Project Base before playing this hack.
Difficulty - 14/15 -> 93.3%
Even though the enemy animations were sped up, the enemies still remain relatively balanced. I rarely came close to death outside of a boss fight. I would put the difficulty on par with vanilla SM, if not harder.
Entertainment – 38/40 -> 95%
Besides a few frustrations with finding my way on my first playthrough, I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing this game. The free-form nature of the world really helps its case here.
Replay value – 5/5 -> 100%
Due to the multitude of ways of getting each major upgrade, you could have a lot of fun playing through it again to find different ways of making your way through Zebes, which really helps the replay value.
Total - 93/100 -> 93% -> 4.65/5
If the name 'Hyper Metroid' was meant to indicate it is a step-up from Super Metroid, I would say it has achieved its goal.
Hyper Metroid gives the standard SM storyline a new & dark twist. To summarize, Space Pirates attack and devastate Samus's home colony of K2L, and she vows to exact revenge on their entire race for her fallen loved ones; as expected, the present time is her third mission. I have never been more motivated to kick Space Pirate butt.
Graphics – 4/5 -> 80%
If the name 'Hyper Metroid' gives you the idea that things will be sped up, you'd be half right. Right off the bat, you will notice that enemy animations have been sped up, making the game fit in better with more modern games. Nothing in the game felt like an eye-sore, and there are plenty of custom graphics to keep the game from getting bland.
Unfortunately, Hyper Metroid loses an entire point here for having M-rated content without any advanced warnings. The consolation prize? Don't die, and you'll never see it.
Sound – 4.5/5 -> 90%
The sound effects are just as you would expect for an SM hack for the most part. The item collection jingle was replaced with the weapon switch sound, most likely because most players are getting sick of it (I am not one of them); this is understandable, especially since it supports the sped up nature of the game. The one problem is the obnoxiously loud morphing sound effect. You might want to not use headphones the first few times you use Morph Ball, until you adjust to it.
Exploration – 9.5/10 -> 95%
While having a predetermined route is nice (and this game still has a standard order for collecting the upgrades), this game excels at allowing players to go wherever they want. Aside from the usual morph ball and bombs, every major upgrade can be obtained in at least two different ways, which is a definite plus for a Metroid game. Aside from a few powerbomb doors that don't actually block access to areas and are just an annoyance, there is nothing to complain about here.
In addition to the major upgrades, there are gates switches that need to be found in each region in order to open the path to Tourian. They are conveniently numbered based on location, so if you are missing a gate switch, you can get a good idea on where to start looking, meaning you never have to feel lost.
Resources – 5/5 -> 100%
Due to the above point, it can be very difficult to ensure players will always be able to refill their resources no matter where they go. Fortunately, RealRed did a good job balancing this aspect of the game. Not only are there sufficient recharge stations, but even projectiles can be shot for refills, which provide players more ways to farm resources, if necessary.
The biggest plus is that the separate missile/bomb types have been ditched for a universal ammo system. No more do you need to wait for that dang powerbomb drop when you can just gather some missiles to make up the difference. However, the drop rates of the supers and powerbombs were still increased (for good measure).
Player Growth – 5/5 -> 100%
Even with the ability to freely explore, you never ever feel like you are significantly underpowered or overpowered whenever facing off against the many adversaries in the game (except Golden Torizo, but RealRed provides advanced warning in the readme, so I'll let it slide).
Learnability – 3/5 -> 60%
This is where Hyper Metroid fails the most. While backflipping is taught in-game to make up for the lack of instructions in the readme, there is no corresponding 'training' for the new spring ball and speedbooster features. Both are required to beat the game, so from what I heard, you may want to try Project Base before playing this hack.
Difficulty - 14/15 -> 93.3%
Even though the enemy animations were sped up, the enemies still remain relatively balanced. I rarely came close to death outside of a boss fight. I would put the difficulty on par with vanilla SM, if not harder.
Entertainment – 38/40 -> 95%
Besides a few frustrations with finding my way on my first playthrough, I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing this game. The free-form nature of the world really helps its case here.
Replay value – 5/5 -> 100%
Due to the multitude of ways of getting each major upgrade, you could have a lot of fun playing through it again to find different ways of making your way through Zebes, which really helps the replay value.
Total - 93/100 -> 93% -> 4.65/5
If the name 'Hyper Metroid' was meant to indicate it is a step-up from Super Metroid, I would say it has achieved its goal.
Note: this is a review of version 1.0
I love the original ideas this hack brings. The alternate story is a bit strange, but this hack is more about the gameplay experience. The more open world is a good idea. The world isn't completely open, but it is open enough to give the player plenty of options in terms of progression. Sequence breaks are definitely possible, giving the player several routes to choose from. This isn't so great for the first playthrough, however. It is very easy to get confused as to where to go next. Once you know where everything is, it makes the game a lot easier (This could be a good hack to race). The ammo system is an interesting idea. This ammo system encourages a 100% completion rate. It makes finding every item rewarding, not just super missiles. Being able to "run" while morphed (if you collect spring-ball) is also a nice feature.
There are a few things about this hack that prevent me from rating it 5 stars. While I think the ammo system is a fresh idea, I don't like how much ammo super missiles and power bombs use. I think it would be better if supers used 5 ammo and power bombs used 10. The morph/un-morph sound is annoying and unnecessary.
I really dislike how Samus is completely naked during the death animation. This hack gives no warning about this that I am aware of. This is an unnecessary change and has no place in a Metroid game.
If this hack and Redesign Axeil Edition had a baby, it would be one interesting hack.
I love the original ideas this hack brings. The alternate story is a bit strange, but this hack is more about the gameplay experience. The more open world is a good idea. The world isn't completely open, but it is open enough to give the player plenty of options in terms of progression. Sequence breaks are definitely possible, giving the player several routes to choose from. This isn't so great for the first playthrough, however. It is very easy to get confused as to where to go next. Once you know where everything is, it makes the game a lot easier (This could be a good hack to race). The ammo system is an interesting idea. This ammo system encourages a 100% completion rate. It makes finding every item rewarding, not just super missiles. Being able to "run" while morphed (if you collect spring-ball) is also a nice feature.
There are a few things about this hack that prevent me from rating it 5 stars. While I think the ammo system is a fresh idea, I don't like how much ammo super missiles and power bombs use. I think it would be better if supers used 5 ammo and power bombs used 10. The morph/un-morph sound is annoying and unnecessary.
I really dislike how Samus is completely naked during the death animation. This hack gives no warning about this that I am aware of. This is an unnecessary change and has no place in a Metroid game.
If this hack and Redesign Axeil Edition had a baby, it would be one interesting hack.
This hack was totally worth the wait!
First time I played this hack, I could never figure out where to go or what to do next. I even landed myself going up against the Gold Torizo statue while underpowered. Even going back and forth from Norfair and Maridia trying to find Power Bombs and other power-ups.
I eventually found out that this hack can be easily sequence broken because you can get items like High Jump Boots, Spazer, Wave Beam, Space Jump, and even the Gravity Suit early (if you know how to use the Super Missile propelling technique to propel yourself upwards).
One thing I really like was the use of the gates. Going on a wild goose chase to find and unlock the 15 gates blocking your way to Tourian as well as 5 random gates blocking your way to the Screw Attack upgrade.
All in all, Hyper Metroid was a really fun hack to play through and I will be recording a play through of this hack soon once I get a good feel of the hack and know everything about it.
5/5.
First time I played this hack, I could never figure out where to go or what to do next. I even landed myself going up against the Gold Torizo statue while underpowered. Even going back and forth from Norfair and Maridia trying to find Power Bombs and other power-ups.
I eventually found out that this hack can be easily sequence broken because you can get items like High Jump Boots, Spazer, Wave Beam, Space Jump, and even the Gravity Suit early (if you know how to use the Super Missile propelling technique to propel yourself upwards).
One thing I really like was the use of the gates. Going on a wild goose chase to find and unlock the 15 gates blocking your way to Tourian as well as 5 random gates blocking your way to the Screw Attack upgrade.
All in all, Hyper Metroid was a really fun hack to play through and I will be recording a play through of this hack soon once I get a good feel of the hack and know everything about it.
5/5.
![[Watch Video]](images/video.png)
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''.
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''.
This hack is truly an amazing hack, not the best hack out there, but still very amazing. I would give this a 5/5, but there are some things that hold it back from a 5/5. Just count this review as a 4.5/5.
Pros:
-The Project Base physics
-INTENSE ESCAPE SEQUENCE
-Balanced Difficulty
-Easy ways to sequence break( I got Power Bombs before I even fought Botwoon)
(Trust me,if I listed every single pro this hack has, It would make this review about 8x longer than it is now)
Cons:
-Sometimes you would accidentally fight a boss at the time you're not supposed to, like GOLDEN TORIZO
-Sometimes it would be a chore going from Each of the areas just to get that one power up
-Story was kinda forgettable actually. By the time I was at Spore Spawn, I thought the Story was just the regular Super Metroid Story.
Other than that, I really enjoyed this hack, and I recommend it to everyone who hasn't played it yet.
Pros:
-The Project Base physics
-INTENSE ESCAPE SEQUENCE
-Balanced Difficulty
-Easy ways to sequence break( I got Power Bombs before I even fought Botwoon)
(Trust me,if I listed every single pro this hack has, It would make this review about 8x longer than it is now)
Cons:
-Sometimes you would accidentally fight a boss at the time you're not supposed to, like GOLDEN TORIZO
-Sometimes it would be a chore going from Each of the areas just to get that one power up
-Story was kinda forgettable actually. By the time I was at Spore Spawn, I thought the Story was just the regular Super Metroid Story.
Other than that, I really enjoyed this hack, and I recommend it to everyone who hasn't played it yet.
As you might have guessed by the "5" rating that I've given this hack, I have a ton of respect for what was done here. Hyper feels like wholly unique experience, and it's among the most ambitious hacks that I've played. With that said, it wasn't my favorite hack to play through, and at points felt a little unbalanced in it's difficulty, but it was still very enjoyable and absolutely deserves this rating. I'd recommend it for anyone who has completed the original game more than once. 9/10
I'll admit that I was reluctant to get stuck into this hack, because it used Project Base, and I wasn't a lover of the changes it made. I'll also admit I was wrong, and consider myself converted.
Thanks, RealRed, for the fantastic hack. I've long held Redesign as my favourite hack, but it's now been pushed down to the number two slot.
The hack is beautiful, with every area getting some visual love. The greenery in the Wrecked Ship in particular stood out for me. Exploration is encouraged, and the difficulty is always well balanced. If you play the hack like I did, with minimal effort put into trying to sequence break, the path is actually pretty straightforward, though for those keen to sequence break, the game lends itself fantastically well, and you can almost play it in any order you fancy.
While it doesn't come close to dropping my rating, there were some things that I thought seemed out of place, particularly where balance is concerned:
The ghosts in the ship are a pain in the arse.
Phantoon seems like a battle of attrition, with no real technique presenting itself as 'safe'.
It's way too easy to land in the Golden Torizo fight, which I suspect would mean death for most first timers to the hack.
Anyway, I enjoyed the hack enough that I felt the need to write this lengthy review.
Thanks for the hack, RealRed. It was a total blast! =)
Thanks, RealRed, for the fantastic hack. I've long held Redesign as my favourite hack, but it's now been pushed down to the number two slot.
The hack is beautiful, with every area getting some visual love. The greenery in the Wrecked Ship in particular stood out for me. Exploration is encouraged, and the difficulty is always well balanced. If you play the hack like I did, with minimal effort put into trying to sequence break, the path is actually pretty straightforward, though for those keen to sequence break, the game lends itself fantastically well, and you can almost play it in any order you fancy.
While it doesn't come close to dropping my rating, there were some things that I thought seemed out of place, particularly where balance is concerned:
The ghosts in the ship are a pain in the arse.
Phantoon seems like a battle of attrition, with no real technique presenting itself as 'safe'.
It's way too easy to land in the Golden Torizo fight, which I suspect would mean death for most first timers to the hack.
Anyway, I enjoyed the hack enough that I felt the need to write this lengthy review.
Thanks for the hack, RealRed. It was a total blast! =)
I created an account, just so that I could rate a few of the hacks. This is clearly a 5-star worthy hack. It was interesting and unique throughout, and I love the changes that Project Base provided, particularly the easier infinite bombing and space jump resuming.
I'm a bit of a late arrival to this hack seeing as I've been out of the community for a number of years now, but on a whim I decided to check back and after seeing the glowing reviews decided it was time to dive back in for another grand tour of Zebes. I can safely say that the trip was well worth the effort.
+ This could be the best that Super Metroid has ever looked. I loved the aesthetics throughout pretty much the entire experience. Of particular note are the Wrecked Ship and Lower Norfair.
+ Physics are very fluid and make Samus that much more maneuverable. I understand a lot of this comes from Project Base but that doesn't take away from how much better the game feels as a whole.
+ Surprisingly, for such an open ended game, the difficult felt spot on for the most part. Other than a few specific locations which I'll mention below I never felt too out of place no matter where I traveled.
+ The ammo system makes item acquisition much more rewarding as it gives an incentive to find as many expansions as possible. The fact that these weapons were more powerful and useful on top of that only adds to this factor.
+ Although I'm not usually a fan of the required gate system, here it works. You can see most of them right from the start, and furthermore, you can actually reach most of them before the final push to Tourian.
+ The Escape Sequence. While it wasn't particularity difficult, there is definitely an increased level of desperation as your path continues to be blocked at every turn. A true race to the finish in this regard.
- The difficulty does stumble at times, particularly on the bosses. Phantoon and Draygon were the only ones that gave me any sort of real trouble and I don't know if being more equipped would change this much due to how they are designed. (At least there's a warning about Gold Torizo, so he gets a pass)
- This level of exploration does allow for some moments of frustration when it seems every path is blocked by yet another obstacle, with Super Missiles and Power Bombs being the worst offenders. I was about ready to call it because of these two items alone but I'm glad I pushed on.
Overall, Hyper Metroid has managed to once again exceed my expectations for what a Super Metroid experience can be. Easily within my top 5 favorites! Amazing job!
+ This could be the best that Super Metroid has ever looked. I loved the aesthetics throughout pretty much the entire experience. Of particular note are the Wrecked Ship and Lower Norfair.
+ Physics are very fluid and make Samus that much more maneuverable. I understand a lot of this comes from Project Base but that doesn't take away from how much better the game feels as a whole.
+ Surprisingly, for such an open ended game, the difficult felt spot on for the most part. Other than a few specific locations which I'll mention below I never felt too out of place no matter where I traveled.
+ The ammo system makes item acquisition much more rewarding as it gives an incentive to find as many expansions as possible. The fact that these weapons were more powerful and useful on top of that only adds to this factor.
+ Although I'm not usually a fan of the required gate system, here it works. You can see most of them right from the start, and furthermore, you can actually reach most of them before the final push to Tourian.
+ The Escape Sequence. While it wasn't particularity difficult, there is definitely an increased level of desperation as your path continues to be blocked at every turn. A true race to the finish in this regard.
- The difficulty does stumble at times, particularly on the bosses. Phantoon and Draygon were the only ones that gave me any sort of real trouble and I don't know if being more equipped would change this much due to how they are designed. (At least there's a warning about Gold Torizo, so he gets a pass)
- This level of exploration does allow for some moments of frustration when it seems every path is blocked by yet another obstacle, with Super Missiles and Power Bombs being the worst offenders. I was about ready to call it because of these two items alone but I'm glad I pushed on.
Overall, Hyper Metroid has managed to once again exceed my expectations for what a Super Metroid experience can be. Easily within my top 5 favorites! Amazing job!
as the first hack I have maneged to complete this is a really good one and taught me a lot of the tricks i did not know how to do before.
Just WOW. This hack is really something else. I liked the colors, the enemies weren't super hard, a few boss fights challenging and TOURIAN area was eyecandy! The escape was great, too! Thought I wouldn't make it haha.
The Ammo system's something that allows you to have more options how to fight certain enemies if you're into that.
All in all I would say this is beginner friendly because no tricks are necessary to beat it. (You should've played the main game first ofc)
If I have to say something bad about this hack... it's the sound effect from morphing and landing after a jump... I just couldn't get accustomed to them.
The Ammo system's something that allows you to have more options how to fight certain enemies if you're into that.
All in all I would say this is beginner friendly because no tricks are necessary to beat it. (You should've played the main game first ofc)
If I have to say something bad about this hack... it's the sound effect from morphing and landing after a jump... I just couldn't get accustomed to them.
This was a really good hack, and although I loved most of it, there were many things that annoyed me.
+These tilesets! I loved Maridia and Tourian the most, however Lower Norfair and Lower (technically higher) Brinstar were great too.
+The ammo system is really cool, and while I thought that a cost of 10 for supers was too much at first, I found it to be incredibly fair.
+The hack gives you many options to sequence break. I know for sure that I got super missiles out of order.
+The physics are really good, giving you the floaty feel of Super Metroid but also the quick responsiveness of Zero Mission.
+The opening theme as part of the Crateria music? Hot dog!
+The map was really intuitive to use, and I never found myself getting TOO lost.
+The gate system was really cool. Only thing I would say is that once you have all items, they are really easy to find. Also, the screw attack should not have been hidden behind specific gates, since you can only get it super late in the game.
+The escape sequence was magnificent, if a bit stressful. Not gonna spoil it though.
-Ugh, the tilesets of Crateria, Upper Brinstar, and Upper Norfair. I have to admit that I didn't like them that much. Also, those areas were my least favorite in general.
-The bosses kinda sucked, Kraid and Ridley were too easy, while Phantoon was a dick because he sucks your HP and then you got to go a far way with low health. Draygon had the grapple trick removed (which is fine), but his HP should have been lowered a lot. Golden Torizo was an HP check, though I didn't find him as hard as others supposedly have.
-The lack of direction. This hack could have really used the hint system of redesign axiel edition. I constantly felt blocked off from what seemed to be the right path. Super Missiles and Power Bombs are the best examples of this, though I would but Speed Booster there too.
-The gates were too easy to find sometimes, and sometimes they were near impossible to find. Maridia is the worst offender here, with it requiring 2 of its 3 gates to be opened to even get to Draygon.
-I didn't like being able to go to areas where I couldn't hurt the enemies. Usually that means that you aren't supposed to go there, which was not the case here.
-The whole entire Ridley before Draygon thing could've been a lot more obvious, as I first beat Botwoon, and I thought that meant I was supposed to clear up Maridia.
All in all, the positives outweigh the negatives, and I really recommend this hack to anyone who wants more Metroid.
+These tilesets! I loved Maridia and Tourian the most, however Lower Norfair and Lower (technically higher) Brinstar were great too.
+The ammo system is really cool, and while I thought that a cost of 10 for supers was too much at first, I found it to be incredibly fair.
+The hack gives you many options to sequence break. I know for sure that I got super missiles out of order.
+The physics are really good, giving you the floaty feel of Super Metroid but also the quick responsiveness of Zero Mission.
+The opening theme as part of the Crateria music? Hot dog!
+The map was really intuitive to use, and I never found myself getting TOO lost.
+The gate system was really cool. Only thing I would say is that once you have all items, they are really easy to find. Also, the screw attack should not have been hidden behind specific gates, since you can only get it super late in the game.
+The escape sequence was magnificent, if a bit stressful. Not gonna spoil it though.
-Ugh, the tilesets of Crateria, Upper Brinstar, and Upper Norfair. I have to admit that I didn't like them that much. Also, those areas were my least favorite in general.
-The bosses kinda sucked, Kraid and Ridley were too easy, while Phantoon was a dick because he sucks your HP and then you got to go a far way with low health. Draygon had the grapple trick removed (which is fine), but his HP should have been lowered a lot. Golden Torizo was an HP check, though I didn't find him as hard as others supposedly have.
-The lack of direction. This hack could have really used the hint system of redesign axiel edition. I constantly felt blocked off from what seemed to be the right path. Super Missiles and Power Bombs are the best examples of this, though I would but Speed Booster there too.
-The gates were too easy to find sometimes, and sometimes they were near impossible to find. Maridia is the worst offender here, with it requiring 2 of its 3 gates to be opened to even get to Draygon.
-I didn't like being able to go to areas where I couldn't hurt the enemies. Usually that means that you aren't supposed to go there, which was not the case here.
-The whole entire Ridley before Draygon thing could've been a lot more obvious, as I first beat Botwoon, and I thought that meant I was supposed to clear up Maridia.
All in all, the positives outweigh the negatives, and I really recommend this hack to anyone who wants more Metroid.
Hyper Metroid is an amazing hack and any fan of Super Metroid owes it to themselves to play it.
Built on Project Base, PB's changes are well welcome and make for a much more enjoyable, fluid, and faster experience. The only thing I struggled with, for some reason, was getting a shinespark charge, which I've never had difficulty with in any other 2D Metroid. Wall Jumps, Space Jump, and actual Shinesparking all feel much better, in addition to other things.
Onto Hyper Metroid itself: it's a wonderful revisit of Zebes. The palette swaps make for a visually refreshing experience, and each area has been redesigned and redone. The Wrecked Ship and Maridia in particular look much better, although I still hate Maridia.
The exploration is top notch. Most if not all upgrades I found felt very fair. Some of the original Super secrets felt ridiculous to find, but Hyper has hints all over the place if you pay attention to the tiles and your surroundings. XRay visor became more of a luxury than a necessity. I did get lost a few times though, and I think that's partly my fault for trying to sequence break so much.
The ammo system is smart and I hope Nintendo uses it in future games. Managing one pool of ammo and weighing the benefits of power:cost is much more fun and simple compared to missile, super missile, and power bomb munitions.
The gate system is an interesting goal and highly reminiscent of Metroid 2 IMO.
The sequence breaking you've come to know and love is still present, very much so. This hack helped me learn some new tricks, as a relative newcomer to skilled Metroid, letting me do things like grab Super Missiles early. I was saddened by the game becoming more linear in the latter half, but that was mostly a necessity as I coming to lack needed upgrades that weren't possible to sequence break.
All of the original Super Metroid bosses are present, but slightly tweaked and overall more difficult. I was able to reach Golden Torizo pretty early - even though I know I didn't need to fight him yet, I did anyways for the challenge and was very satisfied when I finally beat him by "gittin gud" instead of coming back later with a ton of energy and missile spamming.
The escape sequence was super intense and I can't believe I did it on my first try.
The difficulty does indeed feel well balanced, although I would rate this as overall slightly more difficult than vanilla Super - but not by too much. If I didn't have screw attack for Draygon, I don't know what I would have done ;)
Overall this was a wonderful experience and I wish more hacks were like it, and built on Project Base as well. Outside of a few small complaints, I give this hack a grade of 'A'.
Built on Project Base, PB's changes are well welcome and make for a much more enjoyable, fluid, and faster experience. The only thing I struggled with, for some reason, was getting a shinespark charge, which I've never had difficulty with in any other 2D Metroid. Wall Jumps, Space Jump, and actual Shinesparking all feel much better, in addition to other things.
Onto Hyper Metroid itself: it's a wonderful revisit of Zebes. The palette swaps make for a visually refreshing experience, and each area has been redesigned and redone. The Wrecked Ship and Maridia in particular look much better, although I still hate Maridia.
The exploration is top notch. Most if not all upgrades I found felt very fair. Some of the original Super secrets felt ridiculous to find, but Hyper has hints all over the place if you pay attention to the tiles and your surroundings. XRay visor became more of a luxury than a necessity. I did get lost a few times though, and I think that's partly my fault for trying to sequence break so much.
The ammo system is smart and I hope Nintendo uses it in future games. Managing one pool of ammo and weighing the benefits of power:cost is much more fun and simple compared to missile, super missile, and power bomb munitions.
The gate system is an interesting goal and highly reminiscent of Metroid 2 IMO.
The sequence breaking you've come to know and love is still present, very much so. This hack helped me learn some new tricks, as a relative newcomer to skilled Metroid, letting me do things like grab Super Missiles early. I was saddened by the game becoming more linear in the latter half, but that was mostly a necessity as I coming to lack needed upgrades that weren't possible to sequence break.
All of the original Super Metroid bosses are present, but slightly tweaked and overall more difficult. I was able to reach Golden Torizo pretty early - even though I know I didn't need to fight him yet, I did anyways for the challenge and was very satisfied when I finally beat him by "gittin gud" instead of coming back later with a ton of energy and missile spamming.
The escape sequence was super intense and I can't believe I did it on my first try.
The difficulty does indeed feel well balanced, although I would rate this as overall slightly more difficult than vanilla Super - but not by too much. If I didn't have screw attack for Draygon, I don't know what I would have done ;)
Overall this was a wonderful experience and I wish more hacks were like it, and built on Project Base as well. Outside of a few small complaints, I give this hack a grade of 'A'.
I started this hack and simply could not put it down until 1:00 AM. The whole hack was so nonlinear, It gave me so much to do. This is the first hack I have ever played that I haven't felt like I'm simply trudging through whatever perils the creator wants you to go through. The hack has as much polish as the original Super Metroid, and it looks amazing. I liked the shared ammo system. Finding Power Bombs was a bit of a hassle, but I ceiling climbed to get Super Missiles on my first try. I wish there was a sequence break like that for Power Bombs too.
There were only a few times near the end where I found myself looking at a guide of some sort to find things, and even then, it was just Draygon and Plasma Beam. The difficulty seemed to flow very well, and I was rewarded many times for exploring difficult areas. (Mostly by an extremely tough Kraid, but I got Space Jump from it.) The physics changes felt good, and everything flowed really well. I loved the addition of respin, running in Morph Ball, chain Shinesparking, and continuous momentum whilst running. (I've never played Project Base by the way.)
Either way, this is by far the best hack I've ever played. If you like Super Metroid, play this hack.
There were only a few times near the end where I found myself looking at a guide of some sort to find things, and even then, it was just Draygon and Plasma Beam. The difficulty seemed to flow very well, and I was rewarded many times for exploring difficult areas. (Mostly by an extremely tough Kraid, but I got Space Jump from it.) The physics changes felt good, and everything flowed really well. I loved the addition of respin, running in Morph Ball, chain Shinesparking, and continuous momentum whilst running. (I've never played Project Base by the way.)
Either way, this is by far the best hack I've ever played. If you like Super Metroid, play this hack.
The game is the perfect example of what you want if you're looking for simply more Super Metroid. The map is expansive without being too confusing or boring to navigate. Level design is interesting and balanced. Graphics are polished makes things clear and intuitive. Difficulty is slightly higher than vanilla. This is the best hack I've played so far.
This hack must be played. Beware... all tasks you have scheduled will be unintentionally placed on hold. Most addictive hack. The escape does not dissapoint.
This is my first hack that I liked enough to play through. I thought it top-quality overall although I had a few things I disliked about it.
It took me a little while to get used to the new physics (from Project base) but I liked it overall, perhaps not quite as much as some others do.
Overall it was very fun and engaging, and had a dynamic of exploration.
What I like about this hack:
+ Huge world. New layout, new ways the areas fit together. Exploring was very fun. The world seems hard to traverse at first, but over time you discover some alternate paths and tricks that make it a lot easier. I thought this was well-executed.
+ I love the ammo system; it makes me excited about finding missles, even towards the end of the game. Also, actively using missles while traversing the world becomes a necessity for the early game, and I like this. I thought this was a HUGE improvement over the original.
+ Great secrets. Just the right amount of subtle hints. Keeps the spirit of the original games, but adds some new ways of hiding things and some new types of obstacles to get around.
+ Backtracking is usually pretty interesting because I found when I returned to areas, I had new items and was able to explore new areas. I got genuinely excited when I got each item that opened up new areas.
+ Doesn't require advanced techniques like IBJ and mockballing, but these techniques can be useful, and the designer seems to have taken these things into account in the level design, i.e. allowing users to SOMETIMES profit from them but not letting users totally break the game. This makes advanced speedrunning fun and challenging, and I'm pleased to see there have been some users speedrunning this (although no one has taken it to the level of the original yet.)
+ Natural sequence of progressing through the game which usually has good hints. Other users have talked about getting "stuck" at various points, and I did have to backtrack a lot, but I never got stuck or frustrated.
+ Sequence breaking is possible which makes this attractive for advanced players, and gives it good replay value.
+ Different order of items from the original makes this more interesting to play the first time through.
+ Some fun puzzle rooms. Made me think harder than the original super metroid ever did, but the rooms were always do-able in the end.
+ Some subtle tweaks to enemy AI and dynamics that kept me on my toes. This contributed to the fun factor.
+ Bosses are more of a puzzle. Bosses have weak-points and (sometimes surprising) strategies that work against them.
+ Gates introduce a new dynamic to the game, which I think was well-implemented programming-wise.
+ Crateria is more fun than in the original...much bigger, richer area.
+ Norfair also really inspired me, exploration-wise. I never got stuck, and was always finding new secrets. There are also many different sections of norfair that have very different feels to them. The area near Ridley is genuinely scary. Parts of it just feel vast and interesting.
+ I especially loved lower Brinstar...it was beautifully executed and had a vast, expansive feel unlike the original...it felt like I was poking around a damp and rusty basement in some abandoned industrial site, and I kept returning to it to find more stuff.
The downsides:
- Morph ball sound. UGH. Why?!? It is too loud and sounds like an explosion...just sounds wrong...and it took me quite some time to get used to it. Also, the bomb sound is very annoying, it sounds like a beam, not a bomb. I wish it had either left these sounds intact or used better ones.
- For how new the world and game dynamics were, the music disappointed. I wasn't crazy about the use of the alternate music for the main game area in Crateria; I got used to it, but I would have preferred the old music, or better, original music (I know it's a lot more work, but some other hacks have done this exceptionally well.)
- Tourian is too straightforward (and too easy, up to the escape sequence.) The escape sequence is good, it can really freak you out if you're not expecting it; I won't share more. IMHO Tourian was a weak point of the original and this hack does too little to improve on it. Compare to Z-factor; that hack does what I would want to see, take that hack's Tourian and put it in this game and it would be close to a perfect hack.
- Phantoon was very hard when I encountered him for the first time. I had to repeat that fight many times. Was this some deficiency on my part?
- Boss difficulty felt slightly too easy towards the end. After Phantoon, all the bosses except perhaps Draygon felt too easy (including Gold Torizo, but especially Kraid and Ridley were also both surprisingly easy.) I could use a little more challenge and I would have made Phantoon a bit easier (perhaps I didn't collect enough ammo, but I was pretty thorough and from watching playthroughs I had more at this point than a lot of others did.) This is a minor complaint because I think the "puzzle" nature of the bosses made fighting them fun -- more than in the original it was more a matter of figuring out the right strategy.
- Gate dynamic is heavily under-utilized. Many of the gates felt too straightforward to discover and open, and didn't require any backtracking. I would have preferred if the game were set up so that you always encountered at least one closed gate, before opening that gate. The first gate is just-hidden-enough for me (the crab crawling the ceiling makes it obvious, which is good for the first one), and I expected the difficulty level for finding the gates to go up, but it didn't in most cases. The gates felt too obvious; with the exception of the last gate, I was unlocking most of them before encountering them blocking my way.
- Uses gray doors too much, and it's not always clear how to open the gray door. In some rooms (like the room with the charge beam) I think this is a cleverly-executed mystery, but in the other cases it can be confusing and opaque. For example, SOOO many gray doors open after Draygon or Ridley? Or the gray doors after the dragon mini-boss. Why gray doors? Gates could have been used instead, so that the player could know WHICH paths were being opened at which point.
- Maridia just...didn't do it for me. It seemed very straightforward, with big, open rooms that lacked interesting features. Not enough mystery. In the original game, Maridia *really* got my interest up and felt truly exciting to explore, with things like that tube that sent you across the area with the baby metroids, the hidden areas under the sand pits, the glass tube from Brinstar giving you an early glimpse into it. With the exception of the very beginning of Maridia, before getting the gravity suit, it just didn't do it for me.
- I thought upper brinstar was less interesting than in the original. It felt a little too linear and the returning later to get items once I had the other items to get stuff felt boring.
Note, I'm still giving this 5 stars even with the downsides. This is a top-notch hack, and I think just because it could be improved in various ways, doesn't make it fall short of best-of-the-best.
It took me a little while to get used to the new physics (from Project base) but I liked it overall, perhaps not quite as much as some others do.
Overall it was very fun and engaging, and had a dynamic of exploration.
What I like about this hack:
+ Huge world. New layout, new ways the areas fit together. Exploring was very fun. The world seems hard to traverse at first, but over time you discover some alternate paths and tricks that make it a lot easier. I thought this was well-executed.
+ I love the ammo system; it makes me excited about finding missles, even towards the end of the game. Also, actively using missles while traversing the world becomes a necessity for the early game, and I like this. I thought this was a HUGE improvement over the original.
+ Great secrets. Just the right amount of subtle hints. Keeps the spirit of the original games, but adds some new ways of hiding things and some new types of obstacles to get around.
+ Backtracking is usually pretty interesting because I found when I returned to areas, I had new items and was able to explore new areas. I got genuinely excited when I got each item that opened up new areas.
+ Doesn't require advanced techniques like IBJ and mockballing, but these techniques can be useful, and the designer seems to have taken these things into account in the level design, i.e. allowing users to SOMETIMES profit from them but not letting users totally break the game. This makes advanced speedrunning fun and challenging, and I'm pleased to see there have been some users speedrunning this (although no one has taken it to the level of the original yet.)
+ Natural sequence of progressing through the game which usually has good hints. Other users have talked about getting "stuck" at various points, and I did have to backtrack a lot, but I never got stuck or frustrated.
+ Sequence breaking is possible which makes this attractive for advanced players, and gives it good replay value.
+ Different order of items from the original makes this more interesting to play the first time through.
+ Some fun puzzle rooms. Made me think harder than the original super metroid ever did, but the rooms were always do-able in the end.
+ Some subtle tweaks to enemy AI and dynamics that kept me on my toes. This contributed to the fun factor.
+ Bosses are more of a puzzle. Bosses have weak-points and (sometimes surprising) strategies that work against them.
+ Gates introduce a new dynamic to the game, which I think was well-implemented programming-wise.
+ Crateria is more fun than in the original...much bigger, richer area.
+ Norfair also really inspired me, exploration-wise. I never got stuck, and was always finding new secrets. There are also many different sections of norfair that have very different feels to them. The area near Ridley is genuinely scary. Parts of it just feel vast and interesting.
+ I especially loved lower Brinstar...it was beautifully executed and had a vast, expansive feel unlike the original...it felt like I was poking around a damp and rusty basement in some abandoned industrial site, and I kept returning to it to find more stuff.
The downsides:
- Morph ball sound. UGH. Why?!? It is too loud and sounds like an explosion...just sounds wrong...and it took me quite some time to get used to it. Also, the bomb sound is very annoying, it sounds like a beam, not a bomb. I wish it had either left these sounds intact or used better ones.
- For how new the world and game dynamics were, the music disappointed. I wasn't crazy about the use of the alternate music for the main game area in Crateria; I got used to it, but I would have preferred the old music, or better, original music (I know it's a lot more work, but some other hacks have done this exceptionally well.)
- Tourian is too straightforward (and too easy, up to the escape sequence.) The escape sequence is good, it can really freak you out if you're not expecting it; I won't share more. IMHO Tourian was a weak point of the original and this hack does too little to improve on it. Compare to Z-factor; that hack does what I would want to see, take that hack's Tourian and put it in this game and it would be close to a perfect hack.
- Phantoon was very hard when I encountered him for the first time. I had to repeat that fight many times. Was this some deficiency on my part?
- Boss difficulty felt slightly too easy towards the end. After Phantoon, all the bosses except perhaps Draygon felt too easy (including Gold Torizo, but especially Kraid and Ridley were also both surprisingly easy.) I could use a little more challenge and I would have made Phantoon a bit easier (perhaps I didn't collect enough ammo, but I was pretty thorough and from watching playthroughs I had more at this point than a lot of others did.) This is a minor complaint because I think the "puzzle" nature of the bosses made fighting them fun -- more than in the original it was more a matter of figuring out the right strategy.
- Gate dynamic is heavily under-utilized. Many of the gates felt too straightforward to discover and open, and didn't require any backtracking. I would have preferred if the game were set up so that you always encountered at least one closed gate, before opening that gate. The first gate is just-hidden-enough for me (the crab crawling the ceiling makes it obvious, which is good for the first one), and I expected the difficulty level for finding the gates to go up, but it didn't in most cases. The gates felt too obvious; with the exception of the last gate, I was unlocking most of them before encountering them blocking my way.
- Uses gray doors too much, and it's not always clear how to open the gray door. In some rooms (like the room with the charge beam) I think this is a cleverly-executed mystery, but in the other cases it can be confusing and opaque. For example, SOOO many gray doors open after Draygon or Ridley? Or the gray doors after the dragon mini-boss. Why gray doors? Gates could have been used instead, so that the player could know WHICH paths were being opened at which point.
- Maridia just...didn't do it for me. It seemed very straightforward, with big, open rooms that lacked interesting features. Not enough mystery. In the original game, Maridia *really* got my interest up and felt truly exciting to explore, with things like that tube that sent you across the area with the baby metroids, the hidden areas under the sand pits, the glass tube from Brinstar giving you an early glimpse into it. With the exception of the very beginning of Maridia, before getting the gravity suit, it just didn't do it for me.
- I thought upper brinstar was less interesting than in the original. It felt a little too linear and the returning later to get items once I had the other items to get stuff felt boring.
Note, I'm still giving this 5 stars even with the downsides. This is a top-notch hack, and I think just because it could be improved in various ways, doesn't make it fall short of best-of-the-best.
Only gripe was waiting so damn long for a certain item.
Tourian gates didn't take too long to find and the game opens up a ton after supers.
Escape was really nice.
Tourian gates didn't take too long to find and the game opens up a ton after supers.
Escape was really nice.
One of the greatest hacks in my opinion. Play this hack.
Honestly, The Hack Is Good. Just One Thing: Please Make It So I Don't Have To Use The Mockball, Apparently I Try Like 50 TIMES To Do A Single Mockball (Still Haven't Got It). Anything From That Is ALL GOOD.
Pros:
- gorgeous environments and that is an understatement!
- improvements to abilities such as space jump
- you start with high jump... oh no... you don't start with high jump!
- tons to explore with some well-hidden items
- some cool creatures added
- suit colors are neat and I like the morph ball look
- bomb jumping is easy and you can lay bombs so fast you can walk across the ceiling which is neat
- dying :3
cons:
- in order to get some of the items you need to know some tricks/mechanics of how the abilities work that make it tough for the average person
- place is really big and I wish getting around was easier for the less skilled but watching a speed runner was just awesome
I'm not the biggest fan of the modified story but to each there own.
I highly recommend playing this gorgeous game with a ton of improvements!
- gorgeous environments and that is an understatement!
- improvements to abilities such as space jump
- you start with high jump... oh no... you don't start with high jump!
- tons to explore with some well-hidden items
- some cool creatures added
- suit colors are neat and I like the morph ball look
- bomb jumping is easy and you can lay bombs so fast you can walk across the ceiling which is neat
- dying :3
cons:
- in order to get some of the items you need to know some tricks/mechanics of how the abilities work that make it tough for the average person
- place is really big and I wish getting around was easier for the less skilled but watching a speed runner was just awesome
I'm not the biggest fan of the modified story but to each there own.
I highly recommend playing this gorgeous game with a ton of improvements!
What can I say that hasn't been said already. It's a great hack with beautiful graphics and well done level design. I would recommend this hack to anyone who has played the original Super Metroid!
Be happy man, and make more hacks like this :)
Cant go wrong with that one,
it doesnt try too much to explore outside of the beaten path; keep the areas we know and stay close to SM default gameplay elements apart from Project Base.
But what it offers is top quality and top tier polished, enough to see your reflection on it.
Its not only amazing to see in speedruns but also great for casual plays,
the huge non linearity adds replay value and possibilities.
I think anyone should look at this hack if they want to make one.
Ofc there is some bads, biggest of which is the lag in tourian, probably the most intense lag iv seen. You can also get stuck in some spots for a long time (first Super, PB..), because of the openess. However, choosing the open Metroidvania approach is not bad, dont listen to the ones saying its bad, just look at Hollow Knight being one and its praised. Its a different ruleset that must be respected to make it works and getting them all right is hard.
I like PB (Project Base) physic because it stays super metroid but better in most ways.
The visuals of this hack are really good. Not too arte and weird...
but the color wheel contrast, levels of brightness, clarity, tiling...
all of those aspects and rules are respected to near perfection.
Gonna surely give some of those credits to PB, Im one of those that love the colors choices in PB,
it uses all of the color range, its great and vibrant. Not as muddy and dark as OG SM, but when the changes are great I just embrace them.
it doesnt try too much to explore outside of the beaten path; keep the areas we know and stay close to SM default gameplay elements apart from Project Base.
But what it offers is top quality and top tier polished, enough to see your reflection on it.
Its not only amazing to see in speedruns but also great for casual plays,
the huge non linearity adds replay value and possibilities.
I think anyone should look at this hack if they want to make one.
Ofc there is some bads, biggest of which is the lag in tourian, probably the most intense lag iv seen. You can also get stuck in some spots for a long time (first Super, PB..), because of the openess. However, choosing the open Metroidvania approach is not bad, dont listen to the ones saying its bad, just look at Hollow Knight being one and its praised. Its a different ruleset that must be respected to make it works and getting them all right is hard.
I like PB (Project Base) physic because it stays super metroid but better in most ways.
The visuals of this hack are really good. Not too arte and weird...
but the color wheel contrast, levels of brightness, clarity, tiling...
all of those aspects and rules are respected to near perfection.
Gonna surely give some of those credits to PB, Im one of those that love the colors choices in PB,
it uses all of the color range, its great and vibrant. Not as muddy and dark as OG SM, but when the changes are great I just embrace them.
Incredible rom hack!
Really, this rom hack impressed me, playing this is exploring a whole new planet, with map entirely redone and new physics.
Excellent un-linearity and backtracks.
Too, one of the best Tourian so far.
Good difficulty balance.
But, why the loud sound when morph un-morph? Really, this sound really was boring.
Tourian gates first scared me, but it was finally not that hard to find.
Great graphics, too.
An excellent rom hack.
Really, this rom hack impressed me, playing this is exploring a whole new planet, with map entirely redone and new physics.
Excellent un-linearity and backtracks.
Too, one of the best Tourian so far.
Good difficulty balance.
But, why the loud sound when morph un-morph? Really, this sound really was boring.
Tourian gates first scared me, but it was finally not that hard to find.
Great graphics, too.
An excellent rom hack.
This is my favourite Super Metroid hack I think. The only thing I don't like is the ridiculous story that sees Samus use people as bait. lol. Anyone can play this and it's a must play for any true Metroid fan. Thanks to the creator and everyone involved in making such an incredible game.
Not much to say that hasn't already been said. This hack VERY highly exceeded my expectations!
Good hack
Good and acceptable level design
You just spam bombs and you do ibj
It teached me some shinespark tricks
Even a super secret room!
But the diffculty is a bit harder than normal and acceptable
5/5
Good and acceptable level design
You just spam bombs and you do ibj
It teached me some shinespark tricks
Even a super secret room!
But the diffculty is a bit harder than normal and acceptable
5/5
9.5/10 hack
My sequence is KPRD(died a lot)
beat Ridley without gravitysuit(ton of death)
But still love this hack so much!
animals saved
highly recommend
My sequence is KPRD(died a lot)
beat Ridley without gravitysuit(ton of death)
But still love this hack so much!
animals saved
highly recommend
PROS:
Escape was cool.
The expansions that required Shinespark conservation were fun and satisfying, ESPECIALLY the timed one by that one gate unlock.
CONS:
No VAR Beam.
Draygon was annoying until I found a way to cheese him.*
Tourian was trivial.
The map is huge and travelling around for item cleanup felt like a chore.
*How to cheese Draygon.
1. Get Screw Attack.
2. Screw Attack by one of the doors until Draygon starts shooting web.
3. Get on the center platform and face Draygon.
4. Fire normal Missiles until Draygon is at your position. The main goal here is to destroy the web, damaging Draygon is just a nice bonus.
5. Once at your position, turn and walk with Draygon while aiming diagonally up and firing Missiles. You're probably gonna get hit, but that's okay as long as Draygon's health is going down faster than yours.
Note: You probably don't need Screw Attack, it just makes surviving much easier because it makes you invulnerable to all sources of damage in that room. You can probably just Space Jump around and dodge all of the turret shots and Draygon swoops, but I wasn't going to try that after dying how much I did due to lack of skill.
PS. Imagine caring about whether a romhack conforms to official Metroid lore, lol.
Escape was cool.
The expansions that required Shinespark conservation were fun and satisfying, ESPECIALLY the timed one by that one gate unlock.
CONS:
No VAR Beam.
Draygon was annoying until I found a way to cheese him.*
Tourian was trivial.
The map is huge and travelling around for item cleanup felt like a chore.
*How to cheese Draygon.
1. Get Screw Attack.
2. Screw Attack by one of the doors until Draygon starts shooting web.
3. Get on the center platform and face Draygon.
4. Fire normal Missiles until Draygon is at your position. The main goal here is to destroy the web, damaging Draygon is just a nice bonus.
5. Once at your position, turn and walk with Draygon while aiming diagonally up and firing Missiles. You're probably gonna get hit, but that's okay as long as Draygon's health is going down faster than yours.
Note: You probably don't need Screw Attack, it just makes surviving much easier because it makes you invulnerable to all sources of damage in that room. You can probably just Space Jump around and dodge all of the turret shots and Draygon swoops, but I wasn't going to try that after dying how much I did due to lack of skill.
PS. Imagine caring about whether a romhack conforms to official Metroid lore, lol.
Overall great romhack, but some big problems:
Due to major upgrade and Tourian gate placements, each area has to be backtracked into at least once to progress without any advanced sequence breaking.
Backtracking feels awful for most of the game.
Why? Speed Booster is the final item in the standard progression. Given the size of the map and the backtracking, that was not a good fit. At all.
Why weren't there more shortcuts between areas, designed around the mandatory revisits? That's the difference between feeling a pleasant flow and a chore.
The improved physics and techniques are great, but they aren't as well-documented as vanilla. This wouldn't be a problem if they were just for sequence breaking and speed running, except that they're *necessary* to get certain items. Instead of just "try and figure it out" in the manual, info on how to execute new techniques would have been appropriate.
For example, I still don't understand how using spin jumps to retain blue suit with Speed Booster works. Getting past the timed gate to get power bombs in lower Norfair was way more frustrating and time consuming than it needed to be. Why? It wasn't a matter of finely executing what I knew (see Super Zero Mission's shinespark puzzles), it was I didn't know wtf I was doing and just hoping for the best. It steals the feeling of accomplishment when you finally succeed.
The room in which you get the Speed Booster should have been built to teach the player about the new techniques, so they could apply them in more complex and challenging ways elsewhere. This is a fundamental game design principle, and applies to every new technique in this romhack or any Project Base romhack. RealRed did this with some techniques, but not others.
The overall quality is a 4.5/5, but the hack felt like a 3/5 in terms of enjoyment. The issues above are just that glaring. The last 0.5 preventing a 5/5 is that the story is underdeveloped to the point it should have just gone unchanged. Either develop it into something that stands on its own (see V I T A L I T Y) or drop it and stick with vanilla's story.
Due to major upgrade and Tourian gate placements, each area has to be backtracked into at least once to progress without any advanced sequence breaking.
Backtracking feels awful for most of the game.
Why? Speed Booster is the final item in the standard progression. Given the size of the map and the backtracking, that was not a good fit. At all.
Why weren't there more shortcuts between areas, designed around the mandatory revisits? That's the difference between feeling a pleasant flow and a chore.
The improved physics and techniques are great, but they aren't as well-documented as vanilla. This wouldn't be a problem if they were just for sequence breaking and speed running, except that they're *necessary* to get certain items. Instead of just "try and figure it out" in the manual, info on how to execute new techniques would have been appropriate.
For example, I still don't understand how using spin jumps to retain blue suit with Speed Booster works. Getting past the timed gate to get power bombs in lower Norfair was way more frustrating and time consuming than it needed to be. Why? It wasn't a matter of finely executing what I knew (see Super Zero Mission's shinespark puzzles), it was I didn't know wtf I was doing and just hoping for the best. It steals the feeling of accomplishment when you finally succeed.
The room in which you get the Speed Booster should have been built to teach the player about the new techniques, so they could apply them in more complex and challenging ways elsewhere. This is a fundamental game design principle, and applies to every new technique in this romhack or any Project Base romhack. RealRed did this with some techniques, but not others.
The overall quality is a 4.5/5, but the hack felt like a 3/5 in terms of enjoyment. The issues above are just that glaring. The last 0.5 preventing a 5/5 is that the story is underdeveloped to the point it should have just gone unchanged. Either develop it into something that stands on its own (see V I T A L I T Y) or drop it and stick with vanilla's story.
amazing hack. not too much to say about this one, its really just an extremely well done revamp of SM. zebes is much bigger, the game is more difficult, but not too difficult.
the name really speaks for itself. strongly recommend.
the name really speaks for itself. strongly recommend.
Hyper Metroid is a Metroid game.The only that features an less dense atmosphere than the original titles, an ammo system that can get obnoxious at times, boss fights that are worst versions of the vanilla fights and a laughable storyline.
However, despite of these minor shortcomings, Hyper Metroid is an amazingly crafted experience made by someone who truly understands what makes a good metroidvania and good game-design, it's a hypnotic joy from the beggining to the end.
The level-design is the star of the show, it's really open with tons of branching paths, and it's carefully design to never sap that feeling of progression out of the game.It's twice the size of Super Metroid's world, yet, it never feels that big since the game gives you a lot of movement options very early. It has a diverse tileset and mood for each area that keep you invested in exploring even more of the map, and once you do explore, the game rewards you, just like a Metroidvania should do. The only hiccup worth mentioning is the sequence where you have to do a suitless Maridia in order to get the gravity suit, but it's really brief.
This game, is better than Hollow Knight, and it's well-deserved of the title of *Super Duper Metroid.*
However, despite of these minor shortcomings, Hyper Metroid is an amazingly crafted experience made by someone who truly understands what makes a good metroidvania and good game-design, it's a hypnotic joy from the beggining to the end.
The level-design is the star of the show, it's really open with tons of branching paths, and it's carefully design to never sap that feeling of progression out of the game.It's twice the size of Super Metroid's world, yet, it never feels that big since the game gives you a lot of movement options very early. It has a diverse tileset and mood for each area that keep you invested in exploring even more of the map, and once you do explore, the game rewards you, just like a Metroidvania should do. The only hiccup worth mentioning is the sequence where you have to do a suitless Maridia in order to get the gravity suit, but it's really brief.
This game, is better than Hollow Knight, and it's well-deserved of the title of *Super Duper Metroid.*
Awesome Hack I love this Hack!
Really enjoyed this hack. Exploration was fun since the level design really stood out and finding items was really intuitive... The back tracking might have been a chore, but I played it in two sittings so it didn't bother me.
The only thing I really struggled to find was power bombs... I had almost all the items and most of the E tanks before I found them.
Making all the ammo under the same pool was neat. Makes every pickup worth grabbing, but there really wasn't much of a point having them different pick ups except for the first one you get.
Edit: forgot to say this has by far the best escape sequence of any hack I've played!
The only thing I really struggled to find was power bombs... I had almost all the items and most of the E tanks before I found them.
Making all the ammo under the same pool was neat. Makes every pickup worth grabbing, but there really wasn't much of a point having them different pick ups except for the first one you get.
Edit: forgot to say this has by far the best escape sequence of any hack I've played!
An hard to 100% but very fun hack.
Learned lots of tricks and very good use of Project Base.
Fresh in every room and so many secrety stuff and not a dull moment.
Some collectible may take some patience but I went in with little knowledge.
Reccomend playing Project Base first.
Very good.
Learned lots of tricks and very good use of Project Base.
Fresh in every room and so many secrety stuff and not a dull moment.
Some collectible may take some patience but I went in with little knowledge.
Reccomend playing Project Base first.
Very good.
An amazing hack with a few small irks.
Exploration and decoration were top notch. Exploring the planet and finding where to go next was very enjoyable, and finding secrets even more so.
Getting the next key item to proceed was mostly painless, though a couple were tricky and almost got me to look them up instead of finding them myself (the first super missile, the first power bomb, and gravity suit).
The finale and escape were jaw-dropping. I had no idea an escape sequence could be that elaborate and dramatic. Did run out of time the first try and had to give it a second go, but I really liked it. Felt exciting and frantic. Managed to find the animals too.
I'm going to knock it down one notch due to annoyances with the map, mainly. I know that Super Metroid doesn't inherently mark items as acquired on the map, so I won't blame the hack for that. But it was frustrating when I could come across items where I can't collect it yet, but I enter the cell it's in, so the tile on the map becomes pink to designate I'd been there. I couldn't leave it blue to ensure I remembered to return and collect it. This meant having to take a lot of screenshots and notes. A similar issue arose with doors from time to time - most doorways were shown on the map which was excellent, but more than a few were not shown at all, and I'm not talking about secret entrances or hidden doors, just regular out in the open doors that were marked on the map as a wall for some bizarre reason. It made keeping track of where I've been and where I still needed to go a bit of a headache later on whenever I collected a new key item and needed to decide where to check next. Probably could have knocked off one or two of my playtime hours if that hadn't been a problem.
Nevertheless, it was a fantastic and very fun hack, one I'd recommend to any Super Metroid enthusiast. The skill needed to win is somewhat higher than vanilla SM, but not much, and the improvements to the game that were brought along by Project Base really help you feel powerful and capable as you grow your arsenal throughout the game. Well worth your time. Just keep a notepad handy, if your memory's as bad as mine.
Exploration and decoration were top notch. Exploring the planet and finding where to go next was very enjoyable, and finding secrets even more so.
Getting the next key item to proceed was mostly painless, though a couple were tricky and almost got me to look them up instead of finding them myself (the first super missile, the first power bomb, and gravity suit).
The finale and escape were jaw-dropping. I had no idea an escape sequence could be that elaborate and dramatic. Did run out of time the first try and had to give it a second go, but I really liked it. Felt exciting and frantic. Managed to find the animals too.
I'm going to knock it down one notch due to annoyances with the map, mainly. I know that Super Metroid doesn't inherently mark items as acquired on the map, so I won't blame the hack for that. But it was frustrating when I could come across items where I can't collect it yet, but I enter the cell it's in, so the tile on the map becomes pink to designate I'd been there. I couldn't leave it blue to ensure I remembered to return and collect it. This meant having to take a lot of screenshots and notes. A similar issue arose with doors from time to time - most doorways were shown on the map which was excellent, but more than a few were not shown at all, and I'm not talking about secret entrances or hidden doors, just regular out in the open doors that were marked on the map as a wall for some bizarre reason. It made keeping track of where I've been and where I still needed to go a bit of a headache later on whenever I collected a new key item and needed to decide where to check next. Probably could have knocked off one or two of my playtime hours if that hadn't been a problem.
Nevertheless, it was a fantastic and very fun hack, one I'd recommend to any Super Metroid enthusiast. The skill needed to win is somewhat higher than vanilla SM, but not much, and the improvements to the game that were brought along by Project Base really help you feel powerful and capable as you grow your arsenal throughout the game. Well worth your time. Just keep a notepad handy, if your memory's as bad as mine.
Still to me the best hack ever made. No questions about it.
This is in my opinion the best SM hack on the market right now. While I'm not in love with Samus's new suit colors I am in love with virtually everything else about this. The progression is absolutely perfectly tuned to be hard enough to challenge you and egg you on, but not so hard as to frustrate or discourage you. The new layouts and zones look incredible and are just as fun to explore as they are to look at. Many upgrades are easily missed the first time around - but that just makes it more fun to go back and try to figure it out.
Of particular note is the challenge level, and how the enemies are scaled. The boss fights are universally just perfectly tuned to where your strength level should be when you encounter them, and I will be impressed for the rest of my life that RealRed was able to do this so elegantly. Every boss fight will have you close to death, just barely beating the enemy - and feeling like you really, really earned the win. Ridley in particular was a monolithic battle and I don't know if I'll ever forget the satisfaction I felt when, with 56 energy left, he finally blew up and I got to take what felt like my first breath in minutes. Finally, the escape sequence was just perfect and had you running across what felt like the entire damn planet at lightspeed and it felt so, so good. Incredible work all around and I plan to replay this many, many times.
Of particular note is the challenge level, and how the enemies are scaled. The boss fights are universally just perfectly tuned to where your strength level should be when you encounter them, and I will be impressed for the rest of my life that RealRed was able to do this so elegantly. Every boss fight will have you close to death, just barely beating the enemy - and feeling like you really, really earned the win. Ridley in particular was a monolithic battle and I don't know if I'll ever forget the satisfaction I felt when, with 56 energy left, he finally blew up and I got to take what felt like my first breath in minutes. Finally, the escape sequence was just perfect and had you running across what felt like the entire damn planet at lightspeed and it felt so, so good. Incredible work all around and I plan to replay this many, many times.
Very great hack! Very well made overall. Cool looking sprites and clear that the environment and details have been worked on a lot! Level design is great and some nice puzzles too!
I did not find the hack to be so hard, I think it is beginner friendly. Although beginners should probably play original and maybe project base first before trying this one. Oh and the best escape ever, very epic!
The one thing I didn't like was the "where the heck do I go?" The world was just too open! I needed to explore the whole world and go anywhere, some players might like that, but for me this was annoying, I don't want to have to look around the whole world to be able to progress, some exploring is ofc fine, but this was in my opinion too much.
I give the hack 4 / 5. Definitely play it!
I did not find the hack to be so hard, I think it is beginner friendly. Although beginners should probably play original and maybe project base first before trying this one. Oh and the best escape ever, very epic!
The one thing I didn't like was the "where the heck do I go?" The world was just too open! I needed to explore the whole world and go anywhere, some players might like that, but for me this was annoying, I don't want to have to look around the whole world to be able to progress, some exploring is ofc fine, but this was in my opinion too much.
I give the hack 4 / 5. Definitely play it!
I hate to say it but this is the kind of hack that's better the more you know about it going in. It's very open, but has a lot of grey doors too numerous and too out of the way to be checking after every little thing you've done just to see if it's open yet, and sometimes you need to go through one so you can't forget about them either. That "vanilla" difficulty tag is a bit disingenuous. It's is definitely harder than SM, especially the farther you are in the game, and that's assuming you've even found the items you'd typically have in vanilla, but some are very easy to miss. If you know boss patterns and cheese strats you might be fine, but I consider that stuff a veteran skill.
The gates aren't as bad as you might have heard. There is a risk that you might end up missing an obvious tell as to a gates' location, and never find it again on the map, but also there's three gates per area, and once you learn that it's not so bad combing the area to find them. Most can be hit throughout the game, not just at the end.
Also, be wary of a glitch in Wrecked Ship. I got stuck in a grapple block by slamming into a wall and had to reset. Otherwise, no serious bugs.
Overall, better on replays, but on a blind first playthrough it's only sometimes decent, often tediously frustrating. I almost dropped this to a 3 out of 5, but it is a full, unique Project Base hack, it has its own story and art, I'm a big fan of the color palette, and when the gameplay is at its absolute best it hits a level most hacks can't compete with (but only on occasion), so that earns some bonus points. Just don't expect this to be the ultimate Metroid hack, it's just solid.
The gates aren't as bad as you might have heard. There is a risk that you might end up missing an obvious tell as to a gates' location, and never find it again on the map, but also there's three gates per area, and once you learn that it's not so bad combing the area to find them. Most can be hit throughout the game, not just at the end.
Also, be wary of a glitch in Wrecked Ship. I got stuck in a grapple block by slamming into a wall and had to reset. Otherwise, no serious bugs.
Overall, better on replays, but on a blind first playthrough it's only sometimes decent, often tediously frustrating. I almost dropped this to a 3 out of 5, but it is a full, unique Project Base hack, it has its own story and art, I'm a big fan of the color palette, and when the gameplay is at its absolute best it hits a level most hacks can't compete with (but only on occasion), so that earns some bonus points. Just don't expect this to be the ultimate Metroid hack, it's just solid.
This is a fantastic hack, with a genuinely incredibly well designed world, great pacing, a surprisingly well placed and designed gate system that wasnt even as frustrating as it could have been and a really fun escape sequence.
The one gripe I have with this hack is the boss fights, most of them felt unfair and way too tanky, unloading your entire set of missiles into some of them wasnt even enough to get them halfway and using the charge beam at low health was pretty much the universal experience with a lot of the fights. Let's not even talk about the golden Torizo, that fight was just genuinely painful to get through and felt wildly unfair even with the screw attack and tons of missiles.
Other than that, this was the best hack I've played so far, with an unmatched level and world design, and bonus points for the custom story, opening and credits, the wonderful resprites and colour scheme, and the fact that i never got lost or softlocked using entry level exploits like bomb jumps and wall jumping.
The one gripe I have with this hack is the boss fights, most of them felt unfair and way too tanky, unloading your entire set of missiles into some of them wasnt even enough to get them halfway and using the charge beam at low health was pretty much the universal experience with a lot of the fights. Let's not even talk about the golden Torizo, that fight was just genuinely painful to get through and felt wildly unfair even with the screw attack and tons of missiles.
Other than that, this was the best hack I've played so far, with an unmatched level and world design, and bonus points for the custom story, opening and credits, the wonderful resprites and colour scheme, and the fact that i never got lost or softlocked using entry level exploits like bomb jumps and wall jumping.
Hyper Metroid is the first SM hack I ever played and it totally mindblown me in every way.
It is a literal Hyper version of SM. It is harder, bigger, faster while still keeping the soul of the original. It feels like an official Lost Levels sequel of SM. Yes, it's that good.
The game still has some cons, the first run might feel a little tedious because the game is very open, maps are huge and some door locks are hard to find, but once you figure it out it is very rewarding. If you manage to beat the game, it has great replayability and it's really fun trying to get early items.
That escape sequence was fantastic too.
Although some new hacks may be arguably better in 2022, I would totally recommend this as the first hack to play after beating SM 100%.
It is a literal Hyper version of SM. It is harder, bigger, faster while still keeping the soul of the original. It feels like an official Lost Levels sequel of SM. Yes, it's that good.
The game still has some cons, the first run might feel a little tedious because the game is very open, maps are huge and some door locks are hard to find, but once you figure it out it is very rewarding. If you manage to beat the game, it has great replayability and it's really fun trying to get early items.
That escape sequence was fantastic too.
Although some new hacks may be arguably better in 2022, I would totally recommend this as the first hack to play after beating SM 100%.
The first Metroid hack I played. It was a really solid experience. It started easy, got really hard, and then easy again. I loved the new ways to fight bosses that were still faithful to the original. I thought I was all powered up but then ridley gave me a run for my money. Excellent mix of challenge and exploration.
Love the tourian gates system that was used in this hack brings a good challenge to the hack, it was a blast to play through and replay it afterwards, I would recomend this hack as a first one for anyone playing this, the boss fights give a good enough challenge for players that doesn't make the hack to easy.
This is definitely the best super metroid rom hack I've played so far, it has the production value of polarity and the gameplay of escape II. At the time of its release it was the best rom hack ever made and it would hold onto that title for a few years after that. The only major problem is the endgame which will require you to use really advanced tricks to get to 4 mandatory switches that you must trigger. One thing I'll mention is that in this hack you keep your speed boost momentum if you somersault jump and you can somersault jump in ANY direction and keep your momentum as long as you don't touch a wall. You'll need this information for accessing the last part of maridia that holds the final switch and the final boss battle before mother brain. Overall it is recommended, but be prepared for some minor issues and the aforementioned major issue at the very end of the game.
Recommended.
Recommended.
Animals saved.
Savestates used, mostly for the purpose of being able to put down the campaign and pick up where I left off.
All criticism is from a perspective of admiration for the art created. No hack is perfect; small grievances I try to not reflect in my orb placement.
I have completed this hack multiple times, this being my first 100% playthrough. Special thanks to Project Maptroid for helping me track down the last 8 items.
There are three hacks that have had the biggest impact on me, Axeil Edition, Z-Factor, and Hyper Metroid. This is probably the closest I've seen to a perfect hack.
The difficulty is largely what you make of it; I would absolutely recommend this to beginners. My first playthrough was incredibly challenging, but nothing ever felt cheap or unfair.
Having not played it in a while I found myself repeating some of the earlier mistakes I made in my first playthrough. Being able to get lost in subsequent campaigns is a tremendous testimony to the exploration quality and replayabilty of a hack. Hyper is among several that do this effectively.
I am a huge fan of the physics engine. While I love the latest iteration of Project Base, I really appreciate the extreme qualities that were prevalent around 0.5 through 0.7. I had read that RealRed used 0.7 as his base, but he seems to have really taken some inspiration from 0.5 in some regards. Hyper is certainly Project Base on steroids.
I love the graphics overhaul Zebes received. The Mechanical Lower Norfair tileset I have seen appear in other prominent hacks. The weird colors everywhere are a very welcome change. Bloody Tourian really amps up the evil/horror factor that sometimes the final area lacks.
This is the only hack I have seen JAM's Plasma/Spazer patch utilized and it was an awesome inclusion.
The Gate System in Hyper took the remote gates in Redesign and made them work similar to the Chozo Guardians of that same hack. This is a great method of locking off the final area.
It has been mentioned before, (and will be my only criticism,) but the Plasma Room gate soft-lock warrants a possible revision, if only for that fix. If it never gets patched out, it is easy enough to avoid.
Savestates used, mostly for the purpose of being able to put down the campaign and pick up where I left off.
All criticism is from a perspective of admiration for the art created. No hack is perfect; small grievances I try to not reflect in my orb placement.
I have completed this hack multiple times, this being my first 100% playthrough. Special thanks to Project Maptroid for helping me track down the last 8 items.
There are three hacks that have had the biggest impact on me, Axeil Edition, Z-Factor, and Hyper Metroid. This is probably the closest I've seen to a perfect hack.
The difficulty is largely what you make of it; I would absolutely recommend this to beginners. My first playthrough was incredibly challenging, but nothing ever felt cheap or unfair.
Having not played it in a while I found myself repeating some of the earlier mistakes I made in my first playthrough. Being able to get lost in subsequent campaigns is a tremendous testimony to the exploration quality and replayabilty of a hack. Hyper is among several that do this effectively.
I am a huge fan of the physics engine. While I love the latest iteration of Project Base, I really appreciate the extreme qualities that were prevalent around 0.5 through 0.7. I had read that RealRed used 0.7 as his base, but he seems to have really taken some inspiration from 0.5 in some regards. Hyper is certainly Project Base on steroids.
I love the graphics overhaul Zebes received. The Mechanical Lower Norfair tileset I have seen appear in other prominent hacks. The weird colors everywhere are a very welcome change. Bloody Tourian really amps up the evil/horror factor that sometimes the final area lacks.
This is the only hack I have seen JAM's Plasma/Spazer patch utilized and it was an awesome inclusion.
The Gate System in Hyper took the remote gates in Redesign and made them work similar to the Chozo Guardians of that same hack. This is a great method of locking off the final area.
It has been mentioned before, (and will be my only criticism,) but the Plasma Room gate soft-lock warrants a possible revision, if only for that fix. If it never gets patched out, it is easy enough to avoid.
This romhack, despite how "dated" it is, definitely left me satisfied with the time I put into it. My time was the 100% was 2:46, but my original run was 4:23 and it was quite enjoyable. I struggled with some of the new mechanics (Like how Shinesparking works) but overall it's a game I definitely see myself getting back into.
Linked is a video of my escape sequence with more than 3:10 on the clock! It was fun to push myself to get at least 3 minutes for the escape, for this romhack's escape sequence tries to test most of the tools at your disposal.
Highly recommended romhack!
Linked is a video of my escape sequence with more than 3:10 on the clock! It was fun to push myself to get at least 3 minutes for the escape, for this romhack's escape sequence tries to test most of the tools at your disposal.
Highly recommended romhack!
A pretty cool and fun hack. I, like many others, think that in Metroid exploring is an important thing in the game, getting lost and having no idea where you are going gives a great experience, and Hyper Metroid gives you that kind of experience.
I always got lost in each area of the game, I even got Power ups that I didn't know if I was supposed to get them at that moment or it was later in the game, and I love that. After getting some upgrades, in Crateria there was an area that take you to Maridia and I used the Mockball trick to get there and I got the Gravity Suit even before I had super missiles.
It has a decent difficulty and in my opinion it is not annoying, although the bosses, I felt that the last ones were quite complicated. The 15-gate mechanic for the Tourian was something completely unique. The ROM has a very good level design, a free progression (for what I’ve seen and played) and many other things but I don’t wanna fill you up with a lot of text.
8.8/10. Good hack.
I always got lost in each area of the game, I even got Power ups that I didn't know if I was supposed to get them at that moment or it was later in the game, and I love that. After getting some upgrades, in Crateria there was an area that take you to Maridia and I used the Mockball trick to get there and I got the Gravity Suit even before I had super missiles.
It has a decent difficulty and in my opinion it is not annoying, although the bosses, I felt that the last ones were quite complicated. The 15-gate mechanic for the Tourian was something completely unique. The ROM has a very good level design, a free progression (for what I’ve seen and played) and many other things but I don’t wanna fill you up with a lot of text.
8.8/10. Good hack.
This was my first hack that i played all the way through. I started it maybe a year or two ago but just restarted it and enjoyed it the whole way through. Very pleasant experience, only experienced one bug with draygon when i got grabbed and when i started trying to escape i started moving pixels down away from draygon. Encountered no other bugs or glitches.
Very fun, but imo (it's been a while since I completed it, so don't completely take my review seriously) there wasn't much special to it, I kinda use it as a baseline for whether or not a hack is good, "is this hack better, or worse than Hyper Metroid?" It was still pretty great though, so I definitely recommend it.
This one gave a really great experience overall! I love hacks that really go the extra mile to be different than the original game. I love exploration hacks, and this one did not disappoint. For those looking for a new experience, wanting a vanilla feel, and good progression, this is one for you!
This hack is a really solid baseline to judge others against as it's solid in almost all aspects, but it does have some downsides depending on what play style or feeling you're looking for.
The hack does suffer in exploration as a lot of the hack is inaccessible until you obtain one of two available super missiles, and then one of two power bombs. Without one or each, the paths available to take are pretty extensive; however, you will constantly hit dead ends after traversing for a while, with very little to show for your time, as the author made sure you couldn't get anything major enough that would break the progression order overall.
The hack also does suffer from a bit of clunky movement around the speed booster and some of the later game routes it's needed on or bonus power-ups hidden behind skill checks. Once you get used to it, it feels pretty good, but it takes a bit to get there and feels off until you do.
Lastly, the escape felt so un-necessary and long. Some of it was great, but it felt forced by some doors randomly being grey and thus arbitrarily forcing you onto different paths. It does a great job later by using the environment in the second half, but the whole first half just felt odd.
The hack does suffer in exploration as a lot of the hack is inaccessible until you obtain one of two available super missiles, and then one of two power bombs. Without one or each, the paths available to take are pretty extensive; however, you will constantly hit dead ends after traversing for a while, with very little to show for your time, as the author made sure you couldn't get anything major enough that would break the progression order overall.
The hack also does suffer from a bit of clunky movement around the speed booster and some of the later game routes it's needed on or bonus power-ups hidden behind skill checks. Once you get used to it, it feels pretty good, but it takes a bit to get there and feels off until you do.
Lastly, the escape felt so un-necessary and long. Some of it was great, but it felt forced by some doors randomly being grey and thus arbitrarily forcing you onto different paths. It does a great job later by using the environment in the second half, but the whole first half just felt odd.
Hyper Metroid kept me coming back for more. While there are some small troubles I have with this hack, it is certainly closer to a 5 than a 4 to me. Great world, good progression, overall enjoyable with a high ceiling for skill.
Well, this was certainly very interesting. So far, out of the SM hacks (I played this, Ascent, and Vitality), and I like this the best. I used the online map though, since I don't like bombing every surface -- that'll take forever, and I have better things to do than that. But I did get 100% map, which was why it took a bit long time. With that in mind, I shall do a pro/con review.
Pros:
- I love how the bombs explode a lot quicker. And you can have 5 shots/bombs on the screen, instead of 3. True anti-frustration features that make the game so much more enjoyable.
- I love how the missiles/super missiles/power bombs now all use one pool of ammo (different ammo usage per shot though). That is so much better, because it allows you to weigh the options, and refilling the ammo is so much quicker.
- The difficulty (exploration/battle against normal enemies) was slightly harder than vanilla, but very fair. It kept you on your toes (in a good way), because if you got careless, you would receive damage constantly -- you can't just rush like crazy. Very nice.
- I like how later bosses are actually difficult, in a good way (esp eel and draygon). I esp like how you made Gold Torizo fight available somewhere in the middle, but you have very little chance of beating it until you get all the necessary upgrades (ie the Gravity Suit and Plasma Beam). That was very refreshing -- you can fight the battle, but you won't win until you get lots of upgrades.
- Thank you very much for giving access to X-Ray early. It is such an anti-frustration item.
- I like all the new skills you gave Samus. I esp like how you gave Spring Ball a Morph Ball dash. It adds more to the puzzle solving.
- The gate system was great. You get access to Tourian pretty early, but you you can't really go far until you open all the gates. Some gates are easy to access, while others are difficult.
- I like how the animals teach you wall jump early. Sure, it's not necessary to beat the game, and you certainly don't need for them to teach you to actually execute wall jumps, but for the newcomers, it's great.
Con:
- The later combination of Ice Beam's color was absolutely terrible. I mean, red/yellow/pink? (all beams together will result in one of the pink shades) And more importantly, it affects the color of the frozen enemies? That's a terrible choice of color. If you wanted color it to something other than vanilla (ie light blue), then you should have gone for white (ice is actually clear color, but white would be better in this context). But really, one of the blue shades would have been better.
- While the level design is good, but it was really far too spread apart. I mean, too many times, you have to wonder around aimlessly. I often find myself finding a key upgrade, then I have to go on the other side of the map to find another key item, then come back to fight the boss. Lots of wasted time, and it would have been a real pain without the map. I don't mind backtracking for non-mandatory upgrades, but for the key items? No.
- I don't like how you can't beat the game unless you learn the "hidden" skills, such as slowing down the Speed Booster, or getting up while Morph Ball dashing. Nothing teaches you that, there's no hint, and it's not very intuitive either. So the game is basically unbeatable unless you accidentally find out such thing even exists.
Pros:
- I love how the bombs explode a lot quicker. And you can have 5 shots/bombs on the screen, instead of 3. True anti-frustration features that make the game so much more enjoyable.
- I love how the missiles/super missiles/power bombs now all use one pool of ammo (different ammo usage per shot though). That is so much better, because it allows you to weigh the options, and refilling the ammo is so much quicker.
- The difficulty (exploration/battle against normal enemies) was slightly harder than vanilla, but very fair. It kept you on your toes (in a good way), because if you got careless, you would receive damage constantly -- you can't just rush like crazy. Very nice.
- I like how later bosses are actually difficult, in a good way (esp eel and draygon). I esp like how you made Gold Torizo fight available somewhere in the middle, but you have very little chance of beating it until you get all the necessary upgrades (ie the Gravity Suit and Plasma Beam). That was very refreshing -- you can fight the battle, but you won't win until you get lots of upgrades.
- Thank you very much for giving access to X-Ray early. It is such an anti-frustration item.
- I like all the new skills you gave Samus. I esp like how you gave Spring Ball a Morph Ball dash. It adds more to the puzzle solving.
- The gate system was great. You get access to Tourian pretty early, but you you can't really go far until you open all the gates. Some gates are easy to access, while others are difficult.
- I like how the animals teach you wall jump early. Sure, it's not necessary to beat the game, and you certainly don't need for them to teach you to actually execute wall jumps, but for the newcomers, it's great.
Con:
- The later combination of Ice Beam's color was absolutely terrible. I mean, red/yellow/pink? (all beams together will result in one of the pink shades) And more importantly, it affects the color of the frozen enemies? That's a terrible choice of color. If you wanted color it to something other than vanilla (ie light blue), then you should have gone for white (ice is actually clear color, but white would be better in this context). But really, one of the blue shades would have been better.
- While the level design is good, but it was really far too spread apart. I mean, too many times, you have to wonder around aimlessly. I often find myself finding a key upgrade, then I have to go on the other side of the map to find another key item, then come back to fight the boss. Lots of wasted time, and it would have been a real pain without the map. I don't mind backtracking for non-mandatory upgrades, but for the key items? No.
- I don't like how you can't beat the game unless you learn the "hidden" skills, such as slowing down the Speed Booster, or getting up while Morph Ball dashing. Nothing teaches you that, there's no hint, and it's not very intuitive either. So the game is basically unbeatable unless you accidentally find out such thing even exists.
Well first off hi folks, this is my first review and I will try to do the best I can so here it goes.
Hyper Metroid: I absolutely loved this hack; this is my first hack I finished so I don’t have any other experiences to go off of currently.
I guess I start by saying, that it was absolutely wonderful in the sense of exploration that I got as someone who just replayed the classics after not playing them for years (SM, ZM, Fusion.) I felt like a deep sense of wonder as I started the story off, as soon as you land you realize this is not your normal Metroid sprite or Zebes. The color schemes were well done and I loved the Gravity Suit Sprite specifically. Another thing to note from the start of this hack was the originality of the teams take on the storyline they nurtured. I have noticed some folks saying they did not care for the story or it wasn’t in line with Samus’ character. But to me, the team reinvented a world and in my head going in I felt like I mentally situated myself to just be in an alternate universe and enjoy the tale for what it had to offer.
Mechanics wise the physics were definitely different albeit in a welcome manner. I felt like the game, especially early on did a good job of keeping the authenticity of exploration. There were a few times where I had to look up an item to progress but I am by no means an all star player. I felt like most of the time if I couldn’t figure out where to go it was because I was nervous to traverse water for an extended time without Gravity; or felt like I should be able to access something that later on I learned why I couldn’t get to that point made a little more sense. Powerbombs did take me a LONG time to discover as well as the gravity. I accidentally stumbled upon spring ball without knowing I needed it (I adored the tiny crocomire sprites ^_^) Honestly, there were points that felt cryptic and I don’t know that I feel that it is a hack that is necessarily at a level that the casual player would feel comfortable in all aspects playing. That being said it’s not a dig at the team or the hack because I throughly enjoyed my time with it and I believe if you are playing these hacks you shouldn’t expect base game difficulty. It wasn’t far off but there were some points, damage seemed a little steep and puzzles seemed confusing, but albeit fair. A big shoutout to Baltis MC who had a 100% walkthrough available (I tried to only use it when I felt completely stuck)
I did encounter a glitch which I know others have pointed out, which was Bomb Torizo getting stuck in the vileplumes and spikes if he jumped back off the main arena. Sometimes I could rectify this by jumping behind him closer to one of the doors, other times I could not which led to a few resets and run backs. Again nothing disheartening to the experience overall. The only other noticeable glitch I encountered was in the Draygon fight where she would disappear and reappear in the bottom left/right of the arena which was confusing as I would go to shoot and suddenly nothing was there. Same as BT somewhat frustrating but with the amount of love that went into this hack it didn’t hurt my experience at all.
The escape was really fun and cool and surprised me. I did save the animals (: overall as this is my first hack experience and review I would say 4.5/5 orbs. Just for the sake of some small things but it doesn’t take away that this was beautiful and fun. I think everyone on the site should give this one a go. Thanks to Trevor, Begrimed and everyone involved. You’ve opened my world to hacks and I can’t wait to play many more (:
-Mayhemski
Hyper Metroid: I absolutely loved this hack; this is my first hack I finished so I don’t have any other experiences to go off of currently.
I guess I start by saying, that it was absolutely wonderful in the sense of exploration that I got as someone who just replayed the classics after not playing them for years (SM, ZM, Fusion.) I felt like a deep sense of wonder as I started the story off, as soon as you land you realize this is not your normal Metroid sprite or Zebes. The color schemes were well done and I loved the Gravity Suit Sprite specifically. Another thing to note from the start of this hack was the originality of the teams take on the storyline they nurtured. I have noticed some folks saying they did not care for the story or it wasn’t in line with Samus’ character. But to me, the team reinvented a world and in my head going in I felt like I mentally situated myself to just be in an alternate universe and enjoy the tale for what it had to offer.
Mechanics wise the physics were definitely different albeit in a welcome manner. I felt like the game, especially early on did a good job of keeping the authenticity of exploration. There were a few times where I had to look up an item to progress but I am by no means an all star player. I felt like most of the time if I couldn’t figure out where to go it was because I was nervous to traverse water for an extended time without Gravity; or felt like I should be able to access something that later on I learned why I couldn’t get to that point made a little more sense. Powerbombs did take me a LONG time to discover as well as the gravity. I accidentally stumbled upon spring ball without knowing I needed it (I adored the tiny crocomire sprites ^_^) Honestly, there were points that felt cryptic and I don’t know that I feel that it is a hack that is necessarily at a level that the casual player would feel comfortable in all aspects playing. That being said it’s not a dig at the team or the hack because I throughly enjoyed my time with it and I believe if you are playing these hacks you shouldn’t expect base game difficulty. It wasn’t far off but there were some points, damage seemed a little steep and puzzles seemed confusing, but albeit fair. A big shoutout to Baltis MC who had a 100% walkthrough available (I tried to only use it when I felt completely stuck)
I did encounter a glitch which I know others have pointed out, which was Bomb Torizo getting stuck in the vileplumes and spikes if he jumped back off the main arena. Sometimes I could rectify this by jumping behind him closer to one of the doors, other times I could not which led to a few resets and run backs. Again nothing disheartening to the experience overall. The only other noticeable glitch I encountered was in the Draygon fight where she would disappear and reappear in the bottom left/right of the arena which was confusing as I would go to shoot and suddenly nothing was there. Same as BT somewhat frustrating but with the amount of love that went into this hack it didn’t hurt my experience at all.
The escape was really fun and cool and surprised me. I did save the animals (: overall as this is my first hack experience and review I would say 4.5/5 orbs. Just for the sake of some small things but it doesn’t take away that this was beautiful and fun. I think everyone on the site should give this one a go. Thanks to Trevor, Begrimed and everyone involved. You’ve opened my world to hacks and I can’t wait to play many more (:
-Mayhemski
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