Cliffhanger
Release date: Jun 26, 2008
Author: Digital_Mantra
Download: Original v1.0 [UH] (834 downloads)
Genre: Challenge [?]
Game: SM
Difficulty: Expert [?]
Average runtime: 12:41
Average collection: 104%
Read Me: [None]
Forum Thread: Forum thread (M2K2)
Rating: Star Star Star Star Star
Other Links: Website
Description
‘Cliffhanger’ has a double meaning. One is the primary focus of wall jumping, lots of wall jumping. The second is uncovering the truth behind your mission, for each map station you encounter, you will also receive a Chozo Lore.
You must find them all to put the story together. Cliffhanger is a savestate hack without savestations. It requires copious amounts of mockball, speedball, fast mid air morphs, quick charging, ibj, hbj, and fast thinking.

There are several variants available:
- the original 2008 release
- a version with save stations added, which is more suitable for playing on console or otherwise without savestates.
- an "easy" version that is much more lenient on the advanced tricks required.

NOTE: In 2016, DMantra released a significant overhaul of this hack called Cliffhanger Redux, which you might want to play instead of this.
Screenshots
Screenshot
Ratings and Reviews
By thedopefish on Mar 31, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
Some cool puzzles and a lot of great visuals. The difficulty is very punishing though, even in the version with save stations added: spikes, acid, heat runs, some death traps that you couldn't possibly avoid on your first attempt, etc. Not for the faint of heart, but there's lots more here than just another bullshit challenge hack.
By squishy_ichigo on Apr 11, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
By RealRed on Apr 19, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
Hard as FUCK, long as FUCK, frustrating as FUCK, enemies are dangerous as FUCK, and the big comlexicatedc DMan structures are cool as FUCK. Only play it if you're good as FUCK and determined as FUCK.
By Vismund Cygnus on Apr 20, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
By retroknuckles on May 30, 2015 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
By Sheoldred on Aug 08, 2016 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
Absolutely incredible graphically, setting the bar for creative and bizarre (in a good way) usage of Super Metroid's graphics. The short nature of the hack and the absurd difficulty bring it down a notch in my opinion, but it's still great and worth experiencing. You will have to improve your skills to see all of it unless you're already a top tier player, but it is worth it.
By Aran;Jaeger on Dec 08, 2016 (Star Star Star Star Star )
101% in 6:56
[Watch Video]  
Animals saved.

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

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

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

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

Rating for some hacks may be off by 1 Star, but arguably not more, and ratings are not attempted to be provided within the precision of ''half orbs''.
By Pixel_Tiger on Jul 10, 2017 (Star Star Star Star Star )
74% in 11:57
Hack's pretty and got nice challenges but it went bad before you fight Draygon etc. You're gonna get shit thrown at you like... Draygon, red key hunters that are stupid, golden torizo that might bug around and is invulnberable so you have to wait for RNG to happen... NOT creative... just a boring attempt to challenge you like the dev ran out of ideas.. so he just made it STUPID so it "fits" the hack :(

For anyone that likes a challenge, you should check this hack out tho... but I guess you could stop before fighting draygon! Savestating is a must!
By benox50 on Oct 18, 2020 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
By Aikner on Sep 13, 2021 (Star Star Star Star Star )
155% in 19:30
I played this hack some years ago, but I don't remember much about it. I guess it was rather average.
By neen on Mar 24, 2024 (Star Star Star Star Star )
85% in 12:21
[Watch Video]  
this took me about 30 hours of real time over several weeks to complete. i played without savestates for maximum pain.

you should probably play redux if you want the more polished experience. this original version does have some differences and some extra jank. the rising water room (you know the one) is not here, and i'm very glad of that. there is one room that can crash on console and some emulators, but it seems to not happen too often. it only happened to me once, and i was in that room a LOT.

there are parts of this that get me sweating and my heart racing because one mistake is death, and death means respawning at the ship and redoing the whole segment. if you can deal with that, it's actually pretty rewarding to replay the sections and get better at them each time.

buy the ticket, take the ride.

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