Stargazer

Stargazer
Release date: Jun 24, 2018	Author: Ing-ing	Download: Version 1.4 (2390 downloads)
Genre: Quick Play [?] Game:	Difficulty: Vanilla [?]	Average runtime: 0:38 Average collection: 98%
Read Me: [None]	Forum Thread: Release Thread	Rating:

Description

An experiment by ing-ing... a hack made in under 24 hours! It uses midi arrangements for ZM instruments by Oneof99 and Super metroid tilesets modified for ZM by Nathantech, as well as spikes patch made by the great thunder himself, Biospark.
~
The legend

A piece of thought, free from gravity, is floating through the dimension of triumph. Chocked by mechanical ambition, its cries reach Samus. She knows what to do, to set the floating island free once again.

Screenshots

Ratings and Reviews

By Cpt.Glitch on Jun 26, 2018 (

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100% in 0:37

Completion time is in minutes:seconds. Most hacks made within a day are borderline unplayable and feature an unchanged layout. Ing-Ing breaks this pattern with Stargazer. Ing-Ing tested his hacking ability, and ultimately proves himself as a hacker through this experiment. The hack is short (it was made in 24 hours after all), but features an entirely new layout, tilesets, music, and many ASM patches to boot. (even though you didn't credit me for mine :P ) The hack is surprisingly well suited for even novice Zero Mission players, which is rare for an Ing-Ing hack. Even still, his room design, puzzles, and enemy usage (reos and Imago are never neglected) still show that it was Ing behind all of this. If Ing-Ing made an entire hack with enjoyability of this caliber, it'll be a hit without a doubt. Now for the few cons.

The hack does have various sound effect bugs that can be easily fixed, and has one particularly weird boss fight due to room design. I only noticed a few tiling errors (only one of which I actually noted on stream) but it was otherwise pretty solid in terms of quality.

By OneOf99 on Jun 26, 2018 (

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100% in 0:47

Completion Time: 0:47:55
This hack has a good balance of hard-core Ing and fun exploration. I really liked how open this hack was (I think you could skip all beams but ice), and there were many additional paths to use with new abilities that made backtracking less of a hassle than it is in other hacks. Some parts were a bit cheap in terms of difficulty, but that's what you got to expect when you play an Ing hack ;)

If I have to have one major complaint, finding the final boss was a bit silly and required some backtracking that the player may not want to do. Other than that though the design of the hack was good.

Playing this hack was a good use of one hour. 4/5

By MetroidNerd#9001 on Aug 16, 2018 (

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95% in 0:33

For a hack that was built in a day, this is really impressive. At first, I felt that SM graphics in ZM looked weird, but it fits this hack's aesthetic really well and does its job. An actually not impossibly hard Ing-Ing hack is a nice thing to see as well. The custom music sounded a bit ear grading at first, but I ended up liking it a lot. Only a couple of complaints, mostly being rios dealing too much damage for when you encounter them, and the final boss is convoluted in its weakness, and it deals too much damage. I think it'd be cool to have a "polished version" to see what it would look like if it had more time, but also still have the "original" 24-hour hack. Overall really fun, I definitely recommend this hack.

By alexman25 on Jan 09, 2019 (

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No completion stats.

One of the few good ZM hacks as of right now, and made in 24 hours to boot. I had a lot of fun when I played this. Exploration was fun but not frustrating, and has good sequence breaking iirc. Definitely recommended!

By SuperMetroidSamus on Jun 29, 2019 (

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95% in 0:44

It's really good! It's exiting and very nice, especially with Super Metroid graphics. Exploration is not frustrating at all, and suprising it was created in 24 hours and unlike SM: Digital Cube I beat it in 24 hours! Music is very nice too. Best ending woo hoo! Also 95% makes one of them "aaargh!" moments. Also the "I can't turn the alarm off!" ending is very funny.

By Multi-Man on Nov 25, 2019 (

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No completion stats.

I loved the hack, though the only thing that annoyed me was the way you get screw attack, but other than that, it's a wonderful experience, and a must play.

By Sapphron on Dec 21, 2019 (

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100% in 0:33

Ugh...besides from what the other people felt, I did not like this hack much.
Sure, it's a good hack for something in 24 hours, but there were still parts that sucked. See: post-Ice Beam Metroid room. And the treadmills are bad too.
Imago Bee's fight is just a farm fest until you realize you can down it in two supers.
It's very small, which is good. Ing-ing hacks like Summer Mission SHORT were annoying because they were so long. If they were shorter, they'd be better hacks in my opinion.
Graphics are nice honestly. SM tiles are always gud
Mother Brain isn't that fun if you don't have Space Jump, but I did. Screw Attack is forced and I'm grateful for that.
Escape is annoying if you used up all your ammo on Mother Brain.
Oh yeah, and the beeping persists after the escape too. Into the credits. Have to listen to that while you wait.
Finished.

By Syphon on Dec 22, 2019 (

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100% in 0:20

Good hack that misses the 5 orb mark due to stupid design decisions at the end.

Mother Brain and Escape were stupid. Felt like those were designed to just piss off the player or to remember them that this is an Ing-Ing hack. Absolutely unnecessary to have conveyor belts at MB and a boss during the escape when you are probably out of missiles. I don't have a high tolerance for that stuff.

Other than that SM graphics were good and didn't feel out of place and I loved the Chrono Trigger music. Quite easy difficulty too outside of MB and Escape.

I recommend it.

By metasamus on May 19, 2020 (

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No completion stats.

A little bit hard but fun!

By Contendo on Jul 13, 2020 (

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No completion stats.

worse than I remembered....

would have almost been a 4 orb with a bit less stupid

By ZeroSuitSammy on Sep 24, 2020 (

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100% in 0:59

Read the other reviews if you want to know what the game looks and sounds like. My opinion, beautiful, but I'm here to talk about what the others didn't discuss very much of: the gameplay. It's fun, and it's frustrating. It's easy, and it's hard. It's fun until it's hard, and it's hard until you figure out the thing you didn't know before, and then it's easy again, which is basically how every Metroid game works, so overall, it's a good Metroid game.
Now let's talk progression. This game isn't a sequence-breaker. To get the screw attack, you have to complete a speed-booster puzzle, and a tedious one at that. So to get the screw attack, you need the speed booster; to get the speed booster, you need the power bombs, to get the power bombs, you need the space jump; to get the space jump, you need the super missiles; to get the super missiles, you need the hi jump, which you get by defeating Ridley. You can have no more than 15 missiles before you face him, but this was taken into account and the boss is quite easy as long as you make sure all your missiles hit. So as you can see, you have a bit of a checklist ahead of you. You might decide, "Well maybe I don't NEED the screw attack," but then have fun getting into Tourian through the screw attack blocks. Also, you don't need the ice beam, but if you want it, you have to outrun two Metroids in the room before the beam, and kill about five of them in the room after. There are almost no stable platforms in that room, almost all are treadmills. You cannot leave without killing the Metroids, so don't try to get past them without killing them. They are faster than you, drain your HP at unreasonable speeds, break out of ice in two seconds, recover from bombs immediately, and latch back onto you just as quickly. Kill them. Seriously. Do the same with any tough enemies you face in the beginning as well. Do not try to pass them, just kill them; then move forward. There's only one power bomb tank so don't go looking for an alternate way to get them. Oh, and the room with Mother Brain also has two treadmills. These are the only two platforms... It's actually pretty fun, not gonna lie. The escape has a boss... That is not fun. Didn't finish it 'cause of course I was low on health after Mother Brain so I died to its first attack. I'm not fighting Mother Brain again. That's dumb.
It all sounds hard, but really it's a game with a few easy enemies here and there, a few tricky platforming sections, and a mildly confusing puzzle to unravel. Of course, along with the easy and the tricky, there're the major inconveniences ahead of you. The puzzle really is only mildly confusing, and maybe not even that. It's not complex, it's just hard. It's not hard to figure out, but it takes a lot of tries to pull off. Come to think of it, it's the same with the enemies and the platforming. It'll all take a few tries to pull of, but it IS all possible, which ties back to my overall philosophy on Metroid games (see the last sentence of the first paragraph).
Good game, it really is. It'll eat a good chunk of your time, too. I recommend it to you if (and only if) you consider yourself an experienced Metroid player. The difficulty is not vanilla. It's veteran. Have fun.

By Door Ladder on Dec 01, 2020 (

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100% in 0:44

After playing this, I feel that I understand now what people mean by "it's an ing-ing hack".
I've played through a lot of Veteran-level hacks without much trouble. The difficulty for this hack being rated as Vanilla is a complete joke. It should absolutely be Veteran.

There were so many troll moments during the gameplay. I certainly did not like that.
[] Metroids camping inside a hidden break-away wall that are nearly impossible to avoid getting latched by once it opens up. The same room they'll grab you in has gravity blocks in the ceiling that push your bombs away from you so you can't get free. If they latch you, you have a 95% certainty of death. I only managed to somehow get free once or twice once they grabbed me.
[] Annoying conveyor belts and spikes in many of the rooms - they push you into spike-filled pits or make it easy for bosses like Ridley to grab you, guaranteeing a quick death.
[] Mother Brain room softlocks you into that final area of the game once you enter; this is completely unnecessary and only serves to drain the player of their missiles before they actually can get into MB's chamber.
[] Mother Brain chamber battle has platforms with rapid-moving conveyors so it is impossible to maintain any solid footing. The only strategy that makes this fight winnable is to just spacejump in the corner repeatedly for minutes to obtain more health and ammo from the single rinka spawner in the room with screw attack. Any hit forces the player into the lava pit which is almost impossible to get out of once you fall in.
[] Escape sequence contains the infected cocoon boss in a room filled with spikes and near-undodgeable projectiles. Serves no purpose but to torture the player, as if the unfair MB fight wasn't enough.

This next part is moreso my personal nitpicky opinion, but the super metroid tile textures really haven't aged well. They look particularly unpleasant in a ZM hack. There are plenty of Fusion tiles that could have served as much better visual alternatives.

Also, why on earth is the custom game music so ridiculously loud? I could barely hear any of the other sounds in the game when it was playing, aside from missile explosions and low health alarms.

The only way I was able to maintain my sanity through this was by using savestates, and even then I still died at least a good ~30 times throughout the entire hack.

Finished.
Do not recommend.

By Rocky712 on Feb 02, 2021 (

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95% in 0:34

Very interesting hack, but definitely not beginner friendly. I would recommend it to advanced players.

By DramaticMarquinh0svi on Feb 11, 2021 (

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95% in 0:26

This rom hack is kinda good,because it's made by Ing-Ing,you know something unfair is coming,this rom hack is begginer friendly until you get o Mother Brain,this rom hack was very cool with Super Metroid tile set,really good music,at the end,it went to a relaxing hack to a unexpected rage hack,you have to defeat Mother Brain with 25 missiles,4 super missiles,and no varia or gravity,and there is some conveyors,that what made Mother Brain extremely difficult,you will rage a lot unless you're skilled. Something that make things worse is that,there is a boss during escape,and there is no way to recover the missiles and super missiles during fight,and missiles are necessary to defeat the boss,here is my strategy in order to beat this rom hack:
Don't use the supers at MB fight,save them for the boss mid escape,when you are at the last missile to defeat MB,get all missiles ready,defeat MB and defeat the other boss mid escape,thats how i managed to beat this rom hack. 2.51/5(Rounded to 3 orbs)

By Zhs2 on Jan 19, 2022 (

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95% in 0:42

This hack was small, stupid, and fun. Nothing really pressuring the player here except at the end and no dumb tricks required, walljump and slope shinesparking are but that's a given I think. The end is the worst part of the hack, where you must drop imago larva within the two minutes after beating mother brain whilst avoiding his unkillable spores with low health because the author thinks scrollers into lava are cool and good. Immediately after that is death by space pirate you weren't expecting. All in all a function of mild amusement - now go turn off that damn alarm.

By Zincoshine on Jul 31, 2022 (

)

No completion stats.

Having just recently completed Metroid Zero mission I decided it was time to begin playing through the MZM hacks that I was interested in. Stargazer is first since its the lowest rated short hack featured in FreezeFlame 2. In fact, its presence in FreezeFlame 2 is the only reason why it was on my list, to begin with as I had serious reservations about a hack made in just 24 hours. Good quality work takes time to make. Unfortunately, as expected, the hack has several problems as a result of being rushed, both as a rom hack and as a metroidvania. As a rom-hack the mod suffers from custom music that is far too loud, drowning out all the other sounds in the game. The music also fails to loop. The music also reverts back to the original in the menu if you enter and exit settings. As a Metroidvania it also suffers from a rushed level design that lends itself to many moments of frustration, most notably at the very start. This is also incorrectly labeled as being of vanilla difficulty. It absolutely is not, and as someone who just today completed MZM for the first time I certainly know what I'm saying in this regard. There is almost no plot at all and the start menu intro incorrectly presents the story of MZM instead of this hack. Ultimately I played until I got to the sudden ridley. I have no idea how the author expects me to defeat ridley with so little equipment, I don't see any way it can be done. I'm giving an orb for the super metroid graphics that were masterfully modded into the game but that's about it. Not recommended.

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