Retroid

By Aran;Jaeger on Dec 31, 2019 (

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35% in 1:16

No animals to be saved.

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

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

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

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

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

By Metroid Violinist on May 02, 2020 (

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32% in 1:08

A great remake of the first game, got stuck underneath the Tourian bridge even after beating both bosses, but nevertheless it was great.

I loved that it included the original "save" system NEStroid had.

By Sapphron on Jul 25, 2020 (

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33% in 0:58

Not very faithful to NEStroid, sadly.
It keeps most of the basic room design but it's VERY linear unless you bomb jump everywhere which...would kinda suck.
Ridley is SM Ridley and Kraid is NEStroid Kraid, Botwoon and BT are thrown in there for some spice. Item progression isn't the same as usual. Some extra shortcuts and some rooms were cut out (I think). If you wanna play NEStroid in SM, this is the closest we'll get for a very long time.

By Fercho on Aug 03, 2020 (

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35% in 1:26

Es muy parecido al Metroid original con unos cambios pequeños, realmente lo único que le baja un poco la calidad es que no mantuvieron varios aspectos de Super Metroid y sí, entiendo que el wall jump le da demasiada libertad al jugador pero no veo un buen motivo para quitar la habilidad de correr. Aún así lo recomiendo es muy bueno 8.5 de 10.

By Kremit44 on Nov 28, 2020 (

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34% in 1:34

It's very well done and it stays rather faithful but with a couple twists. There's some minor gripes to be had but overall it was a great experience. Some platforming felt cramped, a Kraid statue is used instead of a Ridley one in a couple places, the old ice beam location is annoying, the ending should be tweaked, and there was a couple graphical issues, and the Crateria map reset on me after going to Kraid. These were all very minor issues all in all for a hack that was very well done. A 5 is a little generous but there's no option for a 4.5 and I feel this hack is underrated.

By albert v. on Jun 11, 2021 (

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No completion stats.

Beautiful!

By Kriken Empire on Oct 07, 2021 (

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No completion stats.

It's a fun way to replay NEStroid (or play it at all), and I liked some of the new additions to the game, but I had some gripes. The statue in Norfair that only opens up after you kill Ridley...looks like Kraid. It took me too long to figure out what was going on. I also think this hack lost its identity. Half of it is a faithful recreation but in Super Metroid, and the other half is Super Metroid but haphazardly based on NEStroid. So for example, the Kraid fight is a clever retool of mini-Kraid done in a way where it feels like all his mechanics from the original are in the battle, but Ridley is just Ridley, and because there's no gravity or plasma, he's way too hard. That'd be fine on its own, but Ridley isn't that hard in NEStroid so it feels like he was just lazily slapped into a room. He doesn't even function properly in the new room. The game at times is made harder to compensate for the fact that it's in SM, but that kind of defeats the purpose of putting NEStroid in SM for people to have a better experience. It's a mess. It is fairly short so it's not a deal breaker, but given it's already working off of NEStroid's design, I'm more critical with my nitpicks.

By SpookerK on Nov 19, 2021 (

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32% in 1:16

The previous review puts it best for me, it was fun but I was annoyed by some differences. 3.5

By Sickwood on Dec 08, 2021 (

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No completion stats.

Honestly I was quite disappointed in this one. I deliberately held off playing it for a long time just to have a nostalgic experience one day. I was expecting a near replica of NEStroid map and it wasn't even close. I strongly preferred JAM's incomplete hack that was a perfect re-creation tile and level design wise. I also didn't like the modified mechanics. If I wanted to play pseudo-M1 mechanics, I'd play an M1 hack. Lastly the mashup of bosses with crappy mechanics was not fun. Makes me really wish JAM had just finished his version. I just think it would have been really cool to tear through the true original map that I've been playing since 1987 using the full SM engine. On a positive note; the palettes, tiles, and other touches did look nice.

By Zhs2 on Feb 16, 2022 (

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33% in 1:46

Pretty good recreation of Metroid in Super Metroid's engine. It takes some liberties but tries to match original Metroid as closely as possible, and as a result it can be just as anticlimactic as the original. That said there's absolutely nothing wrong with this middle-of-the-road hack, even if I do have to echo the above criticism of there not being a Ridley statue to go with the Kraid statue. It's a chill and much easier equivalent to playing actual Metroid that'll occupy ~90 minutes, not much else to complain about.

By RealRed on Feb 18, 2022 (

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57% in 1:23

it's the closest you'll get to M1 in SM. to be honest, it's pretty fun. there are a few deviations from metroid, but the enemy halls are well intact, and you won't get trashed as hard. also, the forum has some hilarious reading material with some balding individual losing his marbles over my appreciation for the hack. pretty good stuff overall

By sa1916 on Aug 30, 2022 (

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100% in 1:30

My time above is for my 4th playthrough. I enjoyed it that much!

This - for me - is the perfect version of NEStroid.
It has all the quality of life improvements NEStroid needed to make it a playable game (sorry, I have no love for it at all) without going so far as Zero Mission which made it almost unrecognisable (and too garish to luck at for my tastes).

Well done!

By H A M on Mar 01, 2023 (

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No completion stats.

can't run, crouch, or walljump in this hack

By OmegaDragnet9 on May 11, 2023 (

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33% in 1:42

This is my third playthrough of this hack.

Overall the experience is very enjoyable. There are notable bugs (which are documented well enough I need not elaborate.) What I will address are design choices.

This not a 1:1 replication of Nestroid, but it is a very well-implemented reimagining. It actually follows Nestroid more faithfully than Zero Mission in my opinion.

There are soft-locks at the drawbridges, which you really have to be careless to get stuck, but that is a thing to avoid. The triggers for the Tourian gate and the Charge Beam are a fair bit cryptic.

The physics are a source of contention to some, (even to me initially.) In all fairness they do contribute to the Nestroid experience. The more I learn about ASM the more I appreciate an author's intent with such changes. Just resign yourself to the fact that running and wall-jumping are just not a thing here. It's a different animal altogether.

I like what was done with the HUD timer, as well as overhauling the save system to behave just like Metroid 1. Beam stacking was not removed and that made for a more enjoyable experience. The Charge Beam is implemented really nicely and is a good payoff for going out or your way to find it.

I didn't see a lot of custom music in older hacks and this is what it is. However, there are wonderful MSU-1 hacks for Retroid out there. In fact that's how I completed this playthrough.

I enjoyed how creepy the atmosphere for Kraid and Ridley areas were pulled off.

Tourian was well-done. Folks, say what you will about the Redesign Metroids, these are just about every bit as frightening once they get a hold of you. Another hack that restores the former terror these beasts used to hold.

This hack is definitely worth checking out, especially if you find the MSU-1 patches on the interwebs.

By RX-78-2 on May 23, 2023 (

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34% in 1:36

not bad for a Super Metroid style remake of Nestroid but it could've been better imo.. this hack would've been so much better if a couple things were changed around but I'm not really concerned about it since it isn't a remake of nestroid but in sm so that's to be expected, the jumping physics is a little janky and odd but other than that, the hack is very enjoyable.. 8/10 would recommend only if you can handle the wonky physics (ibj is also slightly different but mostly somewhat the same as vanilla sm, more or less)

Retroid
Release date: Sep 08, 2016	Author: ProjectXVIII	Download: Version 1.01 [UH] (2832 downloads)
Genre: Unknown [?] Game:	Difficulty: Unknown [?]	Average runtime: 1:25 Average collection: 42%
Read Me: [None]	Forum Thread: Release Thread	Rating:

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