SM - Cryogenesis
Release date: Jan 08, 2022
Author: Onnyks
Download: SM-Cryogenesis-V1.0 (4659 downloads)
Genre: Exploration [?]
Game: SM
Difficulty: Vanilla [?]
Average runtime: 4:24
Average collection: 81%
Read Me: [None]
Forum Thread: SM: Cryogenesis
Rating: Star Star Star Star Star
Awards:
  • Oatsngoats Hacking Competition
Description
Suspicious Space Pirate activity has been detected by the Galactic Federation in the remote Tog'Tassano system and Samus is sent to check it out. Discover the truth of what's going on and power yourself up in this frigid, hostile environment.

Super Metroid: Cryogenesis is a romhack created for a streaming contest. This is the contest version with cleanup fixes from what was seen when it was streamed. More is planned and being worked on to expand, however that doesn't mean this should feel half complete. A compact adventure awaits you with a focus on clean, thematic visuals and unique level design.
Screenshots
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Ratings and Reviews
By Tundain on Jan 09, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
75% in 4:20
Awesome hack! splendid work with the tiling, every room felt amazing and unique in it's own way. The map structure was quite nice, and the gameplay as well (i enjoyed the "elevators" in some rooms that brought you back up). Difficulty wise it's pretty well-balanced.
I love the new item that was introduced, but it's pretty late-game meaning you don't get to do a lot with it (hopefully it will get more attention in the dlc). Overall, amazing hack!
By caauyjdp on Jan 09, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
78% in 5:12
"They should have sent a poet."
By Zhs2 on Jan 13, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
76% in 3:05
You don't know how cool it is for various assembly patches to be showcased in a hack until you play the full-fledged hack that actually showcases them. Allow me to say first that the new item is the most satisfying way to kill those spiked Maridia floor hiders, hands down. Beyond that, this hack does very interesting things with transitions from foreground to background and rooms within rooms. The screenshots don't showcase the rooms with the hands, but this is the hack you come to for the rooms with the creatively tiled hands (among other things). My only complaint about this hack is that Hotlands seemed like a more intuitive and user-friendly experience than this one, but this hack is by no means evil - just extremely damaging at certain parts, and a little obscure in the case of finding grapple beam. Recommend you definitely give this winner of the contest it was in a try today.
By Sickwood on Jan 16, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 7:25
Addictive hack that combines the impressive artistic use of tiles reminiscent of Eris and the best use of the background layer yet. The map looks sneaky small, but is virtually 1.5x bigger thanks to the author's Billy Mays 2 for the price of 1 room making strategy. Tons of clever hidden secrets that never got boring hunting out 100%. Some bosses had a little help from their friends and it sounds like they are getting reskinned for the final version. Can't wait for the final expanded version and no matter how much or little is added, this is an epic hack. My only personal hope would be that the final boss gets his own area because you kind of just stumble upon him when remembering to check a certain area after an upgrade, but no big deal. Thanks for the hack and congrats on the win.
By feenix_n on Jan 17, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
94% in 5:59
By KPF on Jan 18, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
61% in 4:23
THIS HACK IS FUCKED!
By Contendo on Jan 18, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
84% in 3:53
[Watch Video]  
Amazign
By Kremit44 on Jan 18, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
By Exister on Jan 18, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
Very fun! Every area looked amazing and flowed well, overall item progression was fun and difficulty curved well. I didn't realize you could walk through the wall in front of wave, so I was stuck for a bit until I pulled it up in an editor. Other than that I went through the whole game smoothly and had a great time! Definitely recommend to anyone of any level.
By DramaticMarquinh0svi on Jan 19, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
75% in 5:45
(Done on V1.0) This rom hack is pretty good,at the beggining it's confusing the path but then it gets open when you go further,finding items it's not too hard,confusing or hintless to find which is very good,the only problems i have it's with the beggining and gliched torizo at the beggining,this rom hack is pretty satisfying to play and it never feels too hard most of the time,overall this rom hack is very good and i really reccomend,this is the first hack i played this year and it's starting off well!
By KaptenR on Feb 04, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
81% in 4:44
[Watch Video]  
Absolutely gorgeous environments! So nicely done with the tiles.
Great atmosphere, you really feel you are in different unique places.
I like the puzzles that are in the game, it was fun to solve and fun to figure out how to get the items.
One minus is I got lost for quite some time in the beginning, 58:30 in the video. I think maybe it was too hidden?
The hack was not so hard though.
The special new item was cool and fun to use, I wish there where more places to use it!
Play it! :D
By Syphon on Feb 21, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
79% in 2:44
Amazing hack that felt like a DMantra hack at times. I greatly enjoyed it. Well done.

Recommended to all players.
By Sapphron on Feb 27, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
96% in 3:13
Absolutely incredible. DMan-esque as Syphon said, so much fun to play.
Finished.
Highly recommend.
By jacoblivion on Mar 13, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
59% in 2:26
Before I go into any detail I want to say I really enjoyed playing this and I'm looking forward to the finished version.

I got 59% in about 2:30. I like to speedrun (especially rando) so I have a lot of experience with SM. Even so, the pacing of the hack was really well done up until a certain point (more on that later). I liked how large the levels were and how much space there was between major upgrades. I avoided sequence breaking and liked how the hack lets you just poke around and find stuff.

Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of the foreground/background mechanic. This isn't limited to this hack though and it's purely personal taste. If it does appear in a hack I prefer it to be more contained, like only used within a certain area for example. That said, most of its usage in this hack is fine except for one Morph Ball room that used it rather extensively and ended up with a visual bug.

I'm a much bigger fan (heh) of mechanics like the big fan room in Void Engine. I can imagine a mechanic like that being slow or frustrating but it's implemented well here.

Unfortunately, to me the hack does feel unfinished. I was really vibing with the pacing. I beat Draygon, got Power Bombs and was looking forward to what new area would open up, but I was disappointed when shortly after, I found screw attack and the Ridley fight. I was even more confused to see that the game ended right after.

I realize it's partially my fault due to my playstyle, but when I reach the credits on romhacks I often don't feel the desire to go back and 100%. So I'm curious about how much I missed. Did Phantoon or Golden Torizo show up anywhere? I also never found charge beam but it wasn't a problem because of how much ammo I was able to find naturally.

I liked the visuals and the tilework. The only issues I had were certain colors/tiles I found hard to read as passable or impassable. There's a minor audio bug in the large room with the Namihe enemies in the second area. The impact sound for the Meteorite item seemed like an odd choice but that's just personal preference (I would have just used the Screw Attack kill sound, or the Shinespark impact.) I would love to eventually see some custom BGM to complement how distinct each area felt. Certain themes from vanilla SM don't really fit the themes you find in romhacks.

This was fun to play and critique. I highly recommend Cryogenesis to anyone interested in SM hacks.
By dagit on Mar 30, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
93% in 4:27
First off, go play this.

The only real criticism I can conjure up is that the beginning is slow. It took me a while to find a particular path. This happened a couple times. However, this did give me a chance to get familiar with the map. It's just that maybe a few early secrets are a little too hard to stumble upon? Then again, I enjoyed the challenge of figuring those things out.

I guess my recommendation to other people is play this and assume you might get stuck and have to scratch your head and look around.

I did one sequence break the author didn't anticipate but it didn't cause any issues like a permastuck. So that was nice. It was fun to discover the sequence break and it gave me access to a rewarding item.
By ocesse on Apr 04, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
90% in 6:16
Creative design of puzzles and good graphics, I liked so much the room of the hands. There are things that can be improved, but this game was designed for a contest, so it's acceptable. I hope that in future versions of the game new music will be added according to the new areas, that would be remarkable. The only bad thing I suffered is that I wasted a lot of time trying to find Speed Booster, because I thought that for the new item to work, it was necessary to have Speed Booster in your arsenal, but it turns out that I was not correctly executing the order of buttons necessary to use the new item, anyway, it was only my fault. I was playing in bsnes-hd and this game looks pretty good in widescreen :)
By Nefertenia on Apr 30, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
80% in 4:55
Nice scenery and magnificent design. Had a lot of fun with the puzzles and especialy with the new item :D Hope to see more of it with the announced dlc :)
By therealsusan on May 05, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
60% in 3:46
Actual game time was more like 4.5h-5h

I about rage quit in the beginning, couldn't find grapple. Guess I should've guessed by the ratings that sequence breaks weren't required, but I was trying anything to progress. Ultimately had to look it up, but afterwards didn't have any trouble.

I soft locked twice, both in Urdant, once in the huge grapple room on the west end... I tried seeing if there was a path behind some missiles and the block reset (no bombs) & the other time in the vertical shaft just below the save point in the vines between the platforms (didn't have morph)

Besides the graphics glitch with BT, there's a camera scroll glitch I noticed at least twice, but otherwise nothing too major (assuming that map deal in Maridia is intentional)

_____

Anyway, enough with the bad & ugly, here's what was good:

The tile work is spot on for creating memorable and intuitive rooms & the new sprites were nice. The background/foreground switching was slightly odd but it worked and it was a nice touch at that amount.

The few puzzles were really good, particularly the one in the aptly named void engine

The hammer ball was cool... Item progression was well done overall.

_____

This easily could be a 5* if it was finished and the beginning wasn't so easy to get lost in.
By scoobyff666 on Nov 26, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
90% in 2:58
A great hack. Very smart level design in general, a very cool original upgrade (loved playing around with it) and really beautiful visual composition.

Unfortunately, although I understand this is a contest hack and that comes with its limitations, I think the game feels incomplete. I was kinda shocked when I found the last boss and when it actually clicked that it was the final boss, since it felt like I was in the middle of the game, searching for the next area. It was also strange to find an upgrade that could only be used in the escape sequence, but that was not really useful there at all.

Another problem are some scroll related bugs. Depending on how you do a particular screen transition on the screen with the first super missiles, the sprite layer becomes permanently unaligned with the other graphics, making it really hard to play until you save the game and reset. There's also a room where the view simply does not scroll for you to find an item.

From what I read in the forum, it seems the developer is still working on this, and I will be glad to review again if a new version is released, hopefully addressing these issues.
By badatmetroid on Dec 25, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
75% in 2:41
A-tier hack. Not much to add that other reviews haven't said. Good atmosphere. Very interesting use of a z-layer rooms (just play it, you'll understand what I mean) and room state. I liked the special item, but I feel like it wasn't used to great effect.

I hope the author cycles back and adds the "dlc" to this.
By Spodej on Feb 13, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
68% in 2:44
Animal saved.
By Lionel Ghardin on Feb 14, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
89% in 6:03
This is by far my favorite hack on this site. Nothing even comes close. You could have told me that Nintendo themselves had made this, and I wouldn't have even thought to question it. The polish on this romhack is stupendous, and I really enjoyed how you used niche mechanics to flush out rooms. The amount of puzzle solving that couldn't be beaten by sheer luck, but only by your own ingenuity really gave me that feeling of wonder and excitement for what was waiting for me in the next area. Onnyks, you have a future in game development, and I look forwards to whatever you make next.
By H A M on Feb 16, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
has unchanged loader suit palettes due to smile missing most of the loader palettes
By Viktor_Kadic on Mar 06, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
72% in 5:31
One of the best hacks out there when it comes to visuals, atmosphere and map design. Fairly short (still unfinished with more areas to come) but incredibly tight and well made. The tiling is the absolute best i've seen in a hack and the novel room gimmick blew my mind every time it happened. I loved playing through this and i can not wait for the two new areas to be added so I can go through the game one more time!
By RX-78-2 on Jun 15, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
98% in 2:49
I'm only giving it 4 orbs instead of 5 because I couldn't get the last 3 items I missed so I had to leave them and therefore missed out on 100% even tho I'm counting this as 100% because I'm gonna assume that the last 3 items I tried to get are unobtainable but yeah, this is an amazing hack.. it's definitely 10/10 and something I'd recommend playing
By OmegaDragnet9 on Aug 15, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
80% in 6:51
When I saw the thumbnails for this hack I knew I had to play it.

I had read Onnyks cites the works of Digital Mantra as inspiration for the art-style presented in Cryogenesis. When I delved further into the game I could certainly see why.

Probably one of the most beautiful examples of mixed tilesets I'd seen in a hack. The palettes were easily the best aspect of the custom graphics. Much like Digital Mantra, Onnyks excels at taking the vanilla tiles and creating a whole new emotional tone from the original assets.

Music is Vanilla, but every track is appropriately placed. Nothing feels out of place or outstays its welcome. Very somber atmosphere.

Gameplay also reminded me a lot of Eris. There were times I got frustrated and had to take a break. As with that game, with enough perseverance, progression is 100% attainable.

After circling the map multiple times, the dam broke and I started making discovery after discovery and felt like I was really getting somewhere. Bosses were appropriately challenging.

The ending was quite compelling.

Without spoiling too much, don't play this hack on Mednafen Supafaust (which is normally great for Super Metroid hacks on the mini classics.) I had to switch back to Snes9x, which did fine.
By rpmac on Sep 20, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
93% in 7:15
Pretty good hack, nice design and pacing. Love the transition between the different states of rooms.

Minor issue- there are a lot of tiles that just seem to be there. With the lack of xray, I was bombing everything to see if it was something (a lot of the time it wasn't).
By HillMessiah on Sep 28, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
69% in 3:00
(Review for the 1.0 version)

The tiles and colors used on the hack are amazing. The creator took inspiration from Digital Mantra's designs, but Cryogenesis still has its identity. It was has the snowy, cavernous, sci-fi settings, which I enjoy a lot. Great assets overall.

The gameplay sometimes feels a bit rushed, a bit linear, but then again, it's a romhack competition game. If it was a full game, I'd decrease its orb by one point, because the game's second half is a bit worse than its first, and the last boss sequence is kinda rushed. At the beginning, upgrades don't feel rewarding, then the game starts to give a bunch of upgrades, which makes sense, considering the game is missing 2 areas.

Still, what was done was impressive. Exploration hacks that nail the aesthetics and convey certain feelings get it right, and this one does it very well with the assets used, the colors, the foreground + background mix... Difficulty is on the lower side, but I think that's because the hack is for a competition with set rules. It would be kinda bad to have the game with multiple paths, not balancing the difficulty accordingly and being limited in time and by what the competition demands, so again, I won't be too critical on it.


Even though the game gives you a bunch of upgrades in a short amount on time starting the second area, most of them require you to explore a bit, think, solve a small puzzle, or at least bomb everything, so the reward aspect is still there.

Overall, very solid hack. Hoping to see its full version and that it stays on this level, so I can keep my grade.

Recommended.
By FPzero on Feb 12, 2024 (Star Star Star Star Star )
79% in 2:21
There's a lot to love here, and when I mean a lot I'm also talking about the sheer size of this hack. I've seen normal hacks that are smaller than this, and it's a contest entry to boot! It's incredibly impressive what Onnyks accomplished here, especially how much hack there is and how well tiled a lot of the areas are.

Every room seems to tell a story, meticulously tiled to a stunning degree. Metroid doesn't often delve into the supernatural, but the lower left area of Teranul and all the hands make it feel like the Space Pirates awakened some kind of demonic force hellbent on destroying their underground outpost. Same goes for the mutated Chozo statues--you never know what kind of abomination you'll see next time you find a major item. And there's something sinister about all of them being shades of orange, in such stark contrast to all the icy blues used throughout the hack. I kept expecting them to come alive in some horrible twisted Torizo fight.

Level design is full of secret paths and hidden areas, all the while never really letting you get too lost for too long. You can always go back and look for a few extra missile tanks if you really want but the meat of the game is really getting stuck in deeper and deeper under the frigid surface, navigating collapsed passageways and the twisted grips of stone claws. Switching between different layers of specific rooms was really fascinating, as was the rotating turbine puzzle in the space pirate ship. If I had one main complaint it's how often you're expected to just bomb everything to proceed or find secrets. X-Ray would've been a nice pickup but it appears to be unavailable.

I feel like the pacing was well-balanced throughout most of the hack, with the final parts of Void Engine being the exception. You get a lot of stuff dumped on you in rapid succession once you find the hack's new powerup, an interesting take on a speed booster alternative named Meteorite. I think this item has some potential, but it definitely feels like more of a proof of concept in execution here, useful for little else other than the occasional speed boost block below you. The game also just kind of ends unceremoniously with a Ridley fight behind a random door at the start and then a quick escape sequence.

Really though, my complaints are rather minor. There's lots of fun to be had here and great exploration to uncover, with optional minibosses and upgrades, beautiful scenery and a good difficulty level throughout. I never knew what to expect through the next doorcap, and I think that's when Metroid is at its best.

4.5/5 Orbs but I'm choosing to give it the full 5 in the actual rating.
By ironrusty on Mar 01, 2024 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
Cool menacing theme and visuals, which in itself almost makes it a 5 for me. Elements related to progression were mostly good and I did feel free to roam in the open world. Sequence breaks are possible but some are difficult, which made me as a player start to doubt and want to turn back - a healthy balance! A downside of this hack is there are just too many cramped areas. A claustrophobic vibe can have its effect, but too much slows down the action. For me, it was a good first play and worth replaying.

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