Super Metroid Alliance

Super Metroid Alliance
Release date: Aug 08, 2022	Author: Mentlegen, Tundain, Dewhi100	Download: V1.09 public (113 downloads) (1067 downloads of previous versions)
Genre: Quick Play [?] Game:	Difficulty: Vanilla [?]	Average runtime: 1:29 Average collection: 76%
Read Me: [None]	Forum Thread: Contest Thread	Rating:
	Awards: Strange Allies - Hack Contest

Description

Samus has been tasked with investigating a space pirate outpost on the moon of planet CRE002.
Inside information indicates that the space pirates have disregarded the code of experimental ethics...

Mentlegen: Music and room design
Tundain: GFX and room design
Dewhi: ASM

This hack Features all new music and tilesets

special thanks to Nodever2 for beta testing

2 months go by fast! A big thanks to the team for putting in the work during irregular schedules and hours.
- Mentlegen

v1.07:
-fixed a bunch of softlocks
-added escape sequence and fixed ending plot hole
-fixed walljumping necessity
-fixed tight speedboosting floor
-made non-solid enemies that needed to be solid solid
-removed random "M" in stagnithyros (no more "glitchy asm sprites")
-and other stuff i forgot
hopefully this is the end of it!
-Tundain out
v1.08
-fixed scroll issues in stagnythiros room
-made an early game progression extremely obvious bc apparently ppl are blind and non-patient
-fixed sequence break that was just stupid
-removed possibility for samus to do smth unethical
v1.09
-fixed a crash in pyroxias
-fixed map in escape sequence
-minor fixes here and there

Screenshots

Ratings and Reviews

By MetroidNerd#9001 on Aug 08, 2022 (

)

75% in 1:17

I have a fair amount of problems with this hack, mostly stemming to a lot of things feeling arbitrary, but it still has enough good qualities that I can't bring myself to rate it 2 orbs. Given that this was a contest hack, it has a lot of room to improve, and it likely will be improved vastly beyond the 1.02 version I played. Be sure to read the latest reviews, too, instead of just judging the hack off of this one.

This hack's graphics feel bland most of the time, and the tiling is rather samey. The rooms are somewhat difficult to distinguish from each other too, which can make it easier to get lost. The music is okay, a little quiet and not too spectacular, but it's a nice change of pace from just having vanilla music.

My biggest issues with this hack come from the map design and layout. Progression feels very arbitrary, especially when it comes to random blockers that you get your "allies" to clear out for you. The one in the fire area is executed very well, and I wish I had seen that concept expanded upon, but the rest are docile at best and obtuse at worst.

Beyond the arbitrary obstacles lies the random-feeling nature of how some major upgrades are placed on the map. Oftentimes, nothing really pulls you in; you just kind of stumble upon them. It's not always obvious how much getting a new upgrade really helps you in the grand scheme of things, or you get a helpful upgrade in a place where you really feel like you should be getting a different one (*cough* why are power bombs where they are?).

The hack also has a very apparent lack of polish. Usually, it's passable and doesn't affect gameplay, but then you stumble into a massive difficulty spike with enemies that deal 50 damage to you as you're walking out of a door. This hack definitely needs some beta testers.

Overall, this is a decent hack with some nice ideas with lackluster execution. I don't recommend this version, but if they give it a good polish in the near future, I'm sure you'll enjoy it then.

By KPF on Aug 11, 2022 (

)

No completion stats.

Very nice Hack indeed. Finally, something new and interesting. I really like this one. I like fact that items are not hard to find. Just interesting to acquire. Could you make any coming versions longer?

By JaceTheBodySculptor on Aug 12, 2022 (

)

81% in 1:26

A mostly pleasant adventure.

The overall pacing of the game is fun, fast, and breezy. Good level design that matches the physics changes like speed-keep. I don’t normally PogChamp / BatChest / SoyPoint over custom music, but this music sounds great and fits the areas well.

I was confused about what to do in Maridia for a while and it was classically good Metroid game design to lock the player in there until they figure it out.

Cons that should not dissuade anyone from playing but are meant as feedback to the devs:
There’s a difficulty spike in the acid area, the path that includes the ninja pirates. The rest of the hack is a cakewalk so it feels very out of place. Consider removing the acid in that path after you trigger the acid lowering room, since exiting is the harder part.
The items are picked up too soon after encountering the obstacles they remove. Imo Varia was the worst offender. I’m sure being a quickplay, this is harder to avoid. Still, if you compare the placement and pacing of Missile, Super, and PB doors and your first pickups of each versus the placement of items and the new paths they open, you did better with door locks / pb blocks than you did with Varia, Spring, Gravity, etc.
There’s a softlock involving a vertical shutter, though it might require turning around into a room that most players won’t notice.
There was an annoying door that is green to the right, and it will waste your time if you go through it first before entering a progression room on the left. Since this is not a punishing hack, the player should be given better guidance to go left first.
(Contest context only) This doesn’t really matter for our enjoyment as players, but if I had to consider how much you fulfilled the contest prompt, I would say there was barely any interaction with friendly enemies. There was one cool (pun intended) friendly enemy room and the rest were practically in the background.

By RT-55J on Aug 16, 2022 (

)

25% in 1:35

The scope of this hack is pretty impressive, especially given the time constraint of the contest, but it is also this hack's biggest weakness. In particular, the upper portion of the water area feels about 1.5 to 2 times as big as it needs to be. The bloated size of that area made the hack's pacing slow to a crawl, but that can be partially blamed on how I somehow last-location'd every single key discovery there. Aside from that early-game hump, the hack manages to feels properly scoped, with only maybe a little bit of trimming or extra variety needed here or there (issues that, again, are understandable with the time constraints of the contest).

The custom music is a fantastic addition, and really helps elevate the slower parts of the experience.

I liked the way the contest's theme ("Strange Allies") was incorporated into the hack. I feel that if I followed my instincts regarding that in a couple places, that I would have had a smoother experience.

By Zincoshine on Aug 23, 2022 (

)

83% in 1:45

After several revisions, a stable build for this hack is finally available: Version 1.06 which can be found on the forums. The 1.03 file available here is broken so keep that in mind. Anyway, on to the review. For the first half of the hack, the hack is somewhat easy, linear and straightforward. The custom music is some of the best I have seen so far in a metroid hack and the new graphics for the laboratory is also pretty great. On the second half, there is an absolutely massive difficulty spike as you suddenly end up confronted with endgame enemies in this hack's equivalent to lower Norfair. If you think that you're too early you're right. There is another place you're supposed to go first but you're going to have a hard time finding it since the entrance is well hidden. Towards the end there are minor glitches involving the camera refusing to go into certain squares but it's playable from beginning to end. All in all the concept is nice but the execution is sloppy. Can I recommend it? Well, if you've read this then you're already familiar with the problems in this hack so, why not give it a try? Just remember what you've learned from this review while playing it.

edit: score changed to 4/5 in response to the final changes.

By Sapphron on Sep 02, 2022 (

)

97% in 1:20

Good quick play hack. Custom music is nice, and there's plenty of content. A lot of the rooms are quite samey but it allows the hack to have more room and more exploration feel overall. Rather nonlinear which is always a plus but like mentioned before does have a huge difficulty spike toward the end. The contest's theme was certainly shown in the hack and done well for what it was, but I would have liked to see more fleshed out use of it. Overall, it's a neat and quick hack to spend a couple of hours on.
Finished.
Recommend.

By neen on Oct 02, 2022 (

)

72% in 1:53

i got stuck in the beginning with some gates that close quickly preventing you from going in some doors, so i just kago'd a horizontal gate to proceed. no idea what the actual solution was. found some broken scrolling but nothing too bad. there are a lot of rooms whose only purpose seems to be to fill space. i got lost often but that's probably just me. overall, very nice hack, i had fun.

By Zhs2 on Oct 13, 2022 (

)

83% in 1:35

Wow, cool! I didn't know Jathys finally released his hack! Seems pretty short, though... And weird... And where's the spiderball?

Joking aside, this is an alright hack with Mentlegen music (albeit tamer than Biohazard's, Biohazard's music was good) where you'll be exploring kinda samey rooms with mildly tossed up progression (spring ball early, bombs midgame) and an all too easy to find difficulty spike right after exploring the necessary short heat run area. It's an optional difficulty spike, but it's way more obvious than the correct path and I did end up savestate surviving it for a very nice beam before getting mad that I'd JUST played a hack where I was wondering where the damn speedbooster is for too long. Still good, still worth a play, and your 'allies' are amusing creatures.

By therealsusan on Oct 23, 2022 (

)

81% in 1:33

Short and sweet. The friendly aliens were used to a nice touch

My only real complaint is how dark some areas are while also having "hidden" paths for progression.

By Forever on Jul 01, 2023 (

)

70% in 1:12

decently fun, couple annoying bits but overall pretty good, worth a play

By ptoil on Jul 01, 2023 (

)

75% in 1:06

Enjoyable hack to play. My main issues are in Stagnithyros, where there are some weird slopes and the map doesnt save properly. Puzzles and progression were fun to play through otherwise. Loved the allies :D

By Kremit44 on Nov 01, 2023 (

)

91% in 1:42

Got stuck early not realizing i needed some help. Seemed like a dead end everywhere. I liked the idea but would have loved it if they had a tutorial type area where you were taught how your new friends could help, especially since they don't always do so right away. I do wonder if the entrance to Stagnithyros was meant to function that way but i didn't notice anything happen. Some map tiles didn't register on the mini-map but that's minor. Level design was solid but nothing great and although it had many custom elements nothing was truly groundbreaking. Some secrets seemed beyond my comprehension, the matching rooms with the conveyor like physics (that had grapple and another with a circle on the map), and a crumble exit and a speedbooster area in lower Pyroxias. Overall a quality experience and an easy recommendation despite some cryptic elements and no real standout features or design. Thanks for the hack.

By FPzero on Feb 02, 2024 (

)

83% in 1:30

I think my biggest complaints with this hack come from the level design itself. It feels like the hack was made to be large almost to impress the contest judges since you wouldn't necessarily expect a contest entry to be so big. But it meant that many rooms felt like filler to me. Lots of large rooms with dash jumping back and forth and rarely any number of enemies that felt challenging or fitting to rooms of that size. A number of rooms felt copied across environments, particularly any room with lava or acid draining. The Pirate lab was very boring overall, made to be symmetrical which was nice but not really having anything to fill the rooms with. I checked the map someone made after I beat it and it's almost barren for pickups or other things to find. There's tons of ground to cover and explore, but it feels like the hack could be 50% smaller by volume and still give the exact same core play experience.

I got lost a few times. The first was leading up to Bombs when I didn't realize you had to dash morph jump across some pits, and then the second when I didn't immediately realize that the ally in Pyroxias had a cooling effect attached to him. These incidents definitely contributed to my inflated play time. Progression overall seemed fine but unexciting. I'll agree with MetroidNerd#9001's review in that you just kind of stumble across major upgrades with little fanfare. Both Suit upgrades were probably the biggest culprits, as you spend so little time navigating the heat run and suitless underwater that the fact you must do both feels a bit arbitrary.

In terms of presentation, I think this is where the hack definitely shines. New music is good, the graphical combinations and expansions look nice, and I like the new touches such as the lava drains, the allies, and the various lockdowns in places. The hack is sufficiently moody and the visuals and music definitely help with that.

Despite all I've said, I don't think this is a bad hack at all. It's definitely solid, especially when you consider it was finished in just two months. It's just a bit underwhelming at times to me. Fewer large rooms, fewer extraneous connecting passageways and a bit more thought in the leadup to major pickups would help this one more for me. It's still work to be proud of though.

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