Super Asteroid

Super Asteroid
Release date: Jun 26, 2024	Author: Ob	Download: Version 1.05, Unheadered (540 downloads) Download: Version 1.0, Unheadered (87 downloads) (4 downloads of previous versions)
Genre: Exploration [?] Game:	Difficulty: Veteran [?]	Average runtime: 1:42 Average collection: 87%
Read Me: [None]	Forum Thread: Contest Thread	Rating:

Description

Samus takes a bounty on an asteroid, dead or alive.

Super Asteroid is a short hack submitted for the Metconst Starbase Contest Summer 2024.
Features the premiere of the bomb launcher and barrel cannon to bounce bombs and become the bomb, respectively.
Additionally, several new mechanics were developed to make a very special final boss.

Starting equipment:
- 1 energy tank, morphball, charge beam

Mechanical changes:
- Instant item pickups.
- Enery/ammo drops are homing.
- Respin, speedball, and speedkeep are enabled.
- Fallspeed cap is slightly increased.
- Gap clearing/grabbing.

Expected skills:
- Walljumping
- Dash jumping (using run speed for bigger jumps)
- Shinesparking

Difficulty reflects final boss and more complicated progression paths.

Version 1.05: Minor changes/fixes, progression is unchanged
See forum thread for full patch notes.

Screenshots

Ratings and Reviews

By SuperSquad33 on Jun 28, 2024 (

)

66% in 0:45

Very Fun and well made for a contest Hack, enjoyed it would definitely reccomend if it were a full Hack.

By Kirarin on Jun 29, 2024 (

)

No completion stats.

Found it quite uninteresting. I didn't get it what the theme was supposed to be, the areas felt a bit bland, most felt same-ish, there was a lack of sense of progression, the enemies dealt a bit too much damage early and overall I didn't have fun playing it.

There was some interesting ideas with the launchers that gave you the speed booster effect, but in most places they felt gimmicky or flat to be honest, and Botwoon came out of nowhere. Some of the custom sprites and launch Bombs are interesting ideas, but the challenge, exploration or fun aspect are missing in this hack for me. My rating may be too harsh considering this was for a contest hack (so in the contest hack sense, maybe one more orb would be ok), but despite the new item and some nice custom graphics, again, the fun aspect wasn't there...

By starlightintheriver on Jun 30, 2024 (

)

86% in 2:05

The completion time/percentage wasn't my first clear. I initially cleared it with about 65% and 1h30m on the clock, but then I realized I had hardly explored one of the optional areas, so I went back and cleared it out.

To be honest, this hack has been really hard for me to review. It has so much stuff in it that's a TON of fun (I love the giant maze room in Chozotrite that's full of the DK cannons for launching you around for puzzles, some were very creative) but there was also a lot that really confuses me. I went through the whole thing being very, very confused about why Ob said the only difficult part was the final boss when, in my mind, the whole thing is a veteran hack.

Now, I should clarify something: I am NOT good at finding secrets, or anything in a large environment really; I think it's an autism thing. For example, I can be asked to go pick something up off the shelf for a family member, and I take several minutes to find it even though it's just blatantly sitting out there in the open. I've gotten better at this with Metroid games because I've figured out what to look for in many cases, but in a hack like this with largely non-vanilla graphics and some really unusual visual cues, it really messed with me.

Now, that leads in to the main gripe I have with this hack: At no point does it ever really force you to poke around in a specific area to look for secrets. I know that this is something that previous Metroid games have gotten flack for in the past (I know Metroid Dread received a lot of criticism from diehard fans for it), but this feels like the opposite end of that extreme. At all points, basically the entire hack is open to you, which means there's an overwhelming amount of nooks and crannies to poke around in. This gave me trouble with two particular majors, one of which was required to beat the game.

Overall, it's hard for me to rate this hack less than 4 stars, just because I know it's a contest hack that probably had a bunch of stuff scrapped or rushed in the 2-month time period. I participated in that same contest and I know I didn't do everything I wanted to do. At the same time, though, I feel bad giving it a high score because it frustrated me so much, and if the discord is any indication it frustrated a lot of other people too.

I'm going to end this review off with a couple more positives: the hack's tiling is absolutely gorgeous, and the bomb launcher was a ton of fun to play around with; I can tell it was fun for Ob to make, because they made some excellent puzzles with it (There was one where you had to shoot into a giant chamber full of Rippers and bomb blocks to make a path for the Rippers to escape to open the way to an item). Enemies are placed well and never personally frustrated me (though they hit really hard, another reason I feel like the whole hack should be rated veteran). Eventually you do get regular bombs; since you already have bombs, I feel like this should have been swapped out for something a bit more cool and epic like Plasma or SJ, but that's just me. The QOL provided by vanilla Bombs is definitely nice.

Overall, this is a very complicated hack, and the feelings it inspires are too complex to really put into words. It's absolutely a 5/5 hack in terms of how much fun it is to talk about it (and yes, that is meant to be a complement), but I just don't feel comfortable giving it the full 5/5 stars because of what I've mentioned about the progression and obtuse secret locations.

I really hope Ob keeps working on more hacks. I can tell they've got some great stuff in their future.

By Onnyks on Jul 03, 2024 (

)

94% in 2:35

This hack was a cool little romp with lots of great moments.

I really liked the aesthetics first of all, the ceres/WS tile bashing with the earthy palette sold the industrial environment and you blended it with the rocky asteroid well. There were even some fun callbacks to some vanilla rooms which I always get a kick out of. The second ship was really neat too, I like the idea of Samus hijacking other vehicles, even if just for an elevator trip.

Beyond being good looking, the custom mechanics were the best part of this hack. What most people will probably remember right after the hack is done is the final boss, which adds some pretty epic changes to a familiar face. It was tough and I cheesed it for my first kill cuz it was getting late, but I came back and fought it legit and had a lot of fun trying. The early boss change was something I'd seen in another hack but it's always nice to make changes to poor spo-spo.

The thing I hope people remember most though is sending both Samus and also your bombs flying! I feel either like the barrels were under-used, or every good idea you had with them was crammed into one room and I'm not appreciating it enough. They were fun to blast around in and not at all as janky as I would have expected. The bomb launchr was by far the best part of the hack for me though, I loved the shot tunnel puzzles and the ability to find hidden pathways with ease. This might sound silly, but just spamming projectiles and watching them ricocheting across the screen was satisfying unto itself. This is a great item and I hope to see it used much more.

Unfortunately one negative issue I had was being confused about navigating. Some late game progression issues arose due to an unexpected mechanics change. The change is a cool one, but it involves crumble blocks which are so ingrained within the Metroid structure that I took a lot of time trying to figure out how to get above them like any other game when I shouldn't have been. Another thing that kept me circling was trying to tell which map tiles were going to be accessible and which were not, especially when it came to the elevator ones, where you can secretly find your way into some but not all. I'm not sure why there are as many of these on the map as there are.

By OmegaDragnet9 on Jul 05, 2024 (

)

94% in 3:06

I was thoroughly impressed and had a good time playing this.

GFX were a perfect blend of various vanilla assets, both natural and mechanical in nature. Palettes were merged in a very tasteful manner to give you the feeling that you literally were on an asteroid the whole time.

New mechanics were really awesome. This is the first hack with the DKC Barrels and I really enjoyed them more than I suspected I would. Bomb launcher was really enjoyable to use. The Dread tractor beam really spoiled me.

Music was mostly Vanilla but put to use very well. I kept getting Phazon Hack vibes the first half of the game because of it. Really suited the atmosphere quite well.

Progression and difficulty: I rate this somewhere near the Eris and Z Factor side of things, though not quite as difficult as those. For a hack with a room limit, this really did feel like a full game the way it was paced. There was just enough to stand in your way to provide challenge; you may feel stuck a few times. But the new upgrades you aquire will recontextualize every location you have already visited.

The bosses were well implemented.

By Exister on Jul 07, 2024 (

)

No completion stats.

This is a great hack, the visuals alone sell it. I said it in the discord but I'll say it again here: it should be required by law to have drop shadow on tech tiles, after seeing how well they work here. The rooms are full of creative layouts, challanges, and puzzles, and the combat is interesting through the midgame. It felt really easy twords the end, but maybe I just found too many e tanks (I had like 13). I needed all of those e tanks for the final boss though, which was also a great challange. Speedkeep was also well utilized here, in conjunction with the previously mentioned puzzles and the dk canons. Speedkeep used to feel off to me, but between this and biohazard I've really come around to the mechanic. Only thing that was akward with this hack for me was the location of the bomb launcher, I didn't find it on first pass and looped aroun exploring the whole map fruitlessly. Aside from that the pacing was great. Thanks for the hack!

By RT-55J on Jul 07, 2024 (

)

84% in 0:52

This is a very nicely crafted hack. The setting is exceptionally well-developed despite the small scope, and the mixed tilesets convincingly convey how the federation mining operation, chozo ruins, and natural asteroid all intersect with each other. The areas themselves are both fun to navigate and spatially complex in ways I envy.

Bomb launcher is the best item.

I had a very fun time playing this.

By Croakomire on Jul 10, 2024 (

)

92% in 1:47

Banger hack, crazy cool mechanics, smooth rooms, fun.
If my enjoyment weren't so high, this would be teetering on an orb loss for snappy, disjointed, and erratic scrolling everywhere.
Features (presumably) unreachable map tiles, mapo runners' hearts beware.

By Voltekka on Jul 11, 2024 (

)

66% in 0:56

By jamablues on Jul 31, 2024 (

)

90% in 3:00

This was an amazing hack! I love the ideas also loved shooting bombs!

By Zhs2 on Aug 04, 2024 (

)

88% in 1:09

A+ hack. The bomb launcher happens to be both the apex and the detractor in this otherwise fine experience, because using the bomb launcher is tons of fun but it turns any vulnerable bosses into a joke. Poor Botwoon. New players will also get ganked at the start of the hack if they manage to find Spore Spawn early enough, which is no fun, but Spore Spawn dies super quickly as well once you find the right gear, so don't give up. There is plenty of new ASM in this hack to keep things fresh, and the new strategy for defeating the hack's final boss is not to be missed. Just be aware that the escape timer can be really tight.

By thedopefish on Aug 11, 2024 (

)

86% in 1:17

Very cool hack. The bomb launcher is awesome, both as a concept and as a tool for puzzles, to the extent that it almost makes your beams superfluous. And the DKC barrels are great, if a little bit jank. I had a lot of fun with this one.

By Kremit44 on Aug 15, 2024 (

)

96% in 1:13

Really solid hack. Good graphics and some fun new mechanics to play with. My only gripes are some occasionally uninspired level design and it's shortness. It was close to a 5 but i felt it was just a little too linear, short, and oddly designed for me to go that high. Thanks for the great hack.

By brized on Aug 19, 2024 (

)

96% in 1:39

Some issues:
Hoppers are immune to charged Spazer, but not uncharged Spazer. Why?

The first time I found Spo Spo, he seemed just a bit too hard. Returned later, killed with 1 super missile. Wonky difficulty curve there.

The launcher felt a little too spammable. Rarely had to charge it.

Got stuck a few times. A tiny tweak to a few tiles might have prevented that.

Botwoon felt like it could have been changed to account for the launcher.

The barrels mechanic could have better onboarding: 1-2 rooms where you're locked in until you prove you understand the mechanic before proceeding.

Final boss was fun. The first time I shinesparked him, something went wrong and I didn't get the intended response. So I fought him vanilla and it was a solid fight. Retried again, focusing on shinesparking him. Got the intended response that time and it was very fun and a much easier fight.

Otherwise, this offers some great new mechanics. I'd love to see them fleshed out in something with more time put into it. In a vacuum I'd give this 4/5, but as a contest hack it's 5/5.

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