T O U R O F I T A L Y

T O U R O F I T A L Y
Release date: Jun 30, 2024	Author: RT-55J	Download: Contest Version (v0.85) (913 downloads)
Genre: Exploration [?] Game:	Difficulty: Vanilla [?]	Average runtime: 1:50 Average collection: 88%
Read Me: [None]	Forum Thread: Forum Post	Rating:
	Awards: Starbase Contest

Description

Hello, Yoshio Sakamoto and Kensuke Tanabe. Welcome to Tour of Italy. This is my pitch for Metroid 4.5. Please review it carefully.

-> This game was produced with the help of an Italian Cultural Consultant. You have been warned. <-

This game is also designed to accommodate and entertain players of all skill levels.

Note: A revision with some finishing touches (such as a custom soundtrack, redone intro images, and more lore) should be released in the near future. However, as-is the hack is a complete experience from start to finish.

Screenshots

Ratings and Reviews

By junkrares on Jul 02, 2024 (

)

85% in 1:15

For a spoof hack and contest hack, T O U R O F I T A L Y has a lot to offer. Each zone is distinct with their own themes (within the confines of "space station/factory" vibe). The gelato vibe is strong, and I want-a-to-save-a constantly to make sure I don't lose progress. The difficulty is vanilla, bordering on beginner. There are lots of opportunities to sequence break through gate glitches and hell runs -- but none are required. The story is funny and engaging, atmospheric without straight out telling you what is what. The ASM edits are well-implemented, and can be abused fully. Once this gets polished up and becomes a full hack, I would be thrilled to play this again.

PS: The credits were a real treat and got a legitimate belly laugh out of me.

By alexman25 on Jul 02, 2024 (

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82% in 1:45

Probably my favorite Super Metroid hack right now. Looks very cool, fun level design, clever new items that are actually well utilized, the works!

SPOILERS AHEAD

I really like that all of the suspicious tiling actually had stuff behind it. You're rewarded for keeping a keen eye, because there's hidden passageways and shortcuts everywhere!

Can definitely sequence break pretty hard; I didn't get espresso ball until I had already machballed all of its puzzles

The swirl jump (I think that's what it's called) was so much fun, and a lot of the level design utilized it well! Only think that would make it feel better IMO is respin. It also has a lot of cool tech you can perform with it if you're clever!

Hack makes really good use of morph and spring ball, too. I had a blast!

There's suitless underwater, but it's actually really well done!

I didn't like having to refight the core X after getting the station keys, but that's forgivable.

Very impressive, even if it wasn't a contest hack!

By Onnyks on Jul 02, 2024 (

)

82% in 1:36

This hack was a good time. I laughed at the gelato naming convention and then laughed harder finding piles of it strewn about the station, and mamma-mia-ing all the items was funny too. For a gag hack it played seriously though. I think the best part about this was how much play each item got, especially the new toy which was very cool. I'm a "hold run at all times" kinda player and I skipped a lot of tooltips inadvertently, but it was clear what it did just playing around with it, and you made good use of it as a movement tool and puzzle key.

It's also great how open and breakable the station felt, you didn't try to overcorrect wave gates or underwater wall jumping or other tech, the hell runs were quite manageable, etc. It was clear at obstacles that you wanted us to have something for them but you let us shoot ourselves in the foot anyway.

When the hack started I thought the number of false-wall secrets would be annoying but somehow I came to expect them, and jumping into walls and ceilings just felt like bomb-checking them anyway. The aesthetics of the station were nice, though cherry side is a little on the red-crateria side of things. Tiling was generally cool, even if I did have some trouble telling what was destroyed and what was background in the escape.

Really great hack, but I am an Italian so -1 orb.

By Boomerang on Jul 04, 2024 (

)

94% in 1:48

Mamma mia.

A Super Metroid romhack can be many things: an enjoyable romp, for sure; a transformative experience that pushes the boundaries of what a hack can be; a new spin on a familiar formula; and even a redesign of a classic. TOUR OF ITALY has once again redefined what a hack can be: they can also be Italian.

For simpler people looking for a "Metroid" experience, all the hallmarks of a great hack are here. The secrets are fairly well-telegraphed, the exploration is open-ended yet not mindless, and the difficulty is well-balanced. There are even some incredibly obscure, yet correspondingly powerful, secrets to discover. You're going to need to really put the effort to find those ones though - more effort, at least, than refraining from piling on ten meatballs on a plate of spaghetti. The story itself is simple: Samus must find out what has happened to the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana's ice cream space station, and it appears all of its employees have fallen asleep due to eating too much marinara sauce! Oh no!

What is most striking about TOUR OF ITALY are the political criticisms apparent all throughout the hack. RT55J has not let the haters, the geeks, the prudes,the sportos the motorheads, bloods, wastoids, dweebies - and not least of all the French and the Germans - dull his edge. Italy's lacklustre response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of Christo-fascism across Europe are the primary objects of criticism that seep out of every pore of this hack, and I love it. Far too long have the hackers not spoke truth to power through the use of morph ball tunnels.

A job very, very well done to RT55J for this towering achievement. Arrivederci!

(94% does not reflect the completion percentage for the aforementioned obscure secrets).

By RX-78-2 on Jul 04, 2024 (

)

85% in 1:47

not gonna go into details but it's a pretty good hack, very well done. there isn't much that I dislike about this hack or anything that I can really think of tbh. but it's still really good for a short hack and I'd probably rate this hack somewhere around a 7 or 8 out or 10 because while I love that it's a very well done exploration spoof hack, the reason I only give it a 7 or 8 out of 10 is because I'd love for it to have longer and involve much more exploration

By JaceTheBodySculptor on Jul 05, 2024 (

)

79% in 1:14

Maybe there's some recency bias here, but this feels like the best hack I've ever played. One custom item in particular, the Swirl Clamber, is so good it should be studied by professional game developers. It's innovative, intuitive, fun to use, even fun to struggle with a bit, and creates fresh room design space. Overall level design is top-notch, with many blocks and enemies feeling like they are put in exactly the right place. The openness and freedom given to the player, along with the connectedness and relevant implications of getting items in different orders, gives the hack replayability and an added sense of intricate beauty.

Of course I haven't even mentioned the humorous facade of the hack yet. The theme is silly and sparks joy (as well as a desire for ice cream). But don't be fooled, this is way more than a silly hack, this is a masterpiece of good design.

By Voltekka on Jul 05, 2024 (

)

85% in 1:36

Light, simple, fast. A fun to play and well worked hack.

By DramaticMarquinh0svi on Jul 06, 2024 (

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102% in 1:20

This is a pretty fun little hack for you to burn a hour with, it has quite some well hinted hidden items, and even if it has two insanely hidden items, they aren't required at all and they are more of a bonus and rewarding find. And the difficulty is incredibly newbie friendly, yet has stuff you can get early if you know how to do certain skills, overall a nice little hack to burn an hour with.

By starlightintheriver on Jul 07, 2024 (

)

82% in 1:21

Time is an estimate, I got 1:17 right before the escape and escape is 4 minutes so I just added them up.

The fact that this hack is as good as it is is a sin. Every area is unique, the custom items are excellent, but most importantly it just somehow manages to capture that fun factor that all the best hacks have. It's a magical little thing that I don't know how to describe? This hack also has some really neat nonlinearity where you can go to the three main areas in any order, but items from one area are required for full progression in the others.

There are a couple of really fun custom items here. As Jace described, the Swirl Clamber is excellent, but I also wanted to give a shoutout to Tricolor Suit for having spike immunity, and for resembling the excellent Samus Returns color scheme for the Fusion suit. I do agree that the Swirl Clamber could benefit from respin, and I did have some frustrating moments before I realized it wasn't strong enough to overcome the force of gravity once Samus reaches terminal velocity. I thought it had stopped working, lmao.

If there's anything else I would change, it would be making the environments more different from eachother. Each one is still distinct enough, but the tilesets are similar enough that it does get a little boring. For example, perhaps you could lean more into the grass/water/fire elements of each area, or perhaps even give each area the respective plants (pistachio trees, vanilla orchids, and cherry trees) their flavors of ice cream are derived from. But that's just me wondering how you could improve an already nearly perfect hack, so what do I know?

By Croakomire on Jul 07, 2024 (

)

94% in 1:45

For starters, objectively I'd say this is a 5 orb hack. It's tiling and graphics are good, the hack is extremely solid, and it's really smooth to play. The routing definitely has options which is very good, and there's stuff hidden obvious-yet-secretly all around the place that rewards a sharp eye.

"But where's the 5th orb?"

It just lacks something, not soul, it has that, especially in what I've been informed are scalding political criticisms, but just, something. Playing this feels like I toured Italy but didn't bring a camera. There are memorable moments in the hack (Even though a lot of the references and jokes are lost on me), and it's not like nothing happened, but what did happen didn't raise my enjoyment to the tipping point. I still enjoyed the hack, and I think I'll find the last rooms I missed, but I don't see myself replaying this otherwise.

It might be my warped tastes of what I want to play in a Super Metroid hack, but the best way I could describe playing this is "going through the motions of a Metroid game", which it does really well, and I think deserves 5 orbs. I think my main problem is just how easy it is, I moved around the map until I cleared the place out, and that was that. I'm not saying easy hacks are bad, they just aren't my plate of pasta. And as objective as I think reviews should be, I don't think they should completely ignore the reviewers thoughts in favor of objectivity.

Secondly, it probably had something to do with the route I took, but some of the major items felt severely under-utilized, though I see how they could be useful if you route differently. (One item I'm still not even sure of it's effect outside of a single spot). There are two pretty cool items in the hack however.

A well-crafted hack you'll probably enjoy to the fifth orb if you aren't me. There's practically nothing bad about this hack, well done RT.

By MarioFan2468 on Jul 09, 2024 (

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85% in 1:15

yeah

there is no bomb and its amazing
the secrets are in the morph holes and all you have to do is go there through the fake wall
i would like more games to remove bomb too bc it felt nice

this whole game is only secrets
i like games that make me have to metroid around for secrets like this
it reminds me a bit of metroid fusion master quest, but the secrets here are less of a puzzle

i like the theme its very present for the whole game
i never knew what a amarena was before this

the lava was very soft so i can stay in it for a major while
even without any suit i felt at ease to dive in and explore the submerged rooms

i found the tourian-like section too much harder than the rest of the game so i used savestates
i failed to manipulate the core-x's position reliably and the contact damage hit hard
the escape was good tho

have a taste

By TheMrGmk on Jul 09, 2024 (

)

88% in 2:43

As an italian, I found this rom hack hilarious. Without spoilering anything, the last boss is pretty accurate to the actual situation in the country lol. I giggled from start to finish.
The new power ups are pretty creative and fun to use, and level design is very good. A really enjoyable short hack.

By Zhs2 on Jul 25, 2024 (

)

79% in 1:19

95% Good, 5% Why. The Why doesn't affect the enjoyment of the hack in the slightest but I still question why a parody of VITALITY. The first thing that you must know about this hack is that it is RIDDLED with secret passages. The environment is bright and colorful enough that the cues to these secret passages almost hurt you with obviousness. Finding them is sometimes required for progression, sometimes not, but you'll find them anyway just by shooting beam and attempting to roll under any gap that exists, period. Where this hack really shines is how some major items have been remixed into a variant that makes you test your skills in Samus physics, making exploration fresh and cool (like the ice cream seen laying around all over the place?) About the only thing I didn't like was lava traversal, even if lava was so non-threatening as to be hilarious. No reason really to have a health alarm if there's no reason for alarm, you know?

By OmegaDragnet9 on Aug 01, 2024 (

)

97% in 6:03

(Average runtime was 1:35 before this review.)

This was quite an experience. Really appreciated the custom Fusion spritework for Samus. All around the GFX looked really cool; the winner I would say was the space GFX in between areas.

Liked the polish with the presentation, particularly the credits.

SPOILERS:

Have somewhat mixed feelings with a few design/progression items:

Certain areas are cryptic, which isn't a bad thing. With the lack of x ray or normal bombs there were at least two points during progression where I felt compelled to morph jump into every wall. (In reality, the solutions both times were in places I had already explored, so that falls back to a skill issue on my part.)

Having only 5 Power Bombs added to the anxiety when I was mentally sorting that out, but there were always the right enemies nearby to refill on when I needed them.

In hindsight, I don't think any significant progression points were hidden behind invisible walls. So the whole frenzy of me obsessively checking every corner actually contributed to the high item % rate I ended up with; that ended up being a good thing in the end.

The custom items were really a great touch, especially the counterparts to High Jump and Space Jump.

Save and refill stations were spaced out very appropriately.

I really was blown away by the custom enemies and custom boss in the final area (purposefuly vague in case someone disregards my spoiler warning.) I got a good laugh at the boss.

By Kremit44 on Aug 04, 2024 (

)

88% in 1:25

An amusing hack with interesting mechanics but it's held back by a lack of challenge and some tedious exploration. It's worth a play through and a 4 was considered but I just think it's a little too unsubstantial to be considered a really strong hack. Still a great job and a hack I appreciated being able to play.

By thedopefish on Aug 11, 2024 (

)

85% in 1:13

Fun hack built around a silly theme, with a good sense of humor. Tons of hidden paths, most of which are highly telegraphed. A couple of novel movement mechanics I haven't seen before that particularly help navigating the underwater sections. I think I did the cherry area almost completely backwards, but it worked out fine :)

By H A M on Aug 15, 2024 (

)

No completion stats.

played as SMW Mario because it uses SpriteSomething
Quit after ending the game before seeing the time.

By mosul on Sep 07, 2024 (

)

94% in 1:20

This hack is pretty good. However, I felt that the exploration was tedious and occasionally confounding. I expected each area to be completable on its own, rather than having to travel back and forth between the areas. I was surprised to find that the area I chose to enter first contained no currently obtainable progression items (as far as I could tell). I found myself sequence breaking just to make progress. There were many places to mockball, and underwater wall jumping was strangely made easier than usual.

I have no idea what the purpose of hi-jump boots was, as they were the last major item I found, and I'd had no trouble reaching any items up to that point. The new item is cool, but it nearly obsoletes wall jumping (wall jumping is fun). I don't know why super missiles and power bombs were in the hack. I could see power bombs leading to confusion if someone found them early on. It took me too long to realize that varia suit provides immunity to spikes.

I definitely didn't like how almost every secret was a hidden morph tunnel. That got repetitive very fast.

The enemies in the tourian-like area at the end were annoying. I was surprised to see no other reviewers complain about them.

The credits mention secret rooms, but I don't think I found any unfortunately.

Overall, I'd certainly recommend this hack to players of all skill levels. It's obviously competently designed and even impressive considering the time frame in which it was produced.

By Nefertenia on Oct 03, 2024 (

)

100% in 2:17

As an Italian i approve this hack, mama mia what a ride :D

- repetitive secret structure

+ very nice mechanics without altering the well known too much <3
++ more then once i laughed bout them jokes

once again a good example of what can be done right, go try it out :D

thx for it

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