“I do know ASM, I just don't know how to do anything with it.”
DemICE's Ratings and Reviews
Exploration],
rated by DemICE on Nov 27, 2022 (
I came to this after vitality because im a sucker for these kinds of aesthetics and atmosphere, and a little increased difficulty compared to vanilla which i have become a little too good for. Still not an advanced skillset player by any means.
Well i got what i wished for... somewhat.
The area design approached psychedelic at times. Some people will say that in a negative way but not me. It reminded me of some levels of Doom (the original one) and i appreciated that throwback. Especially that area where the (dreadful) Spore Spawn + Worm gauntlet resides to sap the soul out of you. Just like a lot of the game in general.
And this brings me to my second point. For as great time i had taking in the quirky area looks, I had much less fun actually traversing them. The issue doesn't lie in any individual element, but the fact that all of them were combined at the same time: time-consuming ways to move around the rooms, with water areas escalating that five-fold, especially when you need to backtrack through them multiple times, the graphics that i liked so much being my worst enemy because of how unclear they make it be to figure out which way is a pathway and which is not, if a gap you see is actually one you can squeeze in, or just.. nothing. Items placement is sometimes ingenious but other times just mean. Requiring me to threten awaken my tendonitis just to get to them when i sniff their existence.
I said before i've become somewhat good at the game but Eris came to me up front saying "that's your limit pal, now you'll either quadruple your playtime or use savestates. pride vs time. take your pick". I chose time. The precision and lack of error in movements required in this hack was insane. I felt so lucky the one advanced skill i was able to learn well was wall jumping, including single wall jumps and instant ledge grabs. It felt these were actually needed to play this game so i feel sorry for whoever had to learn the hard way. Some items, and sometimes even progression items (looking at you space jump) i have no clue how can someone figure out how to get them without looking up the web for a guide or video. In space jump's case its funny because its an easy thing to DO but ...maybe im not jaded enough but how do you THINK to do that? Oh I also got all artifacts and went down and got plasma beam, did ridley and all of the platforming section and reached just outside of the final boss door and realized i was still in the original suit. So i did some looking up and it turns out i had skipped Dreygon and the blasted super armor he kept locked behind him. So yeah i had to go back up to get that and then back down. That armor would have helped with area traversing so much i hated myself for not getting to it as soon as i got Space Jump.
The boss changes were funny though. Arena edits go a long way to make stuff more interesting.
I usually am good enough to beat most metroid bosses first try so having to struggle with these for a few dozen tries was welcome.
I also liked how Ridley is seemingly calculated to have just about enough health to need exactly ALL of the 30 Super Missiles the game can provide you to go down. They also seem to be the only thing that can deal noticable damage to him. I had 23 super missiles and i had to make each one count, because then my 40 missiles and charged (fully upgraded) beams were doing too little DPS in comparison as he whittles down my health because im not good enough to evade him consistently.
I could go on detailing other things but i think you get the gist:
-Game was nice to look at, but not fun to play for a big portion of it. Lack of backtracking shortcuts and water maps made this worse.
-Every super missile is important in this game, which means exploring to find them is enormously rewarding. Especially for Ridley. Item placement was mostly tricky in a good way but some of them were downgright unhealthy. Some progression related items should have been less obscure.
I'm sorry this hack probably deserves more than 3 orbs but the fact that I had to consult videos and rely on savestates and how the game's design impacted my fun prevent me from giving it more. Like, not needing to consult videos would have been enough to give it 4 orbs.
This is basically Dark Souls 2 but Metroid.
Well i got what i wished for... somewhat.
The area design approached psychedelic at times. Some people will say that in a negative way but not me. It reminded me of some levels of Doom (the original one) and i appreciated that throwback. Especially that area where the (dreadful) Spore Spawn + Worm gauntlet resides to sap the soul out of you. Just like a lot of the game in general.
And this brings me to my second point. For as great time i had taking in the quirky area looks, I had much less fun actually traversing them. The issue doesn't lie in any individual element, but the fact that all of them were combined at the same time: time-consuming ways to move around the rooms, with water areas escalating that five-fold, especially when you need to backtrack through them multiple times, the graphics that i liked so much being my worst enemy because of how unclear they make it be to figure out which way is a pathway and which is not, if a gap you see is actually one you can squeeze in, or just.. nothing. Items placement is sometimes ingenious but other times just mean. Requiring me to threten awaken my tendonitis just to get to them when i sniff their existence.
I said before i've become somewhat good at the game but Eris came to me up front saying "that's your limit pal, now you'll either quadruple your playtime or use savestates. pride vs time. take your pick". I chose time. The precision and lack of error in movements required in this hack was insane. I felt so lucky the one advanced skill i was able to learn well was wall jumping, including single wall jumps and instant ledge grabs. It felt these were actually needed to play this game so i feel sorry for whoever had to learn the hard way. Some items, and sometimes even progression items (looking at you space jump) i have no clue how can someone figure out how to get them without looking up the web for a guide or video. In space jump's case its funny because its an easy thing to DO but ...maybe im not jaded enough but how do you THINK to do that? Oh I also got all artifacts and went down and got plasma beam, did ridley and all of the platforming section and reached just outside of the final boss door and realized i was still in the original suit. So i did some looking up and it turns out i had skipped Dreygon and the blasted super armor he kept locked behind him. So yeah i had to go back up to get that and then back down. That armor would have helped with area traversing so much i hated myself for not getting to it as soon as i got Space Jump.
The boss changes were funny though. Arena edits go a long way to make stuff more interesting.
I usually am good enough to beat most metroid bosses first try so having to struggle with these for a few dozen tries was welcome.
I also liked how Ridley is seemingly calculated to have just about enough health to need exactly ALL of the 30 Super Missiles the game can provide you to go down. They also seem to be the only thing that can deal noticable damage to him. I had 23 super missiles and i had to make each one count, because then my 40 missiles and charged (fully upgraded) beams were doing too little DPS in comparison as he whittles down my health because im not good enough to evade him consistently.
I could go on detailing other things but i think you get the gist:
-Game was nice to look at, but not fun to play for a big portion of it. Lack of backtracking shortcuts and water maps made this worse.
-Every super missile is important in this game, which means exploring to find them is enormously rewarding. Especially for Ridley. Item placement was mostly tricky in a good way but some of them were downgright unhealthy. Some progression related items should have been less obscure.
I'm sorry this hack probably deserves more than 3 orbs but the fact that I had to consult videos and rely on savestates and how the game's design impacted my fun prevent me from giving it more. Like, not needing to consult videos would have been enough to give it 4 orbs.
This is basically Dark Souls 2 but Metroid.
