caauyjdp's Hack Reviews - Metroid Construction

Super Junkoid by P. Yoshi [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Aug 23, 2023 (

)

100% in 9:50

It's a great hack. Despite familiarity it's even crossing "hack of sm" -> original game barrier.
I started playing knowing very little about the hack, only seen some development screenshots and it looked super cute.
Did I enjoy playing it? Yes. All of it.
Would I have played it if I knew genre/themes beforeand? No.
Do I want to keep thinking about some parts of it. No. Even tho I want and will replay it. Just focusing on mechanics.

Give this a try, and don't be afraid to stop, turn around and leave an area if it's making you feel uncomfortable. Maybe come back later, maybe just explore other places and quit the game unfinished.

Metroid: Desolation by jasinchen [ MZM

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Apr 09, 2023 (

)

93% in 3:36

No praise can be high enough.

Super Minitroid by Noxus [

Vanilla+], rated by caauyjdp on Feb 08, 2023 (

)

53% in 2:35

Some things are a bit janky(which wil hopefully be fixed in the future), but it has HEART.
Or at least a tiny Samus. So tiny.

Super Metroid: Subversion by TestRunner and AmoebaOfDoom [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Oct 24, 2022 (

)

100% in 12:32

Super Metroid SCM by YP [

Challenge], rated by caauyjdp on May 12, 2022 (

)

61% in 7:00

This hack finally made me learn to shortcharge somewhat more properly and for that I am greatful.
Liked that some items had "choose your own difficulty". Liked lack of bullsh*t.
Cheesed 4-5 spots a bit with ice beam. Didn't bother with lot of items because I was tired(and still bad). Used copious amounts of fastforwards to go through door transitions, but otherwise uncheated. 7h is just igt, total rta might have took triple that.
Loved the hud, made it easier to understand samus animations because my eyeballs are too slow. Hopefully I'll be able to use muscle memory from this to not need such crutches anymore.
Neat hack if you want to git guder.

Metroid: New Zero Mission by jasinchen [ MZM

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Jan 12, 2022 (

)

100% in 2:55

Hack is huge, well done and is even better now after several revisions.
Tourian by itself is impressive and enough to push this hack to 5 orbs.
I really like that thought was put into implementing easy difficulty.
Would have wanted more speed things, but that's not for everyone
Path in crateria might be a bit confusing, but it makes sense when you stop to think that when you can't go back, there's probably a way forward.

A Great hack, play it.

SM - Cryogenesis by Onnyks [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Jan 09, 2022 (

)

78% in 5:12

"They should have sent a poet."

Super Metroid: Federation Force by Metaquarius [

Spoof], rated by caauyjdp on Jul 01, 2021 (

)

No completion stats.

best photoshop plugin i ever used

Super Metroid YPX by YP [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on May 13, 2021 (

)

94% in 11:44

Took about 20hours to get through, tho a part of that was running around looking for secrets
Overall great hack, tho i have mixed feelings about gravity and space jump(and possibly hijump). While super powerful, they make you feel like you wasted your time getting(or trying to) some items before getting those major upgrades.
Took me a while to realize how speed walljumping worked, I first assumed it was during sparking like I've seen in some other hack, but that's on me.
One major gripe I have is the way to progress to botwoon. Suspicious room is suspicious, but since you have no idea that progression is in this area, I ended up going all over the hack looking for something that allowed me to progress, only to come back probably hours later and find the dumb blocks.
It'd be interesting to see a run of this that skipped(or at least delayed) major upgrades.
Definitely recommended if you use savestates. If not, I hope you're patient, but still would recommend it.

Super Metroid Stupid by Crys [

Spoof], rated by caauyjdp on Mar 23, 2021 (

)

100% in 2:48

Delightful +v

GR2 Halfhack2 by GR2 [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Jan 21, 2021 (

)

95% in 10:41

An excellent halfhack. Interesting, surprising, challenging. Rarely/sometimes arbitrary.
Seems like it has multiple route options.
Recommended.
edit: 4:44 98% on 2nd playthrough

Return of Justin by squishy_ichigo [

Incomplete], rated by caauyjdp on Dec 10, 2020 (

)

% in 4:53

best ZM hack

Metroid zero mission Harder by yohann [ MZM

Vanilla+], rated by caauyjdp on Sep 10, 2020 (

)

97% in 6:06

Excellent
Wouldn't call it hard, but it's definetly for "veterans".
There's some(very few) minor tiling and clipdata errors.
I think some places have potential for getting stuck if you're low on ammo.
It's a bit trolly, but it's a fun kind of trolly :)
edit: after replaying, kind of tempted to drop to 4 orbs because of forced progression, but nah, it's still good

Temple of the Winds by Moehr and Albert V. [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Jul 05, 2020 (

)

97% in 3:37

Play this.

Super Zero Mission by SBniconico [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Feb 12, 2020 (

)

97% in 26:28

Best sm hack I've seen in terms of room/world movement/route options. Some patience might be required.

Metroid Fusion C.L.E.A.N. Station by Mar99troid [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 21, 2019 (

)

100% in 0:33

Just replayed this, and it's even better than I remembered.
Single wall walljumps go a long way to make fusion tolerable.
There's secrets, routing options, early items once you've learned the hack.
I don't like fusion, but I like this.
edit: replayed with 1.15 version this time because newer version has proper end% scaling

Metroid: Oil Spill by Spedimus [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Aug 12, 2019 (

)

48% in 1:56

A really good fusion hack. There's a lot of freedom in terms of where you can get to and what you are able to skip.
"Veteran" difficulty is probably bit of an overstatement. I don't play fusion much and I tend to struggle with bosses in it, and this hack was at about same feel of difficulty when I started. After beating it a couple of times I'd say it might be even a bit easier than vanilla.

Super Metroid: Hidden by TN [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on May 11, 2019 (

)

96% in 8:40

Good hack. ~~Found two oob, and map doesn't save properly, but it didn't bother me too much.~~ Fixed in final.
Liked what this hack does with torizo and ridley fights, and that enemy vulnerabilities were tweaked.

Super Metroid Containment Chamber by Lioran [

Challenge], rated by caauyjdp on Mar 21, 2019 (

)

No completion stats.

Didn't manage to execute on the final puzzle, but learned a lot along the way. Had to use hint file solution videos often, which are a very useful/excellent feature.

Metroid: Takeover by Spedimus [ MZM

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Feb 02, 2019 (

)

83% in 1:42

Great hack.

Super Metroid: Escape II by Hiroishi [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 09, 2018 (

)

97% in 12:04

Great hack.
Worst thing about it were both ways of getting tourian missile(although there might be more than one?). I ended up doing both with blue suit, which might have been intended way because there's an easy renewable way of getting it in tourian.
Escapes were trivial compared to attempting to get that missile.

Super T-Metroid by kokoakki2 [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on May 15, 2024 (

)

67% in 5:19

played for about 11h
On one hand I enjoyed playing this. On the other, this was made in 2005, I don't know how much tech was known back then and what was intended.
No bombs and very little pb ammo was definitely interesting, even tho vanilla low drop rates made you reset instead of farming(if you even could get back to a farm).
Maybe zsnes didn't have issues with music crash?
ls pb disappearing.. it's possible there's another route that works without them?
edit: glanced at ElectrometerPrime playthrough, looks like these ^ are correct
Reading hack description made me wonder if maybe there was a different hack with same name, but found a different version from around 2007, that looks the same(and still has same bt issue).
Found two places that lead to oob, and writg crashed twice.
Hack definitely has issues, but I'm tempted to rate it 4orbs based on enjoyment.
If you see the first screenshot and aren't immediately turned away, you'll probably have fun.
shared id seems to be with etank in room topright of ls, so if you see it, don't grab it

Super Madtroid 2: Anger Management by dewhi100 [

Spoof], rated by caauyjdp on Apr 12, 2024 (

)

105% in 0:47

A fine imitation of early halfhacks. Short enough to not overstay its welcome, but longer than first madtroid which stopped just as you were starting to appreciate it.
Screenshots lie and title is misleading.
Join us in madness.

Legend of the Beast - Prologue by statik [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Dec 12, 2022 (

)

34% in 1:07

Interesting hack, neat item gfx.
Unfortunately can't enter menu, and (mini)map is bit of a mess. Couple of broken doors(lead to wrong place but still inbounds) and potential crash at the end.
Worth playing

Metroid: Falling by TN [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Dec 01, 2022 (

)

92% in 5:46

On one hand, bosses are pain. On the other, they "encourage" avoiding them for as long as possible and exploring instead, which can be really rewarding.
2nd playthrough with knowledge of the map can potentially be really interesting.
Map doesn't save 100% accurately(which seems different from the usual only vanilla squares(not as bad?)). Some one ways can be annoying.
Rounding up a high three orbs to four.

Global Warming by Noxus [

Vanilla+], rated by caauyjdp on Aug 24, 2021 (

)

103% in 3:34

Hack is suitless underwater for the most part, but it's not an actual challenge hack. Layout is mostly the same, but rooms have been altered so it's still interesting to explore. There's quality of life tweaks to make things easier, and some items have been altered which is a huge plus.
Interestingly by the time you get to maridia it'll likely be easier to go through than vanilla suitless.
Hack is polished, but could use some more work, especially to get map to work properly.
Most importantly, hack was fun to play through. I know underwater physics are not for everyone, but this is a good hack to get used to them.
Recommended, tho you should probably get a version that's on the forums. Despite them all being v3.9, forum version is the newer one atm at least.

Escape from Planet Metroid by Sylux [

Quick Play], rated by caauyjdp on May 24, 2021 (

)

59% in 2:52

took 5 hours to beat
Felt quite bland and painful at first, but got better after I left suitless section that I much much later realized wasn't required.
Has intended progression that can be easily broken/missed which can lead to some pain..
I got mixed feelings about this one, but it's decent.

Metroid Crystal by ShuiJing [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on May 02, 2021 (

)

82% in 4:40

A quality halfhack(?) of fusion..
..tho I may be conditioned by some "less good" hacks.
I loved all the boss room changes. They made fights different and without going the common route of "make everything harder".
Liked all the "tricky" movement stuff for optional items and that as far as I recall it wasn't for progression.
Only real nitpick I have wit this hack is path to supers download. It's not exactly common knowledge that you can do that, and as far as I can tell there weren't other places that used same trick. If you're going to have that required, it's good to have optional items using same mechanic beforehand where player could notice, learn and practice it.
There was also some minor lack of polish. Exit distances on vertical doors, "uncovered" door transitions in between sector shortcuts, some rooms looking like they were "made, but not tiled". Some breakable blocks that seemed like leftovers from previous iterations of the room.

Recommended

Super Metroid: Magaluf by Jordan5 [

Quick Play], rated by caauyjdp on Apr 29, 2021 (

)

94% in 0:45

Fun hack. Location of one of the beams was "weird", and has some broken scrolling sky, but that doesn't matter much. Could live without a grapple section tho

Metroid: Expedition Z by DarkSamus [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Mar 25, 2021 (

)

100% in 1:47

Probably spent more than an hour figuring out where to get supers because i'm dumb, but otherwise it was a fun hack.
Got stuck in a bad slope once, crashed ~~out of bounds~~ seems like this was bombing a reflec semi out of bounds, and went through bad door transition below the ship, but it's somewhat minor because regaining progression is pretty quick after you know what to do.

Another ZM by XY riny [ MZM

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Feb 04, 2021 (

)

98% in 9:11

Played this for about 10h42m
Map is huge, interconnected, doesn't resemble vanilla much and opens up with very few progression items. As a result, I think I've spend first half of playtime just wandering around aimlessly.
I'm tempted to think that more strict "obvious gating" could improve play experience.
A lot of rooms also looked much alike(partially because gba resolution I guess), especially in huge rooms in crateria.

As TheAnonymousUser said above, air control is terrible. Maybe one can get used to it, but after all this time I haven't. Only learned to mitigate it a tiny bit when it was strictly needed. Landing from jumps always felt like samus was landing on ice.

The "mechanic" that you can prevent speed counter from resetting by spinjumping felt neat - at first. Later, when there were optional puzzles that "required" spark/boost chaining it felt like an utterly broken thing, because often, instead of doing a puzzle the proper way, you could just go to the end part, build speed on like 7 tiles of flat ground and bypass most of the puzzle(also robbing you of satisfaction of managing to do it).
I would have preferred traditional shinespark chains.

That all being said, it's a good hack. Lots of exploration, alternate paths, open progression, some neat puzzles. I feel like I'll like it even more on 2nd playthrough when I get around to it.

Limit by Sin [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Jan 03, 2021 (

)

No completion stats.

Played this for about 12 hours, died in escape to failing to find way forward, did not feel like getting to mb again.
It's an interesting hack if you like using uncommon mechanics.
Going to tourian was really neat, A+

Super Metroid: Advent by Shadow96 [

Quick Play], rated by caauyjdp on Dec 18, 2020 (

)

34% in 0:55

Buggy saving, some stucks and lacks of polish, but what's there is interesting enough to play.

Reimagined by SavageWizzrobe [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Dec 16, 2020 (

)

77% in 8:34

Well made, but kind of plain? Would really benefit from a better map, navigating through the hack was kind of tiresome, having to check map often and having to turn around because you've taken wrong elevator to the area.

Super Metroid: Unknown by Reita [

Incomplete], rated by caauyjdp on Dec 12, 2020 (

)

98% in 9:34

very interesting item progression
requires patience and a headered rom
has a couple minor bugs

Super Metroid: Infiltration by BoostGuardian [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 25, 2020 (

)

34% in 3:34

Played this for 9 hours..
It's an interesting hack if you play it like a puzzle. I was pleasantly surprised in the end that it is beatable.
There's a lot of rough edges, and physics changes are very annoying. Save frequently, especially after getting x-ray.

Metroid: Operation Save Thanksgiving v1.1.1 (No Longer Broken) by Nodever2 [

Quick Play], rated by caauyjdp on Oct 20, 2020 (

)

100% in 1:00

Fun short hack. I probably like this more than blue plague hack.
My only gripes are that it had too many items for the map size and not enough power bomb drops. Some scroll triggers were wonky too.

V I T A L I T Y by Digital_Mantra [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Oct 18, 2020 (

)

78% in 6:32

...it's an experience not to be missed.
edit: gave it another playthrough. I don't like how gameplay and mechanics are sacrificed on the altar of plot and A E S T H E T I C S. Thought I'd give it a pass, because it is good, but 2nd playthrough was definetly less fun, and I can see where few things could be really bad if happened on first playthrough. First line of the review still holds true tho.

Rise by begrimed [

Speedrun/Race], rated by caauyjdp on Dec 22, 2019 (

)

No completion stats.

Played this for about an hour.

Feels and plays like an exploration hack, there's a lot of secrets with optional items and alternative paths that allow to progress if you've skipped an item.

Enemy damage is nerfed so you're never really in danger to die, and since ammo is infinite, all drops are health(never saw a small health either).

Unfortunately, hack lacks a lil bit of polish. I've gotten up to pink brinstar, and the only properly working save station was the first one near start of the game. There's also one other that is broken but manages to loads you into draygon's room. Hud shows ammo counts after reloading, so that's another unpolished thing. There's also an out of bounds in maridia which killed one run for me, don't go into horizontal pipes looking for secret passages.

Killed draygon, botwoon, crocomire, phantoon. Got missiles, supers, pbs, grapple, both suits, spring ball, hi-jump, ice, wave, spazer, some etanks and reserves.

Recommend you try this, especially if you're not opposed to using save states.
If someone were to fix save stations and upload a new version, I'd might even rate this 5 orbs.

Metroid - Rechoose by huanmengxujing [ MZM

Boss Rush], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 19, 2019 (

)

18% in 0:38

Interesting hack. Liked the little changes to make some areas accessible even if you didn't pick up an item that you'd normally have in vanilla. Doesn't require wall jumping or bomb jumping(at least iirc). Bonus points for neat ending image(s?).
Some item choices mattered in interesting ways. No morph ball -> can't pick up (power)bombs either, and can't fight acid worm. Didn't get a specific unknown item -> can't choose that path.
Not overly difficult unless you make it so, and doesn't overstay its welcome.

Minor bug, you can exit kiru giru room the way you came from after killing him which will prevent you from progressing. Also, you can _probably_ skip ice(on purpose tho) and will be unable to come back to it after getting to tourian, tho I didn't check if metroids were killable without ice(black pirates were probably changed, so maybe metroids too(didn't check black pirates tho)).

edit: mb escape is a bit difficult in one place without mobility items, but still doable.

Super Metroid: SnowCrash by uzqap [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Jul 19, 2019 (

)

92% in 5:48

Sadly, this has nothing to do with the book.
A decent hack for practicing mockball and short charging. Has some annoying moments.
All mockballs had ceiling assistance so you don't have to learn short hop, tho that can be considered a negative.
It is possible to get back into maridia without gravity even after breaking the tube.

Super Metroid Nature by Jefe962 [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Jan 06, 2019 (

)

90% in 0:00

Very well made but unfortunately nothing memorable. No challenging rooms in terms of enemies or hazards, and no interesting puzzles. Only things that stuck in memory are design oddities with optional items: needing 3 supers to get another super, needing pb to get a not hidden super, needing a super to get a missile, having to do a speedball to get a missile.

Metroid: Zero by OneOf99 and CaptGlitch [ MZM

Challenge], rated by caauyjdp on Jun 20, 2018 (

)

72% in 1:54

Just beat it on normal with 1 super to spare, and at least two missile packs uncollected. I probably wasted about 10 missiles, on missing and unnecessary doors. Did not have to learn zebetite skips.

The no health refill part of the hack fixes my only problem with ZM, it being too easy when played casually. It doesn't make it punishing, but makes it hard enough to consider reloading after taking couple of avoidable hits, or turning back to grab that out of the way energy tank you'd normally get later just so the low health alarm would stop(not saying it should be disabled).

No ammo refill is very interesting to me. I was curious if it'd be doable even before this hack, so getting a chance to try it is great. Unfortunately hack ends after mother brain escape, so I still don't know if vanilla is beatable without refills, although it seems highly likely.

I've encountered some minor issues along the way, and for lack of a better place will list them here.
After beating kraid, both his arms didn't despawn, and kept doing the death animation. Camera position was also still locked. Easily solved it by just blindly going left and bombing my way to next room, but still. Room was acting normal after re-entering.
If you don't save at the ship, refill sound doesn't stop playing until you leave the room.
Navigation statues seem to all start in sitting positions, which lets you avoid the "cutscene", but some of the statues were used in vanilla to make one way paths, so that kind of breaks that.
Can't block refill bugs from respawning by leaving the drop uncollected anymore.
Despite hack description taunting noobs to play on hard, hard mode is not unlocked after credits.

The biggest problem I have with this hack is that it makes charge beam actually useful(i'm pretty sure it's a required item now, to beat the hack).

Probably won't be replaying it, but it was solid fun while it lasted.

Odd Mission by Ing-ing [ MZM

Vanilla+], rated by caauyjdp on Mar 11, 2018 (

)

75% in 2:17

NOTE: For those attempting 100%. This hack seems to have more of some of the items than vanilla, and it makes endgame screen percentage misleading. I have collected 29 missile packs, 24 super missile packs(vanilla has 15, I'm capped at 30 supers, 9 of the packs didn't count), 17 energy tanks(vanilla has 12, I'm capped at 1299 energy, 5 tanks didn't count), 5 power bomb packs, and 14 upgrades(including varia, not sure how it's counted). Endgame screen shows 75% although I'm counting 89 items. Also got "glitched" 87%, 105 items, by clipping into vanilla ridley

Played this through six times so far, around 25 hours total, and will probably play it through a couple more times.
A very nice redesign of vanilla map.
I accidentally managed to miss power grip on first playthrough, which made me finally learn how to bomb jump properly, but I don't think it's actually required anywhere.
~~It does seem to require you to go through heated rooms without protection, which could be non obvious, but there is an energy tank on the way to heal you up.~~ Nevermind, varia is gettable before that.
Vines in norfair seem to have ungodly amount of hp, not sure what's that about, could be a way of gating you before you have enough missiles/supers, but having to mash missiles every time you pass through was kind of annoying.
It seems you only get one chance to get charge beam, which seems doable with missiles, but you can get supers before that, which makes it a non-issue.
Two states of Imago Cocoon/Kiru Giru room is kind of odd, not sure if it's a bug or intended, but going down to fight Imago hangs the game. You can always get around that by using any other exit.
You can get stuck getting out of the space jump room, if you try to go out the way you came in.
Map/minimap has some issues, like odd exits on the map/minimap that don't seem to exist in the room, and wrong door types, and I'm still not sure if some items are actually there, or if the map is wrong, but that only makes 100% more difficult and doesn't prevent you from completing the game.
Game seems to prevent you from going back from save room just before mother brain, which is a very odd choice.

Other than that, it's like playing ZM again for the first time.
Loved every minute of it.

Other hacks I've played are Metroid Other ZM, Deep Freeze, Winter Mission and Metroid: Spooky Mission. Odd mission is imho best of those, with Metroid Other ZM being close second.
If this were to get a version 1.1 with map/minimap fixed, even leaving all the other issues in, I'd rate it 5/5

P.S. It it possible to get into kraid without any items, and get back out after beating kraid. Way out is even kind of hinted/discoverable without prior knowledge.
P.P.S. There are at least three rooms with items, that are in different states/versions depending on which entrance you used to get in. Some items are only present in specific room states/versions. Might be intended.
P.P.P.S. Possibly permastucks: Going past 2nd(original) hive room without morph ball. Using shortcut to get around "power grip plant"(two ways of getting out that I know of both require speed booster, but having speed booster makes the plant disappear anyway. It might have a 3rd condition to despawn?). Getting missile in top left corner of kraid without bombs or power grip.

Temporus by Grime [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Mar 07, 2021 (

)

34% in 1:28

Another hack that I can't decide if it's a 2 or 4 orbs.
It's visually interesting.
Morph related changes are annoying at first, but hack is fairly short so they don't have time to annoy you much.
Bunch of "quality of life" changes/tweaks which are interesting to see in an old hack.
Some enemies deal a lot of damage, but ship save is never/rarely too far away.

What bothers me the about this hack, is the "random" placement of items. There can be a lot of items placed on same screen with little or no hints. Even just bombing every tile isn't enough here, because hack doesn't use/show vanilla super block gfx. You'll have to bomb every tile and shoot everything with wave to find things, and apparently I wasn't doing that enough.

Interesting, somewhat small/short, but likely not for easily frustrated.

Reverse by Sin [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Dec 31, 2020 (

)

68% in 4:03

Odd hack. I'm torn between rating it four orbs or two. It's not an average hack.
I really liked way to plasma.

Rewind by squishy_ichigo [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Dec 05, 2020 (

)

94% in 3:11

Vanilla rooms with slight tweaks to accomodate new item progression(s).
Bonus points for tweaked enemies, reduced points moving vanilla items hidden in "random" tiles to different seemingly random spots. Boss tweaks were a mixed bag.

Super Metroid: Exercise by Mr. Hiryu [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 29, 2020 (

)

79% in 7:06

An interesting hack that tries your patience sometimes, and wants to murder your eyeballs.

AMNR - Nes Mission by The Brothers Crafters [ MZM

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Jul 04, 2020 (

)

100% in 3:08

Played version 1.2 of this for about 4h30m. Got 100% because author was in the chat giving hints, probably would have stopped at around 75% otherwise.
I have almost none experience with nestroid. Level design of nestroidy parts is.. I don't want to say bad. It's on par with original I guess, with very similar looking rooms, and copy/pasted looking segments. Nestroidy also means no slopes, and there's very few places where you can charge speed, tho vanilla places where it'd be needed were changed accordingly. Traversing is still kind of a pain tho. Especially once/since health is not an issue.
There's clipdata errors, potential softlocks if you try to explore before getting bombs, but nothing majorly broken.

Game got a lot more interesting for me in crateria and tourian(and beginning of chozodia that was altered) which were supery parts of the hack.

P.S. Just remembered that map was correct(barring one slight error in brinstar) and that almost brings it up to four orbs for me.

Arena 2 by Jathys [

Boss Rush], rated by caauyjdp on Jul 23, 2019 (

)

72% in 0:18

Patch is for headered rom despite what page says.
Huge improvement on Arena 1.
Animals saved.
Plasma was a bit glitchy, maybe spawn requirement is time? Gravity can be recollected.
Finding path to kraid was annoying even with eventual hint from the readme.

Summer Mission SHORT by Ing-ing [ MZM

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on May 07, 2019 (

)

53% in 5:04

I liked speedbooster/screw/pb tiles, and mechanic used behind ridley's room, but that's about it.

No walljump, power grip only works on specific things, ibj might still be possible, but definitely not vanilla.
If you get power grip before bombs, you can explore a lot of areas, and that makes finding bombs harder because it could be anywhere in those areas.
Automatic missile spam wasn't interesting from the start, and got really annoying during boss fights because of seemingly low damage.
Mother brain fight was garbage due to refill bugs. On one hand they made it impossible to do anything, on the other hand drops refill so much that I just tanked everything.

Only part when playing was actually fun was one multi room spark chain and that only took a couple of minutes.

edit: just found space jump.. path to it is neat.. upgrading to 3 orbs

Vermifugal by alexman25 [ MZM

Quick Play], rated by caauyjdp on Feb 02, 2019 (

)

12% in 0:10

Incredibly broken but also very short, so it still manages to be fun.
Does not seem to have Mua despite hack name.
Also, has better looking underwater effect than Return to Zebes :)

edit: just replayed this. old 30% seems to have been with repicking up items, actual % I was able to pick up was 12%. Game seems to crash during a boss fight on mGBA, but "works" on no$gba. Also, a save station was working at one point, so it might be posible to explore further past some uninteractable blocks if they have the same breaking condition.

Super Metroid: Colors by After K [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Jun 19, 2021 (

)

107% in 4:54

meh

Super Metroid Revolution EX by RealRed [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Jun 09, 2021 (

)

74% in 4:11

Decent for a hack this old, but tonns of annoyances, especially early on.

Super Metroid: Depth by Tedicles [

Quick Play], rated by caauyjdp on May 16, 2021 (

)

13% in 0:25

took about 2h40m real time.
Hack is confusing as hell. Map station shows a section that is seemingly inaccessible. Has some seemingly broken doors, a potential crash in varia room and slope stucks. Has respawning pb blocks with low pb ammo.

On the other hand, it looks nice from what little you can actually see. Enemy damages/health have been tweaked(except seemingly drain damages) so it's not attempting to be hard.

Biggest problem with the hack is hunting for shot/bomb blocks when you can barely see, which given the name of the hack is intended, but that doesn't make it any fun.

Super Metroid: Hyperion by silverpaw84 [

Quick Play], rated by caauyjdp on Apr 02, 2021 (

)

16% in 2:32

Somewhat interesting, but gets annoying really quick with grapple section over teleporting abyss(that might be possible with "just" blind jumps) and blind morph mazes. Might be rating it too low because I couldn't figure out how to get two interesting items...

Marida/Norfair by Crys [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Mar 12, 2021 (

)

40% in 1:27

Palettes looked nice. Quicksand seemed much worse without water physics. You're forced to get gravity to progress and it negates impact of most of the changes.
Nice to look at, boring to play?

MockingBird Station by Xaggoth [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Feb 26, 2021 (

)

44% in 5:59

Spent about 11hours on this.

A good four orb hack that gets dragged down by few very annoying design decisions/restrictions.
The only save station is the ship. There is no map. Because the hack is quite deadly at times, you're forced to choose to either backtrack a lot of rooms back to the ship to save and then traverse them again to get back, or remember where every single thing you picked up was, possibly making a map, to recollect everything after death.

I chose to backtrack every few items. If you want to play this without getting annoyed, I recommend savestates.

Getting grapple was the worst part of the hack. Had to resort to pause abuse, and even with it took a while, partially because getting back there takes time.

There was one case where I missed scroll trigger and after failing to get back onscreen, had to deal with broken scroll offsets after door transition eventually leading to reset.

Super at turtles seemed to be respawning. Possibly not on reentry but on save reload, because same seemed to happen to one red door I opened.

Some "doors" were missing plm at the bottom tile. One of them seemed to use different index resulting in a new glitched door spawning from the bottom tile on room reentry.

"Broken" green gate was a terrible design decision. If you have tings that can be mistaken for unintentionally broken, there better not be actually broken things in the hack.

Ceiling clips doesn't seem to be required anywhere, and if you want to try, take care, because some ceilings seem to be just one tile thick, and you can easily clip to oob without a way to get back in.

One neat thing about the hack tho, is that lag was made a feature.
Another neat thing was, that after getting a new power up, I immediately knew which room I needed to use it in, just not where the hell it was or how to get there again, and whether that was a way to progression or just an expansion.

If you don't mind using savestates and can shortcharge, I recommend this.

Super Metroid: Fantasy and Dazzle by backfire [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Feb 18, 2021 (

)

119% in 2:55

Not living up to it's name.
No interesting changes. Can't seem to decide if it wants to be an easy or difficult hack.

Zero Challenge by Ing-Ing [ MZM

Challenge], rated by caauyjdp on Jan 31, 2021 (

)

51% in 1:11

Makes you pay attention.
Stealth section had more than 1 health.

Vanilla++ by squishy_ichigo [

Vanilla+], rated by caauyjdp on Dec 09, 2020 (

)

66% in 2:28

Do you like dying in shallow pits of of lava/acid? Would you like to aproximate being colorblind? Do you like asking "Why?" rhetorically?
Then SM: Vanilla-- is a hack for you.

Only thing this hack has going for it is the palettes.

Super Metroid: The Darkness Spreads 2 by BoostGuardian [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 23, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

For a bad halfhack this is actually pretty good.
Hack had an interesting habbit of creating temporary one ways and turning some vanilla paths into dead ends that you'd explore from both sides. Half of maridia was new room layouts which were pretty good. Hack was brave enough to cut some vanilla rooms, which I don't recall any other halfhack doing.
If it wasn't for spiky death early on, lots of forced damage, some permastucks and (kind of intentional on my behalf)crashes, I'd probably rate it 4 orbs.
Did not finish, sabotaged myself earlier in the playthrough which made successful escape very unlikely. If you want to be clever and use crystal flash to go wrong way through one way passage in this hack - don't.

Super Metroid: The Darkness Spreads 1 by BoostGuardian [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 18, 2020 (

)

98% in 3:26

Doesn't change enough.
Somewhat confusing what intent was. Platforming in several places were made easier in some places, but one the other hand kraid was annoyingly buffed.
Getting pb early makes the hack somewhat trivial, but on the other hand I think getting them is intended after speed, and that'd force a lot more backtracking?
Crashed somewhat randomly twice.
I really enjoyed gravity suit palette tho.

Super Metroid: Dependence by Black Telomeres [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 08, 2020 (

)

97% in 8:55

Spent about 13 hours on this.
Hack starts with 60 damage spikes(fact that you could have found an etank before that doesn't matter). It doesn't get better. It has some neat moments. Red crateria norfair is one. Boss rooms are... memorable?
Hack likes to hide progression path sometimes. It loves one way passaegs that make you backtrack through couple other areas to get back to where you just were.
Not enough save stations.
It seems like escape is really trollish, but maybe I just haven't found "correct" path.
One item requires clipping through blocks(twice) as far as I can tell.
Avoid.

Metroid X: The 101% Run by dark_rocco [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 04, 2020 (

)

97% in 6:32

Spent about 11hours on this? oO
This hack needed polish and testing and modern tools.
It looks ok..ish?
There's not enough saves, permastucks(only some were "my fault"), might not be using scroll plms at all?
There's at least one somewhat easily missable item.
Bomb timer change makes playing annoying and seemingly for no reason because I can't recall any place where I through that ibj would be useful here.
Map doesn't save properly which I can't blame old hacks for too much, but it doesn't help.
Wrecked ship is a mess because you can access it really early but won't be able to do much there until later.
A lot of my frustration with this hack comes from not finding varia when it became available.
It's worth trying to see if you'll like it at least.

Chararin 2 by What Chara [

Challenge], rated by caauyjdp on Aug 15, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

Played this for around 24h30m. Got around 92% if vanilla item counts.
Died in escape. Did not feel like retrying.
Way to ws was hidden in a dumb way. Some things left me curious how they were intended.
Was a good excuse to practice.

Chararin by What Chara [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Aug 08, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

Played this for around 8h30m, did not get to any of the major bosses. Nothing super frustrating except having no idea where the hack wants me to go next. One neat thing was hack remidning of other ways to glitch gates and x-ray exit blue/speed door.

Super Metroid: Hermit Kingdom by Kojakt [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Jul 11, 2020 (

)

90% in 4:48

A bad halfhack.
Lots of one way passages which force you to do a huge loop to get back. Some speedblocks that either mean that you're supposed to have a blue suit/do a short charge into mockball/that it's an exit/that hack is unfinished? One room pretty early on strongly hints that it's there for players to get spike suit, which I didn't learn yet. Maridia without gravity is forced, but there's shit ton of platforms added, so what's the point?
Found one broken door which leads into solid blocks, and one out of bounds.
~~Ketchup beam was nerfed into nothing?~~
Hack tosses you into rooms from other areas without even bothering to make them fit current one.
Map doesn't save properly. Has at least 4 etanks more than vanilla which leads to garbled hud gfx.
Got tired of this hack by the time I was done with brinstar.

Metroid Bloodstone by NORTHa [

Quick Play], rated by caauyjdp on Jun 20, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

Neat puzzle/platforming hack that unfortunately doesn't have saves(as far as I know). It generously gives you 3 etanks worth of extra energy at the start and has refills between challenges, but if you die, you get to start from the beginning. I can only guess it's because saves were hard to make back then, and that people were expected to savestate, which would have made this a much more enjoyable experience, but alas.

Played up to stage 3, seemed like a 4 orb hack to me, until I fell out of bounds(?) in acid, and that's where I stopped playing.
For parts that I've played it was interesting guessing if if author was aware of some of the tricks that allowed to bypass sections of the hack and if it was intentionally that way because restart at the beginning, or if it was accidental.

If you're not savestate averse, give it a try.

Super Metroid: Battle by Banana Oyaji [

Boss Rush], rated by caauyjdp on Jun 03, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

Played this for about 1h50m(no idea what took so long). It was fun and enjoyable up untill screw attack. Did not finish. Very salty.

Escape from Metroid Zero Mission by uNsane [ MZM

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Jan 08, 2020 (

)

41% in 1:11

Played around with this for about 4 hours.

First room is definitely the most interesting one, you get to experiment with metroid ai and rng, but once you get past it gets kind of boring.
There's some minor problems once you get past it:
You can get stuck in the 2nd room if you get locked into crouched position without morph.
One of the doors is set up wrong so you're never actually required to climb on frozen metroids.
Another door is accessible while it probably(two rooms were changed so it might have been intended) shouldn't, which allows you to get power grip and skip mb.
Some events are broken somehow, long beam navigation statue doesn't remember it's been activated and glass tube doesn't become breakable after charlie.

It was interesting that out of three unknown items only plasma was enabled before charlie.

Savestates are not necessary. It'd help if hacks like this started with a save room to skip repeating the ship landing cutscene but what can you do.

Legacy by Banana Oyaji [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 11, 2019 (

)

81% in 7:11

Map doesn't save, so I'd recommend trying to apply that patch before playing if you can't play in one sitting(or use save states). Not going to rate it worse because of this specifically, tho it did greatly inflate the playtime.

Tons of one way paths for seemingly no reason. Lots of fake walls with no hints(and hints of fake walls where there are none). No hint for path to grapple? Sudden area changes from regular door transitions. Terrible multisegmented maridia. Path to draygon not hinted as far as I can tell. Forced mockball to access lower norfair for no reason? Lots of rooms recognizably vanilla despite extensive changes, usually for the worse.

No spikes use tho, and some of etanks were placed nicely to give you a refill exactly when you might need it.

Wouldn't recommend completing it, but playing till you'll get frustrated might be worth it.

Super Metroid: Derprevation by Super_Metroid_1990 [

Incomplete], rated by caauyjdp on Jul 26, 2019 (

)

No completion stats.

Messed with this hack for about two hours total.
Unfortunately incomplete, wrecked ship is inaccessible from both directions due to broken doors.
Has altered bomb timing, and is so far the only hack where I actually liked this change. Going through gauntlet with it was actually really fun.
There's some broken doors. Very few changes past crateria(didn't go to lower norfair though because didn't find gravity).
Liked the whitish palette with the blue tint, and even varia palette looked kind of nice.
Has a deathtrap near gauntlet etank(which respawns) with respawning crumble block trapping you in acid with no exit.
If you have some time to kill, try messing with this hack.

Test by Jathys [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Jul 23, 2019 (

)

No completion stats.

Worth "playing" just to read the new intro.

Super Metroid: Cristener Homenag by Juan Dennys [

Vanilla+], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 05, 2018 (

)

99% in 6:34

Not as bad as I heard.

It's not pretty for the most part, but it does have some nice looking parts.

There are softlocks. Never lost much progress to them.
One door near shaktool had broken scrolls but it fixed itself by going back.

Doing sand halls suitless was somewhat painful, but at least I learned how to get out of sand(sometimes). Plus, I'm not even certain if gravity was Draygon locked or if it was Botwoon and I could have had a suit by then.

Was really surprised to see that some bosses were nerfed by room changes(gt, phantoon and maybe ridley too). Kraid wasn't too bad as soon as I remembered facetanking. Draygon was weird, room changes gave you plenty of safe spots, and you can sill grapple kill him.

I think trick to Aqueduct was clever, but maybe that's just because I figured it out quickly.

Really glad this hack wasn't stingy with resources, had plenty of etanks and supers/pbs by midpoint.

Giving this two orbs, but if softlocks were fixed(although how you'd fix many many grapple related softlocks is beyond me) it would have been a three.

Searching for Items by Terimakasih [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Oct 25, 2018 (

)

No completion stats.

Save at the ship doesn't work, loads you somewhere out of bounds with the spore spawn.
Beginning seemed somewhat interesting, but not enough to beat my dislike of using savestates
edit: fixed saving at the ship by changing word at 80:C4C7 to 8D42. Did couple more heat runs, no idea if I'm supposed to have found pb/varia already, or if author intended to guess where to go in norfair. Running back to norfair from the ship(which doesn't even work without a fix) for another try is no fun.

Disturbance by interdpth/raygun [ MZM

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Apr 22, 2018 (

)

99% in 2:14

edit: Replayed this recently. Found the way to tourian. I suspect(but haven't bothered to replay and take notes) one of the missile packs got changed to supers leading to game not being able to count item percentage correctly. There's also more than vanilla count of etanks which is part of same issue.

My only guess is that creator thought that zero mission was too difficult.
You start with power grip and get hi-jump in the next room. No long beam before hive room, but you can get 20 missiles before it. Platforms were added to make getting early varia trivial, and after you get varia, you also get a super missile pack, which give 3 missiles per pack on normal. Unknown items are enabled.
In contrast to this, Kraid and Ridley seem to have more health. Kraid was still trivial, but Ridley on the other hand is a missile sponge. After three attempts to stop wasting ammo on his tail swipes I figured I'm probably doing something wrong. Turns out he's vulnerable to charged plasma, and since I also had wave and gravity at that point... In retrospect, it's odd that I had to fight cocoon without ice. Probably should have checked if he was vulnerable to screw attack.
Couldn't find a way into tourian(except backdoor, but it was in escape state, so door to mother brain was gray), but gravity meant I could get power bombs and go into chozodia and complete the game anyway. Guardian and mecha ridley seemed unchanged, but escape sequence timer started at 99 minutes(or hours?) and just disappeared in the next room.
There were some ideas in this hack(not necessarily good or finished), but (barely) enough to keep me playing up to chozodia. Sadly chozodia itself seemed unchanged(except maybe some missiles were changed to supers?), and only interesting moments were game being confused when I got to places where suitless samus couldn't get to.
Can't really recommend this to anyone, but I've definitely played worse hacks.
P.S. You can leave chozodia. Either open high way first and return through that, or break the glass after guardian fight.

2nd Quest by Arva [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Jul 17, 2021 (

)

100% in 4:09

took about 7hours
Forced unspin on walljump is a crime. Faster bomb timer is annoying and serves no purpose.
Door warps I didn't really mind, not enough of them to affect anything.
Music crash in powered off Wrecked Ship Entrance. Wrong door color in Red Brinstar Elevator Room. Bad door connection from Plasma Spark Room to Butterfly Room leads to out of bounds in Crateria.
Path to first intended pbs is not hinted at all? Suitless maridia is forced, ok, but why do you hide a secret path to skip most of the way to gravity.
Almost quit playing when couldn't progress to botwoon, because don't know how to spike suit, but read hack description about Rocket Ball. Took a look at implementation, you have to press up and jump on exactly same frame while springballing. This makes you spark up. This also gives you a spike(?) suit, and based on pre botwoon room, it might be intended, because vertical spark alone doesn't help there?
Would not recommend. Nothing too terrible, bit buggy, and annoying to find progression at times, but walljump change alone makes it not worth playing.

Criminal Intent by Obbligato [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Jun 28, 2021 (

)

82% in 4:29

variable ammou count doors are really annoying, especially in beginning, when picking wrong door to try might mean reset/going back to refill
boss locked doors means forced backtracking for items
mickey mouse and pre x-ray rooms were not good..

hack gets some points for putting grapple blocks in sand halls, too bad they don't help you getting out if you fall
item progression was somewhat interesting

Super Metroid: Confinement by Bolognab [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Jun 03, 2021 (

)

No completion stats.

Everything except missiles shares item id, so either don't die ever or use savestates(using regular save will make rest of the items disappear after collecting morph). afaik(tm)

Super Metroid: Paddle by Mr. Hiryu [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on May 28, 2021 (

)

84% in 4:25

took about 8 hours
So, at start, the only save point I recall finding was the ship. And after dying to a certain unused enemy, I made a habbit to use it, and it saved me from some frustration while being annoying in itself. Path to supers and back took "a while", partially because me being dumb on way back.
X-ray room was.. strangely enough unlocked.
Path to ~~phantoon or~~ kraid took a while finding, and I'm tempted to blame increased fall speed making it harder to enter nonground level morph passages, but I'm not sure.
Path to draygon was.. where was it? I clipped through crumbles, but there had to be intended way.. right?
Bubble mountain had music related(?) crash/eternal loading when leaving the room.
"Had to"(apparently I didn't have to) reset escape, and I'm tempted to say it's because one of the door tiles wasn't a door, but it's likely I just missed my shots.
Only thing I actually liked was the "tiling error" in Ridley's room, which made fight actually harder, it's not ofter hacks pull off good boss room changes, and even if could have been accidental, still, interesting change.
Not recommended.

Metroid 2000 2000 by Ing-ing [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Apr 16, 2021 (

)

No completion stats.

Wasted over 12 hours on this, only to get softlocked because I left ridley after "fully" exploring it. Edited save to warp back in there, finished what was left of game anyway. The "plot" after softlock part.. felt reminded of summer mission.. really of tired of that.
Gameplaywise, nothing good or too terrible sticks to memory. Boiler explosion was kind of bs, because you need to wait/rng for good enemy positions?
Few softlocks, tiling errors, door warps.
Navigation points are broken/vanilla, so it's HIGHLY recommended that you remember event order and sectors they take place in, without relying on adam.
I don't like fusion as is, and this hack.. I don't know. If it wasn't for the ridley softlock I'd might have been more lenient, but that ruined the hack for me.

Seven Star by Mr. Hiryu [

Quick Play], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 26, 2020 (

)

45% in 2:39

A very bland hack. Terrible bombs location. Bad physics.

Super Metroid: Golden Dawn by Black Telomeres [

Exploration], rated by caauyjdp on Nov 13, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

about 9 hours wasted
got as far as grapple
trash hack, delete
edit: might be tolerable/interesting with savestates

Super Metroid: Aquamarine by NORTHa [

Unknown], rated by caauyjdp on Jun 22, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

Decided to try this after noticing it's by same author as bloodstone.
Bloodstone had spikes, but it aslo gave you energy so you could survive more than 1 hit.
Bloodstone had potential softlocks, this had an intentionally(?) partially missing ceiling, that either got you stuck out of bounds, or just locked you in forced two tile crouch.
And identical looking tiles were sometimes used for spikes, and sometimes not.
Granted, I didn't get very far, only got to the first red door.

Hard by Ir0n_BeasT [

Challenge], rated by caauyjdp on Jul 23, 2019 (

)

No completion stats.

Got it working with unheadered rom and ips from headered download link, Hard_[Ir0n_BeasT]_[uh].rar, named Super Metroid Hard by Ir0n_BeasT (Hack).IPS
Ceres timer is shorter, landing site is altered(and not well) and enemies buffed. Drops refill less.
Played up to red tower, with exception of landing site map and rooms seemed unchanged.

Arena 1 by Jathys [

Quick Play], rated by caauyjdp on Jul 23, 2019 (

)

No completion stats.

Patch is for headered rom despite what page says.
Nothing notable, except use of red crateria.

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