Tundain's Ratings and Reviews
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Super Zero Mission by SBniconico [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Oct 08, 2020 (Star Star Star Star Star )
85% in 12:45
The item collection is from my first playtrough, because i played this hack multiple times, it was that good.
All of the new graphics really make you feel like it's zero mission, but you can really feel how it's super metroid. Overall, it felt more like zero mission in super metroid, rather than a hybrid (the main map layout feels more like zero mission than super metroid, but that's okay). only at a certain (relatively short) moment you will recognize some of the sm terrain. This hack also features an element from metroid fusion, which was quite unexpected. Difficulty wise it was quite challenging, but i think that's because the author expects you to have mastered the original.
One of the things about this hack which brought this hack to my top 3, is the effort put into realism. Like, tourian ACTUALLY feels like a real lab and the pirate ship feels like and actual ship. Hard mode was also quite fun. Painfully hard, but it's not just the basic "buffed enemies" hard. He really changes a lot of terrain and item progression. It's not even completely linear, as there is one EXTREMELY hard (intentional) sequence-break, but with a huge reward.
Overall, this hack is a must-play, a piece of metconst culture, i'd call it.
However, make sure you've mastered vanilla if you don't want to suffer too much.
Eris by Digital_Mantra [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Oct 20, 2020 (Star Star Star Star Star )
67% in 6:22
Placing this review because i never did and that way i can also review vitality without that voice in my head saying "and eris?"

I finished this hack like a year ago, so i don't remember everything.

I know that it's near perfection, every room is unique, and even with a one-area hack, it's great.
I just enjoyed travelling and searching for the rest of the items a lot.
Sad part to me is that you only get the main lore at the very end of the game, but nevertheless an
unforgettable experience.
there's just one hard boss part at the beginning you're not gonna like

But it stays a must-play!
Screwed Chopped and Restitched by Noxus, InsomniaDX [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Jan 06, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
55% in 1:46
This hack is quite weird, but there are some really nice ideas. It becomes pretty obvious why you can't open the map menu once you realize how everything is connected. In terms of room design, not really very interesting, and there was one annoying area were almost everything is spikes. Otherwise i really liked the new screw attack mechanic, although a bit op, but that's not so bad. A solid 3/5 orbs bc it's not something to look up to, but it can be fun.
SM - Cryogenesis by Onnyks [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Jan 09, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
75% in 4:20
Awesome hack! splendid work with the tiling, every room felt amazing and unique in it's own way. The map structure was quite nice, and the gameplay as well (i enjoyed the "elevators" in some rooms that brought you back up). Difficulty wise it's pretty well-balanced.
I love the new item that was introduced, but it's pretty late-game meaning you don't get to do a lot with it (hopefully it will get more attention in the dlc). Overall, amazing hack!
Lost World by TROM [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Jan 11, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
117% in 27:51
This is my second run where I went for 100% (or 117% in this case).
This hack is extremely long, but to me, that was one of the parts that I enjoyed the most. I really liked the graphics, the art was very good. some patterns were repetitive but they were good nonetheless.
First of all, the first part, the beginning. At the start things stay very mysterious, there's not really a lot of information on what to do (although you are given a story line, so i guess you could say you know something. It's extremely straightforward in the beginning, there's only one way to go, and it's made extremely clear. I do like the fact that you need to travel very long before reaching the first upgrade, this is something you don't see in many hacks. I think this is good because it teases you with a lot of different possible places you can go, so you know that there will always be a place you can check out later on. The first boss is pretty boring though, you can only hit him once every certain amount of time. It's a pretty boring fight which becomes annoying if you have to do it multiple times (this happened to me once because shortly after the boss fight, you can get softlocked and it happened twice). This was the "introduction" part and then things get more interesting. Next is a long underwater section which was pretty tedious, and at first, the botwoon fight seemed extremely unfair, but once you figure something out (which isn't actually so obvious, based on how you progressed until then) it becomes a lot easier. After this you need to go all the way back (a long way, especially since a large section is underwater) to fight bt. Next You go through the only part of the hack where two areas are directly connected, all the other ways to go from area to area are via the warp station, which of course doesn't make it easy to draw a full map of the hack. I did like the fact that there's an easy hellrun, as it's really not that hard and it can be a fun challenge. The mountain area is my favorite, although I did get more the impression that it was a volcanic area. One funny detail I noticed was that in the background of the heated rooms, the creator has used some of crocomire's graphics, and they actually fit nicely. You go and get the next upgrade, after which you go again through a section you've already been, but to me that was not such a big problem since you often find new items on the way. After this, every upgrade you get helps you a lot to get to a lot of places. Some upgrades can help you explore entire sections of areas, and sometimes they just let you find one area. Once you get supers (which is pretty far in game, but that just makes it very satisfying to find them), everything really changes radically. you can finally get all the supers you've always wanted to get. You can also get the final two upgrades that allow you to, finally after all this time, to explore the entire map. Now a huge gate hunt starts to unlock the final area. In a lot of other reviews, I've seen that people don't really like this part, because there are no real hints. I disagree with this, I only believe it's hard at the start, when you haven't found any yet. Once you start to find the first few gates, if you pay attention to how they are placed on the map, you should start to notice a pattern, which in itself is actually a hint to were the other gates are for each area. Of course, I don't blame other people for maybe not figuring this out, as it shouldn't be expected of the player to start thinking about such things. Nonetheless I liked hunting for the gates, I also always ended up finding some extra items. The part that I enjoyed the least was the final area. This is mainly because of the way it was designed. it's very open, rectangular and empty, overall, just not so exciting (The difficulty is on par with what you'd expect from a final area though), I feel like Trom mainly wanted to keep it challenging, and focused on that a lot, resulting in the rooms not being any interesting, but you do need careful movement if you don’t want to lose all your health to a single Metroid? Also, why do the metroids look so weird? Almost every graphic in the game is well-made, and then there's... the metroids. they seriously look like little effort was put into them. The final boss is very repetitive, and also pretty easy once you figure out where the safe spots are. the story line is clear though, as in the end, you do free a lot of caged animals from pirates that wanted to kidnap them. You even get to see the ship they escape with. Overall, I'd say the exploration is very good, I really don't mind the way you need to backtrack, I will say that you had to do it often, but it's really not that bad. What I didn't really like about the level design is that it relied a lot on spikes. lots of huge rooms with narrow passageways where careful movement is required, and you often fall once which then results in you taking a lot of damage, especially in the early game, were you don’t have any suits yet.
The difficulty:
When it comes down to difficulty there’s a lot to say. As I mentioned earlier, you have a lot of spikes in some crappy spaces, so you need to move pretty slowly at sometimes and pretty quick at some other times. The enemy placement is very good, and I feel like every single enemy is placed in such a way that they will always be a problem when you traverse the room. This was great in some situations, like in one room of the mountains there is a jump scare because of a falling enemy. On other moments it just felt pretty stupid because the enemies are just in your way, but they’re really not a threat, you just spend your time killing them, and that’s it. Overall, every are had spikes, and almost every single room had spikes. I do like the fact that every area had their own quirk, although maybe just a bit too much. The hilly swamps had a lot of treadmills and a lot of quicksand, but I don’t really blame the latter for being there often. the final area was pretty challenging, but pretty short and not so interesting.
In conclusion, this is my favourite hack, after super zero mission. I liked the fact that it’s so big, since I really prefer large hacks (and no I don’t like MMR, I’m not crazy). Great work!
Super Metroid: Hotlands by MetroidNerd#9001 [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Feb 12, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
78% in 1:21
Animals saved

Very nice, I liked the music. The norfair + crateria tileset worked very nice. It might be short, but it's an awesome hack nonetheless!
Airy by Cyclamen32 [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Mar 27, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
75% in 3:22
This hack feels very mysterious, like you're visiting a dead planet, even though there's enemies. The dark atmosphere creates this effect, and in some rooms visibility was a bit hard, but not too bad. The physics were fun, you could traverse some rooms without touching the ground since you fall down so slowly. item progression was very strange, especially in the area with all the major beams. I liked the plot twist at the end. Escape was pretty boring.
Overall a very decent hack, but all the long backtracking does bring down one orb for me.
Super Metroid: Z-Factor by Metaquarius [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Mar 29, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
78% in 7:41
I really liked this hack. It's clear there's an emphasis on gameplay, as there were a lot of challenges, and the hack is higher in difficulty than vanilla. I liked this, some of the challenges were very innovative. One thing I disliked though, were the many one-way paths, and the many crumble blocks. Zaridia took me a while, but if you pay attention, it's not that hard finding your way. Tourian was amazing! I love how you promote x-ray by giving it more functionality. Saving the animals during this escape was painfully hard tho.
Harvest by Oi27 [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Apr 01, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
65% in 3:56
I do like this one, there's soo much custom stuff. The new mechanics are fun to use. The final boss was also a lot of fun. The only things that make me rate this 4 orbs instead of 5 are:
-Red crateria, just doesn't work well
-progression wasn't very clear (but maybe that's just me)
- New mechanics took a while to figure out, I remember staying in a room for 10 minutes until I remembered a something I hadn't tried yet (and that something isn't something players use very often in hack playtroughs)
But definitely give this one a try, you're not gonna regret what you'll find!
Super Metroid: Recovery by MetroidNerd#9001 [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on May 03, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
89% in 3:06
This is a halfhack alright, but it's definitely not like other halfhacks. This one has real quality in it. Gameplay is solid, and while the general map is just like vanilla, the way rooms have been changed and the world has been organized really makes it a nice, new experience. The negative tho is the fact that progression wasn't really obvious in some places (i didn't find the crumble blocks to grapple at first, but maybe that's just me). Tourian was also very nice.
A solid 4/5 orbs, give this one ago
Also, animals saved
Super Metroid: Exercise by Mr. Hiryu [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Jun 05, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
63% in 6:21
Very strange hack, aesthetics were not exactly great, but they weren't an eyesore. Some very strange design decisions in a some of places, and progression wasn't very obvious (I got stuck trying hellruns in LN for a long time).
But gameplay itself made up for those flaws, so I did like it after all, it's definitely a nice hack.
Super Metroid: Escape II by Hiroishi [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Jun 05, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
68% in 8:10
really a great hack, I love the fact that there are a bunch of secret-and super secrets hidden throughout the entirety of the map. Made replaying a lot of fun, as the optional challenges are very cool. A lot of sequence break options, I kept finding new ways to get different items early!

On the negative side, the palettes were pretty saturated, wasn't a too pretty sight in some places (but that's really just a minor issue)
Play for a really nice time!
Super Metroid: Escape by Mr. Hiroishi [SM Unknown], rated by Tundain on Jun 05, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
72% in 4:25
Certainly a very strange hack. The precursor of the better-known escape 2 (it was only when I discovered this hack that I found out why it was named escape Two, lol).
Palettes are pretty ugly, and most of the world is pretty strange connected (there were only like, one or two places were areas actually connected. It took me pretty long before I encountered any boss, most of the time was just me running around.
Still an enjoyable time, but not as good as the sequel (some palettes look extra-ugly here)
Ice Metal Uninstall by Crys [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Jun 05, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
70% in 6:32
I really love this hack. the aesthetics look really nice. the world is also extremely open, you can go to a lot of places in a lot of different ways, i enjoyed that a lot.
I don't get tho, why:
-Beams have been weakened drastically (the more beams you have on, the less damage you deal)
-charge beam is only accessible after a different major upgrade

other than that, most of the hack is a lot of fun, especially running around exploring.
Stardust by Tyjet66 [SM Quick Play], rated by Tundain on Jun 05, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
78% in 1:40
Very strange tiny hack, a lot of item pickups pretty much anywhere.
I did waste a lot of item early on because a progression point wasn't really clear to me (but that's just me not paying enough attention)
Other than that, there's not really a lot to say, good hack.
Super Metroid: Hydellius by TROM [SM Unknown], rated by Tundain on Jun 05, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
54% in 10:51
A Trom hack, i played this after lost world, so i knew what kind of stuff to expect (a lot of visible but unreachable supers. I liked this one as well, but the constant running through the entire hack made it a lot less fun. the twin doors were pretty nice, but i feel like they were used too much.
The aesthetics were very nice to look at tho, I liked most of the tilesets (while they were used in a boring way, mainly in mechanical areas).
Lastly, just what was that "final boss"?, just some space pirates to kill? sry but that's straight up more boring than a vanilla mother brain fight
SM:Decision by JoshShoeWah [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Jun 05, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
81% in 1:24
Decent short hack with some ugly suit palettes.
Don't forget to wise choosely!
Metroid Mission Rescue by Mettyk25jigsaw [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Jun 19, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
72% in 31:07
Wow, I can't believe it, it's finally done, what an insanely long journey this has been.

Now, there's a lot of stuff to say about this hack, so let's get to it.
Visually:
the aesthetics were quite boring-looking. The author used a bunch of repetitive tiling (created some patterns, and then proceeded to use them again and again and again...). This was most notable in wadaria, where it's just one tileset and the same, boring design in every single room. The tiles themselves were mostly well-used (read: non-ugly). Although there were a few spots with questionable tiling decisions. A room in Arion skirt comes to mind, and also a lot of rooms in tourian (like seriously, it looked really ugly there). The palettes are in some spots really questionable. a lot of conflicting color near each other. Not an eyesore, but just not nice to look at. Also red crateria was used. Also the missiles/supers looked not so nice imo.
Overall i would say that visually, I wonder how the creator could have made this and thought to himself: "yeah this looks fine".
Level design:
My biggest issue was that slopes are a serious problem here, the creator forgot that ceiling slopes needed an additional slope so you could slide along them. This resulted in the fact that when running around, you constantly bonk your head against a sloped ceiling and lose all your speed, which is pretty annoying. Also there's a lot of rooms with almost no slopes that are annoyingly made, as if to purposely slow you down/annoy you (for example, varia suit room).
Most of the rooms are also just straight up boring, and every once in a while you come across a room which has a challenge in it.
gameplay:
This was not so fun. In the beginning you have almost no ammo due to how limited expansions are, and as you get more ammo, it stays usefull, as the late-game beams are surprisingly weak, so you still end up using your super missiles a lot of the time.
The items themselves are a bit stupidly hidden. There's enough items out there that are in obvious spots, but the rest of them are all located in some random ceiling, floor or wall which is pretty stupid. Also good thing: the new hud wasn't so hard to get used too, i found myself to be able to switch between everything quite easily. except that separate beams are just not fun. having to constantly switch just because you need to destroy that one block here and there was unenjoyable.
On the positive side, there's some fun puzzles and challenges here and there, you just need to keep playing until you find them (there's even some custom content).
I do hate how restricted every mechanic has become to ensure the linearity of the hack.
progression:
a lot of backtracking, although it's really not tedious because you have a warping area. It's extremely linear tho, and even if there's a hint room to somewhat guide you, it took me a while before i even figured out how it worked. the hints themselves give you part of the information, so you still have to figure it out yourself which was nice (but sometimes very confusing, i ended up needing guidance in some spots). the ending gate hunt was also not so welcome, i really just wanted to finish the hack at that point, but i am forced to run around the entire world again, ugh.
Finally, the escape, what the hell was that. A bunch of mazes, some invisible, you need to find a missile that was (once again) hidden in a non-hinted spot, and if you fail to shoot it correctly, you have to reset (unless you're willing to wait a full hour until the timer runs out).
Overall it was not so fun. With the ginormous timer you get it didn't even feel like an escape.
the only positive thing tho was the challenge about keeping the metroid that follows you.

Now all of this does feel pretty negative, but I did somehow kind off enjoyed this hack, simply because it's so satisfying to finally finish it after everything you've been through.
The beginning is very demotivating, but once I pushed myself through it and started making progress it went better and better.

Why do I give this one 3 orbs?
well, there's a lot of downs, and a billion things that could be better. But the sheer size of it, and all the effort that probably went into it do deserve some credit, and once you get trough the early part, it's not so bad, some parts are even actually fun.
Super Metroid: Subversion by TestRunner and AmoebaOfDoom [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Sep 03, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 9:27
Simply a-ma-zing! no other way to put it
This hack is non-stop insane, there are a bunch (and a lot) of new and cool features that get good usage. The log book is really nice, and a good way to implement the lore.
The world was really nice, and you can keep and keep exploring and it will always be fun, as you will keep finding more and more secrets and shortcuts that make it easy to traverse
I can say so much more (i want to) but i won't give spoilers.

I cannot even begin to imagine how much hours of code and work went into this, testrunner and amoebaofdoom are some insane chads for making this, really!

This is definitely my new favourite hack, and it needs to become yours too!
play this.


also, animals saved.
Reimagined by SavageWizzrobe [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Feb 12, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
66% in 4:25
Really great vanilla hack. The world is bigger than vanilla (especially crateria) giving you a lot to explore, which is very nice. A few touches of m1 level design here and there.
Progression wasn't very obvious, i got supers early, and i have no clue on what the intended way was to get to powerbombs.
Also sometimes you're travelling really far only to find a minor pickup like a missile, but that's really not so bad.
There are some nice qol changes here and there.
Overall, a very decent vanilla hack that succeeds at being vanilla.
Recommended
Super Metroid: Redesign by Drewseph [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Mar 12, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
I remember playing this a version a very long time ago, so sadly i don't remember my stats.

That out of the way, here are my thoughts:
I played this without even knowing about the existence of axeil edition, so i thought this was all there was. I still enjoyed it tho (perhaps because of my ignorance?). The physics where smth i could just never truly get used to, but it did worked out. I don't think i have a lot to add (mainly since it's been so long), except that the lost caverns here are truly a nightmare.
Also, there's no wrecked ship, sadge :(

Still a worthy piece of metconst history, even if it is hated upon by it's own creator nowadays.
SM Redesign: Axeil Edition by Drewseph [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Mar 12, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
This was played a long time ago so no stats have been preserve dunfortunately.

Once i discovered axeil edition was a thing, i was really excited to play this.
Having played OG redesign before and only one of the later versions of axeil, i can safely say this was an unforgettable experience. I was constantly comparing what changes had been made, which always made me happy because previously annoying sections had been incredibly improved. The lost caverns now was much better, and i managed to figure it out this time, tho i spent a long while in the hint room.
My favourite part of the hack is probably crateria depths. I actually liked the long suitless underwater section. Also since this edition does allow some sequence breaks, it was a cool challenge to try and keep a shinespark going through most of the section.
Tourian was also better, the metroids where challenging, tho i never really figured out how their behaviour worked, and i think there should have been some limit to how many will appear in a room.

Still no wrecked ship unfortunately :(, sadge

All in all, a perfect example of a creator who decided to improve upon mistakes and save his work of art. Good work!
Metroid: Salt Mission by alexman25 [MZM Spoof], rated by Tundain on Apr 02, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
4% in 0:02
I miss my friend already
Super Junkoid by P. Yoshi [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Aug 22, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
94% in 3:15
As beta tester of this hack, I can equally say that this hack is a must-play. A completely new experience awaits you here.
gossamer by neen [SM Exploration], rated by Tundain on Mar 01, 2024 (Star Star Star Star Star )
84% in 3:12
This a very mixed bag, but ultimately, it really just leans towards 2 orbs for me personally.
there's a lot to say about this hack, but in the end, i feel like this isn't really a hack, but more like a playground for testing visual effects, of which there are plenty, and ultimately just too much.
when you start the game, you notice the heavier gravity right away. a controversial choice to start of with, but not as bad as some other hacks.
a lot of the rooms have very strange level design, which feel a lot of the time designed to force you into taking roundabouts in each room.
Also since it doesn't seem like all enemies where rebalanced, enemies hit like a truck for a large portion of the hack, so be careful there.

Once i got to mladicia, i quickly realised suitless was gonna be a prominent part of the hack, which didn't made me very happy.
An actual sense of progression felt really absent. I really could never guess what the hack was expecting from me and just ran around aimlessly until i found something. At one point you take a journey to a faraway spot in the first area, with a tight challenge, and when you finally get the reward, you find out it doesn't actually help you in terms of progression (even tho the reward do is great i guess).
many rooms, although interesting in terms of visual effects, just looked pretty boring and bland in terms of tiling (the ship being the worst offender, as it has entire rooms (or part of rooms) tiled with the single, same tile. Also, i had to look up a playtrough to find phantoon, since there's absolutely no hint to the location(i guess the map can be a hint but it's a very bad thing to rely on the map for that).
This hack could be called "super metroid: the quest for gravity suit", since so much of the time i was hoping i could finally find it (on the plus side: huge satisfaction when i did find it).
The chozo abominations made me feel like this hack was dmantra inspired, but the final area definitely changed my mind on that. The visual effects there definitely convinced me this hack was based of of clocktoberfest. An overabundance of garbage-feeling colors that made it a pain to look at my screen, i rushed as fast as i could through every room so i didn't have to look at it anymore. Finally, perhaps my biggest complaint: where the heck is charge beam???? i never found it, and i bet it's needed to enter the final area, but i ended up shinesparking bc i really didn't feel like doing a planetary roundabout. this did result in the final boss requiring pretty much every single piece of my ammo, i guess i got lucky with all the items i found.
Also some bosses not having any music felt like a bug rather than being intended, but it does feel intended with this hack.
also the credits are also a pain to look at since it seems neen went for light mode this time, why?

on the plus side, the visual effects weren't always so bad, and where sometimes funny in how trippy they where. Also the sequence where you get to the ship was really cool.

I was initially excited to play this hack, and i really did my best to enjoy it, but ultimately there were so many unpleasant things about it that i just had to be honest with myself, and therefore i can't bring myself to rate this higher than 2 orbs (if i did rate it higher it would just be to be nice, but this is how i really feel about it).
Super Metroid: Axiom by Metaquarius [SM Quick Play], rated by Tundain on Aug 16, 2024 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 1:21
Having really enjoyed axiom verge, I definitely enjoyed this as well.

Except for the enemies, I really like how everything was made to work from axiom verge into super metroid.
The very beginning is a bit annoying with resource management, but fortunately it's not too long.
The rest of the hack is very fun, and I loved to see how one of my favorite features from axiom verge was also incorporated (I won't spoil what it is tho).
I kind of wish there had been a bit more of an actual interaction with Trace tho.

Since I enjoyed it I went for 100%, but that final etank definitely cost me some time searching for it.

On the downside, I did encounter quite a few scrolling issues throughout the hack (where a single scroll column/row of the room is suddenly misplaced, looked a bit ugly), and hearing the final boss music (of axiom verge) throughout the entire hack did get pretty samey after a while. There's also a few softlocks here and there (although fortunately not too easy to fall into).

All in all, definitely play this one!