This hack is a really solid baseline to judge others against as it's solid in almost all aspects, but it does have some downsides depending on what play style or feeling you're looking for.
The hack does suffer in exploration as a lot of the hack is inaccessible until you obtain one of two available super missiles, and then one of two power bombs. Without one or each, the paths available to take are pretty extensive; however, you will constantly hit dead ends after traversing for a while, with very little to show for your time, as the author made sure you couldn't get anything major enough that would break the progression order overall.
The hack also does suffer from a bit of clunky movement around the speed booster and some of the later game routes it's needed on or bonus power-ups hidden behind skill checks. Once you get used to it, it feels pretty good, but it takes a bit to get there and feels off until you do.
Lastly, the escape felt so un-necessary and long. Some of it was great, but it felt forced by some doors randomly being grey and thus arbitrarily forcing you onto different paths. It does a great job later by using the environment in the second half, but the whole first half just felt odd.
Metroid: Falling by TN [ Exploration],
rated by Aeon on Feb 18, 2024 ()
On the Down Side:
The exploration flow for this hack suffers from some very un-intuitive points where you pretty much need to use X-ray to find where to go to obtain some important key items or progression paths. It also suffers a lot from one way paths causing a lot of looping if you want to explore all paths within an area. The bosses and minibosses have inflated health which makes fighting them a chore, especially early on, unless you've managed to collect enough etanks and missiles. In addition, the save stations aren't as close as I'd like causing additional time just to get back to try again. This matters a lot when some bosses and minibosses are difficult enough to need multiple attempts.
On the Up Side:
The hack has a lot of options in sequence breaking and path choices if you look around. It feels good using tricks or spending a bit of time bomb jumping to feel like you're getting items that weren't meant in the normal flow. The different key items earlier on are nice, but do reduce some of the feeling of powering up over the course of the playthrough.
Overall, it's an okay hack, but your mileage may vary based on how much you like doing x-ray scanning of all rooms in an area to find where to go.
Exploration],
rated by Aeon on Feb 26, 2024 (
