so good that i immediately started working on a fully detailed map.
overall area layouts and designs are very good, fun to navigate and fairly easy to backtrack through thanks to the central elevator system. progression is a fairly linear upward climb with only a couple detours. i enjoyed the challenge rooms, including the teleport spikes and shinespark challenges, but i felt some optional challenges were slightly unreasonable. good thing they're optional.
all the custom graphics feel rather unpolished, and none of the custom items felt very substantial or impactful, with the exception of the hover thrusters, easily the standout new mechanic of the entire hack. the thermal updrafts are also a cool new addition, though a little hard to grasp the range of.
vanilla difficulty might be a misleading tag, this is a fair jump upward from the original super metroid, but i don't think the "veteran" difficulty tag would apply here either -- this isn't redesign or z-factor.
the music is the worst part. it's like if sm's regular soundtrack was put through a music-note randomizer. none of them sound good, even outside the context of the uncanny feeling you get as someone familiar with the original songs.
if you can forgive the audio crimes, this is a highly recommended full-game scale hack with plenty of fun new stuff to explore and experiment with.
Exploration],
rated by Ambureon on Apr 30, 2024 (
