HillMessiah's Ratings and Reviews
(Review for the 1.0 version)
The tiles and colors used on the hack are amazing. The creator took inspiration from Digital Mantra's designs, but Cryogenesis still has its identity. It was has the snowy, cavernous, sci-fi settings, which I enjoy a lot. Great assets overall.
The gameplay sometimes feels a bit rushed, a bit linear, but then again, it's a romhack competition game. If it was a full game, I'd decrease its orb by one point, because the game's second half is a bit worse than its first, and the last boss sequence is kinda rushed. At the beginning, upgrades don't feel rewarding, then the game starts to give a bunch of upgrades, which makes sense, considering the game is missing 2 areas.
Still, what was done was impressive. Exploration hacks that nail the aesthetics and convey certain feelings get it right, and this one does it very well with the assets used, the colors, the foreground + background mix... Difficulty is on the lower side, but I think that's because the hack is for a competition with set rules. It would be kinda bad to have the game with multiple paths, not balancing the difficulty accordingly and being limited in time and by what the competition demands, so again, I won't be too critical on it.
Even though the game gives you a bunch of upgrades in a short amount on time starting the second area, most of them require you to explore a bit, think, solve a small puzzle, or at least bomb everything, so the reward aspect is still there.
Overall, very solid hack. Hoping to see its full version and that it stays on this level, so I can keep my grade.
Recommended.
The tiles and colors used on the hack are amazing. The creator took inspiration from Digital Mantra's designs, but Cryogenesis still has its identity. It was has the snowy, cavernous, sci-fi settings, which I enjoy a lot. Great assets overall.
The gameplay sometimes feels a bit rushed, a bit linear, but then again, it's a romhack competition game. If it was a full game, I'd decrease its orb by one point, because the game's second half is a bit worse than its first, and the last boss sequence is kinda rushed. At the beginning, upgrades don't feel rewarding, then the game starts to give a bunch of upgrades, which makes sense, considering the game is missing 2 areas.
Still, what was done was impressive. Exploration hacks that nail the aesthetics and convey certain feelings get it right, and this one does it very well with the assets used, the colors, the foreground + background mix... Difficulty is on the lower side, but I think that's because the hack is for a competition with set rules. It would be kinda bad to have the game with multiple paths, not balancing the difficulty accordingly and being limited in time and by what the competition demands, so again, I won't be too critical on it.
Even though the game gives you a bunch of upgrades in a short amount on time starting the second area, most of them require you to explore a bit, think, solve a small puzzle, or at least bomb everything, so the reward aspect is still there.
Overall, very solid hack. Hoping to see its full version and that it stays on this level, so I can keep my grade.
Recommended.
Hack of the year by a landslide. For me, it's also the best hack since Vitality, easily. It's not super long (which I guess would be a turn off to some people), but not short. It's not linear at all, easy to sequence break and get some nice upgrades. Being nonlinear, and with the Outskirts connecting to the other regions, and most regions being interconnected with each other, you might enter an area from an entrance you weren't supposed to take, changing the difficulty/items you might experience.
The custom assets, new enemy sprites, attacks, the Rat, Junko herself, the bosses, the custom gfx sets... Everything is awesome. It's amazing how the author did this in a bit more than an year, breaking new records in the community. No hack brought so much to SM in terms of design as Junktroid did. It feels a different game that just happens to use SM gameplay.
I rarely go for 100% in SM romhacks, because most don't feel rewarding, or the hack is easy, but to achieve 100% I have to go way out of my way, there's an annoying puzzle, you need to do frame perfect tricks, items are super hidden with no clue how to get them, or a combination of two or more of those. Adding to most hacks being linear/not having waypoints, hubs or being a chore (capital sin that Subversion made, for example), 9/10 it's never worth it to 100% hacks for me. But Super Junktroid was well worth it.
Adding to the interesting item order, new upgrades, areas, boss designs made the experience flesh, amazing soundtrack... I could go on and on with the praises, the hack deserves it. Best hack I played so far alongside Vitality, which has a more "purist" SM experience. The only thing I could see Super Junktroid improving is adding just a little more text for lore (which I already loved the hack's theme). I know the author could do so, because in one of the areas it used the Frog NPC to bring a textbox. Maybe if that occurred once or twice more, or a bit of lore when you checked the map.
Regardless, awesome hack. Good luck to anyone trying to make something better after this one. And #junkoisthebestwaifu
The custom assets, new enemy sprites, attacks, the Rat, Junko herself, the bosses, the custom gfx sets... Everything is awesome. It's amazing how the author did this in a bit more than an year, breaking new records in the community. No hack brought so much to SM in terms of design as Junktroid did. It feels a different game that just happens to use SM gameplay.
I rarely go for 100% in SM romhacks, because most don't feel rewarding, or the hack is easy, but to achieve 100% I have to go way out of my way, there's an annoying puzzle, you need to do frame perfect tricks, items are super hidden with no clue how to get them, or a combination of two or more of those. Adding to most hacks being linear/not having waypoints, hubs or being a chore (capital sin that Subversion made, for example), 9/10 it's never worth it to 100% hacks for me. But Super Junktroid was well worth it.
Adding to the interesting item order, new upgrades, areas, boss designs made the experience flesh, amazing soundtrack... I could go on and on with the praises, the hack deserves it. Best hack I played so far alongside Vitality, which has a more "purist" SM experience. The only thing I could see Super Junktroid improving is adding just a little more text for lore (which I already loved the hack's theme). I know the author could do so, because in one of the areas it used the Frog NPC to bring a textbox. Maybe if that occurred once or twice more, or a bit of lore when you checked the map.
Regardless, awesome hack. Good luck to anyone trying to make something better after this one. And #junkoisthebestwaifu
V I T A L I T Y by Digital_Mantra [
Exploration],
rated by HillMessiah on Jun 21, 2023 (
)
Exploration],
rated by HillMessiah on Jun 21, 2023 ( )
68% in 5:21
One of the finest. So far it was the best romhack I played. The ambience and mood are perfect, the lore and areas fit the Metroid universe very nicely.
Item progression is great. The game has some sequence breaks, which incentivize exploration. Difficulty it's nice at the beginning and trivial by the end, unless you're going fast and missing content (you shouldn't, unless it's a speedrun).
Apparently most, if not all tile sets were from SM original's assets, which is amazing. I could keep giving praises to this hack for hours, it's that good. It incentives exploration, not uber difficult but not braindead easy. Combining all that with great atmosphere and minimal, but very effective texts throughout the game makes it a 10/10 experience for me.
Finished in 5h21min, 67% item collection. Cloned 6 times. Recommended.
Item progression is great. The game has some sequence breaks, which incentivize exploration. Difficulty it's nice at the beginning and trivial by the end, unless you're going fast and missing content (you shouldn't, unless it's a speedrun).
Apparently most, if not all tile sets were from SM original's assets, which is amazing. I could keep giving praises to this hack for hours, it's that good. It incentives exploration, not uber difficult but not braindead easy. Combining all that with great atmosphere and minimal, but very effective texts throughout the game makes it a 10/10 experience for me.
Finished in 5h21min, 67% item collection. Cloned 6 times. Recommended.
Super Metroid: Escape II by Hiroishi [ Exploration],
rated by HillMessiah on Jul 19, 2023 ( 
)
Exploration],
rated by HillMessiah on Jul 19, 2023 ( )
No completion stats.
There's a bunch of cool stuff in the hack, like being nonlinear and having (from what I saw) two major ways to beat the game. Some stuff is either well hidden or you get lucky going there earlier; in most cases you feel reward collecting items in this game.
I wasn't a big fan of the boss rush, but did it anyway. Also, felt like some hidden items and obnoxious puzzles should reward Supers or PB, I came across only 1 Super (right after the first Spore Spawn) and 2 PBs.
Color pallete was alright; I expected more blue, but there's quite some yellow, too. Some pirates look decent, others quite vanilla. MB's color pallete is quite ugly tbh. Most areas in the game are either vanilla recolor or done different.
For the most part, the game was easier than vanilla in terms of combat (bosses were a joke or alright even with me missing charge until after Draygon, read after), so it kinda made sense for me the author decide to make Spazer and Plasma well hidden. For me, the first time I went to Charge Beam room, I shot, bombed the switch but the gate never opened up for me, only got charge wayyy later when remembered it existed and I had Wave. Maybe it's an issue with the 1.9 version.
Aside that, most of my criticism is in:
1) Maridia, because the physics there was erratic. In Ice Beam room, sometimes you gave those big jumps like you were Grapple pumping, in others, the jump was normal height (assuming no suit). In rest of Maridia, normal physics. The sandfalls were more annoying than ever.
2)Puzzles that put you in previous rooms when you mess up. Super annoying, and I'm surprised some hacks, like this one, use this mechanic so much. It's just artificial difficulty to increase the game time.
3)Big rooms for no reason. I think the game could've been cut by half in terms of rooms and it would've been just fine. Most warp doors aren't that useful the way I played; because I felt I'd lose progress going to one of them. I'd rather every session only had 1 warp point to the main hub, and maybe other warp points to other places in the world, like Mission Rescue and other hacks did.
4)The escape sequence is awful. It baffles me how the creator made the bosses easier than the OG game, aside Mother Brain and one of the Hidden Bosses, even going as far to put ammo+health refill just before Mother Brain's turrets, then made the escape sequence full of shinespark puzzles, puzzles where you go back 1-2 rooms if you fall, a room where it's better if you have Spring Ball (not that I have a problem with that, really like hacks where you get to use it), room where there's flying carriers where you travel with them... And it's LONG. Even Shaktool and Gary make an appearance! If the escape was easy or short I'd overlooked some of the obnoxious stuff, but that was too much. If the last room of Mission Rescue escape wasn't so bad, this would be hands down the worst escape in a SM romhack I played, easily.
So with those downsides and some stuff very vanilla, I gave it 4 orbs. My grade would be more like 3.5/5, but since this is a very old hack and made some interesting stuff for its time, and got it right in points hacks even from 2022 miss (like making a big romhack with barely connected world and lack of warp points), I round it up to 4/5. Pretty good stuff
I wasn't a big fan of the boss rush, but did it anyway. Also, felt like some hidden items and obnoxious puzzles should reward Supers or PB, I came across only 1 Super (right after the first Spore Spawn) and 2 PBs.
Color pallete was alright; I expected more blue, but there's quite some yellow, too. Some pirates look decent, others quite vanilla. MB's color pallete is quite ugly tbh. Most areas in the game are either vanilla recolor or done different.
For the most part, the game was easier than vanilla in terms of combat (bosses were a joke or alright even with me missing charge until after Draygon, read after), so it kinda made sense for me the author decide to make Spazer and Plasma well hidden. For me, the first time I went to Charge Beam room, I shot, bombed the switch but the gate never opened up for me, only got charge wayyy later when remembered it existed and I had Wave. Maybe it's an issue with the 1.9 version.
Aside that, most of my criticism is in:
1) Maridia, because the physics there was erratic. In Ice Beam room, sometimes you gave those big jumps like you were Grapple pumping, in others, the jump was normal height (assuming no suit). In rest of Maridia, normal physics. The sandfalls were more annoying than ever.
2)Puzzles that put you in previous rooms when you mess up. Super annoying, and I'm surprised some hacks, like this one, use this mechanic so much. It's just artificial difficulty to increase the game time.
3)Big rooms for no reason. I think the game could've been cut by half in terms of rooms and it would've been just fine. Most warp doors aren't that useful the way I played; because I felt I'd lose progress going to one of them. I'd rather every session only had 1 warp point to the main hub, and maybe other warp points to other places in the world, like Mission Rescue and other hacks did.
4)The escape sequence is awful. It baffles me how the creator made the bosses easier than the OG game, aside Mother Brain and one of the Hidden Bosses, even going as far to put ammo+health refill just before Mother Brain's turrets, then made the escape sequence full of shinespark puzzles, puzzles where you go back 1-2 rooms if you fall, a room where it's better if you have Spring Ball (not that I have a problem with that, really like hacks where you get to use it), room where there's flying carriers where you travel with them... And it's LONG. Even Shaktool and Gary make an appearance! If the escape was easy or short I'd overlooked some of the obnoxious stuff, but that was too much. If the last room of Mission Rescue escape wasn't so bad, this would be hands down the worst escape in a SM romhack I played, easily.
So with those downsides and some stuff very vanilla, I gave it 4 orbs. My grade would be more like 3.5/5, but since this is a very old hack and made some interesting stuff for its time, and got it right in points hacks even from 2022 miss (like making a big romhack with barely connected world and lack of warp points), I round it up to 4/5. Pretty good stuff
Very fun hack! Heavy emphasis on exploration, which I really like. Upgrades felt very rewarding, either by exploring and figuring out hidden exits/entrances to said upgrades or after long exploration/boss fights.
Hack is very vanilla, but goes above the expectations based on vanilla, where you would expect to get upgrade X, or item progression being very different than vanilla. Quite interesting item order, in fact. Quite some suitless Maridia, but nothing too difficult. You get upgrades in a nice pace, so you don't spend a lot of time without new major items.
Bosses are a bit stronger than vanilla, except Kraid that hits for 1 e-tank and it's much sturdier, and Ridley that also hits hard and takes lots of hits. Difficulty felt above vanilla cuz of that, but no hard tricks aside 1 speedball for 100% are required. Wave and X-Ray are available quite early, which helps a lot exploration. Plasma is quite hidden since you don't have too much of a reason to go back in the room before its entrance, but available quite early, too.
Pirates reskin were dope. Lots of them in different areas, and you get the upgrades to kill the harder ones not long as you met then, different than some other hacks. Backtracking is frequent in the hack, but the world is very interconnected, with all major areas very close to Crateria.
Overall, fun hack and very recommended if you enjoy vanilla hacks with focus on exploration. Doesn't get full stars because it doesn't have more custom content, like different areas, story, etc.
Hack is very vanilla, but goes above the expectations based on vanilla, where you would expect to get upgrade X, or item progression being very different than vanilla. Quite interesting item order, in fact. Quite some suitless Maridia, but nothing too difficult. You get upgrades in a nice pace, so you don't spend a lot of time without new major items.
Bosses are a bit stronger than vanilla, except Kraid that hits for 1 e-tank and it's much sturdier, and Ridley that also hits hard and takes lots of hits. Difficulty felt above vanilla cuz of that, but no hard tricks aside 1 speedball for 100% are required. Wave and X-Ray are available quite early, which helps a lot exploration. Plasma is quite hidden since you don't have too much of a reason to go back in the room before its entrance, but available quite early, too.
Pirates reskin were dope. Lots of them in different areas, and you get the upgrades to kill the harder ones not long as you met then, different than some other hacks. Backtracking is frequent in the hack, but the world is very interconnected, with all major areas very close to Crateria.
Overall, fun hack and very recommended if you enjoy vanilla hacks with focus on exploration. Doesn't get full stars because it doesn't have more custom content, like different areas, story, etc.
Had lots of fun with this one! The gimmick was interesting, but even by 2018 I think it could've been better explored. It's not balanced to pair Screw Attack with Plasma, for example. I picked X-Ray over 1 E-Tank, and that would be interesting if this had (unless I missed it!) a room where you can speed boost and need to keep using X-Ray and morphing to destroy blocks, akin some rooms in Kaizo Possible. So the decisions would need to be switched around to have a bit more impact in the playthroughs, maybe combined with changes in some rooms so your choices would be meaningful. Pairing Space Jump with High Jump I knew it would be a bad choice, because I knew SM physics are awful for Space Jump, even more if you lack High Jump. The creator would've had to fix the SJ's physics to make the choice meaningful. Mostly those are my criticism that make me unable to give this full stars.
I thought the first decision was somewhat impactful (Grapple or Spring Ball), because when I got springball, figured I'd do Maridia first, which was accessible via a springball jump. I am not aware if you can access Maridia without springball and before Phantom. That made the difficulty vanilla/easy in Kraid, medium/veteran on Draygon for me, and Phantom and Ridley easy. Good job on the author in buffing Kraid, fight was fun. Going to Draygon second + the change in arena made the fight somewhat challenging. But grabbing Plasma before Phantom and Ridley made those fights hella easy.
Overall, decent room design, difficulty. Palettes never felt ugly for me, places were either vanilla-looking or prettier. For a vanilla hack with a gimmick, I liked how fast-paced it was and Tourian not having only Tourian tiles, but 1 room of all regular areas, thought that was nice. And the secrets and final message on Tourian when you look at the map were cute; I'm a sucker for those.
Due to the nature and design of this hack, sequence breaks are possible, doing them and going to some rooms before the "intended" order felt rewarding. Hack's completion time was just right.
I thought the first decision was somewhat impactful (Grapple or Spring Ball), because when I got springball, figured I'd do Maridia first, which was accessible via a springball jump. I am not aware if you can access Maridia without springball and before Phantom. That made the difficulty vanilla/easy in Kraid, medium/veteran on Draygon for me, and Phantom and Ridley easy. Good job on the author in buffing Kraid, fight was fun. Going to Draygon second + the change in arena made the fight somewhat challenging. But grabbing Plasma before Phantom and Ridley made those fights hella easy.
Overall, decent room design, difficulty. Palettes never felt ugly for me, places were either vanilla-looking or prettier. For a vanilla hack with a gimmick, I liked how fast-paced it was and Tourian not having only Tourian tiles, but 1 room of all regular areas, thought that was nice. And the secrets and final message on Tourian when you look at the map were cute; I'm a sucker for those.
Due to the nature and design of this hack, sequence breaks are possible, doing them and going to some rooms before the "intended" order felt rewarding. Hack's completion time was just right.
Metroid Mission Rescue by Mettyk25jigsaw [ Exploration],
rated by HillMessiah on Jul 01, 2023 ( )
Exploration],
rated by HillMessiah on Jul 01, 2023 ( )
68% in 23:28
I'm glad I played this hack following the manual (quick read), the map and as Sapphron suggested, reached on the forums for the newest version. The manual clarified issues I might had during the playthrough, very informative.
You can tell there was a lot of effort in this hack, seeing it's huge (I think it's the biggest SM rom hack in the site), 2 additional areas, clear outside information (manual + map) to help in exploring.I enjoyed most of the custom fights, the bosses difficulty was just right, which I love. Most hacks are either super easy or meant as challenge/for speedrunners, not counting the troll hacks.
At first I was wary because the 2 star rating, which I guess it was deserved, seeing there was a lot of permastucks early, tilesets and level design, even the doors looked ugly, but the creator polished most of those. It's good to see the creator received proper feedback and improved on the game, because playing the "finished" product is a much different experience than seeing its current rating and reviews, hence, my grade.
I'll cut the long story short. This is a LONG hack and semi-challenge, like a SMI or Kaizo meant for normal people. You don't have to do IBJ, ice clips, do jank with X-Ray, precise jumps, doesn't have spike hell... But what it does have is, sometimes, floors that are death traps, lot of backtracking, some puzzles are on a time limit, a bit of early "Maridia" suitless... I want to warn people that might think this hack, being classified as Exploration, would have Easy/baby difficulty. It does not.
The hack is linear for the most part, but it was a nice change of pace for me, because I like long hacks and this one had quite some backtracking + teleports. The Easy version having Teleport to all 8 worlds in the first area is a gamechanger and what I adore in metroidvanias/exploration hacks. Makes navigation much easier. Again, on the Easy and I believe Normal versions the hint room is tied to the teleport hubs, which tells where to go next. Combined with the map, I haven't got lost that much. Some puzzles were trial and error with no death traps, so patience was the only required thing.
The hack does have sequence break, since it's quite easy to ice clip and get power bombs in a certain area. This opens an early boss fight, which I recommend against doing it due to sheer difficulty, and you can pretty much skip more than half the game if you get power bombs and know how to navigate "Tourian" the first time you go there, but where's the fun in that? (aside for TAS and speedrunners of course)
As a Metroidvania and long hack, I enjoyed the upgrades being meaningful in this hack. They make navigation quicker/easier and you can open more places in your backtracks. Enemies get much easier to dispatch with other beam upgrades. When you get Supers, PBs, Rinder + Fuser/Quantum and can kill the space pirates you feel you finally got your revenge from seeing those guys so much and not being able to damage them. The usage of the new HUB was intuitive and made easy to switch around weapons. I wish other hacks did that, because having to go to the menu to change beams to open doors it's not fun.
Playing the updated version, and seeing gameplay of older versions, the current one is decent, for the most part, design-wise, where some areas are cool, dope and a few are bland and uninspiring. Wadaria and its theme were great for me, felt very adventurous exploring there. The 3 sections of "Maridia" and "Brinstar" were very distinct for me; the music choices in Wadaria and Maridia were pretty good for me. The atmosphere in "Maridia" was great; I really felt undersea there. I can tell the creator took the criticism and improved the world design.
Now, for the negatives. The game barely has save stations, but I understand due to the game's size; probably there's a limit how much save stations you can use in SM. I just used savestates every big chunk of exploration I did, and, as I said, the game for me is meant to be semi-hard and not casual, so lack of save points was expected.
If you sequence break and get PBs, there's a bunch of places you might get permastuck, so need to be wary when going to places using them. The hell run could use an extra refill or you're given an extra sub tank, because the way it is it's somewhat tight to do the thing. I don't consider myself a pro SM player, so I guess the hell run was mostly in agreement with the overall's hack difficulty.
I saw a bunch of criticism in general regarding the hack's bland areas and level design, even more in Wadaria, but for me the area that suffers with that is Mahagan. All 3 sectors have the same color palette and rooms are similar. Fortunately, it was one of the easier sections of the game to explore, so it doesn't stay with you for too long.
While the hack shines (for me) in most of it, like 80%, the beginning and final sequence seem to be the point where people got annoyed by it or its low point (imo, the escape sequence). The beginning probably will trigger a lot of people due to items/places being quite hidden (I don't mind, since I signed up for exploration), suitless water sections, which people dislike, and overall people expecting a cozy, super easy exploration hack when this thing is somewhat challenging if you're going full blind without using the map + hint room.
The things that made me not give this a 5* is mostly the polish this hack needed in some areas, to make exploration more smooth, graphics prettier, correct slopes, maybe decrease the final door hunt to "Tourian", and its escape sequence. It has an ammo requirement which makes it very annoying on its final room.
In fact, the final boss of the game imo it's not MB, it's the escape sequence. Sometimes it's hard to figure out which entrance/room to take next, that you need to grab hidden missiles to progress, that you should take care of your health... And the final maze was BS for me. I'd scraped it and the escape sequence would be much more tolerable, since it would be still hard, but in accordance with the hack's difficulty, aside needing more clean ups here and there. Seeing the modder only had one beta tester, this really affected the hack. Just see how ugly it was and the jank in the escape sequence. With proper beta testing and cleanup, if this was released nowadays it would be much more acceptable.
Again, if you like exploration hacks that are not braindead easy, give this a chance. I'm glad I played this one instead of 4-5 short/medium Vanilla+ hacks or hacks with pretty custom tilesets and zero substance, only fluff.
4/5 and completed in 23h28 minutes.
You can tell there was a lot of effort in this hack, seeing it's huge (I think it's the biggest SM rom hack in the site), 2 additional areas, clear outside information (manual + map) to help in exploring.I enjoyed most of the custom fights, the bosses difficulty was just right, which I love. Most hacks are either super easy or meant as challenge/for speedrunners, not counting the troll hacks.
At first I was wary because the 2 star rating, which I guess it was deserved, seeing there was a lot of permastucks early, tilesets and level design, even the doors looked ugly, but the creator polished most of those. It's good to see the creator received proper feedback and improved on the game, because playing the "finished" product is a much different experience than seeing its current rating and reviews, hence, my grade.
I'll cut the long story short. This is a LONG hack and semi-challenge, like a SMI or Kaizo meant for normal people. You don't have to do IBJ, ice clips, do jank with X-Ray, precise jumps, doesn't have spike hell... But what it does have is, sometimes, floors that are death traps, lot of backtracking, some puzzles are on a time limit, a bit of early "Maridia" suitless... I want to warn people that might think this hack, being classified as Exploration, would have Easy/baby difficulty. It does not.
The hack is linear for the most part, but it was a nice change of pace for me, because I like long hacks and this one had quite some backtracking + teleports. The Easy version having Teleport to all 8 worlds in the first area is a gamechanger and what I adore in metroidvanias/exploration hacks. Makes navigation much easier. Again, on the Easy and I believe Normal versions the hint room is tied to the teleport hubs, which tells where to go next. Combined with the map, I haven't got lost that much. Some puzzles were trial and error with no death traps, so patience was the only required thing.
The hack does have sequence break, since it's quite easy to ice clip and get power bombs in a certain area. This opens an early boss fight, which I recommend against doing it due to sheer difficulty, and you can pretty much skip more than half the game if you get power bombs and know how to navigate "Tourian" the first time you go there, but where's the fun in that? (aside for TAS and speedrunners of course)
As a Metroidvania and long hack, I enjoyed the upgrades being meaningful in this hack. They make navigation quicker/easier and you can open more places in your backtracks. Enemies get much easier to dispatch with other beam upgrades. When you get Supers, PBs, Rinder + Fuser/Quantum and can kill the space pirates you feel you finally got your revenge from seeing those guys so much and not being able to damage them. The usage of the new HUB was intuitive and made easy to switch around weapons. I wish other hacks did that, because having to go to the menu to change beams to open doors it's not fun.
Playing the updated version, and seeing gameplay of older versions, the current one is decent, for the most part, design-wise, where some areas are cool, dope and a few are bland and uninspiring. Wadaria and its theme were great for me, felt very adventurous exploring there. The 3 sections of "Maridia" and "Brinstar" were very distinct for me; the music choices in Wadaria and Maridia were pretty good for me. The atmosphere in "Maridia" was great; I really felt undersea there. I can tell the creator took the criticism and improved the world design.
Now, for the negatives. The game barely has save stations, but I understand due to the game's size; probably there's a limit how much save stations you can use in SM. I just used savestates every big chunk of exploration I did, and, as I said, the game for me is meant to be semi-hard and not casual, so lack of save points was expected.
If you sequence break and get PBs, there's a bunch of places you might get permastuck, so need to be wary when going to places using them. The hell run could use an extra refill or you're given an extra sub tank, because the way it is it's somewhat tight to do the thing. I don't consider myself a pro SM player, so I guess the hell run was mostly in agreement with the overall's hack difficulty.
I saw a bunch of criticism in general regarding the hack's bland areas and level design, even more in Wadaria, but for me the area that suffers with that is Mahagan. All 3 sectors have the same color palette and rooms are similar. Fortunately, it was one of the easier sections of the game to explore, so it doesn't stay with you for too long.
While the hack shines (for me) in most of it, like 80%, the beginning and final sequence seem to be the point where people got annoyed by it or its low point (imo, the escape sequence). The beginning probably will trigger a lot of people due to items/places being quite hidden (I don't mind, since I signed up for exploration), suitless water sections, which people dislike, and overall people expecting a cozy, super easy exploration hack when this thing is somewhat challenging if you're going full blind without using the map + hint room.
The things that made me not give this a 5* is mostly the polish this hack needed in some areas, to make exploration more smooth, graphics prettier, correct slopes, maybe decrease the final door hunt to "Tourian", and its escape sequence. It has an ammo requirement which makes it very annoying on its final room.
In fact, the final boss of the game imo it's not MB, it's the escape sequence. Sometimes it's hard to figure out which entrance/room to take next, that you need to grab hidden missiles to progress, that you should take care of your health... And the final maze was BS for me. I'd scraped it and the escape sequence would be much more tolerable, since it would be still hard, but in accordance with the hack's difficulty, aside needing more clean ups here and there. Seeing the modder only had one beta tester, this really affected the hack. Just see how ugly it was and the jank in the escape sequence. With proper beta testing and cleanup, if this was released nowadays it would be much more acceptable.
Again, if you like exploration hacks that are not braindead easy, give this a chance. I'm glad I played this one instead of 4-5 short/medium Vanilla+ hacks or hacks with pretty custom tilesets and zero substance, only fluff.
4/5 and completed in 23h28 minutes.
Super Metroid: Even Less Ambitious by dewhi100 [ Quick Play],
rated by HillMessiah on Sep 29, 2023 ( )
Quick Play],
rated by HillMessiah on Sep 29, 2023 ( )
100% in 0:31
Nice usage of layers, nice puzzle hack! Can't give more than 3 stars due to freeze glitches in certain rooms that happen randomly + 1 switch/key being too hidden imo
I debated a lot between giving this 3 or 4 stars, but I settled with 3.
It was a neat hack with underwater mechanics. Extra drops, respin, faster room transitions and other QoLs were very appreciated.
As a Vanilla+, it shines mostly on the first half, due to distinct item progression and progress in general not feeling sluggish, even though it takes a while for you to get beam upgrades, or any upgrades not being Missiles, Grapple and a couple of E-Tanks. The path forward and puzzles are not super hidden, too.
The second half of the hack is quite bland. Most rooms are either unchanged (aside water, of course) or have things to fit the underwater theme. Progress is not easy to follow. The intended way to get Supers is quite unexpected; you'd want to go there without Gravity, but since Gravity is nowhere to be seen, you'd think to go to that room later. I ended up doing Spring Ball jump to get Supers in an unitended way, but you still need PBs for that.
Most bosses are the same as Vanilla, but since you don't have Charge, you gotta hoard a bunch of ammo to beat the game. Since everything is underwater, it takes twice as long to cover most of the game's map. I figured were a key item was, due to the author making a door broken, but it still took a long time to go there. And next point to progression was also far. Those design choices made the game longer than needed, and the hack being Vanilla+ without even palettes reskin made the experience quite boring after a while.
It's still a pretty good hack, and you're getting much better at water mechanics by playing it, but the gameplay overstays its welcome imo.
It was a neat hack with underwater mechanics. Extra drops, respin, faster room transitions and other QoLs were very appreciated.
As a Vanilla+, it shines mostly on the first half, due to distinct item progression and progress in general not feeling sluggish, even though it takes a while for you to get beam upgrades, or any upgrades not being Missiles, Grapple and a couple of E-Tanks. The path forward and puzzles are not super hidden, too.
The second half of the hack is quite bland. Most rooms are either unchanged (aside water, of course) or have things to fit the underwater theme. Progress is not easy to follow. The intended way to get Supers is quite unexpected; you'd want to go there without Gravity, but since Gravity is nowhere to be seen, you'd think to go to that room later. I ended up doing Spring Ball jump to get Supers in an unitended way, but you still need PBs for that.
Most bosses are the same as Vanilla, but since you don't have Charge, you gotta hoard a bunch of ammo to beat the game. Since everything is underwater, it takes twice as long to cover most of the game's map. I figured were a key item was, due to the author making a door broken, but it still took a long time to go there. And next point to progression was also far. Those design choices made the game longer than needed, and the hack being Vanilla+ without even palettes reskin made the experience quite boring after a while.
It's still a pretty good hack, and you're getting much better at water mechanics by playing it, but the gameplay overstays its welcome imo.
Super Metroid: Subversion by TestRunner and AmoebaOfDoom [ Exploration],
rated by HillMessiah on Jul 09, 2023 ( )
Exploration],
rated by HillMessiah on Jul 09, 2023 ( )
85% in 8:28
Unfortunately this was the most disappointing hack I played so far. It's not bad; in fact, things like finding all the secrets, the second quest and the "secret area", alongside some QoL, crisp gameplay and pretty areas (I loved the Sky Temple, my favourite area in the game by far). Seeing the grades on the forum and the positives, it should've been easily one of my fav hacks, so what happened?
For exploration, it sucked hard for me. Most of my time spend was backtracking, and this hacking having so much backtrack, either for progress or 100%, it not having teleport/fast travel is a major blow. Hacks from 10+ years ago got warps, the decision for this hack not to have them, or at least have smart shortcuts in areas when you come back with more upgrades, made travelling a chore. The lack of sequence break was another bummer for me. I tried a bunch of stuff. Walljump, IBJ, you name it, but most of the times I couldn't access a new area, was met with heat and died or got a small ammo pack at best. I wondered if there was another way to do things, but watching videos, even big speedrunners did the same route as I did, tried most of the same sequence breaks and met the same results. Those 2 things already kill the hack's replayability for me. I didn't bother with the second quest, because I already knew navigating in that world was a chore.
The music and puzzles, most of the time, were a miss for me. The music appeals to classic NES/SNES franchises, or other metroidvania, so people that enjoy these gave high praise to the hack in that aspect, but for me they were either whatever or didn't fit the mood. The mine's music, for example, was cheesy and felt out of place for a Metroid game. The puzzle to X-Ray was great. In fact, the hack gave new life to grapple, one of its great points. But some puzzles in the hidden are were either too confusing or required movement I was already too bored to try.
Screw Attack puzzle was easily the worst, and the low point in the hack. It's a trial and error in going to different rooms, and still there's a lot of back and forth when you figure out how it works. If you explored a bit of the game, you know where to go next after Screw, and, in my case, I found the hidden area before Screw. I really wished I had Screw before going there, and it's so easy to go to the secret zone in a certain point, so I was already dreading in going back there, finish it and go all the other way to the next intended plot point and I said nope, I'll go finish the game. I missed another Torizo fight, but eh.
The only Subversion thing about the bosses I found was the areas you met them, due to aesthetics and such, because Kraid and Draygon are just the same as always, except in a different background. Spore Spawn was made just to be annoying; they somehow made the boss a chore to fight due to crumble blocks, but much easier because the arena is bigger, so you can't die unless you jump on the boss by your own accord. The hack's difficulty is already easy, aside some enemies being damage sponges and the hidden area, so I don't see why they had to make Spore Spawn both more annoying and easier than Vanilla.
Phantoom was the only creative one, and it meshed well with my fav area in the game and used one of the hack's custom items (pretty sure I saw something like that Visor in Polarity and other romhacks). Ridley was a huge missed opportunity; the hack should be more feasible for you to get what you need to beat it long before, maybe in the secret area and make the secret area more bearable, or give a different route so you could finish the game earlier. The way the game is structured, you'd get screwed (no pun intended) by not getting Screw and going to the hidden area, but it's the hidden area that gives stuff to damage Ridley, aside the intended way to get said upgrade, so doing the hidden area defeats any purpose of reward or progress.
I enjoyed the idea of the damage amp upgrade, gives diversity if you prefer to hoard a bunch of ammo OR upgrade your beams. The other upgrades, however, were mostly to add numbers and diminish substance of the hack. Changing regular missiles/supers/PBs to ammo packs hurts the hack a lot for me in sequence break/exploration aspects, because you have to follow the game route (so linear) to get said upgrades, instead of doing a different thing and being rewarded by an early upgrade. Charge was super slow, and I got a bunch of charge upgrades and still felt it was Vanilla's charge speed, the upgrade felt really unnecessary. Same for Space Jump number of spins.
Logs were mostly fluff and told instead of show for me. The explanation of upgrades was nice, but most of the lore and area's functionality, like the lab, were understood without reading a bunch of text. The mission log was useless, unless you didn't play the hack for like a month and forgot where you left off. Stuff like "you found water/heat/lasers, unable to progress" is self-explanatory, you still have to find the solution. I'd rather having cryptic or decent hints than the game telling out loud the reason (that I already know) why I can't progress in a certain area.
The last point coupled with lack of sequence break/fast travel/innovation in going backwards on the hack kills the replayability for me, aside if I were to do a randomizer. The hack does things that are top grade, but others in regards of exploration and progression are below mediocre for me, hence, a mid grade. There's more cohese hacks out there, hacks with upgrades or mechanics existing in hacks from 8+ years ago (Beams being required to destroy certain blocks/open certain doors, speedball upgrade, etc), hacks more fun to play, either having better balance of challenge:reward... Aside the secret stuff and a New Game+ (which both are marvelous), most of the other stuff is unimpressive.
For exploration, it sucked hard for me. Most of my time spend was backtracking, and this hacking having so much backtrack, either for progress or 100%, it not having teleport/fast travel is a major blow. Hacks from 10+ years ago got warps, the decision for this hack not to have them, or at least have smart shortcuts in areas when you come back with more upgrades, made travelling a chore. The lack of sequence break was another bummer for me. I tried a bunch of stuff. Walljump, IBJ, you name it, but most of the times I couldn't access a new area, was met with heat and died or got a small ammo pack at best. I wondered if there was another way to do things, but watching videos, even big speedrunners did the same route as I did, tried most of the same sequence breaks and met the same results. Those 2 things already kill the hack's replayability for me. I didn't bother with the second quest, because I already knew navigating in that world was a chore.
The music and puzzles, most of the time, were a miss for me. The music appeals to classic NES/SNES franchises, or other metroidvania, so people that enjoy these gave high praise to the hack in that aspect, but for me they were either whatever or didn't fit the mood. The mine's music, for example, was cheesy and felt out of place for a Metroid game. The puzzle to X-Ray was great. In fact, the hack gave new life to grapple, one of its great points. But some puzzles in the hidden are were either too confusing or required movement I was already too bored to try.
Screw Attack puzzle was easily the worst, and the low point in the hack. It's a trial and error in going to different rooms, and still there's a lot of back and forth when you figure out how it works. If you explored a bit of the game, you know where to go next after Screw, and, in my case, I found the hidden area before Screw. I really wished I had Screw before going there, and it's so easy to go to the secret zone in a certain point, so I was already dreading in going back there, finish it and go all the other way to the next intended plot point and I said nope, I'll go finish the game. I missed another Torizo fight, but eh.
The only Subversion thing about the bosses I found was the areas you met them, due to aesthetics and such, because Kraid and Draygon are just the same as always, except in a different background. Spore Spawn was made just to be annoying; they somehow made the boss a chore to fight due to crumble blocks, but much easier because the arena is bigger, so you can't die unless you jump on the boss by your own accord. The hack's difficulty is already easy, aside some enemies being damage sponges and the hidden area, so I don't see why they had to make Spore Spawn both more annoying and easier than Vanilla.
Phantoom was the only creative one, and it meshed well with my fav area in the game and used one of the hack's custom items (pretty sure I saw something like that Visor in Polarity and other romhacks). Ridley was a huge missed opportunity; the hack should be more feasible for you to get what you need to beat it long before, maybe in the secret area and make the secret area more bearable, or give a different route so you could finish the game earlier. The way the game is structured, you'd get screwed (no pun intended) by not getting Screw and going to the hidden area, but it's the hidden area that gives stuff to damage Ridley, aside the intended way to get said upgrade, so doing the hidden area defeats any purpose of reward or progress.
I enjoyed the idea of the damage amp upgrade, gives diversity if you prefer to hoard a bunch of ammo OR upgrade your beams. The other upgrades, however, were mostly to add numbers and diminish substance of the hack. Changing regular missiles/supers/PBs to ammo packs hurts the hack a lot for me in sequence break/exploration aspects, because you have to follow the game route (so linear) to get said upgrades, instead of doing a different thing and being rewarded by an early upgrade. Charge was super slow, and I got a bunch of charge upgrades and still felt it was Vanilla's charge speed, the upgrade felt really unnecessary. Same for Space Jump number of spins.
Logs were mostly fluff and told instead of show for me. The explanation of upgrades was nice, but most of the lore and area's functionality, like the lab, were understood without reading a bunch of text. The mission log was useless, unless you didn't play the hack for like a month and forgot where you left off. Stuff like "you found water/heat/lasers, unable to progress" is self-explanatory, you still have to find the solution. I'd rather having cryptic or decent hints than the game telling out loud the reason (that I already know) why I can't progress in a certain area.
The last point coupled with lack of sequence break/fast travel/innovation in going backwards on the hack kills the replayability for me, aside if I were to do a randomizer. The hack does things that are top grade, but others in regards of exploration and progression are below mediocre for me, hence, a mid grade. There's more cohese hacks out there, hacks with upgrades or mechanics existing in hacks from 8+ years ago (Beams being required to destroy certain blocks/open certain doors, speedball upgrade, etc), hacks more fun to play, either having better balance of challenge:reward... Aside the secret stuff and a New Game+ (which both are marvelous), most of the other stuff is unimpressive.
Super Duper Metroid by Metaquarius, Daltone [ Exploration],
rated by HillMessiah on Jul 08, 2023 ( )
Exploration],
rated by HillMessiah on Jul 08, 2023 ( )
70% in 4:00
Positives:
Non intended boss order, openness of the game, pretty visual, smooth gameplay, either because High Jump got even higher, Space Jump physics is adjusted, door transitions are fast and smooth. Minimal text, nice secrets. Build-in Mirror Mode and Rando, which would make me give a decent hack 4-5 stars by default (but see below). Also, super cute mini Metroids in Tourian. Very intended and I'm assuming racers/speedrunners would love this hack.
Negatives:
A bunch of foreground being destroyable, made the gameplay very distracting. That, couple with X-ray sometimes trolling you by not revealing stuff made it difficult to notice some hidden things.
Exploration is a bit erratic, being a nonlinear hack. I guess the devs wanted to leave it as open as possible due to randomizer nature of the hack, but that also meant you could hit a bunch of dead ends, get places harder than what you're supposed to endure, or exploration sometimes not feeling rewarding. I felt exploration quite unrewarding because there wasn't a lot of logic in the placement of some items (see next point), and either items were very well hidden or took me too long to find them.
For example, imo Kraid, GT and Ridley felt very unrewarding with their boss rewards, the first I expected a beam upgrade, Varia if the creators were feeling generous or Spring Ball to make Maridia's navigation smoother. In fact, I missed SB completely in my playthrough; had to check the map for 5 minutes to see where it was. I was soon to get annoyed by Kraid's area when I explored better and got a beam upgrade and "early" Supers. GT and Ridley felt unrewarding because the first was quite difficult, but it gave an upgrade I'd rather get it much sooner, defeating the purpose of beating it, and Ridley was way way too easy and its reward was useless at that point for me. I could go there earlier, which would make their upgrades meaningful probably, but I wasn't sure if I could survive due to heat damage, which, gain, defeat the purpose of their rewards. Also why make E-tanks give only half??? It increased item count, but felt like it was only small upgrades to get.
Sequencing break for Phantoom felt rewarding because it massively improved my exploration capabilities. The boss was very tough for me, doing it second with not a lot of ammo, and Phantoom being much faster which felt quite annoying for me. In fact, most of the stuff in the game screams for you to go fast, but quite ironically Speed Booster is quite deep in Norfair and it was the last item I got. It felt very useless, and dunno if I would use it a lot aside racing setups or going to Phantoom instead of using IBJ.
That was my main gripe with the hack. It is categorized as exploration, but even with me looking well in most places, I fought 3 bosses without suits (at least the hack isn't a huge chore without Gravity in Maridia), and while stumbled across 3 beams by exploring (finding Wave, Spazer and Plasma felt rewarding), Ice was so out of the way and Charge being visible and needing to enter rooms before in hidden spot to get it was quite annoying. The back and forth of the hack, while less annoying than some hacks out there due to this one being speedy to play, got tiring due to lack of fast travel + possibility of getting softlocked or stuck in places and figuring out where to go. If you could grab Varia and Speed much earlier, but maybe they where well hidden it would've been dope.
Tourian, aside the cute mini metroids, was quite underwhelming compared to the rest of the hack, and it's only saving grace in gameplay is the route to enter there in low%. My evaluation is mostly about a first playthrough and exploration in mind, because that's what the hack is tagged. If this was meant to race, speedrun, I would bump it to 4-4.5 stars, but it's not. Most of the value of the hack is if you go fast or play the randomizer mode. In my case, I went faster than my average pace due to the hack's good gameplay and completely missed the suits, Ice and Charge.
Funny enough, the game was much fun to do a randomizer, because I got a beam upgrade early, which make Brinstar's enemies not being damage sponges and made gameplay much better. I do recommend people to play this hack, there's great quality there but with some design flaws, and it trying to aim for both exploration and speedrun only made the exploration part worsen, hence, my grade.
Non intended boss order, openness of the game, pretty visual, smooth gameplay, either because High Jump got even higher, Space Jump physics is adjusted, door transitions are fast and smooth. Minimal text, nice secrets. Build-in Mirror Mode and Rando, which would make me give a decent hack 4-5 stars by default (but see below). Also, super cute mini Metroids in Tourian. Very intended and I'm assuming racers/speedrunners would love this hack.
Negatives:
A bunch of foreground being destroyable, made the gameplay very distracting. That, couple with X-ray sometimes trolling you by not revealing stuff made it difficult to notice some hidden things.
Exploration is a bit erratic, being a nonlinear hack. I guess the devs wanted to leave it as open as possible due to randomizer nature of the hack, but that also meant you could hit a bunch of dead ends, get places harder than what you're supposed to endure, or exploration sometimes not feeling rewarding. I felt exploration quite unrewarding because there wasn't a lot of logic in the placement of some items (see next point), and either items were very well hidden or took me too long to find them.
For example, imo Kraid, GT and Ridley felt very unrewarding with their boss rewards, the first I expected a beam upgrade, Varia if the creators were feeling generous or Spring Ball to make Maridia's navigation smoother. In fact, I missed SB completely in my playthrough; had to check the map for 5 minutes to see where it was. I was soon to get annoyed by Kraid's area when I explored better and got a beam upgrade and "early" Supers. GT and Ridley felt unrewarding because the first was quite difficult, but it gave an upgrade I'd rather get it much sooner, defeating the purpose of beating it, and Ridley was way way too easy and its reward was useless at that point for me. I could go there earlier, which would make their upgrades meaningful probably, but I wasn't sure if I could survive due to heat damage, which, gain, defeat the purpose of their rewards. Also why make E-tanks give only half??? It increased item count, but felt like it was only small upgrades to get.
Sequencing break for Phantoom felt rewarding because it massively improved my exploration capabilities. The boss was very tough for me, doing it second with not a lot of ammo, and Phantoom being much faster which felt quite annoying for me. In fact, most of the stuff in the game screams for you to go fast, but quite ironically Speed Booster is quite deep in Norfair and it was the last item I got. It felt very useless, and dunno if I would use it a lot aside racing setups or going to Phantoom instead of using IBJ.
That was my main gripe with the hack. It is categorized as exploration, but even with me looking well in most places, I fought 3 bosses without suits (at least the hack isn't a huge chore without Gravity in Maridia), and while stumbled across 3 beams by exploring (finding Wave, Spazer and Plasma felt rewarding), Ice was so out of the way and Charge being visible and needing to enter rooms before in hidden spot to get it was quite annoying. The back and forth of the hack, while less annoying than some hacks out there due to this one being speedy to play, got tiring due to lack of fast travel + possibility of getting softlocked or stuck in places and figuring out where to go. If you could grab Varia and Speed much earlier, but maybe they where well hidden it would've been dope.
Tourian, aside the cute mini metroids, was quite underwhelming compared to the rest of the hack, and it's only saving grace in gameplay is the route to enter there in low%. My evaluation is mostly about a first playthrough and exploration in mind, because that's what the hack is tagged. If this was meant to race, speedrun, I would bump it to 4-4.5 stars, but it's not. Most of the value of the hack is if you go fast or play the randomizer mode. In my case, I went faster than my average pace due to the hack's good gameplay and completely missed the suits, Ice and Charge.
Funny enough, the game was much fun to do a randomizer, because I got a beam upgrade early, which make Brinstar's enemies not being damage sponges and made gameplay much better. I do recommend people to play this hack, there's great quality there but with some design flaws, and it trying to aim for both exploration and speedrun only made the exploration part worsen, hence, my grade.
Super Metroid: Low Impact by Daltone [ Unknown],
rated by HillMessiah on Sep 30, 2023 ( )
Unknown],
rated by HillMessiah on Sep 30, 2023 ( )
No completion stats.
Pretty hack, but kinda feels without identity. Didn't have fun playing this one. Checked out easier mode and it wasn't much better, too.
Avoid
Avoid
Super Metroid: Cristener Homenag by Juan Dennys [ Vanilla+],
rated by HillMessiah on Sep 25, 2023 ( )
Vanilla+],
rated by HillMessiah on Sep 25, 2023 ( )
55% in 2:36
The beginning is quite cryptic and bad. That happens mostly because you don't have Bombs, so you have to go pixel hunting. Fortunately the pedro-tier of terrible stuff it's almost done at the beginning, because you get X-Ray soon.
3 interesting things. You NEED Grapple to beat the game. I'm pretty sure Spring Ball is also mandatory (but you get it early, and I like it, so it's not a 1* by default for me), and there's some invisible enemies in the hack. I found some in Maridia, and they died only with a full Charged Plasma shot. In Tourian, I guess it was a different one, because Charged didn't do anything, but regular shot killed it? Also be sure to have at least 1 Reserve Tank or that you know how to do Baby Skip.
Interesting Item placement and progression order. In some times I was ready to rage that some item was moved, but looking better or exploring more I found it in a odd or funny location. Seeing even some considered high tier hacks by the community sometimes made me rage or get very annoyed or bored, seeing a ground level half-hack giving me fun and chuckle here and there was worth it.
It is good? Most of the time, not. There's a bunch of permastucks and out of bounds moments, so I can't give this anything more than 2 stars. 2.5 would be very very generous. At least it's much better than the troll hacks and seemingly impossible stuff. Had more fun with this than SMI :P
It's a half-hack with most rooms being the same or having uglier designs. Some recolors are good, so it's a shame the author didn't do more of that. The difficulty is above Vanilla for sure, with some bosses dealing E-tanks of damage on contact, some BS during the escape (not Mission Rescue tier of BS, but still not trivial). I managed to escape on the second try, but was out of time to save the animals. Maybe if you're a pro gamer at this like Oatsngoats it is possible to save the animals without too much stress.
I expected a shit hack, but seeing it didn't rely too much on spikes or BS moments, it could be worse. If you want to create hacks, play this, because there's a bunch of stuff here that you should not do, but it also will be very educative in others. Some recolors are good (the suits are bad), how changing item progression makes it less boring than the regular vanilla/linear hacks out there, how you can create spots with increased difficulty without being impossible (aside some BS moments other reviewers and myself talked earlier). If you want to play a half-hack that feels from before the 2010's with higher, but not impossible difficulty you could play this, but there's better hacks for you to play first imo.
3 interesting things. You NEED Grapple to beat the game. I'm pretty sure Spring Ball is also mandatory (but you get it early, and I like it, so it's not a 1* by default for me), and there's some invisible enemies in the hack. I found some in Maridia, and they died only with a full Charged Plasma shot. In Tourian, I guess it was a different one, because Charged didn't do anything, but regular shot killed it? Also be sure to have at least 1 Reserve Tank or that you know how to do Baby Skip.
Interesting Item placement and progression order. In some times I was ready to rage that some item was moved, but looking better or exploring more I found it in a odd or funny location. Seeing even some considered high tier hacks by the community sometimes made me rage or get very annoyed or bored, seeing a ground level half-hack giving me fun and chuckle here and there was worth it.
It is good? Most of the time, not. There's a bunch of permastucks and out of bounds moments, so I can't give this anything more than 2 stars. 2.5 would be very very generous. At least it's much better than the troll hacks and seemingly impossible stuff. Had more fun with this than SMI :P
It's a half-hack with most rooms being the same or having uglier designs. Some recolors are good, so it's a shame the author didn't do more of that. The difficulty is above Vanilla for sure, with some bosses dealing E-tanks of damage on contact, some BS during the escape (not Mission Rescue tier of BS, but still not trivial). I managed to escape on the second try, but was out of time to save the animals. Maybe if you're a pro gamer at this like Oatsngoats it is possible to save the animals without too much stress.
I expected a shit hack, but seeing it didn't rely too much on spikes or BS moments, it could be worse. If you want to create hacks, play this, because there's a bunch of stuff here that you should not do, but it also will be very educative in others. Some recolors are good (the suits are bad), how changing item progression makes it less boring than the regular vanilla/linear hacks out there, how you can create spots with increased difficulty without being impossible (aside some BS moments other reviewers and myself talked earlier). If you want to play a half-hack that feels from before the 2010's with higher, but not impossible difficulty you could play this, but there's better hacks for you to play first imo.
Super Metroid: Cristener Homenag 2 by Juan Dennys [ Vanilla+],
rated by HillMessiah on Sep 26, 2023 ( )
Vanilla+],
rated by HillMessiah on Sep 26, 2023 ( )
No completion stats.
Worse than the first, like most sequels the past 30 years or so. This is literally the definition of half-hack, because after you beat Ridley, almost all the rest of the game is unchanged aside some item placements.
It has less meme potential than the first game. The suits are fixed this time, but the tilings are worse, bland or vanilla. The grapple gimmick is still there, but the Missiles meme is lost (you get them much easier, and they're not gated like the first installment). You can get a bunch of Reserve Tanks, that's pretty much it.
The hack is like 1 1/5 stars, since at least it doesn't have too many one-shot moments or spike hell. It's better than the usual Pedro-tier hacks, but not by much. Not worth your time.
It has less meme potential than the first game. The suits are fixed this time, but the tilings are worse, bland or vanilla. The grapple gimmick is still there, but the Missiles meme is lost (you get them much easier, and they're not gated like the first installment). You can get a bunch of Reserve Tanks, that's pretty much it.
The hack is like 1 1/5 stars, since at least it doesn't have too many one-shot moments or spike hell. It's better than the usual Pedro-tier hacks, but not by much. Not worth your time.
Super Metroid Final Crimson RBO by crimsonsunbird [ Challenge],
rated by HillMessiah on Aug 04, 2023 ( )
Challenge],
rated by HillMessiah on Aug 04, 2023 ( )
No completion stats.
Yellow pirates part was ridiculous. Have no idea if this hack is TAS-only or not. I'd be curious to see if a top player like oatsngoats could beat this, or a TAS of this thing.
Regardless, avoid. Not worth it.
Regardless, avoid. Not worth it.
