SaiFu's Ratings and Reviews
Metroid: Spring Break by Jefe962, Frydi [
Exploration],
rated by SaiFu on May 08, 2025 (
)
Exploration],
rated by SaiFu on May 08, 2025 ( )
78% in 1:28
V2 | 3.5/5: Cute, merry and open-ended short hack with a few bugs and some awkward bosses.
Hard mode feels dangerous throughout without feeling like cbt, and though I think limiting missile pickups to 2 like normal would otherwise be a good balancing move (especially since you start out with charge beam) the design of the hack invites a variety of runs which might make that limit annoying. The difficulty does decrease but I appreciate that I couldn't mindlessly blast through it. Some puzzles are a bit more elaborate to solve than expected, and combined with the general design of larger and harder-to-traverse rooms the hack felt like it made good use of what it included. I did not go far out of my way to get everything, including whatever lies beyond the platforming challenge. I would insist on doing the harder sections without savestates, and I'm not that patient right now.
The custom spritework is cute and bright, which matches the music. The music choice is pretty good except for the song in the second layer of the map which reminds me of American colonial marches. It drove me nuts at first. Even so that track feels whimsical enough to fit the mood of the hack. There are maybe too many static custom sprites in places but they also add personality and levity to the hack.
Spring Break is pretty open-ended too. Since you're equipped from the start with most traversal upgrades you can skip almost everything and tackle most areas in any order. There's notable replayability for challenge runners. Good luck finishing a hard mode lowest%, though.
Most bosses are fine, but the last two are bothersome. Fighting the second to last boss is frustrating if you approach it the normal way and I ended up just going behind it to deal damage without dying in the process. I imagine just spamming it and taking hits on normal works but is a little lame. There is a more interesting way to fight that boss but I had to experiment for a bit after my first run to find it, and the path of least resistance on a first encounter is more enjoyable. The final boss feels off. I think the devs removed two attack patterns from it to balance the damage its other attacks deal, but that overbalances the fight in the player's favor. The first part is boring, and even in the second I can stand in one place and tank weaker attacks with 3 etanks and survive on hard mode. That said I still had to change my approach to outlast the boss, and testing whether I'm just getting lucky on boss attacks some fights are close but I win. I died enough on my first run that it felt more challenging than it really is. Overall the final boss isn't bad, just somewhat disappointing. The escape sequence is a nice change though. I'd like to see more hacks with similar sequences this challenging but with fewer full stops.
On advice from others I included the bugs I saw in the Spring Break Forum thread. The only bugs I encountered were in boss fights, and only one of which stopped progress altogether. Since it's only a couple minutes to get back from the nearest save I consider this minor.
If some of the boss glitches were fixed I'd bump up to a (true) 4/5 orbs. Even with the current bugs the hack still works as expected most of the time.
Hard mode feels dangerous throughout without feeling like cbt, and though I think limiting missile pickups to 2 like normal would otherwise be a good balancing move (especially since you start out with charge beam) the design of the hack invites a variety of runs which might make that limit annoying. The difficulty does decrease but I appreciate that I couldn't mindlessly blast through it. Some puzzles are a bit more elaborate to solve than expected, and combined with the general design of larger and harder-to-traverse rooms the hack felt like it made good use of what it included. I did not go far out of my way to get everything, including whatever lies beyond the platforming challenge. I would insist on doing the harder sections without savestates, and I'm not that patient right now.
The custom spritework is cute and bright, which matches the music. The music choice is pretty good except for the song in the second layer of the map which reminds me of American colonial marches. It drove me nuts at first. Even so that track feels whimsical enough to fit the mood of the hack. There are maybe too many static custom sprites in places but they also add personality and levity to the hack.
Spring Break is pretty open-ended too. Since you're equipped from the start with most traversal upgrades you can skip almost everything and tackle most areas in any order. There's notable replayability for challenge runners. Good luck finishing a hard mode lowest%, though.
Most bosses are fine, but the last two are bothersome. Fighting the second to last boss is frustrating if you approach it the normal way and I ended up just going behind it to deal damage without dying in the process. I imagine just spamming it and taking hits on normal works but is a little lame. There is a more interesting way to fight that boss but I had to experiment for a bit after my first run to find it, and the path of least resistance on a first encounter is more enjoyable. The final boss feels off. I think the devs removed two attack patterns from it to balance the damage its other attacks deal, but that overbalances the fight in the player's favor. The first part is boring, and even in the second I can stand in one place and tank weaker attacks with 3 etanks and survive on hard mode. That said I still had to change my approach to outlast the boss, and testing whether I'm just getting lucky on boss attacks some fights are close but I win. I died enough on my first run that it felt more challenging than it really is. Overall the final boss isn't bad, just somewhat disappointing. The escape sequence is a nice change though. I'd like to see more hacks with similar sequences this challenging but with fewer full stops.
On advice from others I included the bugs I saw in the Spring Break Forum thread. The only bugs I encountered were in boss fights, and only one of which stopped progress altogether. Since it's only a couple minutes to get back from the nearest save I consider this minor.
If some of the boss glitches were fixed I'd bump up to a (true) 4/5 orbs. Even with the current bugs the hack still works as expected most of the time.
