This was a lovely hack. The only thing I'd knock it for is that a lot of the rooms and map space felt a little bit sparse, but most areas were visually appealing enough that I didn't mind wandering through twelve screens for a missile pack. The whole Lower Norfair sequence was very entertaining, and the escape actually managed to raise my heart rate some. I think I made it with about 10 seconds left... ?
In any case, great aesthetics, good design sense, mild difficulty reminiscent of Vanilla, and a few choice mechanical and aesthetic tweaks to spice up the presentation and improve QoL made for an awesome few hours of play. Definitely has my recommendation!