“I couldn't think of anything funny this time”
arcanethewoof's Ratings and Reviews
Super Metroid: Subversion by TestRunner and AmoebaOfDoom [
Exploration],
rated by arcanethewoof on May 07, 2025 (
)
Exploration],
rated by arcanethewoof on May 07, 2025 ( )
100% in 9:42
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
======
My review applies only to the Easy difficulty; generally with metroidvanias I prefer not to be pushed to my limits. It’s also based on two playthroughs, one completely blind, and one some time later with much of but not all of the game’s challenges forgotten. Settle in, it’s a long and thorough review.
This is one of the best Super Metroid romhacks I’ve ever played, if not *the* best. It scratches every itch the vanilla game did and then some, adding features that make the game feel great to play. The difficulty on easy mode is right in line with the original, so new players should find it accessible, but not so easy that veterans will find it trivial or boring—especially some of the optional content. And yes, there is secret optional content, so keep an eye out! Some of the new mechanics are very interesting and unique to this hack, especially one that significantly affects how a certain boss plays in this vs. the original. I also am a big fan of the logbook screen that features Metroid-Prime-esque data on the stuff you encounter, as well as a mission log to help remind you of the obstacles you’ve encountered that your new equipment can help you overcome. Having the item acquisition split into Area% and Total% is also very useful for completionists.
While the hack has some quality-of-life mechanics like respin that improve the controls, I’m always sad when momentum conservation doesn’t make an appearance, as without some traversal can feel clunky. I also will always clamor for the inclusion of the ability to switch the area on the map screen so I can look at the locations I’m not currently in. These are minor complaints though; I only have two significant complaints. First, in any sprawling metroidvania, long runbacks are all too common and make traversal take forever, which is a massive pain for 100% runs. It should always be at the top of any large-scale metroidvania designer’s priorities to add as many shortcuts as possible to get the player from Point A to Point B in minimal time so as not to test their patience to its limit. Second, this hack has a bad case of raining garbage on my head, having things spawn above me while I’m trying to climb that hit me before I have a chance to react and send me plummeting back down. Aside from those, everything from encounter placement to level design is fresh and fun—especially what awaits you about 2/3 of the way in.
The hack doesn’t use a ton of custom graphics outside of some recolors, but it uses those recolors and the limited graphical additions to excellent effect, making it feel nice to look at and explore while very distinct from the vanilla game. The musical additions are recognizable to any seasoned gamer, ported from various other games, but the choices always suit the environments well, and there are definitely some bangers in there (the best song in the hack is, unfortunately, in an area you’ll spend little time in compared to some of the others).
On my revisit of the hack, I clocked in almost 10 hours of play time and I never felt it was overstaying its welcome until about the last hour or so of completionist play, which suffered from the long runbacks I mentioned earlier. That’s an impressive feat for a romhack, and certainly worthy of the five orbs I’m giving it. With Nintendo Polish in spades, if you only ever play one Super Metroid romhack, Subversion should be it.
A LIGHT SPOILER AS A WARNING I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD READ GOING IN
======
The first time I played this hack, I ended up with a play time of almost 20 hours because I was scouring every nook and cranny of the world trying to find all of the items before finally going back to the spaceport to set the collision course (I had much more patience back then). The hack doesn’t tell you this—at least not anywhere I saw or remember—but SETTING THE COLLISION COURSE IS NOT THE END OF THE GAME, there’s a whole back third or so after that. There’s only one thing I found that ceases to be available after that, and it’s *extremely* optional—if you miss it, you can still get 100%.
======
My review applies only to the Easy difficulty; generally with metroidvanias I prefer not to be pushed to my limits. It’s also based on two playthroughs, one completely blind, and one some time later with much of but not all of the game’s challenges forgotten. Settle in, it’s a long and thorough review.
This is one of the best Super Metroid romhacks I’ve ever played, if not *the* best. It scratches every itch the vanilla game did and then some, adding features that make the game feel great to play. The difficulty on easy mode is right in line with the original, so new players should find it accessible, but not so easy that veterans will find it trivial or boring—especially some of the optional content. And yes, there is secret optional content, so keep an eye out! Some of the new mechanics are very interesting and unique to this hack, especially one that significantly affects how a certain boss plays in this vs. the original. I also am a big fan of the logbook screen that features Metroid-Prime-esque data on the stuff you encounter, as well as a mission log to help remind you of the obstacles you’ve encountered that your new equipment can help you overcome. Having the item acquisition split into Area% and Total% is also very useful for completionists.
While the hack has some quality-of-life mechanics like respin that improve the controls, I’m always sad when momentum conservation doesn’t make an appearance, as without some traversal can feel clunky. I also will always clamor for the inclusion of the ability to switch the area on the map screen so I can look at the locations I’m not currently in. These are minor complaints though; I only have two significant complaints. First, in any sprawling metroidvania, long runbacks are all too common and make traversal take forever, which is a massive pain for 100% runs. It should always be at the top of any large-scale metroidvania designer’s priorities to add as many shortcuts as possible to get the player from Point A to Point B in minimal time so as not to test their patience to its limit. Second, this hack has a bad case of raining garbage on my head, having things spawn above me while I’m trying to climb that hit me before I have a chance to react and send me plummeting back down. Aside from those, everything from encounter placement to level design is fresh and fun—especially what awaits you about 2/3 of the way in.
The hack doesn’t use a ton of custom graphics outside of some recolors, but it uses those recolors and the limited graphical additions to excellent effect, making it feel nice to look at and explore while very distinct from the vanilla game. The musical additions are recognizable to any seasoned gamer, ported from various other games, but the choices always suit the environments well, and there are definitely some bangers in there (the best song in the hack is, unfortunately, in an area you’ll spend little time in compared to some of the others).
On my revisit of the hack, I clocked in almost 10 hours of play time and I never felt it was overstaying its welcome until about the last hour or so of completionist play, which suffered from the long runbacks I mentioned earlier. That’s an impressive feat for a romhack, and certainly worthy of the five orbs I’m giving it. With Nintendo Polish in spades, if you only ever play one Super Metroid romhack, Subversion should be it.
A LIGHT SPOILER AS A WARNING I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD READ GOING IN
======
The first time I played this hack, I ended up with a play time of almost 20 hours because I was scouring every nook and cranny of the world trying to find all of the items before finally going back to the spaceport to set the collision course (I had much more patience back then). The hack doesn’t tell you this—at least not anywhere I saw or remember—but SETTING THE COLLISION COURSE IS NOT THE END OF THE GAME, there’s a whole back third or so after that. There’s only one thing I found that ceases to be available after that, and it’s *extremely* optional—if you miss it, you can still get 100%.
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
================
This is a solid hack. I'm always happy to see hacks with the mechanical changes Asteroid brings to the table, as they make movement around the world feel much more fluid and controlled. Asteroid makes good use of its choice of hack mechanics, too; for example, it gives you momentum conservation ("speed keep") and does expect you to use it to get some optional goodies. The bomb launcher mechanic is fun and does make hunting for secrets easier since you don't have to do tricky jumps just to dump bombs on walls; there are also some clever puzzles that use the launcher. The hack did catch me off guard with a couple mechanics as well, so there's definitely interesting things going on gameplay-wise.
Level design is solid and fun to traverse, and the compact world design and movement tech additions make backtracking a quick affair. You'll find most areas fairly enemy-sparse—in fact, I was starting to think there weren't any non-boss enemies in the hack at all for a while there—but given how nasty those enemies are, that was something I quickly became thankful for.
The difficulty level is warranted, but only just; I only struggled a bit at the first boss because it does hit pretty hard for how lightly equipped you are going into it, and there's very little room for error (I think it would be actually impossible without speed keep). The rest of the bosses were fairly easy (which could be because I have a tendency to retrace my steps whenever I get new gear to see what secrets I can get to, so I was likely highly equipped for every fight; see the light spoilers below for more on that); honestly it was the regular enemies who gave me grief because they hit like trucks right up until towards the end of the hack. I found myself stutter-shooting across new screens with the bomb launcher just to avoid tacking nasty hits. The escape sequence *was* tight, but definitely doable on the first try, even for someone with my awful sense of direction. So if the author had listed it as Vanilla difficulty, I'd have agreed, but just barely; I think it's *right* on the cusp.
The environment is well-put together visually, and makes good use of its limited tile palette (limited by the scope of the hack, not by effort); there are a few familiar rooms, but most of it feels fresh and interesting. Near as I can tell, there are no custom sprites, just recolors, but that's not necessarily a weakness. All but one of the tracks are vanilla, but they feel appropriate for where they appear, and the custom track caught me off guard and is a fun addition—though I think your mileage may vary, as it definitely doesn't integrate smoothly with the rest of the soundtrack.
A solid four orbs. It could have earned an extra orb with a little more spit shine to it, like custom sprites or soundtracks to make it really stand on its own, but four orbs is definitely worth playing.
LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD
=================
I found the final boss to be kind of a pushover once I realized that my equipment largely nullifies its attacks. I just needed to keep moving and shoot a lot. Several of the gear upgrades are optional, so going in without them I think would have made the fight a lot more nerve-wracking, but if you go in reasonably kitted out, I honestly think the first boss is a much greater challenge.
================
This is a solid hack. I'm always happy to see hacks with the mechanical changes Asteroid brings to the table, as they make movement around the world feel much more fluid and controlled. Asteroid makes good use of its choice of hack mechanics, too; for example, it gives you momentum conservation ("speed keep") and does expect you to use it to get some optional goodies. The bomb launcher mechanic is fun and does make hunting for secrets easier since you don't have to do tricky jumps just to dump bombs on walls; there are also some clever puzzles that use the launcher. The hack did catch me off guard with a couple mechanics as well, so there's definitely interesting things going on gameplay-wise.
Level design is solid and fun to traverse, and the compact world design and movement tech additions make backtracking a quick affair. You'll find most areas fairly enemy-sparse—in fact, I was starting to think there weren't any non-boss enemies in the hack at all for a while there—but given how nasty those enemies are, that was something I quickly became thankful for.
The difficulty level is warranted, but only just; I only struggled a bit at the first boss because it does hit pretty hard for how lightly equipped you are going into it, and there's very little room for error (I think it would be actually impossible without speed keep). The rest of the bosses were fairly easy (which could be because I have a tendency to retrace my steps whenever I get new gear to see what secrets I can get to, so I was likely highly equipped for every fight; see the light spoilers below for more on that); honestly it was the regular enemies who gave me grief because they hit like trucks right up until towards the end of the hack. I found myself stutter-shooting across new screens with the bomb launcher just to avoid tacking nasty hits. The escape sequence *was* tight, but definitely doable on the first try, even for someone with my awful sense of direction. So if the author had listed it as Vanilla difficulty, I'd have agreed, but just barely; I think it's *right* on the cusp.
The environment is well-put together visually, and makes good use of its limited tile palette (limited by the scope of the hack, not by effort); there are a few familiar rooms, but most of it feels fresh and interesting. Near as I can tell, there are no custom sprites, just recolors, but that's not necessarily a weakness. All but one of the tracks are vanilla, but they feel appropriate for where they appear, and the custom track caught me off guard and is a fun addition—though I think your mileage may vary, as it definitely doesn't integrate smoothly with the rest of the soundtrack.
A solid four orbs. It could have earned an extra orb with a little more spit shine to it, like custom sprites or soundtracks to make it really stand on its own, but four orbs is definitely worth playing.
LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD
=================
I found the final boss to be kind of a pushover once I realized that my equipment largely nullifies its attacks. I just needed to keep moving and shoot a lot. Several of the gear upgrades are optional, so going in without them I think would have made the fight a lot more nerve-wracking, but if you go in reasonably kitted out, I honestly think the first boss is a much greater challenge.
Hyper Metroid SUPER by RealRed [ Total Conversion],
rated by arcanethewoof on May 02, 2025 ( 
)
Total Conversion],
rated by arcanethewoof on May 02, 2025 ( )
91% in 6:10
I never played the original because I heard it was really obtuse to navigate and on the much-harder end of the difficulty spectrum, so I saw this on RHDN and thought I'd give it a whirl, especially seeing some of the praise here. So knowing that's my perspective, here are my thoughts:
SPOILER-FREE OVERVIEW: If you're a Super Metroid veteran who knows their way around the game, give this a go. I got stuck on finding progress for almost two hours, which almost made me quit, but honestly I got stuck in the vanilla game for a while too when I was a kid (it took me like a solid week to figure out the bowling puzzle), so maybe you'll easily see what I missed and sail on. Despite that, the hack is very worth the play. The main criticisms I have are that the level design is really drawn out, and in my opinion, one thing you're meant to figure out is so obtuse or hidden that it took me *over two hours* to find it, which was mostly tedious backtracking and x-ray scoping every square inch of the map. The hack description says "fun for first-time players", and the difficulty says "Vanilla", but the bosses are anything but. I'm a Super Metroid veteran who regularly does randomizer runs (almost once a day), and I really struggled with a couple of them. The rest of the game fits the vanilla difficulty descriptor, but the bosses are *rough*. Despite these issues, it controls great, using many movement tweaks that make the movement very crisp and responsive, and the level design (while pretty vast and sometimes tedious to backtrack through) is interesting and challenging, with clever puzzles and interesting use of mechanics, and very nice custom visuals throughout. I give it four orbs, with one knocked off for the boss difficulty (which isn't itself bad, but is certainly too high for the Vanilla rating) and for a few *extremely* hard-to-spot progress solutions. If you're a Super Metroid veteran looking for a fresh experience that still feels like Super Metroid, I think you'll like this.
=== SPOILER ALERT ===
The rest of this review is expanded and specific criticisms and praise and contains heavy spoilers!
Starting with the rough stuff: if this is the version that was made *easier* by making it more cohesive and linear, *goodness gracious* the original must have been a *maze*. I gave this my best, and I got stuck for hours after getting Space Jump, to the point where I almost quit completely—in fact, this review was initially a DNF perspective. I believe what happened was that I stood *almost exactly* on top of the *one* breakable block, so my admittedly hasty x-ray scoping—bear in mind at this point I was *very* frustrated—missed it. There were a couple other spots that took me quite a bit of time to find too, in particular the gate switches—which I don't think I'd ever have found if I didn't have the map thing letting me know in what region they were. Putting major progress items behind completely invisible blocks is *rough*; I can see optional pickups being really well hidden, but something that I *need* to complete the game should at least have a subtle hint. And then to exacerbate that issue, the map is massive, and there's *so much* backtracking in this game, especially because in order to look at Maridia's map, you have to be *in* Maridia, so while you're looking for stuff you're missing, you have to pop in to each area to refresh yourself on that map. It also doesn't help that there's no indication of when you've collected an item you've seen. While this *is* the vanilla behavior, other hacks have features that let you switch which part of the map you're looking at and differentiate collected items, and in my opinion these are non-optional features, especially in sprawling hacks like this one.
MOST of the hack that I played was pretty much on the level of vanilla Metroid, or at least not much harder, so anyone who's familiar with the original should find this accessible. The exception is the bosses (and some minibosses), which I'd describe as "abusive". I barely squeaked by Phantoon first try, so I think he's about right for veteran players, but Kraid took me like five goes because the dude just eats missiles for days; same for Ridley, which was a *twenty-minute* fight that was mostly charge blasts. I think for the Kraid fight I had significantly more missiles than expected, too, because I was able to get deep into Norfair early with some tricky wall jumping and mockballs, but I still kept running out. Maybe he's weak to super missiles and goes down faster if you use them, but the fist couple tries it was so easy to lose soups to his claw blocks I switched to regular boom tubes just to make misses less costly. Mercifully, Draygon's grapple beam quick kill wasn't removed or nerfed, or else I'm sure that would have been a nightmare too, given how many more e-tanks it took to kill her. Now, being hard isn't an inherently *bad* thing, and as a veteran I can say they were beatable with perseverance, but calling the game "Vanilla" implies that someone who's never played Super Metroid could get through this as readily as the original, and that's just not the case. A casual player could beat Super Metroid; here, even the minibosses are extremely aggro with tons of health, and I don't think a casual player could beat this hack as a result. If the claimed difficulty were changed to "Veteran", I'd be tempted to look past the backtracking and give this five orbs.
So those are my primary criticisms that almost made me quit. Here's the good stuff: the game controls great, with improved basic controls that incorporate a lot of the better ideas the hacking community has come up with over the years, like respin, momentum conservation, spark balls, and a few more. The backwards long jump is pretty cool and original (to my knowledge), though I only came across one place where it was required to grab something, and that was an optional item, and honestly you could just tank the spike damage if you had a couple e-tanks already. The manual teaches some of the special movement tech, and implies that there might be more, but I didn't find any that weren't listed or available in vanilla Metroid. Also, a small thing, but I *very much* appreciate the charge beam going silent instead of making the constant "wyoowyoowyoo" in the original, since a lot of enemies post-Brinstar (most, even, I think) are immune to the regular beam and need either charge or missiles.
I also think that, despite my frustrations with the extensive backtracking, the level design is very good, with lots of visual variation and clever use of the various game mechanics to make progress and get optional pickups. It feels polished overall and I've enjoyed exploring the environment (well, the first couple times anyway). It was a nice twist for the Wrecked Ship to go dead *after* beating Phantoon, too; that was clever, and not something I've seen in other hacks. I know I said that Phantoon was a challenge, but fair challenge is good, and I liked the changes to his behavior. So many hacks seem to do really interesting stuff with Phantoon!. So overall good job on the level design; I just wish there were faster ways to get from point A to point B, since that's what ultimately made me decide I'd had enough. The graphics glowup is solid, and I'm impressed the environs and enemies aren't just recolors—well, some are, but there's a *lot* of custom stuff too, and it looks great, sometimes I'd argue better than the vanilla game.
So overall, great work and a solid hack worth a play for any experienced Super Metroid player. Well done; an update to add the map features mentioned above, as well as changing the listed difficulty to "Veteran", would push this to 5 orbs for me.
SPOILER-FREE OVERVIEW: If you're a Super Metroid veteran who knows their way around the game, give this a go. I got stuck on finding progress for almost two hours, which almost made me quit, but honestly I got stuck in the vanilla game for a while too when I was a kid (it took me like a solid week to figure out the bowling puzzle), so maybe you'll easily see what I missed and sail on. Despite that, the hack is very worth the play. The main criticisms I have are that the level design is really drawn out, and in my opinion, one thing you're meant to figure out is so obtuse or hidden that it took me *over two hours* to find it, which was mostly tedious backtracking and x-ray scoping every square inch of the map. The hack description says "fun for first-time players", and the difficulty says "Vanilla", but the bosses are anything but. I'm a Super Metroid veteran who regularly does randomizer runs (almost once a day), and I really struggled with a couple of them. The rest of the game fits the vanilla difficulty descriptor, but the bosses are *rough*. Despite these issues, it controls great, using many movement tweaks that make the movement very crisp and responsive, and the level design (while pretty vast and sometimes tedious to backtrack through) is interesting and challenging, with clever puzzles and interesting use of mechanics, and very nice custom visuals throughout. I give it four orbs, with one knocked off for the boss difficulty (which isn't itself bad, but is certainly too high for the Vanilla rating) and for a few *extremely* hard-to-spot progress solutions. If you're a Super Metroid veteran looking for a fresh experience that still feels like Super Metroid, I think you'll like this.
=== SPOILER ALERT ===
The rest of this review is expanded and specific criticisms and praise and contains heavy spoilers!
Starting with the rough stuff: if this is the version that was made *easier* by making it more cohesive and linear, *goodness gracious* the original must have been a *maze*. I gave this my best, and I got stuck for hours after getting Space Jump, to the point where I almost quit completely—in fact, this review was initially a DNF perspective. I believe what happened was that I stood *almost exactly* on top of the *one* breakable block, so my admittedly hasty x-ray scoping—bear in mind at this point I was *very* frustrated—missed it. There were a couple other spots that took me quite a bit of time to find too, in particular the gate switches—which I don't think I'd ever have found if I didn't have the map thing letting me know in what region they were. Putting major progress items behind completely invisible blocks is *rough*; I can see optional pickups being really well hidden, but something that I *need* to complete the game should at least have a subtle hint. And then to exacerbate that issue, the map is massive, and there's *so much* backtracking in this game, especially because in order to look at Maridia's map, you have to be *in* Maridia, so while you're looking for stuff you're missing, you have to pop in to each area to refresh yourself on that map. It also doesn't help that there's no indication of when you've collected an item you've seen. While this *is* the vanilla behavior, other hacks have features that let you switch which part of the map you're looking at and differentiate collected items, and in my opinion these are non-optional features, especially in sprawling hacks like this one.
MOST of the hack that I played was pretty much on the level of vanilla Metroid, or at least not much harder, so anyone who's familiar with the original should find this accessible. The exception is the bosses (and some minibosses), which I'd describe as "abusive". I barely squeaked by Phantoon first try, so I think he's about right for veteran players, but Kraid took me like five goes because the dude just eats missiles for days; same for Ridley, which was a *twenty-minute* fight that was mostly charge blasts. I think for the Kraid fight I had significantly more missiles than expected, too, because I was able to get deep into Norfair early with some tricky wall jumping and mockballs, but I still kept running out. Maybe he's weak to super missiles and goes down faster if you use them, but the fist couple tries it was so easy to lose soups to his claw blocks I switched to regular boom tubes just to make misses less costly. Mercifully, Draygon's grapple beam quick kill wasn't removed or nerfed, or else I'm sure that would have been a nightmare too, given how many more e-tanks it took to kill her. Now, being hard isn't an inherently *bad* thing, and as a veteran I can say they were beatable with perseverance, but calling the game "Vanilla" implies that someone who's never played Super Metroid could get through this as readily as the original, and that's just not the case. A casual player could beat Super Metroid; here, even the minibosses are extremely aggro with tons of health, and I don't think a casual player could beat this hack as a result. If the claimed difficulty were changed to "Veteran", I'd be tempted to look past the backtracking and give this five orbs.
So those are my primary criticisms that almost made me quit. Here's the good stuff: the game controls great, with improved basic controls that incorporate a lot of the better ideas the hacking community has come up with over the years, like respin, momentum conservation, spark balls, and a few more. The backwards long jump is pretty cool and original (to my knowledge), though I only came across one place where it was required to grab something, and that was an optional item, and honestly you could just tank the spike damage if you had a couple e-tanks already. The manual teaches some of the special movement tech, and implies that there might be more, but I didn't find any that weren't listed or available in vanilla Metroid. Also, a small thing, but I *very much* appreciate the charge beam going silent instead of making the constant "wyoowyoowyoo" in the original, since a lot of enemies post-Brinstar (most, even, I think) are immune to the regular beam and need either charge or missiles.
I also think that, despite my frustrations with the extensive backtracking, the level design is very good, with lots of visual variation and clever use of the various game mechanics to make progress and get optional pickups. It feels polished overall and I've enjoyed exploring the environment (well, the first couple times anyway). It was a nice twist for the Wrecked Ship to go dead *after* beating Phantoon, too; that was clever, and not something I've seen in other hacks. I know I said that Phantoon was a challenge, but fair challenge is good, and I liked the changes to his behavior. So many hacks seem to do really interesting stuff with Phantoon!. So overall good job on the level design; I just wish there were faster ways to get from point A to point B, since that's what ultimately made me decide I'd had enough. The graphics glowup is solid, and I'm impressed the environs and enemies aren't just recolors—well, some are, but there's a *lot* of custom stuff too, and it looks great, sometimes I'd argue better than the vanilla game.
So overall, great work and a solid hack worth a play for any experienced Super Metroid player. Well done; an update to add the map features mentioned above, as well as changing the listed difficulty to "Veteran", would push this to 5 orbs for me.
