mosul's Hack Reviews - Metroid Construction

Eris by Digital_Mantra [

Exploration], rated by mosul on Jan 22, 2023 (

)

94% in 5:12

Highly recommended, might write a full review when I feel like it.

V I T A L I T Y by Digital_Mantra [

Exploration], rated by mosul on Jan 01, 2023 (

)

No completion stats.

A truly exceptional hack. Don't rush this experience.

Super Metroid: Subversion by TestRunner and AmoebaOfDoom [

Exploration], rated by mosul on Jan 01, 2023 (

)

80% in 6:50

Hack of the year 2022.

Metroid: Scrolls 6 by Conner, OneOf99, CaptGlitch, JRP [ MZM

Exploration], rated by mosul on Jan 28, 2023 (

)

86% in 1:44

A great hack, but too easy and simple for my tastes. The level design is pretty good but has some room for improvement.

Recommended for those who like Zero Mission.

Super Zero Mission by SBniconico [

Exploration], rated by mosul on Jan 26, 2023 (

)

59% in 6:31

So Little Garden by MetroidMst [

Exploration], rated by mosul on Jan 23, 2023 (

)

54% in 0:53

Problems holding this hack back from being 5 stars:
- Wall-jumping is removed.
- Bomb-jumping is removed.
- Rinka spam
- Probably the worst lag I've seen in any hack
- The bosses consist of spamming missiles and hoping you have enough ammo and energy to survive. Not fun or engaging.
- Too much grapple usage. I actually like grapple, and this hack had too much even for me.
- The map is misleading. Blank map tiles and filled-in ones look the same; only room borders are visible. This makes it very hard to read.
- There are too many large rooms. This probably comes down to personal preference.
- If you die and reload your save, there is a map bug and the game freezes if you pause the game.
- The hack is mostly too easy, except for some random difficulty spikes.

I recommend this hack overall. It's a pretty fun and short hack with some rough spots.

gossamer by neen [

Exploration], rated by mosul on Sep 10, 2024 (

)

100% in 3:42

Somewhat interesting, but not particularly good. I can understand having a focus on experimental visual effects and many routing options, if that's what you like, but I would prefer that the visual effects were well-executed and that the intended sequence weren't so obfuscated. I can confirm that everything in this hack can be done without advanced techniques (even without walljumps), but you'd be forgiven for thinking they're required due to how obscure the intended route is, and just how helpful those techniques can be. It looks like spazer requires temporary blue, for instance, but there's a hidden entrance. It's telling that some reviewers above describe the hack as a "challenge" hack despite the fact that none of the items are challenging to obtain if you do them the intended way.

The physics changes were unpleasant and confusing. I can't understand what's wrong with the vanilla physics that these changes were necessary. I suppose it makes infinite bomb jumping impossible, but I don't think there's anywhere infinite bomb jumping would be useful anyway. The power bombs in Slumberland can be gotten early anyway, for instance. I enjoy suitless underwater more than the vast majority of people, so the large amount of it was fine with me. I'd say the suitless underwater movement felt better than the normal physics in this hack, so I was disappointed to find gravity as early as I did.

If you ignore the visual effects, the aesthetics are very bland. So much so that it feels like the effects are used as a crutch. The rooms that lack them are dull. Almost all the rooms in Slumberland look nearly the same, and the same is true in Mladicia, making the map generally confusing to navigate. Ship also has a lot of the same tiling, but the symmetric layout makes it memorable. The visuals in the final area are fine, I suppose (I played with the Special FX option on), but they did interfere with my ability to see what was happening in the game.

The progression is almost never obvious, and many of the paths forward are blocked by grey doors. I'm not sure how I got 100%, considering there were two grey doors that I never figured out how to open, and not for lack of trying. There were some grey doors where I wasn't sure what opened them, even once I'd done the thing that opened them. I did not enjoy the "riddles" either. The one to get screw attack was weird, and I think it requires every power bomb in the game (and one of them requires you to bomb unmarked tiles). There are many instances where the answer is simply to bomb a random tile. Getting to Phantoon requires you to bomb unmarked tiles twice. I know the map layout hints at this, but the bombable tiles should still be visually distinct. Charge beam being in such a random location is honestly bizarre. It's technically possible to get very early, but you realistically won't get it until late, if you get it at all.

Overall, I'm not sure who I can recommend this hack to. Skilled players will end up making the game harder for themselves by sequence breaking, while less skilled players will likely not be able to find the sequence. This author has potential, however, and I'm interested in seeing what they make next.

Edit: My original score was too harsh and didn't reflect my feelings on the hack properly, so I changed it to 3 orbs.

T O U R O F I T A L Y by RT-55J [

Exploration], rated by mosul on Sep 07, 2024 (

)

94% in 1:20

This hack is pretty good. However, I felt that the exploration was tedious and occasionally confounding. I expected each area to be completable on its own, rather than having to travel back and forth between the areas. I was surprised to find that the area I chose to enter first contained no currently obtainable progression items (as far as I could tell). I found myself sequence breaking just to make progress. There were many places to mockball, and underwater wall jumping was strangely made easier than usual.

I have no idea what the purpose of hi-jump boots was, as they were the last major item I found, and I'd had no trouble reaching any items up to that point. The new item is cool, but it nearly obsoletes wall jumping (wall jumping is fun). I don't know why super missiles and power bombs were in the hack. I could see power bombs leading to confusion if someone found them early on. It took me too long to realize that varia suit provides immunity to spikes.

I definitely didn't like how almost every secret was a hidden morph tunnel. That got repetitive very fast.

The enemies in the tourian-like area at the end were annoying. I was surprised to see no other reviewers complain about them.

The credits mention secret rooms, but I don't think I found any unfortunately.

Overall, I'd certainly recommend this hack to players of all skill levels. It's obviously competently designed and even impressive considering the time frame in which it was produced.

Wibrarne by Taco [

Challenge], rated by mosul on Jan 16, 2023 (

)

4% in 0:13

The creator added fast retry and removed fanfares but couldn't be bothered to remove the intro. The boss is also terrible and almost impossible without tools. Some challenges were creative but they were mostly repetitive.

Not recommended unless you really like challenge hacks and you're out of things to play.

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