Throw conventional wisdom out the window. Airy made your jaw drop for multiple reasons. It was wild, it was inconsistent, it was unusual, and it was fun. For a hack that is this easy and open, it held the player's attention with all the wild shenanigans Cyclamen32 threw into it. Multiple Big Metroids, Phantoon just hanging out in the middle of nowhere, major items just placed out in the open, bosses being nothing more than minor obstacles to the exploration, and Tourian leaving the player at an impasse. Airy has a strange mixture of ideas thrown into it, and it happened to work really well.

The hack is not without faults. The final area of the game felt out of place and completely different from the rest of the hack. It went from open and "Airy" to linear and forced. There really is no challenge to enemies at all. They are just obstacles placed for no other reason than that a Metroid game should have enemies. There also is no real guidance, you simply have to look around and find something new.

In the end however, the creative ridiculousness of Airy makes it stand out above the others for 2013. It is definitely worth checking out.
- thedopefish