Review: SMW Gaiden

 

World 1-7 in 13 hours (in a row 😵), world 8 in 6 hours, special world in 3 hours (with some feathers)

 

 SMW Gaiden is a collab with a new team comprised of old school SMW hackers, some relatively know. This hack aims to be some old school challenge, let's see what it has. Sorry if I lack details, I made this review a while after I finished the main game.

Yuck! Plants everywhere!

One look into the game and you can feel the old school. Sort of. Let me explain: the graphics are mostly vanilla, with new palette, mostly well done but a few questionable. One thing that I hate, is the music. The game only use musics from SMW and SMB:AllStar for that retro feels. I'm fine with SMW musics but I'm not a fan of SMWAS ones, it get tiring to hear them after a while. Also only the level have retro musics, the OW has nice custom musics, so the contrast really feels weird. It could have made the levels stand out more. The fact that all the level have generic names doesn't help. The overworld is very nice though.

Weird rhino palette.

The game has few custom sprite, and only retro one. And the mark of fabric of this hack are piranha plants / venus fire plant. They are in EVERY level, and I'm not exaggerating. I understand the idea, really. But that doesn't means I enjoy this decision. It's an annoying sprite and having it in EVERY level gets annoying. It's not even a modern one, it's the old school venus that means upside down always ignore Mario and comes out. They could have at least used modern one with red stem venus to mix things / identify them better. About sprites, most common sprites in the games like koopas, spinies, etc. have slightly different properties, in that they are quite faster. This is a nice change to shake things up. Strangely, the exception are the SMB3 hammer bro that throw less hammer than the typical custom sprite. It's an annoying sprite so I won't complain. Also it's green here.

And despite being classic, the final boss is custom. It's a really impressive custom boss, but it makes it contrast with the classic feel of the hack even more.

Even underwater, PLANTS!

But beside the overuse of Venus, the level design is great. It's classic, but the obstacles are well put together, it's challenging but fair. It's the typical linear Mario platforming, but very well polished. If you're good at Mario, seeing all those enemies (mostly plants) and blazing through their fireball is a lot of fun. The game has a few secrets, but overall the levels are simple and neat.

Some postgame levels are a bit of a pain though. Thankfully powerups aren't filtered. You can even bring Yoshi, though they greatly reduced the timer before he eats items in his mouth, so you can't grab a blue shell and fly.

Two plants one pipe?

The hack feels classic but also mixed with modernity, and seeing those modern aspect sometimes feels like missed opportunities, like how the OW have custom musics but not the levels or a few custom sprites. The hack having a fetish sprite (the plants) seen in every levels is kind of interesting but may or may not be annoying. However, the great level design makes for some fun challenge and it is a superb hack if you're looking for good old fun Mario platforming.

 

Even in your switch palace, PLANTS!

 

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐

Good

Fkuc

Review: A plumber for all seasons

 

Finished in ~3h30

 

 A hack that's been on the work for for 9 years. This hack's main feature are the mostly completely custom made graphics by WYE along with some ASM and a neat season gimmick to deliver an unique experience.

WYE love to put his logo into the ground graphics.

 

So first the aesthetic. It's just wonderful, all the tricks were used to make is looks as good as possible. The beautiful custom graphics, but the clever use of layers 2/3, parralax and so on. Each level has a unique appearance that fit well with the seasons. The custom musics are new too. They are nice, albeit some are a bit forgettable. The underground theme is my favorite, while I think the first castle theme would fit better a mountain. Still, very nice.

The snow's getting thicker.

The season gimmick is you have to play 8 levels on an island, 4 times for each seasons. But the levels are completely different between the seasons, only the theme remain. For example the fourth level is a forest level, but it looks different in each season. Light green with flowers in spring, rainy in summer, orange in fall and frozen in winter. Each world has also it's set of new enemies like some flowers in spring, although koopas are present everywhere, and a bit too much of them, but they are the classic enemies. The gameplay is classic SMW, a few change here and here that aren't bad. The cape is replaced with a raccoon leaf, but contrary to other hacks you only need to hold the jump button to fly and fall slowly, which is much better on the hand. The dragon coins (star coins here) are still 5 in each levels, and you must get all of them for 100% completion, which isn't hard and when you collect them once they stay collected forever.

A good raccoon tail finally?

 

The levels are fairly linear, with some detours and small little challenges to get the stars coins which are good. The few secret exits were also nicely implemented. Some levels have unique sprites or gimmick that makes playing them really fun. Even the more classical level, due to the unique aesthetic and season theme are refreshing to play. There was a lot of creative setups, except maybe a bit too much use of blocks on the ground you need a koopa shell to hit them.

I need 99 lives? Say no more fam. I won't spoil what it unlocks.

The game in intermediate difficulty on smwc, which is easy for veteran SMW players. I admit I breezed through most of the level, 100% the hack with it's 41 exists took me only 3h30 to complete, but it was still very fun. If you're looking for a short or easy hack with classic gameplay and extremely charming atmosphere, I definitely recommend this one.

Autumn best season don't @ me.

Rating: 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Amazing, must play

 

Review talk: Rating system

The reviews are only made for me, but still I will talk about how I review the hacks, and how I will change the rating.
At first it was a rating system out of 10. For a game to get 0 it need to crash before it can be played. My rating was as follow:

1.  King of kusoge
2. Very bad
3. Bad
4. Poor
   
5.  Middling
6. Ok
7. Good
8. Very Good
9. Amazing
10. Masterpiece
    

Where games between 1 and 4 I don't recommend playing, 5-6 I usually don't recommend but they can have a niche appeal, 7-8 I recommend and 9-10 are must play for hack players enthusiasts in my opinion.

 

But I notice that I won't use all numbers, so I want to simplify it. It will now be rated from 0 to 5, using stars. The new rating will be as follow:

1. ⭐ Poor - I didn't like it and wouldn't recommend it (4-5 previously)
   
2. ⭐⭐ Okay - It was okay, I wouldn't recommend it but I understand it's not bad and some people may like it, or it may have a niche appeal that I wasn't particularly attracted to (5-6 previously)
   
3. ⭐⭐⭐ Good - It's good to play, I recommend it but not as much as the 4 and 5 stars hacks (6-7 previously)
   
4. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very good - I like it a lot, I recommend playing (8 previously)
   
5. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Amazing, a must play for fan of romhacks of this genre (9-10 previously)
   

 No need to have too many numbers for bad games, one is enough (only 1⭐ is bad). I don't intend to play bad hacks.

Also 0 stars will be possible, but if it's really bad (1-3 in previous rating), a game where I hated most of my time playing it and don't find any appeal.

Review: The Misfortunes of Little Denise

 I wanted a short rompy hack to play. This one caught my interest. Is it good?

 

 Finished in 2h30

 

 In this hack you play as Denise. The town was invaded by monsters and you have to find the culprit. The story barely exist, past the intro you just go from level to level, defeat bosses characters that are humans too with their own names but no backstory developed. Also Reznor. Near the end you have a cutscene that reveal the bad guy, but it's delivered so abruptly. Whatever, this is not a story hack. Let's concentrate on the level design. Being rated medium difficulty on smwcentral, that means it's an easy hack for decently experimented SMW players, which is alright. I don't mind easy hack, but it's a bit harder to impress since some levels come and went.

 

Only local girl Denise can help.

New playable character, new system. This time it's an health system, you have 10 HP total (that sometimes can be increased to 11HP due to bugs, aka grabbing a +2HP heart when at 9HP) and enemies deals between 1 or 3 HP. It seems to be depending on the enemy, but it's a bit random, no clear way to know which enemies deal more unless after they hurt you. Even then, 10HP is a lot, more hits than in vanilla SMW so it makes the game easier (there's also plenty of hearts that recover HP in the levels). Gameplay is the same, except Cape was changed to Raccon tail of course. There is one change that I HATE, is fireballs can be shot upwards. This is cool, except to shoot upward, you need to either hold up OR hold jump button. That means shooting fireballs straights while jumping is ass because you have to stop holding B before pressing Y. 90% of the time I want to jump and shoot a fireball but the ball goes up and so I get it. Well the game is easy enough that fireballs aren't necessary, still this is frustrating.

Cute squirrels

Graphically it's ok. The new characters graphics (Denise and the bosses) are ok, levels GFX are varied, but there's some instance where it clashes, especially in the enemies graphics. The music choices are great, except the overworld music, there's only one and it sucks. For a submap it would be ok, but why have the whole OW music of the game be that Boo carousel music from SM64. Doesn't fit and gets annoying quickly.

Can't destroy big blocks with the big shells. Meh.

Level design is okay. It's just straight romp, which is what I asked for. There's some parts with item babysitting that wasn't always needed. I don't mind rompy style, but this was just okay here. Nothing original. It gets a bit better near the end. I honestly don't have much to say about it. The generous health system makes rushing through the level not punished enough, so levels were gone so quickly. There's also few levels with secrets exits, except to get switches palaces. And about that, one level had a message box implying that you should have found the key for the secret exit, but you can't: you can only get the key later. That was mean.

Cool effect.

So this is a short quick romp hack. Some little annoyances and lacking potential, but enjoyable.

⭐⭐

Okay

Phred's Cool Punch-Out 2 Turbo

I tried something different today, to play a Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! romhack. I played two in fact.

Very cool.

 First Phred's Cool Punch-Out, this hack is actually only a graphical hacks. The appearances of the fighters have changed, as well as some of the texts, but their patterns are identical. I decided to play it because might as well do, I haven't played Punch-Out!! in a while (when I played it it was on the gamecube in Animal Crossing), so I can play the original before playing a romhack so I can see the changes better.

 

 Very mature.

 

And so about Phred's Cool Punch-Out, the new graphics are cool. They are not amazing or better than the original, but they make a nice alternative if you played the original Punch-Out!! a lot (not my case) and want something slightly different. Most of the new texts are just stupid, but funny. I did chuckles some times. I just noticed one error when you lose against Mask X is head change into's Bald Bull.

 

 Creepy dude.

 

So that's it. I would rate it 2 stars I guess. But anyway, here's for the main course :

 

 The cooler Phred's Punch-Out!!

 

 This hack, compared to the first one, has new patterns for all the boxers. And they are all news. It's subtitled turbo because indeed the game is faster like Street Fighter II Turbo... or is it? The music sure is faster, the rest idk.

 

 Boxing with glasses on?

 

So the game has new elements but the same base. The same 3 tournaments, with the same boxer order except Joe switched with Flamenco. This time more text was modified (with a feeling of old internet slang, some may like it some not). Other than the boxer's info and talks, the tournaments names and other things are different. Each fight as it's own color palette, with one having a particular palette that does change a bit some things. It's not ugly, it's different. The boxer appearance are decent, except the two girls have some frames that looks really bad.

 

You fight Doc! But because of limitations, the strategy is the same as King Hippo.

 

The fight themselves are good. Some boxers have a simple pattern, some have a particular one that requires some time to understand how to overcome them. It makes the difficulty a bit uneven, some fights can be harder than the next one. Overall the difficulty is a bit harder than the original Punch-Out!! There's one fight I had a lot of troubles, because I kept getting punched even when I predicted the attack. Either my reaction was too slow or the dodge window too tight.

 

F*** this robot.

 

There's also some change in the game system. Important is you start each fight with two stars, and also get two stars after you get knocked out. The maximum stars is 7 now. So if well used, that can make some fights goes faster if you use your uppercut at the best moment.

 

lel

 

So a Punch-Out!! hack is very original. P-O is not my favorite game series, but I enjoy it. A romhack with new fighters is nice for a change, and the free uppercut stars is good.

⭐⭐⭐

Good 

 

For download link to the ROM and more infos about Phred's Cool Punch-Out, check out the creator's website: http://master_phred.tripod.com/punchout/index.html