Review: Super Isikoro Mario World

 

World 1-4 4hours, W5-6 5h, W7-8 8h30, SP1-7 4h, SP8-10 2h30 (with cheats)

Total time: 24hours

I've seen this japanese hack on smwc and wanted to give it a try. It's more recent than the japanese hacks I usually played. And apparently it gets really hard in the end. Let's see how it goes.

Switches are extremely useful in this game. Don't miss them.

This is a japanese hack. The hack is in japanese language. But the language barrier isn't a problem. There's doesn't seem to have important plot (spoiler Bowser is the good old bad guy). 

Time for deforestation! (notice the icon that indicate secret exit, as all level dots are yellow)

Presentation:

The graphics are nice. Mostly from smwcentral. They are nice sure, but sometimes there's some clash with the BG/FG, and sometimes some backgrounds could have been made prettier (I feel some backgrounds should have used parallax). A good thing is every level in the game has it's own aesthetic (graphics and music), which is nice variety. It's not always good but it's varied. The enemies for the most part are the classic SMW enemies with some classic custom sprites. However the bosses are all original and the boss fight are fun, but classic "dies in three hit". In fact the hack structure is like classic Mario, with classic level themes, classic level names "xxx world 1". A bit too classic for my taste.

This is a japanese hack, but it's kinda weird. It use some tropes of old japanese hacks, but is mixed with modern/classic smwc hack elements, if you know what I means? Like it's not as janky as I'm used to in japanese hacks. This hack is a mix of old JP hacks and classic Western hacks, but it doesn't take the best of both sides. I also found multiple glitches, cut-offs and other errors in the hack. According to the credits Isikoro was the only tester of the game. That explain it.

 

Nice cut-off.

 

The classic swimming under the level into going inside the ground.

 So the game. In jp hacks fashion, it start easy (extremely easy) and ends up hard (extremely hard). As you can see in the completion time at the top of the article, the first worlds go by quickly and the latest ones...  not so much. Yes the first levels are easy, but frankly, I find them boring. Because the game is classic-like, with easy difficulty it's just uninteresting. However in the later worlds, when the difficulty picks up, it makes for some fun challenges, albeit sometimes frustrating. But still, the last worlds feels good to play. Starting world 5 or 6, you will need to go back to farm lives (there's a good spot in 2-2, and 2-3 has good powerups at the start). About powerups, this game is changed so you don't get small immediatly when getting hit while fire/racoon mario (oh yeah, cape was replaced with racoon and I hate floating with racoon Mario), so you can have 5 hits in total before dying. And because some levels start getting very difficult, I started going in previous levels to farm powerups a lot.

Many kinds of plants in this hack.

Each levels are differents in appereance, but unfortunately in fun too. Some levels are challenging and fun, some are frustrating, some are very easy compared to the previous ones. So like I said, start of the game is underwhelming, second half is alright, with some fun levels there and there. There's also some levels that are funs only if you have powerups, without they are more annoying that anything. Exemple is 9-5. It's difficult, I died a lot, but it's a really fun level where you hop on flying beetles. If you have a racoon tail to help you that is, without it would still be possible, but be more precise, and probably more frustrating. And with this high difficulty, I expected 9-6 to be a thing, then I completed it in two lives. What a letdown. And what about the postgame? Well...

The blaarg move along layer 2.

POSTGAME SPOILER START

So first to go to the postgame (special world) you have to find the entrance. I won't tell you where it is. You have to clear a puzzle, that I found to be really clever. Then the first postgame level (aka SP1). The first level you have to carry a shell through the entire level without killing it. That's honestly so dumb, that I opted for the second option which is keep a leaf in reserve box to fly over the wall at the end instead. The post game difficulty is much higher, but like the main games there's some anomalies, some levels that are way easier than the rest SP2&7. The levels are honestly pretty interesting, the problem is because it's postgame it was decided that the levels will not have midway points. But still the same length as the average levels. With postgame difficulty of course. So while some levels are good, I really, really wished there was a midpoint in the middle. Especially SP6, despite finding it kind of fun, took me 1 hour and a half to complete!

But well, all fun must ends. SP8 is a giant f***** maze. It's not hard, but it's HUGE. And there's some required doors that are somewhat hidden. After 45 minutes, when I was walking in circle for a while, I ended up looking at the solution (provided by Isikoro itself, when you download the hack there's a folder with image of the rooms of SP8). I feel kinda bad for not finding two doors myself but whatever. Then SP9 is...  a 100 ROOMS CHALLENGE LEVEL!!! You have to traverse over 100 hard rooms, with limited hits (you start with 3 and get 1/2 every 5/10 rooms). Also in this level the invulnerability timer is drastically reduced, so you can easily get hit multiple times!! And I said 100, but there's a few more bullsh** after those. I tried a bit, but after a short while I was like "...no". I cheated to give myself 80 hits, and even then this wasn't enough for the last obstacles. I just wanted this game to end. Also there's a SP10, not hard but also very very long level so I also cheated using rewinds like 5 times because I'm not replaying all this for the start. I totally cheated the last 3 levels and I absolutely don't care. I don't feel bad about it, and when you don't feel bad about cheating in a game, that means there's something wrong with the game. But yeah it was just those last 3 levels, every other levels prior to that (even the other postagames levels) were fine.

If you want to edit the mushroom count too, it's in RAM $63

It's actually 106 but it overflowed lmao.

POSTGAME SPOILER END

This is a game with an extreme difficulty curve (start way too easy, ends way too hard), some levels are fun challenges but some are either frustrating or just average. Overall, after world 3 (which was too easy and boring) and before postgame (which was too hard and frustrating), this was an enjoyable game.

Rating:

⭐⭐

Okay

Review: Mega Man 4 Voyage

Finished in 4h40

My boss order: Bright, Pharaoh, Ring, Dust, Toad, Dive, Skull, Drill

2012-2018... this hack has been in development for 7 years ? Was it worth the wait?

Worst title drop?

This is a hack of Mega Man 4 (and not Rockman 4). Like the original, it start with a cutscene, that has been edited with a new plot explaining why the robot master of 4 are back. With only that you can see that this hack will be heavily edited. This will be confirmed when you start your first level and see how much it has to offer.

 

Some old enemies are back.

 

First the aesthetic: top notch. The graphics are varied, colorful and looks great. The music are all new and sound good too. But I didn't recognize any familiar song... I'm pretty sure all the musics are original composition. That's really neat. Some musics just feels like they would fit perfectly in a real Mega Man game. Some great efforts were put into the presentations. The (few) cutscenes were also greatly done, and there's some nice surprises in the plot.

You too?

The game has a lot of modifications. There are a lot of enemies from other Mega Man games that were implemented, and work just like the original. All the boss fights are different, and they are so good. The bosses are probably the best part of the game: not because they are modified, but because they are modified in the best way possible. The bosses attacks and pattern were made with great care. No bosses have cheap attacks (there may be a few attacks that are hard to understand at first, but nothing annoying), it's not too hard (I beat most boss with mega buster & no charge shoot only), but more important they are creative. Figuring the pattern of the boss to beat him unscratched feels so great. Even Toadman, who in the original MM4 is the lamest boss ever, is a formidable opponent in this one.

It even has one specific boss that I will not spoil, a boss from another Mega Man game that I usually hate, but in this game it was made in such a way that it was extremely fun to fight. I was really impressed, good job.

Finally, a good Toadman boss.

 

The level design is great too. Honestly the level are nicely constructed and the progression is good. If I would say one bad thing, it's that the levels sometimes have too much ideas. It's okay in Wily's castle to mix elements, but even the standard robot master levels have too many different enemies that you see a few time, where I would have liked if some enemies were exploited more. The level are slightly long, and sometime the theme shift too much (Toadman stage start with ice aesthetic and ends in a electric central?). But other than that, the levels are fine. The layout of the level and the obstacles are nice, no complains.

Some stages have secrets/alternate paths, for some lives or E-tank. I didn't find the two items of MM4 (I don't know if they are still here, I think yes) but I found something else very neat instead. Don't hesitate to explore previous level before tacking on Wily's castle.

Yes those are here too. But more fair.

 

The hack isn't too hard, but especially the hack isn't mean. The creator really wanted to not be too annoying. Like the "quickman lasers" doesn't instakill you, there's plenty of E-tank (you can completely beat the game without using these tbh), plenty of health/weapons refill, even the final boss give you some lives. That's nice... but I felt like it's TOO nice, and the hack could have been mean a few times I wouldn't have minded. But imo if you don't use e-tanks, the difficulty is perfectly fine. I liked it.

There's even a warning sign to signal those enemies.

 

This may be one of my favorite Mega Man romhack. It is full of new content with fair and well crafted level design and awesome boss battle.

Oh no, not again.

Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Amazing, must play

Review: Rockman 2 ONN

 

Finished in 6h20

My boss order: Metal, Flash, Wood, Clash, Quick, Air, Bubble, Heat

I decided to play a Mega Man romhack. Of Mega Man 2 again, despite me thinking it's clearly not the best Mega Man to base a romhack upon. This one is more recent than the one I usually play, only ~+5 years ago. Let's see.

These big fish always cause clipping.

What to say? It's a Mega Man romhack with heavy modification.

Aesthetic, the new graphics are good. Except the second part of Heatman's stage where the background was too bright, it's clean and looks good, with graphics from various other games.

Same for the music, overall goods, except one or two that are okay, but nothing bad.

Seems like the author liked the gameboy MM games (multiples musics/GFX from it).

Oh and something to notice: a lot of the things were made faster (filling energy bar, the text when getting a new weapon, etc.), that's pretty nice.

Monkey trouble.

The level design is sometimes good, sometimes okay. The levels are designed with specific ideas in mind, like in the screenshot above where it use conveyor for all the ground. It's just that sometimes the ideas are a bit wonky, or sometimes just a bit too hard. You will probably Game Over at least once every stage. But I can recognize some levels are creative and have interesting setups.

Just a small warning, I've found some glitch. In the Woodman boss room, if you go too far to the right, you may enter the next screen by error and get stuck as seen below. If this happens, don't hesitate to reset (if you didn't wrote the password, use a MM2 password generator).

Game broke. I'm stuck.

 

Some of the enemies edit are nice too. I like the new dog mini-boss, and that the robot that slide on the ground and get faster when you're the same height (idk the name) can be killed with the mega buster now.

But sometimes enemies are placed in a really annoying way, and it's harder to hit them since the good weapons were nerfed.

About the weapons, they're kinda okay. The only problem is you have less option to hit enemies in certain directions.

To note is Flash stopper is finally good because it's not a use once until you deplete it completely.

But the best is definitely Quick weapon's. It give you invulnerability for like one second, that's okay, but there is a glitch were you can underflow the energy, giving you infinite uses which is extremely useful, particularly in Wily's stage 2. Here's how to do it (spoiler) Deplete the weapon completely, then grab a big weapon energy. That's it, when you use it when there's 2 bar left, it will go past 0 and underflow(/spoiler). I feel bad using glitch like that, but sometimes the hack was so mean I felt no remorse.

6 projectiles at once?

The levels are fine, but the boss are in my opinion, bad. In that they are hard, but annoying. Kinda spamy, sometimes movements are too eccentric. Without using the boss weakness, some would be a real pain in the butt. Some bosses fill the screen with projectile, for real. Some even has projectiles that stay on screen (but you can destroy). I wonder what would happens if I survive long enough in Metalman's battle when all sprites are used, will he not shoot anymore? Will he replace one? Will it crash the game?

Mecha dragon is the boss I hate the most. Battle on one-tile platform, where most of the time getting hit means dying because of the recoil pushing you into the abyss. Even worst in this hack because you only have two platforms, and the weapons you have to use against it is one of the worst.

Oh and special mention to Wily's castle 4 boss which as always is a real pain in the ass. And this time it's not clever, just weird and annoying.

Fuck you you're the worst Mega Man boss.

Also why do in most Mega Man 2 hacks, Wily's stage 2 is "a thing". In this one the thing is (spoiler) no enemies, death blocks only. It's not the worst, but it's "a thing".

 

Overall, the level design is good, except some enemies placements, and the bosses...  could be better. It's a nice hack, not the best I've played for sure. But thanks to the weapon underflow glitch some parts were way less infuriating (laugh).

Why so many lives?

Oh that's why.

Rating:

⭐⭐

Okay

Review: Mario in Mushroom Rix Land

 

Finished in ~7h (4h in world 6)

I played Mario in Mushroom Rix Land. This is a hack with no real story, all about the level design. The game also doesn't have any secret exits. Let's see what we have here.

 

BLOCK YOUR CEILINGS AAAAAAAAH!!!

 

The overworld is pretty generic and just serve to place the levels. Some ExGFX could have been good, for the city world for example. The levels doesn't even have original names, they are just "Grassland 1", "Grassland 2" and so on. I don't really like it. The levels themselves are very different to each other, but on the overworld they don't stand out.

That this hack doesn't have infinite lives. They are very finite: very few life farms (I haven't found one until 4-3) and there is no lives in levels except coins. The game save after every levels, so at worst you can lose your midpoint, which isn't too bad (at the beginning). After a level, having Game Over on purpose to refill your lives back to 5 is a viable strategy.

One thing I disliked is no cape. There is fire flowers, but no cape at all in the entire hack. I know cape is OP, but it's fun to use.

 

Even the castle is just called Grassland 5.

 

The choice of aesthetic and musics are nice, no problems here. It's not vanilla, but some SMW foreground and background are used with other elements, that mix well together.

Many sorts of Rexs.

Now let's get to the meat of the subject. The level design. It's quite good. What I like about the game is it has this approach of having a different gimmick every level and also having each level unique in appearance too. The castle levels use a mix of elements of the previous levels in the world.

So many custom sprite are used. All available from smwcentral. They are nicely used. There's just the punching gloves I don't like, but that's just me. Plus the game doesn't explain that's it's better to not hold direction and hold jump when touching one. Could be frustrating if it's the first time you see those.

Blind jumps that put you on grey platforms, forcing you to react quickly.

You could summarize the level design of the hack as quick reaction platformer, where many obstacle are made to be identified and cleared fast. The game use a lot of falling grey platforms and snake blocks to force you to act quickly. Too much in fact. This is nice, but I like to take it easy sometimes too.

One thing I disliked is the game spend too much time at the top of the screen, when you can barely see Mario. It appears too often, and sometimes there's danger at the top you can barely see because it's covered by the status bar.

But overall, I think the level was nicely done, and the obstacle made around the custom elements feels good to play.

There's spikes here. You can barely see them.

So the game is pretty nice huh. The difficulty is good, it's hard but it's some fair and fun challenge...

Yes, until world 6. In world 6, the difficulty take a nose dive and become quickly too overbearing. You will have to start to farm lives to not having to redo the first parts of levels. Let's go into the details of world 6 levels :

First level has moles that spawn in the air you have to hop on. It's seems crazy but is tolerable, except one jump at the end that is incredibly hard and stupid. I could only pass it by taking a hit and by pure luck. Yes, I feels like my victory was only due to being lucky. Maybe there's a trick, but you don't have the opportunity to safely try because it's above a pit and near the end.

Second level is an autoscroll where you have to jump from leaf to leafs... the leafs are 1-tile wide sprites that fall left and right. It is very precise, and requires great execution. You also have to be at the front of the autoscroll to not miss the platforms, so less time to react. This levels took me 90 lives to beat. In retrospective that wasn't horrible, but still not the best experience.

Then a weird level you're forced to be small to go in narrow passage, including a passage blocked by a shell I had no idea to pass it other than using a reserve mushroom. The level wasn't hard, just weird

Next levels are actually alright. A platform level, a thwomp level that way easier than the rest and a bubble level. Those play fine and doesn't feels frustrating like the first two levels.

Then the final level is a bullshit marathon. 6 parts, a midway point only in the middle (before part 4). Each part is the size of an half level (or more), and are the hardest of the game.You HAVE to use savestates, at least one between each room. Trying to do a set of 3 rooms without is pure madness. Although the rooms are a bit creative, too many setups use snake blocks or grey platforms. No multiple midpoints, no instant retry and no infinite lives make it too tedious.

And that is unfortunate. The first 5 world were really good, but the last world is just too hard to be enjoyable, and the quality is uneven (in aesthetic too, I disliked the neon graphics of some levels and the glowing palette of the final level but that's just me).

So I'm gonna rate this world separately because I can.

Have to be at the front, less time to react.

World 1-5:

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Very good

World 6:

⭐

Poor

Review: Super Mario Bros. Peach's Adventure

Finished 100% in ~6h45

 

So before starting, here's the question everyone will ask: Why is Peach so fat? I means, I'm not to criticize the artist style, and I'm not against well endowed characters but... why make Peach fat? That is such a weird interpretation. It would have been better if it was an original character since she doesn't looks like Peach at all. Some people may think it's simply the author's fetish... They may be right. She's also not the only female character that gained weight in the game. Anyway ingame nobody mentions Peach's new shape. Heck, even if her sprite is larger, the hitbox stay the same (which is kinda bad, especially when trying to enter pipes as you think you're centered enough but you're not). So hum yeah let's jump into this.

So fat she need bigger pipes.

First, let's say that the author was very dedicated about the game. The game comes with a pdf manual just like oldschool SNES games. The cutscenes are sparse but feature drawings made especially for the hack. I won't spoil, but the postgame has a lot of content. Through the game there's lot of easter eggs and some little nice touch. Yeah, a lot of work was put into this.

Yep that's Peach.

The hack use 8-bit style graphics in the style of SMB1 (since this Peach is inspired by the SMB1 Peach, at least the colors). It's not strict 8-bit, it use the SMW elements as it's full disposal like using background with parralax effect. The hack looks really good.

In team of music however I'm slightly disappointed because it's just normal custom musics. They are good, but I think 8-bit style music would have been great for this 8-bit graphics hack. Also some tracks appears a bit too often, and these are the ones everyone already know (like the SMB1 overworld theme from All Star).

 

Ah the diagonal SMW pipes you can enter...

 

Honestly this game is pretty easy. After all, this hack is noted to be difficulty "Normal" on smwcentral and I'm more used of playing "Hard" hacks. One of the reason it's easy is that you have SMB3 powerdown AND item box. Like Variety of Chance, that makes you can take twice as much hit before dying. Plus, there's a big enough amount of powerups in levels, and the platforming isn't too hard. But this time, tiers 2 powerups don't get overwritten by mushrooms, and that's nice. The last levels are harder just because they are long, and even then if you don't panic you can easily complete them without breaking a sweat.

Oh no, a SMW minecart section! (well it wasn't too horrible in this game)

Game content:

- Each levels has 5 star coins to collect. The thing is, you have to collect all five without dying. That means you will soon begin to avoid midpoints so you don't have to complete the level to restart getting the coins. This add some challenge, but sometimes not the best challenges. Coins can be in the way, sometimes nice sidetrack, and sometimes in a random pipe that you may miss even if you tried to enter each pipes before because of the wide player graphics that sometimes doesn't enter pipes because not centered enough. I replayed one level 5 times before getting into a pipe the 6th time. But 90% of the levels I get all star coins on the first try.

- The game use multiple powerup patch. The racoon, hammer suit, boomerang suit are here and kinda nice. Also the ice flower only in like two levels, they aren't even in the shop.

- Oh yeah you have no lives. You get plenty coin, that you can use in a shop to buy powerups. Except it's the same powerups you can find in level, so it can be faster to go in a level, get a powerup and start+select than going to the shop. Well the game is easy so you may not need to get outside powerups anyway.

A food world... not surprised lmao

So the level design. The game has a linear progression, and the levels are too. Some levels have alternate paths, with remixed levels from SMB1. The game is made to feels like a normal SMB games, and it's do it job at that. Levels are distinct from one another, but are mostly old school romps, with classic enemies (koopas and goombas will appears everywhere, sometimes with different graphics depending on the world). Sometimes the obstacles doesn't feel very original. It's not bad, but very classic. In late/postgame, it picks up a bit and become more interesting. There are some good platforming at parts. At the same time, there is also a few late/postgame levels that are kinda boring. Like that space water level with sloooooow autoscroll. That you may have to play twice if you miss one pipe that has a star coin inside. There's also more bullet generators lategame, and we all know bullet generators are lame.

The classic ridding a Mega Mole over munchers. Can the mole support Peach's weight?

The game clearly had a lot of efforts into it. It has a really interesting aesthetic, and the level design is basic but fun to play overall. Some people will definitely enjoy it. But if you want more challenge, or a hack that deviate more to the traditional Mario platforming, it may not be for you.

>tfw you will never get stomped on by fat Peach

⭐⭐⭐

Good