Review: Rockman 2 β

 

β is Beta

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

Vanilla?

When booting the game, you have the vanilla intro. Then the title screen very slightly modified, and the classic stage select. Then you select a stage, and notice the layout is different, but until now, no new palette and no custom music. That's right, this is a "vanilla" Rockman 2 romhack. But is it really?

The further you play, you will notice that it is not. Despite the palettes and music untouched, the boss them are changed to be harder, and have different weakness. Some enemies are also slightly changed, and there are some rare new graphics. These changes are a bit off-putting, the game try to feels vanilla while it is not.

 

Oh boy

Even if vanilla, aesthetic should be rated, on how the vanilla graphics are used. And I have to say it is rather lackluster. The original RM2 has some great graphics, but here there's isn't as much. While some looks good, like bubble man and the waterfall section, some level have very simple, if not no background at all, just a blank black BG like Woodman stage. It is a bit disappointing.

 

This is sort of a maze level.

Being mostly vanilla, the main focus of this game should be the level design. Unfortunately, it is not the best. It is hard for sure, but also infuriating. I recognize the game try to do new things and use new elements, or mix new elements not commonly see together. However it also overuse some enemies.

And some times when elements are mixed or used in new ways, it isn't for the best, and feels really bad to play. I can't really explain why, but I had a sour feeling in some of the levels.

Take for example the screenshot of Metal Man stage above. Normally the screws are in a corridor section. Here the game change it to put them in more open space But it feels really bad to have precision platforming with these. It is hard, and annoying to have one tile jump on conveyor, especially on top of the screen where the screws can spawn directly into you.

 

You don't often see "bloopers" and "pokeys" together

The game changed some things but not for the best. It seems the game fixed the "pause trick" of resetting your momentum when pausing in the air. Sure, it was more like a bug, you can fix it so people don't abuse it. But it felt good to abuse it, to have a safety net for awkward jumps. Now there's not any at all. Also this game has many, many one tile jump. Too much precision platforming, and the item 1 and 2 to help you in those section are behind the two hardest levels (well Heatman's level is not hard, but the boss is, and it's weakness is not Bubble and it may be Airman so fuck it).

 

One of the few new graphics is THAT! WTF

One of the reason why I felt bad playing it is the lack of polish. I encountered multiple times platform that don't act like they should. See below some example. While maybe Metal Man ones can be understand as a way to get down it's still a dick move that made me die on my last life. And in Quick Man stage the collision doesn't match the platform, while the shadow under do. Minor anomalies, but still should've been fixed before release.

 

Test your game

 

One other reason is the teasing. By that I means every level have a secret hidden (E-tank or live) in plain sight but you can't collect unless you have the required item (mostly item 1) or have a weapon to destroy the barrier (I learned too late that metal blade CAN destroy barriers here).. It's annoying to see so many paths and E-tank you can't get especially since the boss are hard and they can greatly help if you don't have their weakness.

Blind jump. Went the wrong side? YOU DIE LOL

As of now, I've played 6 levels in 3h30. I'll quit for tonight, but I don't know if I will continue. Yes I'm the sort of guy who can give up on games after playing for a while if I notice I don't have fun. Because there's so many great games to play, I don't feel bad giving up a bad game. But games I don't have fun aren't necessarily a bad game, sometimes it just doesn't fit my tastes. It's my own feeling. Having said that...

Temporary rating:

⭐

Poor 

Edit: Picked up the game again for one hour. Heatman stage isn't too bad, and I've found how to exploit it's pattern and it's weakness to quick boomerang. Finally with item 1 I can get past Airman's first part (btw item 1 move downward now, while item 2 move immediately without waiting for you). The second part isn't too bad despite using wind. And Airman is weak to Heatman. So finally done with the 8 robot masters, Wily's fortress stage 1 is slippery but other than that it's okay, Mecha dragon is as annoying as ever. But Wily stage 2 is annoying, it's one of this stage where it expect to correctly use your items to progress, but in a annoying way. I'm stuck on one part where I keep dying. Will try again later maybe...

 

Review: Rockman 2 Gray Zone

Finished in 4h30. Streamed on youtube:

 

Rockman2 Gray Zone is a Rockman 2 romhack. It is one with many changes, such as new graphics, musics, weapons, boss and of course level design.

Talking about these news things (except level design that I'll talk about later), it is high quality. The musics are good and the graphics mostly so. Bar one part I died because the block had the same palette as the background (and I didn't know it was slippery), overall the graphics are nicely implemented.

The weapons have new effects, maybe more balanced than the original game but still some are way more useful than other. Airman's and Metalman's are probably the best while I never used Woodman's  one. The boss are modified too, to complement their new weapons, like how Airman throw fire. The weapons weakness changed too. The bosses are obviously harder than the original, but not impossibly hard like some romhacks.

About the difficulty, like most romhacks it is harder than the original but stay acceptable, except one stage I'll mention later.

Level design is good, the main stage are not too long or hard, E-tanks aren't scarce. There's some interesting setups, and enemies are varied (some hacks tends to spam Sniper Joe, this is not the case). While the normal stage are normal challenge, the Wily fortress stages are very platforming oriented, making full use of the 3 items you've got. It was interesting and the maker made sure that items refill respawn on death.

One unfortunate case is it use Rockman 2 as a base game. I personally think Mega Man 2 is overrated, and has some pretty bad things like some Wily boss or Quickman's lasers. And usually in romhacks it's way worse. Here there's the unfortunate problem of using Quickman's lasers near impossible to dodge, unless you have Flash Man's weapon.

And the big problem of this hack is Wily's castle 4. The Wily levels have some gimmicks, and this one use one of the worst gimmick in platformers: reduced visibility. There's some tiles with priority on where you can't see Mega Man except for a few pixels on his feet when he jump. Platforming section where you can't see yourself, how fun. But the boss... well the original Wily 4 boss was ass, here it's Mega Ass. You see a room with some pits, and one single wall cannon. After struggling finding it's weakness (it's full charged Heat) then... nothing? Actually, you have find the four next cannons, and there are all hidden under tiles, making them invisible. So you shoot all around the room waiting to hear the sound effect that you hit something. Of course they are placed in hard places. It's a puzzle boss like the original but 100% worse. Oh, and there's cannons off-screen that shoot at regular interval at you so fast it's inhuman to dodge all shoots, the only way I could beat the boss is abusing the pause trick; pausing the game repeatedly to use invulnerability frames and have the bullets pass through me. Without this I couldn't stand a chance.

So overall, the game is super nice, with lot of interesting new things and engaging level design, except for a few little mistakes, and a big one named Wily castle 4.

Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Good

Review: Romancing Mario

Finished 100% in around 12 hours

About the game

There is things to take into considerations about this hack for the review:

-It is a hack originally created in 2010

-It is originally a japanese game.

-I didn't played the japanese version, instead a played using an english version from a fan translated patch. Not only it translate the game, it also fix some problems due to inaccurate tools from the past, mainly make the music compatible with modern emulators, reduce slowdown generated from the old blocktool. I will review the version I've played, the english fixed version.

And about the date. Yes this hack is 10 years old. The standards for romhacks have changed a lot since then, and certain things that seemed acceptable back then are not now. But I personally don't like saying that it "aged". To me, if a game is good, it should stay good no matter how much time passed. If a game is bad now, that means it was always bad, and we just didn't know better back then. The term "Classics" exist for a reason. Is this game a classic? Let's see. 

 

Famous for being able to fly on the main map with Yoshi

Aesthetic

This is where you can see the game is old. Although the games looks ok for the most part, it wasn't the prettiest all around. Some part could definitely have been improved. And at the times, people didn't cared about if a custom background would change the colors of the status bar, so there are many levels where the status bar become puke ugly. Or pipes, or goal tapes, or other elements. It would be normal now to fix them, but not back then. But I can recognize some efforts were made in some places. Aesthetic isn't really important for hacks like this. At least it's not ugly (I did play some old hacks that were ugly, this isn't one of them). 

 

Nice palette (notice the english text)

Game World

Mario goes save Peach from Bowser. But in space.

You use a Yoshi to fly on the map and chose which level to play. Very nice idea. Except you have to get a Yoshi everytime you want to go to the next world. And I think in the last world you can't get a Yoshi so can't go back to other levels.

The fact that all 4 worlds are accessible in any order was a nice touch. The difficulty is for the most part balanced around that, with some spikes there and there.

There was also enough secret exits, and some secret difficult optional levels which was nice. 

 

Hard level to start, but it's your choice.

 

Level design

Now we're talking. So the level design is very classic, very simple. But it's hard to know if even at the time this was simple or if this seemed more original. Anyway it is mostly vanilla, with the few custom things being the old classics you see in every other old hacks like venus piranha, rotodics, disappearing blocks, etc. The level design is simple, but enjoyable. For the most part it is just a romp, classic platforming levels, but well made. The elements are nicely put together, and nothing seems out of place.

Some levels had unusual stuff, but for the most part it was very usual stuff. It has all the old hacks stuffs, like obligatory skull raft levels (every old hack put ones, unless you add a spin to it you shouldn't make one because everyone already played hundreds of skull raft levels), bullet bills generators, blocks that switches from solid to non-solid every 8 frames (and being the old blocktool, you can easily clip though the corners, thankfully this doesn't happened much for me).

Being a japanese hack, it start easy and become very hard at the end. The easy levels feels great to play through, and the hard levels feels great when you finally conquer them. Unfortunately, some levels are hard for the wrong reason. The hardest level took me two hours become it was extremely precise, with only one powerup at the start, no midpoint, and the second section being a slow autoscroll (not too hard, but it's just slow).

About autoscrolls, it is a negative point for me in this hack. No, I actually like autoscroll, but almost all autoscrolls in the game were just "slow" autoscroll, and I felt there were too much. Doesn't help that two hardest levels had autoscroll sections, which are hard and long levels so losing a life in the next section means redoing the whole autoscroll part which can last 4 minutes. It wasn't on the level of Hyper 6 or other crazy hacks, but still very hard and demanding.

Some levels were also weird or badly balanced. In the later levels, the first and second part of the levels were made more distinct to each other, sometimes too much. The ice castle strike me, as the first part is a nice level with ice blocks you have to use fire flower, and the second is a weird lava scrolling level with no enemies that seemed really out of place, and where I died a lot because I was impatient. There were some levels like that that were too slow paced, which is unfortunate because the very action packed levels were a blast. Especially when you complete them perfectly and realize if you made a mistake you would have to redo it from the beginning. Like the first last world level, or the secret level.

But actually, it is only two levels that were very hard and took me a long time to complete. The rest of the levels are more manageable, even if they get hard they doesn't feel too difficult like these two. Even one of the optional level that feels like it should be very hard, doesn't feel as much because it has a midpoint, good powerups and doesn't last too long, which all that isn't true for those two levels. So beware when you reach them. 

 

Quality

Overall

It is difficult to judge. Obviously the game is old, and many things are not up to modern standards. It isn't a very original hack but sticking to the classics can works too. It is a japanese hack for sure. The start is a nice romp, the end is hardcore platformers. Unfortunately the quality varies, some levels are excellent platforming levels that makes you happy to beat them while some have awkward elements or quite precise level design, but that makes beating them relieving.

It is a good hack, if you are looking for old school challenge. If you're more into modern hacks with more surprises, it may not be as enjoyable.

 

Final note

⭐⭐⭐

Good

Maybe less if you don't have nostalgia for old hacks.

Review: Sicari Remaster

Finished 100% in around 6 hours

 

Story

The game use original characters and have a new story. A fairly simple story were you have to defeat the enemies that managed to invade the world. Simple but effective. I would have liked more details about the characters themselves, their origins, etc. Maybe next time.

Post game has a short new story that I didn't understand anything. It's probably not cannon so I don't care. But I prefer no story than a confusing story. 

 

The two playable characters.

 

Aesthetic

The best part about the hack, almost all the graphics (and character design) is made by the author Eevee, and they are gorgeous. It's very well done technically too, with great usage of layer 3. Sometimes it's a bit uneven, like some levels have wonderful BG and some have that are good, but just good (the final castle level). Also the redrawn enemies are good too. 

Looks great.

Gameplay

You can control two characters, Sicari and K-16. The gameplay is much closer to SMW (compared to like Wakana Land), basically a walljump was added, and for K-16 only the ability to shoot projectiles in exchange of inability to spinjump, run or swim (act like mega man underwater). Honestly the gameplay feels great (well the original SMW gameplay is godlike) and the new addition are well implemented. I especially liked the levels that focused on theses new gameplay mechanic, like the level where you play as K-16 with the water going up and down. In fact I would have liked more levels that focus on the differences in gameplay between the two.

There's also some other characters sometimes but they play like Sicari.

Something to note that I dislike but that's just me, is the racoon tail. Yes the cape was replaced with the SMB3 racoon tail, and I dislike it because you have to mash the B button to float instead of holding it, and it hurts my hand. I hate the racoon tail in SMW hack, but luckily it wasn't used too often here, I don't think it was even required more than once (I used it to get a secret exit, but maybe there was a legit way?).

Oh another thing I don't like, it's the metroid HP. Using it is fine, but I dislike that it wasn't edited, aka the damage table wasn't edited, so everything that hurt you removes 20 HP, never anything else, which is disappointing. Also some minor aspects bother me, that when you die, you get your health back but your E-tank doesn't get recharged (it does when hitting a midpoint).

But enough about gameplay. Despite some minor annoyances it was great. 

 

K-16 can shoot fireballs.

Level design

The most important part, and the most controversial ones. I am going to be totally honest, it was a little subpar. The level structure were good, but it wasn't too original or amazing. In fact if you don't take into account the graphics, it mostly felt like a vanilla hack. Good but too safe for my taste. One point that was bad though, was the enemy variety. There was just too many koopas. Every levels but one or two didn't had koopas. I know since they are in sprite slot 02 they can be used in every tileset, but it's not a reason to do so. Even castles, ghost houses, had koopas. This, plus Chucks, Bob-ombs, volcano lotus (in the late game) were too abundant. And also naked blue koopas kicking shell, this was everywhere too. Too many levels had the same enemies combination. It was kinda annoying to go in a new level and see the beautiful graphics and music change, but just have the same enemies. Some vanilla enemies that I remember were not used and could've: Rexes, banzai bill, dino-rhino (only used once), cloud lakitu, skull ride, boos (only used once), torpedo ted, rope and chainsaw, flying koopa, mechakoopa, etc.

I am not saying it was bad. The level were pleasant to play, they just felt too same-y in design after a while.

Oh a a negative point to note: the secret exits. They weren't very good, it was mostly like this: just a keyhole randomly placed in the level, with the key found later in the level and you have to backtrack (to an empty level if you killed the enemies prior). More though could have been put into those, make them more hidden or be optional paths.

Some levels had really good idea though, like the up and down water I've mentioned. I also really liked the challenging platforming castle level with the moving platforms for some reason. The fast you could see what the distance the platform could move is was really neat. The autorun level on the dog was a bit hard with the one tile jumps (it was the level I died the most), but overall the level progression and difficulty curve was good. Maybe it could have been harder, in the postgame levels for example. 

 

 

Robots in every levels.

 

Boss battles

I need to talk about this: the boss battles in the hack were great. All there very creative and fun to battle, which is rare in SMW hack, so kudos to you. 

 

The postgame scenario confused me.

 

Overall

A game with a great atmosphere and aesthetic, with nice new mechanics and bosses, and some pleasant levels to play, but unfortunately can be a bit repetitive on the enemies varieties, and some secret exits aren't very interesting. But overall it was a fun little game to play with some good ideas.

 

Final note

⭐⭐⭐

Good

Review: Super Wakana Land

 

 Finished 100% in around 8 hours

About the game, NSFW, text and story

Before playing, the download page on SMWC have lot of NSFW warnings. And that is the main reason you may start playing the game: Because it's a hack made by a shameless hentai pervert. But of course there is more to that.

About the NSFW parts, there are multiple hidden NSFW pictures in the game (just a anime girl picture ripped from danbooru) which honestly is kinda dumb. I know it's the point of the game, and I myself am a big hentai addict but I feel those were just cringe. I don't mind NSFW in games as long as there is a reason why it's here, or that it's made for comedic purpose and not just "here's tits k bye". The special world for example, is full of NSFW references, and I found the levels very funny. The special world was great because it's not just there, the NSFW part are implemented into the level, from the titty springs, the enemies redesign and the special boss, I found this great.

Other NSFW aspect is the text, with occasional swearing or sex references. Again I don't mind that if there's a reason to be here, either due to the story (but don't count on romhacks for a good story LUL) or for comedy. Sometimes it felts just edgy, sometimes it was funny. About the texts, some were bad but some were also good, the sidequest to find the hidden .brr has many smwc references that I found funny. Some references though were a bit overbearing or not explained for those who don't know the SMWC lore. Like the Vitor laboratory. It is never explained to the player who Vitor is, how Wakana know him, etc. I think for the main story at least, those references should be avoided so player from outside can enjoy without missing any bits. For optional stuff tho I don't care, go nuts.

 

Good start

 

Assthetic

One of the strong point of the game is the aesthetic. Let's be honest, it looks very good. From the various graphics used that fit together to the great musics ports, many (or all) from Wakana himself. It was pleasant to look at. Many HDMA effects were used, although sometimes I feel it was too much. Too many places used that rainbow changing palette or a dark HDMA that made me miss for plain levels without any HDMA to obstruct the view. 

 

This sort of HDMA

 

Level design

is still the most important things for a game, and on this point, it is nice but could have been better. The level were nicely done and not too hard, sometimes a bit long especially levels with boss at the end, and there is no multiple midpoint patch. At least the cutscenes only play once which is good. And the final level that warned of being the hardest only took me one try.

So the level design varied and not flat, but unfortunately many many times the hack resort to item babysitting, most notably finding a P-switch and having to backtrack to use it in the correct place. Aka the SMWCP syndrome. Seriously it was used way too much, sometimes in place not needed, like having a door bring you to the next room instead of the same room to get a P-switch to activate it and enter a door to the next room. Sure it makes the level longer, but better have a short level than useless padding like that.

When not babysitting P-switches, the gameplay was enjoyable, while not mind breaking it was pleasant to traverse the levels. 

 

Why

 

Gameplay

The gameplay is something very important to mention, because this game use a new protagonist with a new sets of weapon. Wakana can have 5 air jump, float, shoot projectiles for mana, invincible slide.

The plus is all those jumps and float makes for a very aerial style of platformer, and makes many obstacles less dangerous, where if you slide off you can fly back on land. It is satisfying to go through the levels with so many jumps you always feel safe.

The cons are I felt like those abilities were sometimes unexploited. Like many obstacles could be bypassed with jumping over. But it's not too bad, since Kirby does it too, it let the player decide to fully exploit the mechanics or rely on them when needed.

Other things to mention is the mana. Coins replace mana and are scattered everywhere, and you can also regain by holding up. Either in some places you have too many mana/don't have reason to use mana, or sometimes you have too little and have to wait to recharge it. Fortunately dragon coins increase the speed of recharge but it was still annoying sometimes to sit down and wait for the mana to be charged before continuing. Also dragon coins doesn't save on midpoint which is unfortunate. That, and there's also a helpful glitch (but still a glitch easily fixed) that when the game is paused, pressing up still recharge mana. About start, I've read the readme later but yeah start sometimes broke the music, or can even softlock like in the level where it goes dark and when paused the darkness continue and on your last life you die but can't unpause to exit.

Slide was useful but a bit under exploited, ground pound was okay, and honestly I played almost the whole game without using spin jump because I forgot it existed when ground pound break blocks too. Don't even know if spinjumping on spiky enemies is still safe or not. Spinjump could have been removed without impacting the game. 

 

What the heck am I playing?

 

Overall

Despite some parts with mixed opinions (the dialogues/nsfw sometimes funny sometimes cringe, the many p-switch babysitting and the non-optimal gameplay), this was an unique SMWhack experience which I enjoyed. The game does what it aims to do, and either if some people will not like that I appreciate sticking to your ideas. Some ideas weren't implemented in the best way unfortunately but for the most part it was nice to play.

 

Final note

⭐⭐

Okay