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.