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