I played multiple short hacks tonight, here's the first one.
Finished in 1h15
Kochobo Dourado is the first I played. It's a collaboration hack from a brazilian community. It is a compilation of multiple levels. The overworld is open, all levels are unlocked from the start. So various levels by various users. In most of them the aesthetic is well done, and the level design is pretty good overall.
wrong doughnut sprite gfx dude
Level design is good, but some levels were a bit too simple, just some short romps with no
particular gimmick. They weren't bad, but not memorable. In a big hack having some filler levels can be good. In a short 12 level collab it feels a bit... disappointing? But some levels
were more original, and pretty good. The hack is normal difficulty, so can feel too easy for experienced players. The hack has some changes, some major like the new status bar (I don't like it much but it becomes more common since it allow for full layer 3 BG), some minor and very occasional that you can completely miss like bob-ombs immediately exploding in contact of fireball, and some annoying like the removal of P-speed jump, in that when you jump at full running speed you do a normal jump and lose your p-speed. Maybe a solution they found to remove cape flying, but a bad one. The last level has a big jump that is really ass to do and make me thing it was made before deciding to apply this change.
nice graphics
Honestly the fact that all levels are open is not something I enjoy, as I prefer to see my progress on the overworld. Also it says there's 14 entries, but I'm missing one level. Is there another level to unlock? How? Well the hack is locked in LM so I can't look, and not interested to explore all levels again.
epic
This hack had some good levels and nice aesthetic, but a bit simple and easy for my taste.
⭐⭐
Okay
Next hack is...
Well this is a quality title screen. But it's because they didn't spend efforts into trivial things like the title. It's all level design. So it's a 9 levels hack and a good one. First for the technical aspect. Aesthetic is mostly vanilla, even the palette but using layer 3 BG. It's not bad, but because it's simple it's not confusing. The game does have custom music, and custom blocks/sprites when needed.
Mix of custom elements.
Each level has it's own gimmick, some really interesting gimmicks that are well used with many interesting setups. All levels are straightforward platforming levels (I think all level have no vertical scrolling), but to go forward you have to pass through all the setups. This hack is good because each level is unique, and every gimmicks are first introduced in a safe setup and where you can easily see how they work, and then the level expand upon it with new way to spin the gimmick around, sometimes introducing new elements that totally fit with it.
And because the hack goes full gimmick, it remove everything that can hinder it. No status bar and everything inside (no time to farm lives and cie) but also powerup filter at every level start. You can't bring powerup from over level, but it's not needed. The hack does get a bit hard later on, but nothing too crazy, and there is instant retry so you can focus all your mind into the great levels. Perhaps it's the only downside of this hack, it's all level design but nothing outside of it: no pretty graphics, story, etc. But in the end, gameplay is the most important part in platformers video games. This hack is not an adventure, but it is a wild ride.
9 levels that are a blast to play through. Excellent ideas and perfectly designed levels. The only downside is it's too short, I want more of it!
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Amazing, must play
Last one is.
Sort of a sequel to stick mices into my head and hit me with an hammer and let them out. But only from two people. It use a bunch of resources from smwcentral into a hack. The hack has a different aesthetic from usual, but it's coherent. The game start relatively standard. With few custom elements, and the more you progress the more custom sprites there are. The difficulty picks up from the start, and get mostly constant the whole hack, so it feels hard at the start and when you get used to it the late game feels better, feels easier than the start.
Why would you change the megaspike hitbox!!!
The level use various resources, and use them well. Some custom sprite were used in a surprising and interesting ways. The later levels had really good ideas. But the starting levels aren't as well-though in my opinion. Honestly after the first world I though of rating this hack 6, but after the late games levels it's closer to 8. The levels quality are uneven, but the late game levels are really well done and fun to play. The level design is great set-up based, and had that JUMPy feel, sometimes relying too much on JUMP tropes like screen scrolling pipes and sprite only blocks.
Interesting use of this sprite.
Some things irk me though. There's an overworld counter for Yoshi coins, but status bar has been removed. You can't see ingame how many Yoshi Coins you got in the level. And actually, after collecting all DC in a level, the icon doesn't change? So it's completely useless. In fact even the level beaten counter doesn't work. That's an example of this hack, the levels are well done, but there's some things here and there that lack polish, that aren't implemented well. Other thing is with no status bar, there's no item box but you still get small when getting hit no matter your status. It's not a SMB3 powedown, and that's very annoying to only have two hits max. Plus no status bar equals no lives, yet the game have many coins like standard hacks and even some rewards 1up that doesn't serve a purpose here. Also no proper end game, the quirky messages/level names gets annoying after a while too.
A great hack but it lack polish in some areas. The level are creative and very well done, but the quality isn't consistent, the second part of the game being way better than the start.
⭐⭐⭐
Good
Time to go to sleep.
