Playing an old hack I got recommended. Let's see if it aged well.
So this hack. As you can see, you don't play as Mario but as a new character named Mute. The game take place in the Mushroom Kingdom, but in the future. You don't play as Mario, but as someone wishing to be Mario. The After Years means that you, a nobody, will have to take over Mario as the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom since he isn't here anymore. Likewise, Bowser and Peach aren't around, but Peach's descendant is. The game use cutscenes to narrate the plot. And a lot of cutscenes, sometimes multiples ones in the same level. Sure you can skip them, but it is annoying. The story isn't bad; it's not revolutionary but it is enjoyable. What bothered me with the story and the cutscenes are the following:
- The cutscenes are text only. There is no picture to accompany the text, not even a simple character portrait.
- In fact, ALL the story progression and characters descriptions are only in the cutscenes. Your two sidekicks, who are major characters through the story, are never shown. Not even outside the cutscenes, you just never "see" them, they are only described through text. Some may like it as it's up to your imagination to see how they exactly looks like, for me it bothered me a bit.
- It's just my personal opinion, but I didn't liked the protagonist personality. He's just a lame dude who somehow becomes the hero of the story. No charisma. I know that's the point that an ordinary boy become the next hero, but I personally wasn't a fan.
Again, the story wasn't too bad, I just didn't liked how it was presented.
Despite a new character, it controls like Mario. The only gameplay change is the Metroid HP bar. And like always, the creator didn't bother editing it a bit so everything remove you 20 HP exactly. I really wish one hack to use the Metroid HP bar and have different enemies remove different amount of HP when hurting you. Oh well. The hack has capes, however you can't fly, and they are located mostly in secret areas. Well let's go to the main subject of the level design, and oh boy...
Level design is... eh. It's an old hack sure, but even at the time I think I wouldn't have loved it. I means the levels have some okay obstacles through it, but sadly many, many, too many times, the author decided to put forced backtracking into the level. The detour to get the p-switch/springboard/shell/onoff-switch/key to continue the level isn't long, but there are way too many, in almost every level. Maybe it was an attempt to make the levels less linear,but it was just too much. Listen, there is nothing wrong with linear levels when you only go to the right without turning back okay? So like I said, there's some decent platforming sections, but the constant little backtracks get more annoying the longer you play.
As the level, most of the levels looks different. But although they have different obstacles, there are some elements that appears way too often, which is unfortunate. Despite having many levels, some elements appears in too many levels. The one I noticed the most: Chucks, Volcano Lotus, Slow horizontal autoscroll with bullet generator, Vertical autoscroll, Dark level with spotlight. While those elements were overused, some other elements were instead underused. Sometimes the game introduce some new elements, like a nice custom sprite, or a new gimmick like the ability to double jump. But those are used for only half a level in the whole game, sometimes even less. In short the variety is greatly unbalanced.
When I say elements introduced in half a level, that is the truth. In fact, there are some levels that suddenly have a different gimmick in the second half. I would prefer level to have one main gimmick, and why not in the second half use the same gimmick in totally new ways. Here sometimes we hop from one subject to another.
I have to mention: this game wasn't properly tested. By that I means the roofs are never blocked. A lot of the time you can go above the ceiling and either skip large portion of the levels, or get permanently stuck. I got stuck in levels with 0 timer two times, one time going above a ceiling, one time because you can pass through some blocks while wallrunning which wasn't intended. Also some levels have barrier that only let you pass if you have collected 4 Yoshi coins. If you collected them all, you better restart your game since they don't respawn. Also multiple cut-offs and the like.
Not much too say about the aesthetic. It looks decent. Mute graphics are okay. Some custom musics haven't aged too well.
The game isn't bad, and it isn't hard so I was able to finish it, but it wasn't very good. Despite some interesting ideas, there are some poor design decisions, the biggest offense being the constant little backtracking. Some people will enjoy the game, and I did in some parts, but unfortunately other parts weren't of my liking. And please, close the ceiling!
⭐
Poor
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