Review: Rockman 2 Yendor Code

Completed in 4 hours.

My order: wood,air,bubble,crash,heat,flash,quick,metal

Rockman 2 Yendor code is a strange hack, it has a vanilla look, with no new musics nor new graphics (not even new palette). However, it has a lot of other change, making this hack a nice alternative remix of Rockman 2.

 

The shrimp act like the seahorses in Super Mario Land.

As said, this hack is more of a remixed Rockman 2. The level themes are the same. However, the level design is all different, and is quite good. It remixes some old obstacles, or replace existing one with new one with similar feels (like Quick Man's stage). But more importantly, all the enemies are modified to act different, in a fair and fun way. Some change are minor and other major. There's even some common enemies that were edited to be middle boss.

 

Small bird generator?

The boss and weapons are different too, and it feels just right. The boss fight are really fun, the pattern can be learnt and doesn't feel unfair. The weapons are more useful, and the overpowered one (metal blade) nerfed. Special mention to Air Man's weapon that push enemies like the wind, and Flashman's being really useful in some situations. About bosses, it's not just the robot master. Wily's boss too were changed to be very interesting. Special mention to Mecha Dragon for being fun in a MM2 romhack which is rare, mostly because this time there's enough footing and not just one one-tile block, and for the Wily stage 4 boss which was completely changed to be very unique while still not using custom graphics for it.

Woosh!

I won't say the hack is perfect. It's main problem is the difficulty becoming suddenly hard starting Wily's castle 2. As always in MM2 and it's romhacks, Wily stage 2 is the stage to master the items, but the game didn't prepared you enough to use them so you have to learn on the go in difficult situation. The boss is also pretty hard, and strangely this is the only Wily stage without an e-tank. A good point: the game is generous enough on lives and e-tank. Still it is MM2 so e-tanks are lost on Game Over. But if the difficulty doesn't bother you, it's cool. Another point is while the bosses are fine, some can be a bit spammy if you let them. Better take them down quickly.

Platforming.

In conclusion, despite it's simple presentation, this is a hack with a lot of new content which keeps the same feel as the original game but remix it in very fun ways.

 

Pattern exploit is fun.

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Very good, must play

Review: Rockman 4 minus infinity

 

Completion time:

My order: Toad, Bright, Pharaoh, Ring, Dust, Skull, Dive, Drill

One of the most famous Mega Man romhack, I'm only playing it now. Let's see how good it is.

Indeed, the item is dug.

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity (let's say R4MI) is a japanese romhack of Rockman 4. There is a "engrish" language option made by the autor and translation tools to somewhat understand a bit the game. The game say a proper english translation may be made in the future, but considering how old the game is starting to be, it's not happening. Not like there's many text, or that the text really matter. It's Mega Man after all. The game start simple (although you can see a really neat option menu at the start) but become really crazy at the end. I would compare it to Brutal Mario in some ways.

 

The train Metool from MM5. Strangely it appears only twice in this level, here.

 

The first 8 robot master levels. The level graphics is mostly vanilla, unlike other romhack it doesn't try to completely change the theme of the levels, instead it build on it and introduce new and exiting gimmicks. I though some levels were longer than others (especially Toad Man), being a bit longer than the original but still not absurdly long. The new gameplay elements are of course impressive technically, but blend well with the level. I have a critic though, is that in some of the levels (not all), some elements are underutilized, which seems a waste. Two contradiction examples is Bright Man, the two halves have their gimmicks which is great, while Toad Man has too many different level ideas that came and go too quickly like the rush surf at the end (the game also doesn't teach you that you can double jump in that part). Pharaoh man may be the worst offender in that case. Skull man level, being centered about platforming was awesome, my favorite robot master level.

 

Diagonal scrolling? Awesome

 

The endgame levels and the boss is where Puresabe show all it's ASM knowledge and try to show how impressive it can be. Indeed, it become really impressive. But sometimes it's too crazy, some bosses can spam you of projectiles you can barely dodge, or have movements too erratic. At least they don't deal too much damage, but it becomes a bit of brute forcing, using an e-tank if needed. Also notable is the invulnerability frames were greatly decreased.

Yes I lost 8 times to Toad Man. He's a pain in the ass in this version.

The game tries to be kind to the player. There's many option to chose to adjust your difficulty (I played on normal), you start with some items like the energy balancer and can get new ones in-game. You have Rush dug to find items, you get the two items while playing normally (even if you can unlock them earlier though a challenge alternative path), the game isn't shy to give you e-tank and lives, as seen above where I game over only twice but lost 84 and could have lost more if I didn't use e-tank in some bosses.

 

Still icy.

 

But all these quality of life are balanced by the fact that, like I said, some bosses goes a bit too crazy. I think all of them can be done without e-tanks, except Wily. The levels also goes crazy, you will see many sprite flickering due to the sheer amount of simultaneous sprites on-screen. This craziness really gives it a "romhack" feel, which I like but some may prefer their hacks to be more "clean", have a more "this could be an official game" look. The absurdity of the game doesn't deter from it's enjoyment, except in the end and the postgame, but talking about it would be a big spoiler, so avoid the section below if you want.

Flickering hell

Spoiler for the endgame and postgame: How the fuck are you supposed to dodge all those attacks willy capsule throw you. It's a full danmaku fight. Yes, this is really, really impressive, but it's at this point that the impressiveness of the coding deter from the gameplay. Not only that, why does Wily have two health bar? Just to make the fight longer. Well I used 4 e-tanks for this fight. Also the postgame, yes there is a lot of content including a postgame. Spoiler more: it's an arena. Kirby-like boss fight arena. But it's not Kirby. Arena in Kirby are fine because it's rather easy, if it was in MM4 it could be okay but here with the new bosses it's a bit too much. If you don't find it fun after 10 tries, you should give up. You miss on some content but it's fine, the main game was fun, better stop here before you hate yourself. I wanted to see the new stuffs, so I enabled invincibility cheats. Well spoiler there's a true arena, with 40 (FORTY) bosses, all in hard mode, still limited to one life. You have some e-tanks, but it's bullshit. Then the second to last boss barely takes damage and has two health bar of course. Then he grabbed me and INSTANT-KILLED ME. 30 minutes lost. And it was with cheats. I gave up. If you want to see the true secret final boss yourself, use savestates or you will be miserable, especially if a boss decide to say fuck you and instant-kill you.

 

haha yes

 

Conclusion : R4MI is a really impressive hack technically, one of a kind, and discovering all it's new elements is very fun. The game is generous in resources but sometimes goes a bit too crazy with the number of sprites on screen. I absolutely recommend playing the main game, but do not recommend doing the post-game.

 

 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Very good, must play

Review: Play to win

 

Finished in 100 minutes.

I wanted a short and easy hack to finish the week-end. Picked one at random on smwc that doesn't looked vanilla, let's see what it has.

Very nice map.

It's as I would call it a hack resourced from smwc, in that most if not all external content (graphics, musics, sprites) are taken from smwcentral resources section. That is not a bad thing, my hack is the same in that regard. The question is how it was used. In the aesthetic department, it's great. The graphics are really nice looking, and the musics good too. Every level has it's own aesthetic and most of the time their own sprites that makes each one unique. Although the hack author must love jumping piranha plants. The choice of custom sprites are also great...

 

Jumping piranha plants, the hack's fetish sprite.

 

Except the bosses. They aren't very good. Using smwc bosses is not bad, but there should fit with the game. First boss is Iguy, but then Mooser? There's no coherence between the bosses, nor between the levels. Only world 3 fits has there's a thwomp boss in a thwomp level. Thwomp boss is lame but at least it's not the old bomb version. Special mention to the piranha plant boss that is just a bad boss and glitchy as that. Please don't use it, this boss is bad.

You suck!

About the level design, it's good. It's linear, platforming romp that you breeze through, and it feels good. And when I say linear, I do, there is literally only one secret exit in the game. I would have liked a bit more, at least 4 for 4 switch palaces. The game is easy, but a bit too much. Especially, there's too much powerups, making enemy obstacles not threatening enough as the levels are full of powerups blocks (with only flowers).

 

Despite the graveyard aesthetic, it's an athletic level!

 

I may sounds negative, but negative points are easier to pinpoint. In reality I liked this hack. It's just a fun romp that you can enjoy without thinking. I wish it was a bit harder and with better bosses or no boss at all, but it was a fun time anyway.

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐

Good

Review: Yoshi's Crack House

 

What the...   (completed in 70 minutes)

 

As I was browsing my "to be played one day" romhack folder in search of a short hack to play, I stumbled into one called Yoshi's Crack House. Not remembering when I downloaded it or what it was about. With a name like that I wasn't expecting much. But...

 

That's the sort of OW I would make.

This was a surprisingly enjoyable hack. It's a "joke" hack in that it has funny and vulgar story and text, but it never goes too far offensive (for me at least). In fact I think it could have went harder some times, especially the ending that was a bit of a wet fart like most joke hack. A funny final cutscene after the final boss would have been cool. But for the rest of the story, it was kind of funny. Not extremely humorous but funny and original enough.

 

Challenging enough.

And the the game part, it's good. The level design is challenging but fair and good platforming. It doesn't innovate but it's strongly decent and offer a good time. There's a bit of a difficulty spike at the end, but the sections are short and there is instant retry. In previous levels there's enough powerups too.

The boss are kind of meh, they are just boss taken from smwc, nothing new. I admit I found kind of funny to have an epic touhou music just for that stupid overused thwomp boss.

bread

Overall I enjoyed my time playing it, it's a good short hack with stupid humor attached to it.

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐

Good

Review: SMW Gaiden

 

World 1-7 in 13 hours (in a row 😵), world 8 in 6 hours, special world in 3 hours (with some feathers)

 

 SMW Gaiden is a collab with a new team comprised of old school SMW hackers, some relatively know. This hack aims to be some old school challenge, let's see what it has. Sorry if I lack details, I made this review a while after I finished the main game.

Yuck! Plants everywhere!

One look into the game and you can feel the old school. Sort of. Let me explain: the graphics are mostly vanilla, with new palette, mostly well done but a few questionable. One thing that I hate, is the music. The game only use musics from SMW and SMB:AllStar for that retro feels. I'm fine with SMW musics but I'm not a fan of SMWAS ones, it get tiring to hear them after a while. Also only the level have retro musics, the OW has nice custom musics, so the contrast really feels weird. It could have made the levels stand out more. The fact that all the level have generic names doesn't help. The overworld is very nice though.

Weird rhino palette.

The game has few custom sprite, and only retro one. And the mark of fabric of this hack are piranha plants / venus fire plant. They are in EVERY level, and I'm not exaggerating. I understand the idea, really. But that doesn't means I enjoy this decision. It's an annoying sprite and having it in EVERY level gets annoying. It's not even a modern one, it's the old school venus that means upside down always ignore Mario and comes out. They could have at least used modern one with red stem venus to mix things / identify them better. About sprites, most common sprites in the games like koopas, spinies, etc. have slightly different properties, in that they are quite faster. This is a nice change to shake things up. Strangely, the exception are the SMB3 hammer bro that throw less hammer than the typical custom sprite. It's an annoying sprite so I won't complain. Also it's green here.

And despite being classic, the final boss is custom. It's a really impressive custom boss, but it makes it contrast with the classic feel of the hack even more.

Even underwater, PLANTS!

But beside the overuse of Venus, the level design is great. It's classic, but the obstacles are well put together, it's challenging but fair. It's the typical linear Mario platforming, but very well polished. If you're good at Mario, seeing all those enemies (mostly plants) and blazing through their fireball is a lot of fun. The game has a few secrets, but overall the levels are simple and neat.

Some postgame levels are a bit of a pain though. Thankfully powerups aren't filtered. You can even bring Yoshi, though they greatly reduced the timer before he eats items in his mouth, so you can't grab a blue shell and fly.

Two plants one pipe?

The hack feels classic but also mixed with modernity, and seeing those modern aspect sometimes feels like missed opportunities, like how the OW have custom musics but not the levels or a few custom sprites. The hack having a fetish sprite (the plants) seen in every levels is kind of interesting but may or may not be annoying. However, the great level design makes for some fun challenge and it is a superb hack if you're looking for good old fun Mario platforming.

 

Even in your switch palace, PLANTS!

 

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐

Good

Fkuc