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thudricdholee
01-06-13 04:07 PM
01-06-13 04:07 PM
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thudricdholee
01-06-13 04:18 PM
01-06-13 04:18 PM
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01-06-13 04:07 PM
thudricdholee is Offline
| ID: 717731 | 984 Words
| ID: 717731 | 984 Words
thudricdholee
Level: 58
POSTS: 298/834
POST EXP: 88287
LVL EXP: 1559286
CP: 1021.7
VIZ: 4398
POSTS: 298/834
POST EXP: 88287
LVL EXP: 1559286
CP: 1021.7
VIZ: 4398
Likes: 0 Dislikes: 0
I am usually a bit leery of mods and hacks; taking a really great game and tearing it apart and jamming a bunch of stuff into it and calling it a new game kind of bothers me. Plus, most of the hacks I've seen have pretty well been bad-just color changes, difficulty ramps, and character swapping. So I was surprised to see so many 'different' hacks of Super Mario World. After I started playing a few of them, I finally settled on this one as the 'best'. Please notice that 'best' is in quotation marks. Every one of them has their flaws and their strengths, but overall I had to go with this one as the one that's the most balanced. A few games were prettier (not many, sad to say), a few were better designed, a few had nicer layouts, and a (very) few had more creative storylines, but The Second Reality Project is really the only one I played that didn't have some huge, glaring issue that ruined the whole game for me. Graphics: 8 Please understand, I'm not rating the original graphics of the various games they used. Instead, the graphics rating here stands for how well they integrated the various enemies, backgrounds and bits they stole from other games. I thought they did fairly well. Some of the levels are just downright pretty and polished, while some suffer a bit because the graphics they used are clearly from games that started out with inferior graphics. One of the first underground levels is like that; the background is this solid, slightly pixelated blue brick thing that hurt my eyes when I was trying to play it. It's a bit startling to see some of the different elements together, but overall they did a good job meshing everything. Sound: 9 Good use of original Nintendo themes. I didn't tend to find any of them boring, and I left the game sound on-something that anyone who's read my other reviews knows is rare. There were a few times when it was a bit too loud, but that was mostly underground and mostly the sound effects-they kept the weird slightly echoy effect that the original had for the cave-like levels. Addictiveness: 8 This game is just slightly not as addictive as the original, and that's partly due to the fact that the difficulty level/annoyance factor is higher, (see below) and because the levels tend to be a bit repetitive and boring. Not every level, but there are a few that are really repetitive, and a few that just seem to replicate certain platform/pipe arrangements a few too many times. You're sometimes struck with a feeling of deja vu that can be a bit off-putting. Story: 6 This game's story is bit confusing and jumbled. It's basically the same as any Mario game, except I'm not sure the princess was captured (?) Bowser has found the second reality and must be stopped. What the second reality is, exactly, I'm still not sure, nor why we should care and not just let Bowser stomp around there and leave the real Mushroom Kingdom alone. Depth: 8 As with the Mario game they hacked, this game has a lot of little side-quests. And, unfortunately, they're mostly in the same places, even if doing them is different. Ghost houses (now named other things) have multiple exits. There's switch blocks hidden around that make things easier (in the case of the Yellow switch block, it's almost mandatory that you find it immediately). But like the original game, there's enough content to keep you playing for awhile, especially if you're like me and like to clear things out completely Difficulty: 8 I'd rate the original Super Mario World a difficulty of 6, so that tells you a bit about the difference. There are slightly more difficult jumps, weird jump/monster combinations, annoying jumps from one tiny platform to another that require a precision that sometimes hard to get with the control scheme, and crazy lots of bad guys. That being said, this is not one of the hacks that flopped the difficulty up just for the sake of flopping the difficulty off. If you can play the original game, you can probably play this one well enough. They raised it enough that people (like me) who've beaten the original game will find it challenging anyway, which is nice, but newbies or people who don't remember playing the original could play it and not be super frustrated right away. That being said, however, I will say that the annoyance factor is much higher with this game than with the original; things that aren't really hard but incredibly tricky and/or delicate pop up much more frequently. A series of razor-thin platforms with flying Koopa getting in your way that ends with a block you have to land on. Not that hard...but if you fall, you have to start the level all over again to get there...that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I try not to use Save State when I'm playing games to review them, but I found myself using it more and more often the further I got just because I wanted to get a decent way in before I posted a review, to make sure I got a good feeling for the game. Overall: 8.5 My overall for the original game is a 9, so you can see that this game doesn't fall that far short. I enjoyed this game, unlike a great many other hacks, and I could almost see it being produced by Nintendo (with a few smoothings over problem issues and a few minor adjustments), which is a good thing for a hack. I am impressed by the time they obviously put into this and the care with which they crafted it, and I will definitely be replaying it again in the future. As Yoshi says, "Yuppie!" After I started playing a few of them, I finally settled on this one as the 'best'. Please notice that 'best' is in quotation marks. Every one of them has their flaws and their strengths, but overall I had to go with this one as the one that's the most balanced. A few games were prettier (not many, sad to say), a few were better designed, a few had nicer layouts, and a (very) few had more creative storylines, but The Second Reality Project is really the only one I played that didn't have some huge, glaring issue that ruined the whole game for me. Graphics: 8 Please understand, I'm not rating the original graphics of the various games they used. Instead, the graphics rating here stands for how well they integrated the various enemies, backgrounds and bits they stole from other games. I thought they did fairly well. Some of the levels are just downright pretty and polished, while some suffer a bit because the graphics they used are clearly from games that started out with inferior graphics. One of the first underground levels is like that; the background is this solid, slightly pixelated blue brick thing that hurt my eyes when I was trying to play it. It's a bit startling to see some of the different elements together, but overall they did a good job meshing everything. Sound: 9 Good use of original Nintendo themes. I didn't tend to find any of them boring, and I left the game sound on-something that anyone who's read my other reviews knows is rare. There were a few times when it was a bit too loud, but that was mostly underground and mostly the sound effects-they kept the weird slightly echoy effect that the original had for the cave-like levels. Addictiveness: 8 This game is just slightly not as addictive as the original, and that's partly due to the fact that the difficulty level/annoyance factor is higher, (see below) and because the levels tend to be a bit repetitive and boring. Not every level, but there are a few that are really repetitive, and a few that just seem to replicate certain platform/pipe arrangements a few too many times. You're sometimes struck with a feeling of deja vu that can be a bit off-putting. Story: 6 This game's story is bit confusing and jumbled. It's basically the same as any Mario game, except I'm not sure the princess was captured (?) Bowser has found the second reality and must be stopped. What the second reality is, exactly, I'm still not sure, nor why we should care and not just let Bowser stomp around there and leave the real Mushroom Kingdom alone. Depth: 8 As with the Mario game they hacked, this game has a lot of little side-quests. And, unfortunately, they're mostly in the same places, even if doing them is different. Ghost houses (now named other things) have multiple exits. There's switch blocks hidden around that make things easier (in the case of the Yellow switch block, it's almost mandatory that you find it immediately). But like the original game, there's enough content to keep you playing for awhile, especially if you're like me and like to clear things out completely Difficulty: 8 I'd rate the original Super Mario World a difficulty of 6, so that tells you a bit about the difference. There are slightly more difficult jumps, weird jump/monster combinations, annoying jumps from one tiny platform to another that require a precision that sometimes hard to get with the control scheme, and crazy lots of bad guys. That being said, this is not one of the hacks that flopped the difficulty up just for the sake of flopping the difficulty off. If you can play the original game, you can probably play this one well enough. They raised it enough that people (like me) who've beaten the original game will find it challenging anyway, which is nice, but newbies or people who don't remember playing the original could play it and not be super frustrated right away. That being said, however, I will say that the annoyance factor is much higher with this game than with the original; things that aren't really hard but incredibly tricky and/or delicate pop up much more frequently. A series of razor-thin platforms with flying Koopa getting in your way that ends with a block you have to land on. Not that hard...but if you fall, you have to start the level all over again to get there...that's the kind of thing I'm talking about. I try not to use Save State when I'm playing games to review them, but I found myself using it more and more often the further I got just because I wanted to get a decent way in before I posted a review, to make sure I got a good feeling for the game. Overall: 8.5 My overall for the original game is a 9, so you can see that this game doesn't fall that far short. I enjoyed this game, unlike a great many other hacks, and I could almost see it being produced by Nintendo (with a few smoothings over problem issues and a few minor adjustments), which is a good thing for a hack. I am impressed by the time they obviously put into this and the care with which they crafted it, and I will definitely be replaying it again in the future. As Yoshi says, "Yuppie!" |
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(edited by thudricdholee on 01-06-13 04:07 PM)
01-06-13 04:14 PM
Jordanv78 is Offline
| ID: 717736 | 83 Words
Jordanv78 is Offline
| ID: 717736 | 83 Words
Jordanv78
Level: 190
POSTS: 3876/12281
POST EXP: 809836
LVL EXP: 95829584
CP: 78618.7
VIZ: 577650
POSTS: 3876/12281
POST EXP: 809836
LVL EXP: 95829584
CP: 78618.7
VIZ: 577650
Likes: 0 Dislikes: 0
thudricdholee : Great review! I enjoy the detail that you went into. Good to see some people around here get how to write an actual "review" rather than just run down a few basics on the game and saying "It's awesome" or some crud like that lol.
Anyways I usually stay away from hacks as well because usually they are unplayable in some way shape or form. This sounds interesting though. I will have to check it out soon. Keep up the great work! Anyways I usually stay away from hacks as well because usually they are unplayable in some way shape or form. This sounds interesting though. I will have to check it out soon. Keep up the great work! |
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01-06-13 04:18 PM
thudricdholee is Offline
| ID: 717742 | 42 Words
| ID: 717742 | 42 Words
thudricdholee
Level: 58
POSTS: 300/834
POST EXP: 88287
LVL EXP: 1559286
CP: 1021.7
VIZ: 4398
POSTS: 300/834
POST EXP: 88287
LVL EXP: 1559286
CP: 1021.7
VIZ: 4398
Likes: 0 Dislikes: 0
Jordanv78 : Thank you for the feedback and the rating! I agree with you; wading through fifty word reviews gets annoying after awhile. And you should. I really was surprised at this game, and it's making me try out other hacks as well. And you should. I really was surprised at this game, and it's making me try out other hacks as well. |
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