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[ACCEPTED] This Hack Needs a Name (by yeahman)

Link to the submission page

Hack Name: This Hack Needs a Name
Author: yeahman
Previous Versions: none
Length: 117 exits
Difficulty: Normal

Review:

Well, this was a great hack overall.

The level design was very well done overall - a few nice ideas were introduced and developed well through the level, enemy placement was great and it was a lot of fun to play through overall. Most levels were short, but still managed to expand well on the gimmicks introduced. The hack was pretty lengthy, but the levels never felt repetitive; there was always enough variety to make the players not feel tired.

I did have a few problems with the hack, but most of them are rather minor. The biggest of them is probably the cloud tileset in the sky world; the edges look solid, but Mario can actually pass through them, which caused a few deaths at the start of the world. I got used to it after some time, but a more friendly introduction of it (without any penalty for falling off the platform) would be nice. Other than that it was mostly very minor issues, such as some weirdness on a few levels or small annoying sections.



Well, I guess that's it. While this hack had a few issues here and there, overall I'd say it's more than enough to be accepted. Great job!

Verdict: Accept
Review score: 6

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MercuryPenny +6
Suika Ibuki +6
Aurel509 +6
Wakana +6
Everest +6
Wormer21 +6
I downloaded the hack from the submission page and the only way I could see through "Dizzying Heights" was a pipe that just took me to an endless bonus game. Could anyone help me out, or is anyone else having this problem?
...weird, I remember playing through the whole level a few times and never had that problem ^^'

Which pipe leads to the endless bonus game?


(I couldn't really put where it was into words, sorry)
That is strange. I checked in LM and the pipe is indeed connected to an exit. Did you download an older version by chance?
...huh, redownloading and patching seemed to fix it. That's weird.

I'm not entirely sure how I would have gotten an old patch since I'm pretty sure that I downloaded it after Aeon made this thread. Well, either way, seems like I can play through the rest of it.
Finally, I can review this.

This is a great hack. The design is pleasantly fun and styled after SMW's design with a little bit of custom content to spice it up a bit. I really liked playing through this hack and it's one of the few times where I wasn't raging at how hard it was, even in the last world. Kudos to you for that.

Everything else? I love your palettes and exanimation, especially in the last level of world 8. It's a really pretty hack overall, even though the Yoshi's Island graphics in one level in world 1 seemed a little out of place. Though, if there is one thing I have to complain about, it's the fact that custom music in this hack is so rare. This hack has a charm to it that I think SMW's music just can't capture.

Oh, and I'm not entirely sure what's up with the final boss' face..? It looks glitched, but it may be intentional.

80% (accept). I really, really hope to see more from you, because this was phenomenal.

+6
Suika Ibuki - 25107
This hack surelly is pretty good.
It have 117 exits and took 2 days to i finish it, but i can say that i enjoyed each second.

Your palettes are pretty pleasant to look at, it really is pretty much of a high point on your hack.
Level design is pretty amazing, very decorated and fun, a few puzzles there and other things there resulted on a amazing hack.

Your OW is almost perfect, nice palettes no perceptive errors or cutoffs.
Overall very nice hack.

If i were going to complain would be only about unfixable problems (since this hack is supposed to be vanilla), and still extremely minor cutoffs, soo not actually a big problem.

Verdict: Accept
Difficult: Normal
General: Really i can see that you worked hard on this one, everything fits perfectly and looks awesome, 5/5 pretty nice choconilla hack, hope to see a sequel or more from you, this hack is really great.

+6
#unbanMB980
Very good hack!
I really enjoyed to play now that's what I think the hack

The level design frankly quite pleasant to play
However this remains a bit flat in the first levels
Continuing your hack becomes interesting, your levels are varied, and the selected graphics are rather good too.
I've not spotted major problems but I'll mention that I could see
In the level "Crystal Cavern" before entering the cave when the cape one can directly go to the midway point and so we can skip half of the level.
Also in the level "dead silence" you could have done something less flat and boring as you could have done a better construction while putting 0 sprites.

Aesthetics and clearly very good, I really liked the fact that you remain in the vanilla theme while customizing the Foreground were really well or it is no that's good.
Some palettes remained unsatisfactory full of examples are available.
In the level "Sugary Slide" palette and bizarre from the white with red it's quite weird.
In the level "Frezzing tide" the palette of the FG is just much too clear.

Your Overworld is just excellent I am even a little jealous ^^', the pallets are very well chosen I've not spotted within the problems of perspective, very good job!

In any case your hack is really very good luck for your next hack!

Difficulty: Normal
Rating: 4 Stars
Verdict: Accepted, this hack deserves it!

Let me know if there are spelling mistakes

+6
Layout by Koopster
The hack has been accepted!
Great hack I must say! In my opinion, this is a masterpiece, we rarely get hacks like this nowadays, no wonder it would eventually get accepted.

The level design is great: always varied, different and creative. Each world has its own theme and gimmicks; to think that you kept doing this for 117 exits... I'm honestly kind of jealous. A big plus for the difficulty curve too, which I really loved: I took almost a whole day to finish it, and I can state that it's a really nice curve, starting as friendly and finishing as challengy. As overall, one of the best hacks I've played in terms of design, great job, nothing more to point out here.

Aesthetics are alright. Some mixes and palettes are questionable (as palette I'd make as example the first switch palace; as mix I'd say the YI BG levels mostly). I also noticed a few parts that really lack decoration (like in a few castles and, in general, late levels). Either way, you have nice visulas overall; moderators should consider adding an epilepsy warning, since the last world has lots of flashy stuff.

Even if incredibly long, this hack has almost no technical errors, nice job keeping it clean. A few minor things I'd mention though: your hack as small cutoff here and there, but in this part it's clearly noticeable; if there's a weird actlike tile beneath a falling spike, it will get stuck forever in said tile when it touches it; bad jumping piranha plant placement (look below the item box); digging chuck's rock here got inside the ground, since the diggin chuck you placed there is next to a wall; I don't know if it's supposed to be like this, but the Big Boo's GFX look glitched. It kind of resembles a face though.... scary; the credit sequence freezes the game once it's finished. I don't know how bad this is considered, but at least it doesn't happen in any of the playable levels.

Difficulty is normal, with a nice difficulty curve.

I agree with the hack's current status, accepted. I hope you'll be producing more hacks in future.

+6
I think I reviewed this hack before (also I know I am bit late to post this review due to the length of the hack and now the fact that it is accepted, but I believe the creator can benefit from reading this).

Wow, that took me back. Anyway, I did play almost all of the hack although some parts were quite inhibiting (much later in the hack though it wasn't major enough so I will not talk about it) and it turned out to be excellent overall with only a few flaws present in the hack. Beginning with the level design as usual, I can say that a lot of the levels in this hack have their own unique taste to them that makes them so enjoyable. That is what I love about this hack and why it should be accepted. For example, in an early level known as Caramel Cave had "tar" blocks that impede the player from progressing which influenced the design of the level. That is quite impressive and although it is not the first hack I have seen gimmicks and concepts in this fashion done in (which is obvious considering the length of SMW hacking history), the way it is implemented throughout the hack is excellent. I praise you for having such good design and maintaining your motivation while designing this hack as hacks that are of this length must be tiring for you to design. I also felt that the use of graphics in this hack influenced the level design as well. Each theme creates unique situations in which variety is formed from the looks of what you have designed. That is the key to good level design in any hack and I have not seen many hacks in which this is maintained for long periods throughout the hack. Good job creator!

Other things? The palettes in this hack overall are quite good and are well designed although on occasion I might not like some choices such as having a YI background in the level Minty Cocoaslide which in all honesty does not really fit in so well (specifically this and not other YI backgrounds as they seem to fit well enough as well as providing suitable substitutes for vanilla backgrounds). I also liked some of the more unusual palettes like in the level Pink Switch where I expected lighter colors that are typical for switch palaces in SMW hacks. I think the best palette is the one in #1 - Sweet Castle. It stands out and shows how beautiful they are. Well done on them! There are a few minor concerns though such as in this screenshot that has baseballs for the chuck almost indistinguishable from the background. You might want to be a bit more careful about that in the future. Finally moving onto the overworld, I can say that I am extremely impressed with it was the design perfectly fits in consistently with the levels tiles. It is one of the best I have seen in some time. There is a slightly major issue though. After finding a secret exit early on and skipping right to the ice world (I did play the other levels though so I did not skip it), I found that you could walk up the unrevealed path. I understand that mistakes occur especially in design areas like this, but please fix it. It does not impact the hack in any good way.

Difficulty: The difficulty in this hack is quite nice and consistent. Overall, it is Normal.

I know this hack is already accepted but I wanted to offer my opinion on it especially due to the length of it. I would like you fix the issue though with the overworld. Due to the nature of the new hack section, I do not think it is acceptable to have such an issue there. I honestly felt quite lenient by going along with accepting hacks into the section, but now I am looking a little closer at even seemingly "minor" issues. It would be best that you at least fix the overworld issue.

+6
I know it has been accepted, but it took me some time to finish this due to the fact, how many exits does it have. I hope it isn't anything bad, one more review may be some more feedback to the author.

Even if it took me a lot of time, it was pretty much worth it. It's a very good choconilla/twist hack and one of the best I've played in a while. The biggest advantages were your levels; I think they were really enjoyable and they used some sort of vanilla feel mixed together with custom stuff (blocks, graphics). Your level are varied, interesting and they focus on various gimmick that may keep the player going through your hack. Some of the well-known gimmicks were introduced by you in a new, specific way; "tar" blocks acting like sticky caramel flavour-y ground, layer 2 moving in an interesting way to avoid various obstacles like you did in the last castle. The custom blocks you implemented were used in creative ways. You used the Lakitu cloud to avoid some obstacles. It's a simple, but a bit underused gimmick. This is one of the fewer hacks I tried to beat 100%. Good thing that secret exits aren't too ridiculously hard and they aren't demotivating the player to get these. Most of these are put in a simple way like in SMW, but a little bit harder to get.

Another big pro's are the easthetics. Dude, I've never seen palettes and graphics used in a way like that for a really long time. I loved how you implemented various ground decoration and another interesting stuff to give the level a specific theme and avoid making it bland - it succeeded. The first world has unusual palettes that make a flavour or some cake-like structures. Sometimes palettes like these look bad, but yours were quite unique. There were some small cutoffs here and there, but they wren't major. Most of these were pipes connected to cement blocks. It's okay to leave them, but if the ground tiles are squared, why not make cement blocks squared? Just a suggestion. Anyway, your graphics are pleasing to the eyes and really unique. The difficulty was good. It started easy and it finished with medium-hard difficulty. The same goes with the Star World, even if it took me about 2 hours to beat this one world (normal + secret exits). They had a nice, medium-hard difficulty. The last key, in that level with the Lakitu cloud and star "running" is a little precise. It's tough to get to the end without losing the star power and getting the shells/Yoshi coins. One extra star block would be nice.

Your OW is nice, but it has some small event issues. I went into two problems, I remember... one was the lack of dot when you came from a shortcut in W2 to the ice world. The second was a small event glitch (maybe you forgot to remove something, idk) that happened in a level before the W7 castle, it was a secret level IIRC. Yeah, the final boss looks somehow glitchy (I found it scary for some reason). I've no idea if it was intentional, but you can look for it and check.

Overall, it's a very nice and unique hack. Even if it has some small flaws and bugs, it's really worth the hack section and it's a good thing it has been accepted. Great job, can't wait for more work from you!

Difficulty: Normal.

+6