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[ACCEPTED] Gregor's New Super Mario World (by Gregor)

IMPORTANT: This is a C3 submission, so review points are doubled.

Link to the submission page

Hack Name: Gregor's New Super Mario World
Author: Gregor
Previous Versions: New Super Mario World
Length: 15 exits
Difficulty: Normal

Review:

Had a lot of fun playing through this overall. The design is very well done and polished nicely, simple but great. It really feels like a SMW2 - it introduces both old and new elements and adds a few minor tweaks to make both the gameplay and the visuals better.

The levels are very well done - some simple and fun design, much like the original SMW. Every level introduces something new, even if only a different enemy, and manages to expand on it well throughout. Most levels are short-but-sweet, following a length similar to most Mario games, and it works well. The first castle feels like a bit of a difficulty jump, mostly because spinjump was disabled, making dealing with Thowmps a lot harder. However, it actually works well, and shows the player that castles overall are slightly different from most levels - they are more difficult, and it's dangerous to try rushing through them, considering the less open layout and a few of the enemies.

Honestly, I couldn't find a single issue that could prevent this from being accepted - it's a great hack overall, with pleasant aesthetics and fun levels to play through. Great job!

Verdict: Accept

Base score: 2 (C3 submission)

Wakana +2
Wormer21 +2
Everest +4
EvilGuy0613 +4
Proto Stratos +4
No wonder why I support this hack, it's incredibly well made.

The design is sweet, it kinda reminds me Nintendo style (don't take this as an offense please!). Your levels are polite and very well made, everything is smooth and nicely executed, and the gimmicks were nice and entertaining. There isn't much other to say, other than compliments for such a nice work with the design. Again, it really feels like a sequel of Super Mario World, the title pretty sums it all.

Same goes for the aesthetic style: you managed to both keeping a nostalgic vanilla style and at the same time reviving it with new elements. Everything is nice looking and, as said above, something that a sequel of SMW would suggest. The only complaint may be the first castle, in the outside part, where you used tiles which looked like 8-bit ones; not a big complaint, it's maybe a small niptick from me. It's still a nice piece of work, good job with it.

There are no technical issues, everything runs fine even with accurate emulators. I'd may warn you about a few minor cutoff, popping out here and there. You could fix these if you want some improvements.

Difficulty is normal, the bosses may be a little spike in the difficulty curve, but atleast their hitbox doesn't derp. As for the levels, the difficulty curve is nicely done, slowly increasing as you progress in the game.

This demo deserves a place in the section, so I'm gladly going for acception. I hope you'll finish this hack someday, this is really worth playing.

+2
I've played your last demo and I know this hack will be great.

So we start with a simple, SMW Beta-ish title screen. I liked the plot, it looked like a continuation of Super Mario World. We start with some simple, sweet grassland levels with a nostalgic feel and nice palettes, then it went with athletic levels with some slightly higher difficulty. We end with a castle using the VLDC7 castle theme. Here the difficulty rises a little, but it's still enjoyable. The huge Thwimp boss was nicely done. It wasn't hard, but it was quite fun to play. The second world starts with a beach and goes further into a desert. While some looked more choco-like, some of them were unique mixes of SMW tiles. I really liked how you did new tilesets from SMW's original tiles. The gimmick in your ghost house was also quite interesting. It was an unique, but still fairly easy puzzle. The second castle felt somehow slightly easier than the W1 castle, but whatever. I liked the boss, but I think it would fit more for World 3 or 4, it was a little bit too hard for W2... but it was still fun.

Your OW is nice and pleasant. It looks colourful and the custom decorations makes it even nicer. The music contains various remixes and they were nice, I think. There were also some songs from the latest VLDC, especially the desert one which is one of my favourites from that contest. This hack starts easy and gets smoothly more harder, it's a pretty good difficulty curve. I liked the lack of spin jump which was also in the earlier demo.

I don't have any complaints, I think... I could notice some minor cutoffs (sand + goal points, pipes + cement blocks, pipes + turn blocks), but these were really minor and they occured only a few times, not a big deal.

Overall, this is a very good hack! It's a choconilla mix with vanilla resources and simple, generic design. I think it's really worth the acception. Great work and tell Nintendo that this should be a new "Super Mario Bros. 5", hee hee.

Difficulty: Normal.

+2
Quote
Gregor's New Super Mario World (by Gregor)

I laughed.

Fixing cutoff can be a pain because of palettes, though. Humbug. Luckily it's not that big a deal.
Great hack!

I must say that I am very pleased by this hack and that I am impressed you managed to create quite an enjoyable and consistent one in terms of level design and the other elements present in this hack. I would say that this hack is worthy of being featured if it is ever finished. Beginning with the level design, I can say that you have designed your levels to a pretty good extent. I notice you generally follow the classic layout of world themes which is not a bad thing when the levels are well designed and varied so well done for that - badly designed levels often give a feeling of wanting to finish the world as the level design will almost certainly be repetitive in such hacks. The spin jumping ability is absent in this hack which at first does seem to present a potential problem (to me) as I usually spin jump to get around difficult parts, but the difficulty curve in this hack is pretty good for the most part so I honestly felt that the lack of the ability to spin jump added a positive distinction to this hack. The very nature of the level design allowed the absence of that ability to be possible in a fair way. Good job on that. Finally, I can say that I am extremely glad that you added that message box at the end of the demo. It revealed that the ghost house (awesome design there - thought I would be stuck forever but I was wrong) had a secret exit of which I would have probably skipped over had it not been for that box (I guess I should always assume ghost houses have secret exits until otherwise). Overall, excellent work.

This hack does have a vanilla vibe in terms of graphics (and a lot of the graphics are indeed vanilla) which is great especially when you consider the palettes that go with the levels. I have virtually nothing to complain about the palettes and looks as they all seem to be perfect with the occasional exception of cutoff which is a shame (I guess it makes it look more Nintendo™ style - not that it is a good thing although given the nature of the hack it seems to be slightly more acceptable). The only thing I can suggest changing is the status bar palette which would add a nice touch in some areas though it isn't really that horrible to leave it as default. The title screen is pretty nice for showing the overworld in that style - no complaints there. As for the actual overworld, I can say that you did make quite a good overworld with no overly squarish areas or cutoff present. Some of the new graphics also seem to give it a new touch which is pretty nice. The initial cutscenes are extremely well made - nothing out of place there which is good. There are no notable glitches in this hack which is great! Finally, I can say that I am extremely impressed by the bosses present in this demo. They seem to have the right difficulty and originality in them. Nothing too ridiculous so far which I see a lot of the time when completely new bosses are present in hacks. That is all I suppose.

Difficulty: Leaning towards Normal. Pretty nice difficulty curve for the most part.

I am going to go with accepting this hack for sure. I also think this hack is worthy of being featured if it ever reaches the stage of it being completed. Good work!

+4
Really neat hack you have here Gregor! If this is just what you have to offer so far then I'm really looking forward to what you have to show in the future. Anyways, let's get to the review. (It's been a little since I reviewed a hack so sorry if I sound all over the place.)


One thing I noticed right away when playing this hack was that spin jumping is disabled. This made things a bit more difficult at first but this is speaking from somebody who's used to spin jumping. It also made the levels feel more natural as you got to play them normally without trying to break certain segments so that's nice. (There were never any moments where I felt spin jumping was necessary to get by.) I can say that you did a really good job at making this hack in the style of Super Mario World. The aesthetics and level design weren't anything too crazy but still offered a great variety as well as staying consistent with keeping the Super Mario World feeling. Even though the first two worlds were theme's you can pretty much expect they didn't feel like your everyday grassland and desert. (Especially with the first level of World 2 being a beach.) The music was something that kind of surprised me but in a good way. Usually most hacks have many different tracks within the worlds but this hack pretty much did what you can expect from a original Mario game with having 1 or 2 different tracks per world which I thought was a really nice touch in my opinion.

The difficulty curve was done well for the most part though I feel world 2 got noticeably more difficult towards the end. Still I didn't have too much trouble overall but it does give me a little sign that the hack might get pretty difficult towards the end. Being a guy who's a big fan of Custom Bosses I thought they were really unique and well done. The first boss I had a bit of trouble with mainly when it came to trying to hit him. (Sometimes would jump too high and get hit by the crown.) Just a small suggestion but maybe you can make the crown stay up for a tiny bit longer? I had trouble with the second boss as well but that was my own mistake. (I didn't realize the little flames don't actually hurt you.) Overall they were nicely done and they fit in with Super Mario World pretty well. (Pretty cool that they take place in the original SMW boss rooms.)


In conclusion this is a really well polished hack with great level design. The levels felt different from one another and never got repetitive to me. I don't really have any complaints other then the minor nitpicks I mentioned. Verdict? An easy Accept! As for difficulty I say Normal should do for now.

+4
My Youtube Channel for Hacking and Gaming.
I just finished this hack and I have to say, I'm really impressed with what you've done with it. The levels are all fun and nicely designed, the graphics are vanilla but still appealing, the music is excellent and the difficulty curve, overall, is almost perfect.

[LEVEL DESIGN]- Each and every one of your levels is enjoyable and not once did I get bored or feel that a particular area was very tedious. The time allotted to each level feels just right, with the Sandy Ghost House being a possible exception. I admit, I died from a time-out the first time I went in there, although I quickly caught on to the puzzle after retrying and found it to be very clever. I do think the level may need an extra 100 seconds to it's timer, but it's not a big issue.

[BOSSES]- There are only two bosses, but they are both excellent and outshine the majority of custom bosses out there. I commend whoever made them. Both bosses require a bit of thinking in order to defeat them. Pukey, as an example, looks like he is vulnerable while changing colors, and he is. However, he can't be jumped upon, which I tried to do and failed.

[MUSIC/GRAPHICS]- All of the tracks are appropriate for their respective levels and I really enjoyed the remixes, particularly Desert Sands 1 and 2. I'm slightly disappointed the ghost house didn't get a remix, but it's doesn't matter. The desert levels remix seems a tad glitchy, though; if I pause the game on certain notes, it continues to reverberate, although that may just be ZSNES. The graphics are almost entirely vanilla, but are still quite pleasing as are the palettes.

[DIFFICULTY]- The difficulty level of this hack is definitely normal. Your hack's difficulty curve is excellent and I never felt frustrated at any point in the hack, nor was it ever too easy. The castle difficulty is somewhat imbalanced, in my opinion. They're both harder than the levels in their respective worlds, which is fine. However, Thwimp's Castle (both the level and boss) seemed more difficult than Pukey's Castle, despite Thwimp's Castle being in World 1. It isn't really a problem because the difficulty is never excessive or frustrating in the game, but it is still noticeable.



[VERDICT]- Gregor's New Super Mario World is a superb hack, I just wish this demo were a bit longer (I was honestly disappointed when I reached Pumpkin Woods 1 and read the message box.) This hack should definitely be accepted.

+4


An easy accept for this hack - great job, Gregor!