Language…
6 users online: Cristian Cardoso, fsvgm777, JezJitzu, KoJi, playagmes169, stormitive - Guests: 241 - Bots: 361
Users: 64,795 (2,377 active)
Latest user: mathew

[REJECTED] Yoshi's Strange Quest by yoshifanatic

Link Thread Closed
Link to the submission

I remember playing a demo of this hack quite a bit. It was one of the most played back then, mainly due to being the most popular hack with the "Yoshi player" patch, which kinda recalls Yoshi's Island... without the annoying baby Mario.

Since the demo, the hack got a lot of custom stuff in it. By stuff, I litterally mean everything: gimmicks, level ideas, graphics, music, design shenanigans, and an enormous amount of custom asm, which makes it a very unique hack. Everything is very well made; the thing I liked more are probably the message boxes and the author's humour at making so many funny jokes on everything. This isn't something that everyone pulls out well today, and this hack nails it pretty well!

While the bright side of the hack looks "oh so good, instant feature", let's now analyze the bad part of the hack: the freaking difficulty.

I'm very insecure about what I'm going to state next; all those positive votes (33 votes -> 4,7/5) make me very nervous about it, but what's coming from is just my opinion: from the point of view of how difficulty is handled, this hack is awful. I'm not joking if I say this reminds me of the way levelengine thinks "hard hacks" work; and obviously, I wouldn't define myself an awful player, nor a god-tier one. I played many hacks in my life (remind you, over 300 mnmnmnm~), but I rarely got in hacks with such "OMG GOING ALL OUT" difficulty.

This is not fun for my tastes. The savestates spam starts right on world 2, levels are pretty lengthy overall, there is a LOT of stuff going on from start to midway point / midway point to end of level (obviously I mean sprites, obstacles, level ideas/gimmicks, and so on), and this means that if you die before taking the midway point (something that's really easy to accomplish, seriously), you'll have to redo the whole level again!

Why getting yourself killed hard is easy in this hack? I'd probably blame the following mostly:
- Energy coins are too rare. If I recall correctly, the old demo worked so that even normal coins would refill your health: I think 5 normal coins gave you +1HP. I also think the SM64 hp system was used. That was a very good way of handling HP (forgive me if I'm confusing with another hack here!), but yeah... the health system in this version isn't "organized" well. For example, there are places where you can get 4 green coins (not even a full HP point, since each hit takes away 5 HP points), that are so hard to pass that you'll probably die by trying to just get past it. Considering how long the overall level is, you'll probably ignore these paths and that such coins exist in this hack. Again, they exist, but they're too rare in my opinion.
- Sloppy controls, mainly the flutter jump: you see, when you jump and keep the button held, you normally flutter. Keeping the button pressed while jumping also grants you a much better boost than the one you get if you just press and relase the button. The thing is that the flutter jump doesn't work when you jump off enemies, or vines, or any non-solid elements. In order to make it work, in these cases, you have to double press the jump button, which compared to just holding it, makes stuff very annoying to deal with. I should be more worried about how to make the flutter jump succesfully rather than looking at the ambience and enemies around me. That's not very pleasing.
I said "controls", but the only other thing that bugs me (other than the flutter jump) is the fact that ducking stops you completely, even if you're walking. This is minor though, and it's understandable, since you probably didn't want players be able to slide. Yet, it wasn't a very comfy thing to add. I'm aware that I could've get accustomed with it by playing the hack more, but again, overall difficulty doesn't make a good work at welcoming you, and I believe the tutorial level isn't enough. If I was you, I'd probably have made atleast 2 worlds that put the player at ease with the new controls.
- Knock-back. I hope I don't have to explain why this is an issue. Gotta love all dem huge pits with enemies that hit you and make you fall down and die, even if you had all the HP possible.
- Overall design, of course. Sometimes, it gets so challengy and asks you so much that it's very hard to keep up. Here too, I don't think I have to spend extra words if you played the hack.

That's my point. Again, the second part of this review makes me so unsure about it. Thus I'm hoping that lots of users will review this and give their point of view. Remember: a featured hack is something that users see as something that handles everything in the best way possible. Featuring this, means that people will be more motivated in making awfully hard hacks.
From my side, it's a reject. Let me know your opinion.

Deadline: 27 November
This is a hack I'm still afraid to play for many reasons, especially after just WATCHING the entire thing through Levelengine's Let's Play. There are many great moments, don't get me wrong, but this hack is not without it's flaws. I'll mention these later in this post, but let me start with the concept and the summary.

WARNING: SPOILER TERRITORY.

This hack features a new custom player with a Yoshi's Island styled moveset that mixes in a little bit of SMW. Live can be gained by collecting green coins with either eggs or just touching them. The basic story is Yoshi has to stop Bowser from stealing eggs (YAY SMW AGAIN!), only to find out that Bowser is only involved in a much more bigger plan, and the true villain is a Hitler inspired Yoshi (who isn't actually a Yoshi according to the author) who goes by the name "Evil Yoshifinatic". His goal is to exterminate all Yoshis, and the eggs are stolen because.... unexplained reasons? The world that you are venturing forth is known as "Weirdonia", and along the journey, you'll face many types of humour that's either hilarious or cringe worthly. In order to get to the true ending of Yoshi's Strange Quest, you have to get every single exit in the main game, and this is how you actually meet Evil Yoshifinatic. The majority of the levels take challenge the player with your new-found abilities; these new abilities being the hover jump, and the eggs. Like Yoshi's Island, the hover jump ability allows the player to "float upwards" for a second after a slight fall, and repeating it will float you downwards. The Yoshi eggs can be shot using the A button to aim, and you have the option to either throw the egg hastily or to take your time. That about covers what you're up for in terms of the game itself.

====The Positives====
For being a hack that has a new hack, I'm glad the creator acknowledges your new abilities unlike other hacks where the feature is added to "look cool". The humour is strongly implemented in the levels themselves, with my favourites being the first level, the Theater level (where you entertain Yoshi by "controlling the movie"), "www.level.com" (a level where you play Yoshi's Strange Quest.... in Yoshi's Strange Quest. There's also a secret exit that corrupts the level with a virus), and there is also Yoshi-Fused Cliffs that's essencially a level based on Kong-Fused Cliffs from DKC3, along with a secret exit where you literally race a fuse to the end of the stage. The more clever humour lies around jokes about SMW Hacking itself, like there is a section where the player "save states" and get's trapped (except it's a joke since the player doesn't actually save state, and you beat the level afterwards), a 105 edit that changes to a new level, a flat level that where Yoshi "imagines" a better level, and there's more where that came from. However, those are the only parts of the game that didn't bug me a lot.

====The Negetives====
There's no denying it, this hack is HARD, and most of the time it isn't justified. From World 2 and onward, you will encounter at "that one level" a bunch of times due to one very annoying feature in the game: the forced knockback. Believe it or not, it was worse when v1.3 was out when the knockback didn't allow any movement (alas Ninja Gaiden/Castlevania), meaning if you were next to a pit AT ALL, it was instant death despite your health. Recently it was nerfed a little, but you still can't control your movements for a quarter of a second, so it's only a 50/50 chance that you'll actually save yourself. Because of this irksome mechanic, it almost makes the green coins irrelevant. Speaking of the green coins, there just isn't enough of them to make it passed a good majority of the end-game stages (the level with the mirror effect comes in mind of both problems making a very infamous stage). That's probably 50% of the problems in this hack, but a good 15% of the game is ruined by it's very crude humour. Now, the hack DOES have good humour...... 30% of the time. The remaining 75% is either random, poop/piss jokes, or fat/yoshi fetishes. This hack gets SO crude that there is a scene explained in text form where Yoshi
stuffs a Marsh Mellows up his ass while wearing a diaper.
This scene is so disgusting that even the narrator runs away, and the player is rewarded with a Moon. Speaking of piss jokes, there is an ENTIRE LEVEL where you swim in a level where a random Yoshi takes a long piss session, and the entire level is flooded with it, making the player Yoshi think it's bad lemonade. Don't get me started with the sewer stages with poo in them, or the bathroom that KILLS YOU when you're in there for too long due to how bad it smells. Getting back to the fat fetishes, you play a good portion of the game as fat yoshi after the World 6 castle... and you can't get out of this form until after you beat Bowser's Castle for the first time. And the Post Post Game Final Boss is Fat Evil Yoshifinatic.... actually not really, Yoshifinatic apparently suggests that the final form of EYF is a giant P-balloon Yoshi sprite detailed. Har har har, you think we believe that after BEING a Fat Yoshi for a good part of the game? And don't get me started with the minority of the bosses.... Underwater Wart, Tap Tap the Red Nose, "Bloaded" Evil Yoshifinatic, Bowser (for how confusing his fight it); and also a Red Yoshi that you have to float downwards, avoiding Zingers from DKC1.

====My Verdict==== (aka "too long; didn't read)
For a hack that is rated almost 5/5, this is not a hack you should try unless you feel sadistic. The controls, while unique, requires the player to get used to them very early on in the hack (World 2!), and just sickeningly abused in the End-Game. Unless you can handle hacks like Bits and Pieces, JDCGames Collaboration, and even SMW Central Production without save states, you are going to have a bad time. The only good parts are it's uniqueness, and some of it's humour. Otherwise, it's a...

4/10 ... REJECT

"It's an experience that only sadistic players who enjoys crude humour can enjoy."
Want progress on 100 Rooms of Enemies: The Nightmare Edition? Go here to see.

(rip my other userbars momentarily)

I just play a few levels of this... ähm... i try!

Because i died, and died and died and died... and again.

I mastert some hard hacks without saves (mgu3) but this is... tooooo hard and unfair.

That strange "Race Level" in the first world is just... harder than the last level in mgu3.

i wonder how hard are the last levels.

i think its not ok when i give a vote, when i just played it a bit, or?

IF its okay, i give a reject
.

The MAIN REASON i wrote this comment is to say, "Hard" is not "hard".

There are just too many hacks that put 30 obstacles in your way, that are ALL difficult to dodge and AFTER that the hacker give you a mushroom.
And rejected.
Link Thread Closed