Nominations for Top Hacks 2013

[Zhs2]

This topic is mostly a formality, but since the discussion topic only has three serious nomination posts, I shall give you all one last chance in the form of a week's time to nominate for voting, ending next Friday at my earliest convenience. As always, the rules:

[spoiler=Now conveniently in clickable box form!]
We'll be accepting several nominations for best hacks based on the community's opinions for a few special categories, as well as the best hack overall. The categories are catered to honourable mention of each of the brilliant aspects of Metroid Hacking, and are as follows:

    Best Aesthetics - The one hack that is so beautiful to look at it makes you cry
    Most Creative Gameplay - The one hack that makes use of the most creative concept ever implemented to enhance gameplay in some form
    Best Quick Play - The one hack that is satisfying and short at the same time
    Best Challenge - The one hack that plays difficult time and time again, and yet keeps you coming back for more
    Best Exploration - The one hack that immerses you completely into the environment with no hope of escape
    Worst Hacks (as needed!) - The hacks that just really stank and didn't do much else
    Best Overall - The one hack that outshines all of the others... which will it be?


We ask that you make only one post in this topic listing which hacks you think are the best. Additionally, you may nominate a hack for one of the specialty categories to be considered as well. Nominees can come from any of the Metroid game hack genres, be it Metroid, Super, or fangame alike! We're not picky. :^_^: We ask that you please try and play all of the nominated hacks at least a little bit so your vote is backed by experience and not just one of the few you've played. This goes mainly without saying, but it's a good point to make!

The nomination period lasts until I said so, where afterward a vote will be held. The winners will then put together the official list to be hosted on Metroid Construction's main site along with a short article for each one and links to the hacks in question.

Please don't bring under consideration WIP hacks for the above categories, or said nominations will just be ignored. We will, however, put it under consideration for announcing in the conclusion of this year's Top Hacks endeavor! Demo release nominations do count, however, because the author has released a product (no matter how small.)

One more thing: please don't double post or discuss in this topic! Use Talk of the Day instead to discuss votes and the like, or make a new topic in Off-Topic for discussing this topic. We don't care much on that point.[/spoiler]

And as always, a (probably incomplete) listing of all the hacks this year. If there's one we've missed, let us know with a good nomination!

Super Metroid
B2-TW
Darkness Returns
Equilibrium
Low Impact
Melancholia IV
Metroid Exercise
MX2
New Wet Dream
So Little Room
SMContest
Super Metroid: Airy
Super Metroid: GR2
Super Metroid Christener Homenag
Super Metroid Inverted
Rulers of Ruin
Vismund's Sidehopper Special
YPR

[MetroidMst]

Best Aesthetics: Low Impact

Most Creative Gameplay: Equilibrium

Best Quick Play: Darkness Returns

Best Challenge: Low Impact

Best Exploration: Super Metroid: Airy

Worst Hack: So Little Room

Best Overall: Super Metroid: Airy

[Digital_Mantra]

Best Aesthetics: Low Impact
Most Creative Gameplay: B2-TW
Best Quick Play: Low Impact
Best Challenge: Low Impact
Best Exploration: Melancholia
Worst Hack: Rulers of Ruin
Best Overall: Metroid Exercise

[Quietus]

If it's OK with y'all, I'll just plonk this here:

I always feel a little bad, since I never play all of the hacks if they're not to my tastes, but in their respective order:

• Best Aesthetics: Vismund's SS.  I know I didn't get that far, due to the eponymous irritants, but I remember being impressed by what I saw.  Keep it up, Vismund!
• Best Quick Play: Melancholia IV.  I mentioned before that this hack would have been a great separate release, let alone one releasesd in a short time for a competition.
• Best Challenge: MX2.  Designed to be so, so it's probably a no-brainer, but outside of one or two silly hard bits, some of the others were fun to figure out.
• Best Exploration: Melancholia IV.  From beginning to end, it felt like a collectathon that you could take at your own pace.  Fairly linear, but it didn't matter.
• Most Creative Gameplay: I suspect this will be a landslide for B2-TW, and rightly so.  Apart from the murderous lettuces, every room was fun, and offered something new.
• Best Overall: Melancholia IV.  Personally, I'd love to see this massively expanded.  It felt like a throwback to why I loved Super Metroid to begin with.  Good work, FoF! :^_^:

And since somebody has to have it:

• Worst Hack: Rulers of Ruin.  It had some nice parts, but overall it felt like a mish-mash of newbie mistakes, and it never seemed to recover.  Sorry, JkP! :^_^:

[Metaquarius]

Best Aesthetics: B2-TW
Most Creative Gameplay: Equilibrium
Best Quick Play: New Wet Dream
Best Challenge: Low Impact
Best Exploration: Melancholia IV
Worst Hack: SMContest
Best Overall: Metroid Exercise

[Quote58]

Best Aesthetics:[spoiler] This one is tough, there are 3 hacks that looked especially good for me: B2-TW, Melancholia, and low impact. Low impact was really creative and had some amazing layering, but Melancholia brilliantly replicated super metroid's style, and B2-TW made great use of the tileset in it. However, at the end of the day I think the creative layering won me over, so tl;dr Low Impact.[/spoiler]
Most Creative Gameplay: [spoiler]Well in this regard I think I've got to give it to SMContest for having one really nicely put together puzzle. B2-TW also had some interesting puzzles, but it also felt really linear and I'm not a big fan of being confined to morphball the whole time, so tl;dr SMContest.[/spoiler]
Best Quick Play:[spoiler] Not much to say here, my fav was B2-TW for a quick play.[/spoiler]
Best Challenge:[spoiler] This one is almost a toss up between MX2 and Low Impact, but I had more fun with MX2 honestly. Unlike LI it was made very clear that the hack was extremely difficult and save states are basically a requirement. Low Impact was challenging but also had a bunch of exploration, and when the challenge is in completing puzzles with a physics gimmick like fall damage, exploration can be infuriating. I still really enjoyed LI, but MX2 knew what it was and did it pretty well. So tl;dr MX2[/spoiler]
Best Exploration: [spoiler]no surprise here, Melancholia definitely gets my vote.[/spoiler]
Worst hack:[spoiler] ....well no one wants to get this award, but it can certainly help for future hacks I suppose. Okay well I've got to say that firstly, SLR can't get it this time, it tried to be rage inducing with the random doors but honestly that just got boring depending on how long you had to do it, and considering there was tetris music and rainbow bubbles it wasn't rage worthy at all, almost good in fact. I hate to say it but I think Vismunds sidehopper special actually gets my vote here. It could have been a great hack, but it wasn't because of the enemy placement. That was bad, like, really bad. When a hack gets so boring from the enemy and path that you stop bothering to play it, you've done something wrong. So tl;dr Vismunds Sidehopper Trainwreck Special[/spoiler]
Best Hack:[spoiler] This one is easy for me, Melancholia did such an amazing job of not only replicating Super metroids aesthetics, but also putting a huge amount of great exploration into only 20 rooms. Really amazing job here, and is a hack I wouldn't hesitate in playing again. Good job.[/spoiler]

[Jordan5]

Best Aesthetics: Low Impact
Most Creative Gameplay: B2-TW
Best Quick Play: Equilibrium
Best Challenge: MX2
Best Exploration: Melancholia IV
Worst Hack: Christener Homenag
Best Overall: Airy

[Vismund Cygnus]

I'm pretty sure if you read the discussion thread you'll know my opinions, but in case you didn't:
Best Aesthetics:
[spoiler]There were surprisingly few hacks that actually contend for this, which is somewhat disappointing. The only truly "pretty" hack, which I'd be surprised if it weren't almost universally agreed upon, was LOW IMPACT. Clever layering and generally nice looking palettes, with the exception of a few things, made this the prettiest hack of 2013.[/spoiler]
Most Creative:
[spoiler]BALLS TO THE WALL, BITCHES

Seriously though, there is no real competition here. B2-TW is one of the most unique hacks to come out, period.[/spoiler]
Best Quick Play:
[spoiler]I'm going to have to go with B2-TW again. It was short, sweet, and I replayed it a fair few times. It seems viable as a hack to race, which is definitely good for a quick play.[/spoiler]
Best Challenge:
[spoiler]Honestly, I was going to vote for MX2 here, however, it is impossible to play without "cheating", so I don't really want to vote for it here, in my opinion it breaks the hack.
So the winner is LOW IMPACT. Fall damage meant planning what you were doing, trial and error type stuff. A few more save stations would definitely not be missed, but regardless, well done Daltone.[/spoiler]
Best Exploration:
[spoiler]Here's where some people are going to disagree with me.
I do not think Melancholia IV had very good exploration. While it did have 100% collection rate, the hack was linear, there were no "secrets" to be found, so to speak, and there was very little replayability.
AIRY, on the other hand, was completely non-linear and felt very casual to play. There were multiple different paths to be taken and I never felt like I was being forced to go along any particular path. I know a lot of people did a lot of things differently, and to me that's what defines exploration, finding your own way around and getting lost in the world.[/spoiler]
Worst Hack:
[spoiler]The category that has the most competition. I'm only voting for people who actually hang around Metconst and will actually see this, because worst hack should be about advice, not about just bashing the shit out of an easy target. Christener Homenag is technically my worst, but the guy is a nub and doesn't exist around here, so I'm avoiding that. Same goes for YPR. Super Metroid Inverted was made by a member, but one who refuses to listen to any advice given, as was made immediately apparent when he made a second half hack within a few months of the first piece of shit. So that doesn't count either because they'll never learn.

So with that in mind, there's two that I am putting down, for two very different reasons.
RULERS OF RUIN, palmy's first attempt at a hack and definitely not a good start. Not the worst one either, but everything just felt too rushed, and it jumped between tilesets and just had a large number of rookie errors in general that could have been hammered out with a bit more testing. Unfortunately this gets my worst hack vote number 1. Keep improving though, palmy, I see a lot of potential there.

This may seem like I'm singling out Quote just because he voted for me, however I know that the vote was well deserved. But anyway, EQUILIBRIUM gets a vote because the Dark Visor was buggy to the point of unplayability in many cases. It gets a vote because it's a real shame that it was broken, the hack was actually quite good and the Dark Visor was a really, really fun idea. But when your equipment makes you unable to play the hack that simply isn't acceptable. Quote has told me that the bugs have been squished so I look forward to seeing it in action.  :^_^:
(If I'm not allowed 2 votes in this category, give 0.5 to each)
[/spoiler]
And the overall greatest hack of 2013 that nobody shall argue with:
[spoiler]
This is the hardest category to vote for, because most hacks had something great about them, and I'd vote for about 5 here.
However I'm going for MELANCHOLIA IV, for reasons. I'm too hungry to think now, so yeah stuff and things i'll edit maybe cats
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Tee el dee arrrrrrr]

Best Aesthetics: Low Impact
Most Creative Gameplay: B2-TW
Best Quick Play: B2-TW
Best Challenge: Low Impact
Best Exploration: Airy
Worst Hack: Rulers of Ruin and Equilibrium
Best Overall: Melancholia IV

[/spoiler]

[jk16bit-palmy-]

Most Creative Gameplay: Equilibrium
Best Quick Play: Equilibrium
Best Challenge: Low Impact
Best Exploration: Melancholia IV
Worst Hack: Rulers Of Ruin**
Best Overall: Metroid Exercise
                                                                         
^{Note** I just wanted to say, my hack (being the first one i have ever tried to make, and it being the 3rd time i ever even touched smile) was not terrible. I feel like i should have put in more effort to it but due to time for the hack contest, left it as such. It had potential [lets not debate that] i just let time escape me.
I might, however, make a remake for it, since my skill is getting better and i had more ideas that did not get put in.}