The Deep Blue Contest! Discussion and Public Voting

[Mentlegen]

lead by Phantoon

It seems each hack is focusing on one boss. Are the next two entries going to focus on blue versions of Draygon and Ridley?

I wanted to expand more on phantoon, so it is the main focus of my hack. However, Draygon is also included.

[caauyjdp]

About Exertion:
[spoiler=Found a permastuck][/spoiler]
Also, charge beam near spore spawn seems to respawn when you reenter the room?

And, already a fourth time I get a seemingly random softlock when entering this room. Missile refill and minimap keeps animating, music continues playing, but game doesn't respond to inputs and samus is stuck in same frame of animation.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Quote58]

It works this time i promise lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krG7o7sln28&feature=youtu.be

I like your definition of 'works'

[Jiffy]

Keep in mind that Mentlegen still has 2 days to fix any issues with his hack and reupload (as does MetroidNerd).
Assuming judges will play the hacks during the judging period, they will not consider any bugs from "old" versions when rating the hacks.

[Mentlegen]

It works this time i promise lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krG7o7sln28&feature=youtu.be

I like your definition of 'works'

Thanks for your bug finds, I'm having difficulty replicating your bug. Can you give me steps or criteria to replicate it?

[caauyjdp]

Can you give me steps or criteria to replicate it?

After some poking it seems that pressing up or down on the "elevator" at the top of the big room, and then exiting the room causes it.

[mccad]

It works this time i promise lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krG7o7sln28&feature=youtu.be

I like your definition of 'works'

thats a super weird bug i've encounted a few times in a number of hacks, mainly my own. I think it has to do with a bad 'Elevator activation door BTS' tile.

[Metroid3D]

SO LITTLE PIRACY



SPACE BILLY MAYES HERE, WITH THE TOP ROMHACK OF THE CENTURY! INTRODUCING SO LITTLE PIRACY! THE ONLY HACK WHERE YOU CAN FIND THE KEY TO SUCCESS AND GET RICH QUICK! NO DOWN-PAYMENTS, NO HIDDEN FEES, AND ABSOLUTELY NO CREDIT CARD REQUIRED!
1 OUT OF 14 DENTISTS RECOMMEND!

"I tried so little piracy, and it fixed my irritable bowel syndrome within minutes! Now I just puke instead!" - MetroidMST


10/10 - IGN "This hack made me $800,000 in only one review"                                            9/10 - Gamespot "Easily the most impressive hack of all time. A little bit too blue.                                            31/32 - Kotaku "At least it's better than our website"
Credits:
Mccad00      - ASM, graphics, music, and level design
MetroidMST  - Level design and bosses
Mentlegen    - Music
Amoeba       - Being a SMART guy

cool but is there a map

[Jiffy]

This is now the thread for discussing any contest entries and placing public votes. The official judges will give their verdict in the main thread. I will be moving any posts from that thread into here.
Here is a redirect for downloading the latest version of each contest entry:

• Super Metroid: Bluestar by MetroidNerd#9001 (v1.1)
• Super Metroid Exertion by Mentlegen (v1.1)
• No Safe Harbour by Moehr
• So Little Piracy by Mccad00 and MetroidMst
• Metroid: The Blue Plague by nodever2

[SN_Ivan]

All SM hacks, welp guess ill wait for the next contest

[Cpt.Glitch]

The GBA community decided to let the SM community win a contest for a change.
KAPPA HD

Hopefully I can get to playing these soon. Soonest will probably be in about two weeks though.

[Moehr]

I'll be editing/adding to this as I get my playthroughs done:

Super Metroid Bluestar!
[spoiler]Quality of Blue - 9/10, for some things that looked purple to me, offset by the general excellence of the blue.
Gameplay - 6/10 points - bug free and good level design, with a bit of a hit for the linearity and the sudden jolting cut to ending credits.

Aesthetics - 8/10 - looks nice, but also is not adventurous, with one or two situations of BG/FG confusion, but generally solid. Also secrets are not difficult to spot.

Comments:
1 or 2 alternate paths might have been nice. Another piece or two of equipment could add a little more fun to different approaches within single rooms too. A little more cleverness with how enemies relate to the terrain would also help spice it up a bit, but all in all, a fun quick romp through a short SM jaunt.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Quality of Blue - 10/10 blue plague was an interesting idea and seeing it stuck to things and tinting enemies was fun
Gameplay -  9/10 - some new game mechanics with equipment, lots of work in the world building, neat game areas to explore
Aesthetics - 9/10 - lots of work put into custom art, conveyed the theme really well, and helped signal mechanics where needed.

Comments:
This is a really well put together adventure; for a small hack it packs a lot of punch. I also typically enjoy a game that can be reasonably completed within an hour. Game had a few nice mechanical touches too like chainblocks under the gates and the reactor core. Very nice aesthetic touch with the planet encroaching. I would have liked to see a bit more of the plague progression, but only cause it was so fascinating; some stuff could be done with roomstates to maybe have the blue tiles spread as plague progressed, maybe turn an extra odd enemy or two to blue as well in the process. Would recommend as a really good casual play, even for less familiar players.[/spoiler]

SM Exertion:
[spoiler]Quality of Blue: 6/10 While there was some interesting use of blue here and there, it felt a little neglected compared to the blue of its rivals.

Gameplay: 9/10 Some interesting modifications to vanilla play re:space jump and the dynamics of the various suits. More importantly, once the game got rolling and you were invading the space pirate base on your way to Phantoon, the game picked up a good rhythm. Custom music also helped bring the focal areas of the game to life, as well as a nice industrial vibe which reminded me a bit of the space pirate homeworld of prime 3. This was a nice departure from the very vanilla opening to the game, and more could have been done here to really make this shine. Hopefully the earlier areas may get developed a bit further, or a sign of good things to come in SM Radon.


Aesthetics: 8/10 Some glitchy stuff and some phoned-in vanilla opening rooms, possibly unecessary, combined with a much more fully realized endgame. I'd like to see more of stuff like the second half of the hack in this where you really seemed to hit your stride.

Comments: Even without diverging too much from vanilla setups, the vibe of the pirate compound was different than that of Super Metroid in some really good ways. It felt more like a shock-and-awe strike than the careful deliberation of vanilla. I also really enjoyed the different space jump here since it felt more like an offensive weapon than the vanilla version when combined with screw attack. I would like to see more done with the four suits. Breaking the vanilla attributes into 4 pieces rather than two is an okay first step, but with this being a pretty strong feature, it is deserving of more attention and being utilized in your core game mechanics more.

Looking forward to seeing more of this, keep bringing it!
[/spoiler]

So Little Piracy:
[spoiler]
Quality of Blue: 9/10 Best visual blue elements, but there was often times I found it difficult to distinguish foreground from background. Additionally it seemed purely aesthetic, but without a storyline or gameplay tie-in like in Blue Plague. Also it is possible some of the blues looked grey to me through no fault of the artists due to colorblindness.

Gameplay: 8/10 Everything was tight and didn't find any glitches, but the difficulty level was a bit too high for my tastes, keeping that last 2 points from getting awarded here. I played this one the most times, and for the longest total time, and felt I probably saw the least of it. I will say Spore Spawn had some nice new touches, breathing new life into a boss I usually find pretty stale.

Aesthetics: 10/10 Definitely the most polished of the submissions, music was excellent, visuals were excellent, with so many new elements it was a bit of a shame the enemies had been left alone visually, and that would be my only criticism here.

Comments: Level design could definitely be made a bit more forgiving, but I'm playing on keyboard and don't consider myself
someone who plays super metroid at a higher skill level. If it were a bit less punishing, or more energy were readily available early on, it might be a more accessible hack. Never got far enough to figure out what the coins did either unfortunately, though they were exciting to find.

Consider, for instance, there's no real reason to have spikes on the bottom of the grapple chambers, since being good with grapple rewards the player with much less time clearing the room than bomb-jumping would. There are also other ways to require a player to use the grapple without killing them for failing to do so. Or if trolling the player is the choice, step it up a notch and have the pit full of something more interesting, like yapping maws, quicksand and desgeega?

I was mostly okay with the standard enemies; for instance, while the space pirates hit hard, it is easy enough to slow down and tread carefully to get around them, and the terrain gave a couple of fun options to go about neutralizing the threat.

All this aside though it's a really pretty hack that I will probably attempt to finish at a later point in time.[/spoiler]

[caauyjdp]

About Exertion:
[spoiler=wall of text]Save after inferno suit loads you in wrong room. Elevator bit to the left from inferno suit can still go up from top floor resulting in softlock.
Also, those missile doors look a lot like locked doors... took me literally hours to realize it >.> aaand started another playthrough and noticed that missile door in first room of maridia is regular red color...

edit: during escape, sector z map room has a new door leading to the right which leads somewhere out of bounds? During escape a lot of doors that should become locked are not, leading to some "interesting" places. Can't find intended path for the escape. The non functional elevator doesn't work during escape either(this might have been caused by me saving&restarting during escape nope, did a fresh playthrough, went straight to the elevator, it still doesn't go up). the gray door on the middle floor of the right elevator is still gray during escape. Going back through maridia works, but escape room states start again in crateria, which makes me think I was supposed to come out of the grey door on the floor next to crateria map room.

edit: went back and replayed this in original version. elevator works correctly during escape. so, in version 1.1, you fixed the normal room state elevator but broke escape elevator(and also removed enemies from room to the left side of sector z map, and pre lithium suit room)? Oo was sapphronxd playing version based on original version and not on 1.1?
also, nice screw attack backdoor in original version :)

Big room to the bottom left from the ship(parlor?) during escape has some scroll issues, sometimes it doesn't let screen scroll to the right when going out the top right door to the ship(I'm guessing I'm going around the trigger to change the scrolls somehow).
And some more scrolls issues, going into brinstar ice from the backdoor morph tunnel, screen doesn't scroll unless you've already gone into it the right way.
Same thing with the bottom gate/switch in brinstar, going up the power bomb shaft doesn't scroll the screen unless you came from the top.
Some random non solid blocks/secret passages: top of the shaft that leads to maridia, there's a random non solid block in the right wall. first room of brinstar, at the very left side, there's some seemingly random space above the door. A bit down from there, hugging the right wall, you can jump into  the ceiling and get to a seemingly random shaft on the right side of the wall.

edit: also, you moved one of the draygon turrets to the left side of the room to make room for the door, but it still shoots it's projectiles from the old position

yet another edit: gravity suit also gives barrier suit for some reason. might be intended but don't you have to be called Charlie to do that?

edit: seems like picking up one of the late game items(either screw or last two suits) killing all pirates in pre inferno suit room causes crateria parlor room to finally have enemies, which is nice although a bit too late into the game imo. same trigger also seems to cause first room of brinstar(and one to the right side of it, on the way to map) to have different enemy set, which looks broken. room next to crateria map also gets a wall climbing pirate, unfortunately he's placed inside the walls

edit: you only need to kill two pirates to open doors in pre inferno suit room, which seems like a mistake

edit: top side of brinstar elevator looks normal, until you pick up missiles. then clouds suddenly become blue for no good reason

crateria ice shares index with leftmost etank in brinstar. took a while to figure it out.

Only 3 out of 4 speedkeep tweaks were applied. you forgot/misapplied "8EA01 - A5 to 0A" so samus still looses her speed when doing regular(not spinjump) landing facing left

There seems to be gate and switch labeling inconsistencies. I think both maridia and sector z has switch labeled 5. Gate that leads to inferno suit is open despite gate with same label in 8-gate room being closed. I'd recommend rechecking them all.
[/spoiler]

Sigh, stealth patching without version number changes or changelog :(

Code Select Expand

Comparing files SNES9X-1.58-WIN32-X64\ROMS\Super Metroid (JU) [!] Exertion11.smc and SUPER METROID (JU) [!] EXERTION11(SUSPECTED NEW).SMC
0007CB22: AC C0
0007CB23: A9 BD
Well, at least it fixed escape elevator.

[Moehr]

Ballot cast for Blue Plague, well done, Nodever!

[GaRan]

Really nice hacks these are!  :lol:
I'm a TASer so I'll vote base on that  :grin:

[spoiler=Super Metroid: Bluestar by MetroidNerd#9001 (v1.1)]This hack is very straight  :whoa: the doors closed as you go, no return  :bounce: not suit for a TAS though, sorry :!: [/spoiler]

[spoiler=No Safe Harbour by Moehr]Nice hack with good story, the timer force you to beat the hack quickly, no Morph Ball so it's a bit hard, especially when it's sinked down slowly
https://youtu.be/IL3yRga7eLE
and the % of all items is not 100 though  :whoa:
https://youtu.be/K8BuMTx1eZI[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Metroid: The Blue Plague by nodever2]This hack has good story as well, the background is very pretty, the chosen before Kraid's fight is a challenge  :grin:
https://youtu.be/nt_1JxiFGOk
But what with the repeating escaping sound at the end  :bounce:[/spoiler]

[spoiler=So Little Piracy by Mccad00 and MetroidMst]Wow  :whoa: cool music, cool boss' editing, collecting coins  :lol: (although it doesn't affect gameplay)
https://youtu.be/-SWo9OlggoI
But there are few bugs, one is after Crocomine's death, one is in Blue key heat room (the screen goes messy if lay a Power Bomb there)
But I definitely vote for this one[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Super Metroid Exertion by Mentlegen (v1.1)]The post beneath[/spoiler]

[caauyjdp]

Let's see if I'll manage write something coherent.
spoilers: I failed at that.

[spoiler=About: Bluestar]
It feels very very basic. Just go through a string of rooms, collect some optional items, fight a boss. It feels like(and is?) a small teaser for a future hack, especially since we don't get to see the post kraid item(I hope it won't just be be varia).

Pseudo screw attack was too op, and made things more boring if you used it. Doors closing behind you was... Linear is one thing but I think this went a step beyond that. Did not like it(doors) as a thing in any%.

In the low% this hack feels much better, doors closing behind you meant you couldn't farm or reset a room which added to the challenge.
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=About: Super Metroid Exertion]
I had a rough start with this one. Wasted more than two hours looking everywhere for last two gates I needed, only to discover, after watching a stream, that gray doors were in fact missile doors...

However, those were over two hours of pretty fun movement. I like vanilla, but speedkeep+unlimited spacejump just makes movement fun for me(especially when it's not on vanilla map, where it feels bit like cheating). Looking for the gates in the wrong places made me discover how everything was interconnected, which made optimizing routes/movement over countless playthroughs more fun.

There's a lot of things slightly broken about this hack. I don't know how much credit I should be giving for applying known tweaks/patches. New suits barely made an appearance. I think ghostbusters was done already(?), even though I liked it.
Still, this was my favorite hack of the contest and I hope we'll see a slightly more polished version in the future.

P.S. I think hyper grouped final gates by area? Might be a good thing to mimic.
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=About: No Safe Harbour]
*Sigh*. More than anything this hack needed a readme, few things in spoiler tags in the post weren't enough. A map would be nice too. In-game map probably wouldn't even help, but a very crude drawing with sections(not even individual rooms) of the freighter labeled would help a lot.

Did not finish it. I've seen few streams of it afterwards, and while it seems like I've missed the point of the hack(did not get pb and didn't find the brig), I haven't been compelled to get back into it.
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=About: So Little Piracy]
Excellent readme, excellent Bluebeard, excellent choice of credits music. A lot of the other things on the other hand...
If you'd just have made spore spawn door green, this hack would have been so much better...
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=About: The Blue Plague]
Fun small hack. Earth getting closer was a very nice touch, that I completelly missed because I was taking so long between trips to surface. Could have maybe used same trigger to make more of the regular enemies blue, but I have no idea how doable that is. Use of crumble chains  with gates was nice. Solid vertical pillars(that platforms hang on) were annoying.

Now, the bad parts. Those vertical pillars in kraid's room - not solid. I thought I'd have to let him come closer before I could shoot him and was disappointed when that wasn't the case.
Another thing. I found my first supers after climbing frozen rippers, took me some 10 minutes because shorter frozen timer and because I'm bad, but I thought I was sequence breaking at the time, getting up there before speed booster, which is obviously the correct way... And then some time after that I realize that there's no speed, that climb seems required to progress, because those are the only first supers? And that makes me think back to spike pit before wave...

P.S. I think this hack might have overdone it with trying to get around 30 rooms maximum and actually has gone under 10 rooms minimum? I'm not entirely clear on the rules, so I didn't try to actually count.[/spoiler]

[nodever2]

Here are my unofficial reviews! Sorry they are so long, but I'm still trying to improve in reviewing things and wanted to express all of my opinions and impressions. I'll try to be more concise in the future.

[spoiler=Super Metroid Bluestar by MetroidNerd#9001]
In-game completion stats: 90% in 23:48 IGT

   This hack was a fun little vanilla experience that is not too difficult and is well designed. It's very nice to have hacks that you can pick up and just enjoy for a little bit. The main drawback to this hack, in my opinion, is that there is extremely little exploration - the hack linear in every sense of the word. Doors lock behind you and you go through rooms in a specific order, and most items are pretty obvious (though some are more interesting to find). Not much else was changed from vanilla either (except level design, of course). The enemy and area palettes were quite nice for the most part... I can't really fault it for having an excessive amount of blue, given the theme, but I can say that the amount of blue started to get to me at times. Sometimes less is more. The pre-kraid room was really cool looking palette-wise though, and I liked it a lot.
   The hack was almost entirely devoid of any sort of technical issues whatsoever from what I could see, which is great. My only question is this: Wouldn't it be possible to get to Kraid without charge and missiles, and then you wouldn't be able to kill him but also wouldn't be able to go back because all the doors lock behind you? Not sure if I'm missing something there, but if I'm correct then that's an issue.
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Super Metroid Exertion by Mentlegen]
In-game completion stats: 37% in 01:47 IGT

   This hack contrasts to the last one in almost every way - in some great ways, and some not so great ways. First of all, the graphics: the hack is mostly vanilla but it is supplemented by some nice new tiles that spice it up a little, in a way that reminded me a bit of Project Base. The palettes were more varied than Bluestar while still being mostly blue (except for the last area), which I think is an overall improvement. For the most part, the game also feels very nice to control - with speedkeep and respin and a some other physics changes, running around the world felt very nice. This hack made a great first impression especially with these things in mind.
   The world is designed well for the most part, except for one tiny issue that actually isn't tiny at all and in fact nearly ruined my experience with the hack - the gate system. This hack has a gate system similar to Hyper Metroid where you need to find and unlock them all to enter the final rooms of the game and beat the final boss. Gate systems are a whole new can of worms and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about them, but I can say in this specific case that I missed two of them (the one in Crateria is hidden so subtly that it's very unreasonable that it is required to beat the hack) and it resulted in me searching for over 45 minutes for them, which is way too much. In fact I didn't even find the last one until I cheated and looked in SMILE. At that point I had just wished that the gates weren't in the game in the first place; I would much rather have just been able to finish the hack instead of leaving the final area to go back and look for them (and I don't even think you're supposed to leave the final area (apparently you are but he forgot to fix the following issue), because if you do some of the roomstates in the other areas are messed up which is very undesirable). I also wish that the final elevator was usable before the escape so that it'd be easier to return to Crateria to search for gates if needed.
   I really hate to say all that, because the rest of the hack is pretty solid honestly, that was my main complaint. Maybe if the gates were made more obvious in some way this situation could be helped (I suggested map stations so that it would be easy to see you have an unexplored map tile that you need to check out, which happens to have a gate in it). But this stuff can't be denied if it's required to beat the game. Anyway, I also really liked the new music that was in the hack - the escape theme (and the escape sequence in general) was a real highlight for me. The hack had some technical issues, however - especially the map, which was extremely unreliable. Scrolling was also wonky in a number of places, most notably during the escape sequence. There was also a bug with a save station, and a bug with an elevator - the latter causing some major scrolling issues. Other than that the hack played fine from what I remember.
   Final thoughts: Impressively large hack, with a lot of cool stuff in it like the multiple extra suits and the gate system, and very smooth physics. Unfortunately a few issues hold it back from being the best experience I had, though. Hopefully some of them can be fixed in a future release!
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=No Safe Harbor by Moehr]
In-game completion stats: 29% in 00:10 IGT

   This was probably the strangest experience that I've had with a SM hack (though I'm not very experienced, relatively speaking), but that's not inherently a bad thing. It was very hard for the player to understand what was going on, though, and I wish some of the new mechanics were explained better - maybe those message boxes that were in the control room could be moved so that people would find them right away and get some direction for what they are supposed to do.
   The concept of the rising water that persisted across all rooms was amazing. Conceptually I really loved that, it adds a lot to the continuity of the world and it was just super cool to see that actually functioning in the game, with a working timer on your HUD to boot. There are a lot of creative ideas in this hack like that.
   I think this hack is what you make of it, honestly. If you're looking for a "normal" metroid experience, this is probably not that, but if you're looking for something different and refreshing that completely throws everything you expect out the window, this could be it. There were some cool things like the sidequest with the animal in the brig, that you might not find unless you put some more effort into exploring the world.
   However, some things about it kinda bothered me. The music is cool, don't get me wrong, but it's a little repetitive and a little monotonous after a while, especially since it's the only music in the hack other than title and credits. I was also a bit put off by just how... unexplained everything was to the player. Like, you explore the ship and you find all kinds of things that you don't really understand, and by the time you begin to figure everything out the game's timer kills you. With something so different from the vanilla game, I just wish your objective was more clear from the start. And I don't even know what to say about the tiling - it's more mileage than I would ever expect someone to get out of the (I think) vanilla Ceres tileset, and it's pretty impressive to see how he creatively used the tiles to accomplish many things, but it's not the prettiest thing I've ever seen either.
   I am looking forward to see what Moehr makes in the future, especially because it's so unique compared to what anyone else makes. I'm not sure this was exactly my cup of tea, but I liked seeing all of this creative stuff; that and some of the other concepts in this hack definitely made checking it out worthwhile for me.
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=So Little Piracy by MetroidMST and Mccad00]
In-game completion stats: 500 in 01:31 IGT

   This hack was beautiful. Tedicles did a great job on the art, and whoever did the music did great too. Including Halo music will always win brownie points with me :D and I loved Phantoon's resprite. Glows were nice and ice beam's room was super cool looking but tiny and sadly the only room that looked like that. There were a lot of nice touches with FX, including haze and subtle clouds with a nice palette blend.
   It's not all perfect, though. While the right area felt extremely satisfying to explore, the left area was much less so. The grapple sections were not terrible, but the fact that you can fall down into the room from above and have to redo the grapple challenge in it every single time you fail on the above room is ridiculous. Also, the far right pre-supers grapple room was too arduous for my taste, with so many occurances of two-block-wide grapple blocks, but since it's not actually a required room at all I can't fault it for that.
   Savestates are pretty much a must for this hack IMO, especially for the Shaktool room which was very trolly but not the worst experience I had. No, that title goes to Spore Spawn actually. I don't know why it is, but I had such a hard time beating him, it took me over 30 minutes of attempts total... maybe even closer to 45 or 60 minutes cumulatively, I don't know. The problem was the rinkas in that room, which hit you for like 1/3 of an E-tank at a time - and when you only have one or even two E-tanks total, that was a big problem for me. Maybe I'm just bad and other people didn't have an issue with him, but for me Spore Spawn was not a fun experience at all and was easily the worst thing I felt like I had to deal with. (Maybe it was because I didn't explore a ton, as I could have eventually found Supers and used those on him, but I didn't end up finding them even though I tried to explore some more after fighting him and failing for the first time).
   Another issue I had with this hack was the fact that refilling your energy in the right area was very difficult in the early game (I only found out much later that the geemers could be killed with bombs... I was under the impression that they were invincible since they were not damaged by anything else, even missiles) and there wasn't really good places to refill without going all the way to the left area. A simple refill bug somewhere would probably fix this, preferably near the save station.
   Lastly, the transparency effect in the left area was cool, but also became kinda annoying and made me wish the foreground was just 100% opaque at times. It did allow for some cool secrets to be hidden with it though - I love the secret in that grapple room that says "hi" on the wall that uses grapple blocks that look transparent.
   On the bright side, the hack was very technically solid, and bugs were rare and even when I did find them they were pretty much just visual. Crocomire's room was a bit of a mess, but I'm willing to excuse that since the rest of the hack looked pretty great. Phantoon, apart from looking amazing, also had some cool AI changes that really made the fight feel different from normal, which is great. Bomb Torizo was mostly unmemorable, but honestly I wasn't complaining after that SpoSpo fight.
   Overall I feel like this hack has received more criticism than it deserves given how much good there is here, but at the same time it does deserve to be pointed out that there are some sections that will annoy you, and you can forget about playing this without savestates if you want to have a good experience (most likely).[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Metroid The Blue Plague by Nodever2]I can't review my own hack! That would be too biased :heheh:
In-game completion stats: 104.0% in 00:40 IGT[/spoiler]

[spoiler=My vote]
I cast my vote for So Little Piracy. Good job guys!
[/spoiler]

Lastly, I actually recorded my blind playthroughs of these hacks, so if you're interested in that, click here! (These are some of the first real videos I have on the channel, feel free to leave feedback in the comments!)

Thank you to everyone else who entered the contest! Regardless of who wins, it's been fun and all of your hacks were definitely worth experiencing :grin:

[GaRan]

OK so I've got through the last Super Metroid Exertion by Mentlegen (v1.1) :grin: :grin:
[spoiler]This hack is really awesome, I really like the gate system and the new suits :lol: :lol:
https://youtu.be/QdWESeXuhY4[/spoiler]

[caauyjdp]

Exertion 1.2 seem to have lost draygon somewhere? :) And pb tunnel to brinstar ice has an obvious out of place tile. Ground near maridia speed blocks seems to have grown a new slope error(stops your movement when going right). Nice fixes here and there but still some way to go. Looking forward to future versions.
Also, Exertion probably needs it's own release thread now.

[Mentlegen]

Exertion 1.2 seem to have lost draygon somewhere? :) And pb tunnel to brinstar ice has an obvious out of place tile. Ground near maridia speed blocks seems to have grown a new slope error(stops your movement when going right). Nice fixes here and there but still some way to go. Looking forward to future versions.
Also, Exertion probably needs it's own release thread now.

Lost draygon? she doesn't appear?

and yes you are probably right, gonna get an Exertion thread going soon

[Ri2nOneRok]

  Hello all! So not really the best writer in the forum as I feel I tend leave out a lot thats on my mind as I explain myself but I wanted to give this a shot, please pardon the constant jumping all over the place as I critique, noob like descriptions or terms, as well as this long a** disclaimer.
  Being able to play most of the hacks with the little time I had, and playing them for free, the absolute very least I can do is thank them and give them feedback. While I think no single hack ever played a negative experience but rather a positive one, any critiques are always held with positive view as it was fun to play new metroid levels themes etc.

Blue Star [spoiler]  From what I understand, this was a part of a bigger rom hack that is being developed. With that being said, the linear play through was quite pleasant. Many hacks always allow for enough space to take advantage of mock-ball speeds, and speed booster dashes, as well as using lots of beam, and boot upgrades prematurely, the developer did a good job in being consitent in the playthrough out this level. I imagine this takes time to plan out, and look forward to the rest of the hack, and should focus on the rest of the levels to sustain the same level of consistency regardless of the upgrades, or player-level intuity. [/spoiler]

Super Metroid Exertion [spoiler] This hack was a larger world than Blue Star (obviously), and was a good size of a world for a hack contest. It was not over drawn, but definately, did not finish this game in one day, I still play it from time to time, but never enough to do a complete playthrough, due to some of the rooms not having much definition.
   Titanion, was pretty open spaced in a good way, the design of Titanion was well matched in color, metal pipes placed in the right places, it just felt right. It really set the tone to a hack with character. 
But then take the level Vitria, feeling a little to tight, with tileset colors not fitting well (dry light bluegrey terrain, then placing metallic blue tiles was a bit of an eye-sore). it felt like Vitria needed a bit more consideration in the flow between the terrain obstacles, and the enemies in it. It felt rushed which is completely understandable when considering there is limited time to design a contest hack despite your other obligations.
  The flagship level in my opinion, and probably was the best level out of all Blue Contest hacks, was Aquarion. It went back into the feeling that Titanion gave me which was open, well spaced to guide you to other parts of the the level, while making it very pleasant to go back and forth within the levels to complete gathering all items and gates. The color matching was also great, and when Samus would charge her beam, the glow in the water was borderline iconic It was just gorgeous.
  Moving into sector Z, there were a few dissapointments, incuding what seemed to be repetitive rooms, and quite a few glitches in at least 3 instances.(snes9x savestates made it playable) where the rooms froze or elevator didnt stop elevating. However it was not so bad that it couldnt be enjoyed, the multiple suits was memorable, and the industrial theme was pretty fun to listen to and it fit the level quite well. Plus im a sucker for people writing new music to levels. The final boss was very clever and I absolutely loved it.
  Personally, if the hack got rid of Vitria, or had it flow more with the principles defined in the other worlds (maybe just get rid of it), and repair the glitches, this game might have easily been the winner. I found myself playing this hack over and over by using savestates to avoid playing Vitria. The gate opening playthrough also well done was not too hard to find them all (edit: I read a lot of disappointments in the search for gates, but IMO they were well done. Also enjoyed the speed screw attack. [/spoiler]

  Blue Plague [spoiler]Another great contender. The visuals and the theme of the game was above average, all levels just made sense! The Earf in the background was just a beauty to see. Being that it was some asteroid or something, going through inside the asteroid, it was clear that it has been used to excavate some minerals, including that neon blue goo (probably astro petrol or something), It was dark inside, which made it a challenge for Samus, and some of the animals were to well armored to be taken by Samus weapons. However it was well colonized as you can see the pretty stellar station built on that asteroid that  was hightech, Im sure the galactic federation made bank! on that astreroid.
  I also enjoyed Blue Kraid's lair it was a classic theme to Metroid support foundations to avoid the lair from collapsing which Kraid eventually took hold of, but I am not sure whom in the galactic federation agreed to planting spikes on the floor of the level. Was the perhaps a drilling site? Idk...
  Also the detonating with the unstable bombs, blow the reactors was nice. Good choice of names of items as well. The final boss was not easy at all  and took me at least a fewdays to beat. But I was determined to beat it. (nevermind I found charge beam..)
   Now what Im about to say is going too probably lose credibility as a reviewer , but Samus in a pink suit was just a complete eyesore and made the game seem like a joke and did not help whatsoever in keeping me in the realm of the developers story line of being a a serious mission, the game really had me going but constantly seeing samus in a pink clownish armored suit was a constant reminder that this game is kinda silly and throws all the effort of the visuals out the window. , had it been with a more realistic color suit in the beginning, I proabably would enjoy replaying this game, that and also the final boss being a bit too difficult for my taste. Nonetheless, the playthrough was great, complex and short, but that was well designed. Kudos. [/spoiler]

So little Piracy [spoiler] soo... little... .. . .. Piracy.. What kind of name is this? (I first thought... and I still do)
I just happened to play this one by chance, as I was already hacked out by the other hacks just mentioned. Jumping into the game I felt like the developers of this game were trying to throw out everything conventional about SM, gut out all the walls, demolish the entire structure of the game, and build it up from scratch. From the tilesets, background, music, and overall... vibe for a lack of a better word.
Clearly the developers of this game look to push the envelope, and wish not to have made a hack resembling another eerie world that Samus must take on. The world had only 2 levels. (3 if you include shacktool's hostile chamber) The levels have nothing to do with eachother in theme aside from it being all in blue. The game is also challenging to play... in a good way. The design of this game was also strange SM... in a very good way.

   So I decided to start with the the left side of the game, which was very open and spacious. Clearly no realistic world or area would ever exist here or in any galaxy out there. This level was designed with translucent tilesets, all blue, it was lovely. Confusing at first, but in the end satisfying that the entire level was consistent to this design. While being designed to run through the level to appreciate the aesthetics, the level was also put with challenges, mainly with obstacles, rather than enemy attacks. The music for the first 5 minutes was a little frustrating as the norm for SM is a serious, and eerie tone. But the tone was set to be different from what SM usually brings forth and I love playing to it. The obstacles were placed in a large darker room, nothing Zebes like or Ceres Space station like - in the sense of rough terrain or high heat level rooms unbearable to walkthrough in a regular armor, allowing you to easily explore this level and focus on the obstacles including long grapple jumps, and spike evasion, as well as pitfall evasions. The level was set to be a game.(if that makes sense, after all it is a game... but not some alien planet)

  Jumping to the east side of the hack, you entered what I think seems to be Paris. Street lights in the background, artisan lamps hanging around the walls, and a lovely landscape was instantly appreciated. The music in this area the best I have heard added on to a hack. (I read other reviews saying this might be a Halo song but either-way I never heard it, all I mostly play is SM hacks and sometimes ff6 or sf2). The gameplay from the the previ differed in that it was alot more enclosed and contained multiple fun paths to go through. The paths, did include enemies, and a healthy dose of harder enemies, making this game more engaging for the experienced players, but not overdone that you must reconsider your skills through out the span of a week. Nothing was too complicated enough to stay stuck in as you went through Paris. It was all open, pleasing to the eye, ear, and fingers.

  Overall the game was not complicated and did not leave me stuck. Except... Crocoblue...... I was stuck for a very long time with Croc to the point of frustration. I was determined to be a Galactic Warrior, I beat Nestroid (15 years later), I even got 100% on SM, and played a ton of other hacks as well, and even know how to mock ball(just recently). I just couldn't have let a hack out puzzle me. But it has... I was beginning to grow ashamed at my skills, wondering where have I gone wrong.. how could such a wonderful well done hack not allow me to move forward without having to youtube my way out of this? A week or so later, signed on to my youtube account, and notice.. MST... streaming live... the Blue Hacks contest.. Could this be? Am I going to see how to beat Crocoblue? Surely MST in the past has over come all hacks he streamed so this was my chance to get in on it.. I start streaming and commenting away on how great these hacks are, even get replies from other content viewers. But I could not stay and watch the whole set, but luckily since I DID watch the stream, I was able to relocate the stream in my history as the upload was not made public. (bear with me in this long drawn issue)
 
It was then I find out that a previous hack made by the developer was made in that Crocomire had to be defeated by shooting super missiles through a tiny slim hole that was easily mistaken as a room design nothing more, was part of moving forward in the game. But in this hack, no where did it show a hint of projectile bouncing, or what the project would hit once you figure out that you do indeed have to shoot through narrow inconspicuous tunnels that warp. I feel it was by chance I got to see the walk-through of this strategy. It was very disappointing to me.  Because the game was so well done, it could have easily been an all time great, that similar to hyper, eris or others, in terms of most memorable hacks. All CrocoBlue's lair needed to have was more instruction or guidance within the game itself and not rely on me by chance signing on to youtube when the play-through went live.And I checked, it is still not listed publicly. This goes against what made SM great, was making it somewhat possible to figure out

Or maybe I just am that terrible at playing...(But I can wall jump so no..)- If this hack gets an update to CrocoBlue, this might be one of the top 5 (IMO) [/spoiler]

  Which leaves me to my conclusion of the selected Blue Contest Hacks
[spoiler]

So Little Piracy was well done, and still amazed at how it pushed the envelope. Levels, playthrough, and music, was excellent regardless of its quirks. Blue bloody brilliant.

Blue Plague is the runner up. (would love an update without the pink suit)   

Exertion: I keep playing again to kill time, except Vitria.

And BlueStar needs to release the full hack asap. [/spoiler]


But in all... the developers have the upper hand. They in fact made the games, and I simply just played them. cheers, I would buy you all a round or chicken wings if you preffer, just come on down to South Florida. I got chu..   and thanks for giving us these hacks!