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There was a commenter called CheTralfara who said that the hack causes a glitch with the red buttons. I ran into the same glitch myself and like that commenter I wanted to drop the hacked rom. However, it was too much to replay with the unhacked rom by that point, so I tried experimenting.

First, I checked the rom and it was a proper copy. Then I wanted to check if different emulators would emulate it differently, so I downloaded the latest version of Nestopia and loaded my save on it. All red button problems were gone! For the purity of the experiment, though, I loaded my save again on FCEUX 2.2.3, and the red buttons surprised me by being functional. So, in the end it's either a general emulation glitch or a glitch present in the original game. I know for sure that there's a similar original glitch in the game with the dragons who sometimes won't spew fireballs. Incidentally, I ran into it while emulating, as well. For the red button, basically you either need to die and reload a save, or quit the emulator and reload the rom. For the dragons, I'm not sure, I died a lot and they were spewing fireballs every time except the very first one that I ran into them.

Usually I comb the comments for notes on glitches before using hacks (well, not this time, otherwise I wouldn't have risked to use this one), so I registered to write this comment for people like me. Don't worry, the hack is fine. And of course, I appreciate the work people put into hacking, so the author deserved the comment.

As for the save and the map, I chose this hack for the map specifically, but it proved not to be useful at first, because it's so small and you can't see the whole map at once. I understand why, though. After all, it's not an automap that fills as you go, and seeing the whole map of the game from the start would be cheating. However, it proved useful to me later when I got lost and resorted to consulting a map guide. Thanks to it I managed to locate where I was. :)

Yes having the map feature in this game really does help. However it does not work on some nes emulators for ds/3ds flash cart.

It's pretty awesome. You can save your game and not have to use either passwords or emulator save states. I do have a couple complaints, if it's possible to patch them. Doesn't seem to work with any other patch, it over writes all of them. I'm trying to also patch the wall jump patch and the Super Metroid sprite patch, neither of which work with this. It would also be nice to save from the pause menu instead of when you die.

I love the functionality added in by this hack. Echoing the others, it really makes the game feel complete.

However, no where was it mentioned that this hack completely removes the intro text at the title screen. It just remains on the Title until the player proceeds to the file select.

One of the reviews noted that tha hack is buggy and there are some enemies that are not functioning properly. It was probably because of a bad ROM file used for the hack. I have tried it myself and the enemy spitting "popcorns" works fine.

I think the improvements in this hack are tasteful, and they enhance the Metroid experience. The hack adds the ability to save up to three games, similar to Zelda, and it shows the items that have been collected on the save screen. It's really nice. Within the game play there are two new features: the map, and the ability to combine the ice beam and wave beam. The map appears when the game is paused, and it's really useful for getting through the game quickly especially if you only have a vague recollection of where things are. Also, the game was designed to be like a maze, and a lot of rooms look very similar. It's easy to get lost, but the map helps to keep you oriented. I wish the map was larger, but it is scrollable with the d-pad. It would also be nice if the map would continue to scroll while the d-pad is being held down instead of continually having to press the d-pad in order to scroll. The ability to combine the ice beam and wave beam is really great. I don't mind that you cannot turn this feature off. It seems like the ice beam by itself is more powerful than I remember, but I haven't verified that.

The only issue I had with the hack was not knowing how to save a game without dying. I played through the game over the course of a few sittings, and at the end of every sitting I would kill Samus in order to save. I only learned today that there is a way to save the game without dying first, which explains the part in the hack description that says

THE CONS

I played through all the way past Brinstar and onto Norfair and the first thing I notice is the environmental enemies that look like a red button on the ground that spits popcorn at you (couldn't figure out his name), in this hack they no longer ever spit popcorn. That enemy is broken for some reason and just looks like random red buttons lying on the ground now. I tried reloading and resetting but nothing makes them work (never any spitting). I stopped playing after that because I didn't want to move forward after that, even though those enemies are only in 2 rooms. Still, I didn't want to take the chance that more could be broken.

THE PROS

Saving is great. The map is the most important addition and saves new players from spoiling the treasure locations by looking online. It is also extremely convenient to just press pause and there's your map. Didn't get far enough to try combined beams.

Having the map available makes such a huge difference. Feels like it belongs there.

Wish this was around when I had this game years ago! Even still, it's a great add-on to have if you play off an emulator, off a modified Xbox or PS3, or a cartridge dump on a classic NES system!

Having saves versus a long password screen really adds to the game for those wanting to play on actual hardware. This is how it should of been from the start.