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Just no. Another reviewer put it more eloquently than I am able, so just go read their review, but this hack uses cheap tactics (higher tier enemies early on, invisible blocks, fake item blocks, heavy-handed backtracking requirements, fake secret paths with dead ends and no pay-off, etc.) to raise the "difficulty" and suck all the fun out of what is normally a very fun exploration adventure game.

I don't mind a proper challenge (some of the level design puzzles are very good) but when progressing boils down to having to stand on a cliff edge and use a turbo button to mow down a fly nest and the flies themselves provide zero drops (health nor rocket ammo later) while being constantly swarmed TWICE in a single room really sucks the wind out of your sails. It's not "challenging", it tedious and frustrating.

Rom hackers take note: this is NOT how you make a hack challenging but fun. This is how you frustrate players.

I quit after getting to Kraid's zone out of frustration. Go play Spooky Mission and Deep Freeze. Those were challenging but fun.

... At the core, this hack doesn't respect the people who play it. It's a bit of strong statement, but that's how I feel after finishing it.

The author of the romhack prefaces it saying it's not a hack for everyone. Which is fair, but nothing is ever meant for everyone. You shouldn't need to point out something that is at the core obvious as some kind of preemptive answer to criticism of the game. It's a difficult hack, and I think the author did exactly what they intended to do with it for the most part, it's just that it's not difficult in an enjoyable way.

The game seems to have a couple of tricks it reaaaally loves to pull on the players. Some of them are pretty fair and I actually enjoy them. Jumping in morph ball over falling blocks ? Okay, that's pretty cool and there's a nice sense of progression with those over the course of the game. First you learn to doubt one falling block, next thing you know you juggle like 3-4 entire rows of those and somehow making a headway regardless. It gets a bit repetitive sometimes, but it's still nice.

Pickups that aren't actually pickups but often have a real item hidden in the same map spot ? Again, might be a bit overdone by the end of the game, but a solid idea that really makes an emotionnal rollercoaster.

Hiding the monorail interruptor in chozodia and make you work for about half the game for it while also making them a lot more common ? Sadistic, but nice. It really feels like an accomplishment to turn this generator on. Actually, it might feel more rewarding than most items we get...

On the other hand... Destroyable blocks, hidden behind the scenery, that you have to guess are destroyable without any clue toward it ? Invisible « Unknown item blocks » that you have no way to even realize they exist until you finally get them by accident (most likely, very late in the game), and shoot a random spot of the ground to discover that this pickup you were trying to get for so long, trying everything you could think of, was in fact locked by a unknown item block with no distinctive sign whatsoever ? That's certainly difficult and challenging, but that's not fun, though. It just feels cheap. It feels like the lazy designer's easy way out of making an interesting challenge.

And because the game wants pretty much everything to be an ordeal, because every pickup becomes a fight, because every inch of progress must be a battle of wits, because there's very little downtime to enjoy the new power up you just got, or how you have finally made an area more bearable, the entire game blends into some kind of endless paranoiac nightmare where you're shooting every single block in five different ways to make sure it's actually here. And then most likely failing anyway because you were meant to shoot it in a sixth different way.

I stopped counting how many times i was in a situation where i checked the room for a fake block, managed to test ¾ of the blocks around, and also managed to miss the secret way because it was hidden among the last blocks i didn't check, because at this point i was convinced it was not the solution.

The ENTIRETY of the first chozodia trip was a low point of the game IMO. It's an endless run in an area with very scarce healing despite the ennemies hitting like a truck, a pileup of secret hallways that can lead you well into the space pirate mothership only to turn out to have been the wrong way all along, all the while not even knowing what you're trying to accomplish here. Oh yeah, and you can't LEAVE the place until you've found what you're searching, too.

« Difficulty » does not consist of simply placing random secret ways into every wall, i'm sad to see this hack made that mistake. Something as simple as a change of color in said blocks could have been enough to give the player a tangible hint.

I'm sure people more familiar with the hack than me could point out to me various specific moments where the game gives you a subtle clue to what to do, but when making even the most basic headway into a room feels like trying to understand the plot of a metal gear solid game by reading it's wikipedia summary, the mood to enjoy little subtle details of specific setpieces is not only absent, it's dead, buried with honors and grass had time to grow over it.

Don't get me wrong : there are ideas i liked here. The level design can be surprisingly clever and fair at times, but there is also a severe lack of some basic level design rules most of the time. I spent more time saying "this is stupid" when finally finding the solution to a puzzle than I spent saying that this is disgustingly clever.

Ultimately, despite the potential, I really can't reccomend this one. Despite the undeniable positives, it's just too much of struggling against the environment over and over.

Updated review for version 3.7.

Quote: "WARNING: This is NOT intended for the easily frustrated, or to be easily accessible. You are required to know the original game very well to sometimes make suggestions for finding the correct path. If sometimes searching for more then 5 minutes isn't your thing, then this will likely not be your type of game... "

The above statement needs to be taken seriously. Took the above as a challenge as did three friends, all of whom have been playing the original game since it's release and know it inside and out. None of us could find ways through or around some "Catch 22" situations. And we experienced these problems because of a bad rom we all had! Make sure to check your base rom file. There is a rom floating around that will pass the CRC check but not the others. None of us knew that was even possible. If you have problems with the mod, check all three[CRC, MD5 and SHA-1] to be sure you have the correct rom! Once fixed the mod played fine.

To say this mod is difficult is an understatement! The damage caused by enemies, even on Easy, is horrendous. On hard, one hit from a minor foe can render death. I'm not even gonna tell you about Mother Brain...

This is a mod for the gaming masochist! But as it can be beaten and excels at what it aims to be, it is recommendable to those who want a grand challenge! To the casual player or the player who does not find extreme difficulty enjoyable or rewarding, this is not a mod for you.

Absolutely love MZM with a passion and have been following this mod since it's early versions. The progress made in past versions showed much potential and this version seems to have fixed the major issues.

Personal note to the author; My apologies for a the previous undeserved criticisms that were a result of an unknown flaw in the rom being used.