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Okay, so I've picked this hack up a handful of times, and it's because of one thing, and something I want to make very clear before I get into anything: I LEGITIMATELY DO LIKE THIS GAME. Okay, now that that's out of the way, this is why I said "No" in recommendations...this is a VERY freakin hard game!!!

MAP: All in all, the map is done pretty well using the base assets of Super Metroid. This is something, I do like, when a developer uses pre-existing assets and does so in such a way that the area feels new. Every area is renamed, so we have lovely new places to romp through such as the Dark Gardens, the Tetra Ruins, High Command, Eternal Hall, the Sky Temple, and our favorite, the dreaded Underworld! For the most part, everything looks pretty good, though admittedly, the colors of the background and the walls in the Sky Temple are a kinda sickly yellow that's...not very pleasant to the eyes. While I imagine the Space Pirates couldn't give two craps about this, it doesn't look very good while playing through it. Other than that, most places don't look too bad.

GAMEPLAY: Oh boy, this is where we get into what I meant by not recommending this. Honestly, nothing's changed as far as in-game mechanics. That much is the same SM gameplay we've always known and loved. The rest of the game...feels like what would happen if Super Metroid and Dark Souls spawned a child, lol. Don't get me wrong, I love the Dark Souls series dearly, but much of this hack depends on deadly traps that very clearly dances the line between "requires a lot of skill" and "almost completely unfair". Finding where to even go from the start takes a lot of persistence and maybe even a map. There is some online if you need it, and I really do since I don't like running circles for hours simply cause a game (even good ones) have changed things up. Other than that, you're HEAVILY limited on the maximum amount of energy available since many Energy Tanks are locked behind doors and puzzles you need later equipment for. Screwing up will punish you, and viciously so, possibly killing you outright. The first boss fight against the Torizo for the Bombs is probably the most ridiculous and unfair I've ever seen in all these hacks. I get trying to make it harder, but giving you three teeny platforms high up and lining the floor with spikes that do 60 damage when you at best have 199 energy tops? Regardless, this game focuses heavily on exploration, which is GOOD, but it can take a long time and a lot of work to find secrets or even a direction to go.

FUN: Ah, that's the question, isn't it? Is this game fun? Do I honestly have the ability to make that claim or not? Well, let's say this then...it's fun for ME. Why is it fun for me? Because I honestly am able to have patience for the sheer difficulty this hack presents. In no way am I saying that nobody else who hates this game doesn't have patience, I simply mean that this is a very particular game for a very specific gamer. And that's why I say "No" in my recommendation, because I don't recommend this for everyone. I think it deserves a fair chance, YES. I think there's plenty here to have fun with and even feel good about when you complete its puzzles, much like beating a severely difficult boss in Dark Souls since it caused some of the same relief and euphoric sense of victory I'd have then. But if you're NOT a gamer who finds the appeal in that, in pitting your skills and will to succeed against brutal puzzles, then NO, LEAVE THIS ALONE.

MY RATING: 6/10 Okay, maybe this seems a bit low for me saying I like the game and playing up what I think to be its good points. I like this hack, I honestly do, but even I cannot ignore what seems to be significantly unfair. Many puzzles require you to take damage with the weakest armor and little energy to spare, it's very easy to get lost even WITH a map, and if you're not a gamer to abuse Save States like me, then you may lose your sanity with this. I do have fun pitting my will and skills against this beast of a hack, but if anything I've said makes you feel like you can't, then my suggestion is to check out a vid on Youtube, watch a bit of the gameplay, and see if you think you can handle it. If not, then leave it be.

I gotta say, this hack is a huge disappointment. It's just not fun. The puzzles aren't satisfying. It's like they're hard just to be hard.

In the first room with the morph ball, it's gonna take forever to find the one block you're supposed to shoot to escape. In Super Metroid and other hacks, the breakable blocks had some kind of rational to them. In this hack they're just completely random. So, you'll end up walking around shooting every single block. It's no fun. The pipes surrounding the morph ball and the other power ups just look out of place and unnatural. It doesn't look like a lived in area, it looks like a poorly made video game level, you know what I mean?

In the second room, you'll become even more frustrated. There are some invisible enemies in this room or something because I keep dying for no reason. Something keeps hitting me but I can't see what it is. So, I keep having to start all over. When you finally get to the top of this room, there's a bunch of blocks that break when you touch them and make you fall back to the bottom of the room. So, now you gotta go all the way back around through multiple rooms to try again. Oh, turns out there's even more blocks that break right after that, so now you gotta go all the way around again and again until you memorize the pattern of blocks that break. Took me about 10 trips to finally make it through what is pretty much the second room in the game. And, the route you have to take to get back is ridiculous. Okay, so you fall to the bottom of the room, you exit to the right. You go through the next 5 screens to get to the next room, the one with your ship in it. You climb back up through another 5 screens worth of platforms to get to the next room which is another 5 screens long! You finally make it back to the original room just to find out that there's even more blocks that break when you touch them! So now, you gotta make the same trip through over 15 screens over and over again until you memorize where all the invisible blocks are. This is so tedious and immediately poisons the player's experience. This is just adding artificial length to the game, making it longer then it actually is. Also, once you've memorized where all the breakable blocks and blocks you can walk through are, that doesn't mean you'll get it. Sometimes blocks break without letting you run over them or even jump off them. I feel like I'm doing everything right but sometimes I just can't jump or run over a block, sometimes I can. Oh, and there's spikes which take a ton of energy so if you get hit, have fun having to farm energy to try again.

Don't fall in the next room or you'll have to run all the way to the right and try again. It's not bad at all here, but jeez come on, do you gotta make every single room annoying?

In the next room you'll immediately be surprised to know that Samus is walking on water! oh wait, just more invisible blocks, great. So, I kept exploring this room but I fell down some hole and got stuck underwater. Why do people keep making water levels? Nobody likes them, especially if you don't have the gravity suit yet. Nobody wants to wade through water in any game, let alone SM. So now I'm stuck underwater, underneath some invisible blocks, moving super slow, trying to shoot every block but I can't figure out how to escape. oh, turns out there was just another blocks that I could morph ball through, but it wasn't obvious at all. I had to wait until an enemy crawled all around the level and I finally noticed it go through a block.

The next room, is another annoying as hell room. So, I looked around and couldn't tell where to go. So, I spent time shooting every block I could, I tried morphballing and entering any tunnels that might be hidden. Turns out that some random blocks can be stepped on while others are just foreground objects. Enough with this already, jeez. It's so unnatural and random, I don't feel satisfied figuring these things out at all. So, all these blocks of course disappear the second you step on them so you gotta be quick jumping from platform to platform or you'll fall and have to start over.

I gotta end my review there. I went through the next few rooms, but they were just so boring and uninventive. Way too many blocks that are either invisible or visible but you can go through them. It's just very tedious. I would not recommend this hack. If you're looking for a great hack, try Hyper Metroid or Super Metroid Redesign, they're much more polished and professional

My original review was for a previous version and was submitted before the newest version came out. The flaws it had were fixed. This hack is still very challenging but no longer has any "Catch 22" item situations.

The level design is very good and well thought out and the pace of the game flows well. Some items require a great deal of skill to attain but are not impossible. Great fun to explore!

...only begins to describe how thorough and amazing this ROM hack is. It's really like playing an entirely new game, but it's still Super Metroid. While with most super Metroid ROM hacks, it is difficult to figure out where to go at times, it's not impossible. It took me about a month to get through this game, but i enjoyed almost every minute of it. This is definitely recommended for anyone who played through the original super Metroid and enjoyed it.