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The short of it: Well worth playing. Some may even be tempted to replay it for a faster completion time. In spite of having a rather simplistic (though huge) map design, the hack offers a sufficiently different experience from the original. Almost no exploration or backtracking is left unrewarded. Design lives up to the promise of avoiding pretty much any frustrating or obtuse secret, resulting in an overall unfiltered fun and challenging experience.

This was the first Metroid hack I played, right after replaying the original for the Nth time. In many ways this hack does feel like a sequel to the original similar to Lost Levels in relation to the original Super Mario. A different color palette also adds a refreshing feel to the game.

In this hack there is no need to place bombs on random tiles-something that even the original had especially in Norfair. In fact, I can only recall one instance in which you bomb a wall to find a secret passage, but it is placed in a way that most players will not miss.

Most of the fun in this hack comes from playing Metroid in a very different way. This is indeed what a hack should accomplish: to offer something that the original game did not. In my playthrough, even finding the first set of missiles was fun and challenging. It was also challenging to play a large portion of the beginning of the game without bombs, instead finding the wave beam fairly early.

The map mostly consists of very long vertical and horizontal hallways, so drawing a map for yourself is a must and makes the experience more enjoyable. At times this simplistic level design does get a bit boring, but the good aspect of this is that every location serves a purpose and your exploration is always rewarded either by finding an item or by finding a new area or by finding a new way of getting to an old area. Overall the map is very well thought out, even if it lacks the sophistication that the original had (which was designed by pro developers after all).

Since the map is fairly straightforward (but big!), you will not be confused most of the time, but will instead only need to refer to your map and go back to any places that you had marked as previously inaccessible. That is another thing that this hack does right: backtracking is actually exciting once you find the one item you need. I can only recall one room (in Ridley) that felt confusing (a place where it appears as if you may need to freeze enemies to move up, but is in fact a place where you can fall if you take a different route-some players may not have this experience but to me it was very confusing).

All in all, this feels like a very polished hack. The only thing I would add is encountering Fake Ridley somewhere! Perhaps it would also be nice to add the little hack that lets you equip Ice and Wave simultaneously, even if this takes a bit of challenge away from the game.

I liked this one quite a bit; clever room layouts, some smart ways of hiding items (while not being overly cryptic), effort shows in the presentation.

There's an influence from Super Metroid in the design, namely in the way it has a set order for you to collect items and often traps you in an area until you can get them - for example there's a long vertical shaft you must fall down and can't get out of until you have ice beam (taken directly from SM). In that sense it's more linear than the original Metroid, but there is still a great deal of freedom in terms of what paths you can take and how much searching you can do.

The map gives you much freedom while not being confusing - I never found myself straying too far from the intended path, and never got lost even though I collected all the items (which was rewarding and worth it). The rooms are well thought-out and varied, gameplay never really felt repetitive. There are some surprisingly nice touches, one being the entrance to one of the boss hideouts (I forget which, sorry), which had one of those stone statues shooting fireballs out of its mouth which you had to freeze and roll/bomb off of to go through the mouth and reach the elevator (perhaps I'm doing a bad job of explaining it but anyway it looks cool in the game).

My main complaint is that there wasn't much challenge to speak of, other than perhaps Tourian. My health never got very low, the platforming wasn't tricky, and I was able to find all the items and beat the game in a few hours. While it was enjoyable for those hours, it leaves me with little reason to replay the game. Regardless, I would definitely recommend it for at least one playthrough.

Metroid Deluxe is a complete change of the original game. The layout is completely different, some palettes have been changed, and overall it is a pretty interesting experience. This hack does remove the "bomb floor in random spot" that the original had, but it also adds its own share of hard things to do.

PROS:

• Brand new layout.
• Very interesting item order.
• Exploration is very well done.

CONS:

• There is at least one spot you can get perma-stuck.
• Some of the requirements to beat the hack seem just as ludicrous as bombing random spots in the floor.

Overall, I really enjoyed the hack, but I would have to say it is harder than the original. It also requires some knowledge of Metroid's glitches, as at one point I found no other alternative than to make use of the ability to jump out of Morph Ball after bouncing off a ledge. I found no other way around that, as I could not have Bombs or Hi-Jump at that point in the game.

The game does offer a good item progression. It surprised me how well placed items were. It starts off a little slow, but eventually you start to realize what it expects you to do to advance, and once you get that, it is just a matter of pulling it off sometimes. I also never found any blocks in the floor or ceiling, and just happened across Varia like a normal item. That was a pleasant surprise.

Some parts of the hack are an issue though. Since the game expects you to think different, and gives you a pretty important item later than you'd expect, you end up having to trust you can make it back sometimes. And 90% of the time you can, but there was one spot where you had to be fast enough, or you'd be stuck. This was for an optional item, but it matters since you can lock yourself into a corner with no way to die and get a password.

The entrance to Tourian really surprised me as well. It was put in just about the last place you can actually explore, which makes sense, but getting there could be a huge hassle. I have a feeling I just got extremely lucky in getting to it as soon as I did. Tourian itself is particularly dangerous, and it still contains Rinkas in locations where you cannot avoid them while passing through doors.

Overall, I do like this hack, but it is more challenging than you might expect. There are some moments when you start to wonder if you really are going in the right direction, but in the end you get rewarded well.