Mario Adventure: A Review
I usually don't pay much attention to ROM hacks. It seems that a lot of them just make cheesy sprite swaps, or change the levels into things that might look pretty nifty to the hacker but which are otherwise impossible to play, or both. But Mario Adventure, a hack of Super Mario Bros 3, got a rousing endorsement on Zophar.net, so I thought I should take a look.
This seems to be a very impressive hack on a technical level, and there are many new features. You can complete the first seven worlds in any order you want. Several of the powerups have been reworked. Not only does Kuribo's Shoe show up more often, but you can sometimes find it in question blocks and as a map screen item. You can even take the shoe off and store it whenever you want! Other cool things include an item box much like the one in Super Mario World (accessible by pressing Select) and even some limited saveram support (so save states are no longer entirely necessary).
Sadly, the level design still falls short. There are some clever ideas (World 6, for instance - I won't spoil it here), but many levels are still highly frustrating experiences, and you may have problems holding on to some of those nifty powerups. The fact that the life counter appears to have been done away with entirely helps a great deal.
For some reason (probably so that the card-tracking variables can be used for something else), almost every level in the game ends with a Boom-Boom. Boom-Boom (the Mini-fortress boss in the original game) is usually kind of a pushover, but the game soon starts throwing absurd combinations of multiple Boom-Booms at you. This can be a problem, because if you don't defeat all of the Boom-Booms at the same time, you'll be frozen in place while the level ends and likely get killed by the remaining Boom-Booms before you actually return to the map screen... when you'll have to redo the whole level all over again.
Of some assistance is the fact that you can go back and re-enter levels you've already completed, perhaps so that you can emerge with some better powerups. Unfortunately, you still have to finish a level after you've re-entered it. You can also re-enter Toad's House multiple times, although he'll charge you hundreds of coins each time through. (Yep, you can store coins now.)
Anyway, Mario Adventure a very impressive hack, and even if you don't normally look at ROM hacks, you may enjoy this one. Get it from http://dahrkdaiz.panicus.org/ .
(And please move this to the Emulation forum if it is improperly placed.)
