Jun 12, 2023

0:00 Floatation in A Twisted Form

8:41 The Hardest Star in the Game

【资料图】

8:58 Ending

As said in the last C8 video, secrets felt completely impossible, since there was no way to tell which cycle the zebra balls are on. But I remembered in sm128 b2, there was also some cycle based stuff that you can't see, so I used a timer to know when to go and here I did the same. Basically you go at , , 1:18 and 1:, but nevertheless the star was a massive pain. I took me over 3h to practice and test everything out and attempts also didn't go that well. Once I got 3 attempts in a row to 3/5 and right after I couldn't get a single attempt past 1/5 for like 30 min. So insanely frustrating thinking you build some consistency and right after you can't get anywhere anymore. So glad I didn't choke past the first 4 secrets. It's only 2 stage climbs left, but think you could tell how nervous I was. Also thought I would fall off at 5:57.

Now a bunch of people will play this hack and complain how nothing is even remotely challenging, but for now I am proud to be the first person beating this hack stateless. Obviously I didn't have too much competition, but I am still happy with this accomplishment, since it's been a very long time, since I was first beating a kaizo hack, because nowadays we only get hacks with a bunch of t8-t10 shit at the end, which I don't have a chance of beating anyway.

Well I still want to review this hack a bit more.

Sorry to say, but I am pretty disappointed with it. Let me explain:

So shin3 announced this hack with "The hack I've put the most love into since Lost Lunatic Trials.", so I hoped it would be at least somewhat decent. I played it and had a really good time up to like 30 stars. There were a few design choices like the star spawn in blue switch palace, that you have to climb the entire level for one attempts at the spindrift star in c7 or the cloning star in c10. Also didn't have the best time with C5S3, since my second attempt died to the end and after that I just couldn't get there again in ages, but overall I had a good time with the game. 

Well at least up to victory cave. That star was really painful, but I tried to suffer through to enjoy the rest of the game, but it didn't get better, it only got way way worse. Ganyu Cauldron was a decent break, but c12 and c8 were so awfully unfun.

Don't get me wrong, this hack is still a lot better than all those mainstream kaizos, but it was just so much more disappointing. Like before I saw a single thing of SNR, I already said it will be garbage and well I was right, but here I actually had some hope, which also got confirmed by the first few levels in some way, so seeing the second half of the hack was just incredibly disappointing.

To end with something positive. I really like the style of the hack. It's all just short challenging stars, instead of your average 30 min long endurance tests. Often you have 5 random stars and then do all of them in one go + extra pathes + the worst possible ending, which undermines the normal stars A LOT. In this hack every star in unique and has a unique challenge. You don't just have to travel past a star for another one.

While I am not the best at them, I really enjoy trying to solve puzzles, that's why C9 was my favorite course. Shin3 said she wanted to make the entire hack like that, but ran out of ideas, which is like fair, since most stuff has been done by now. Just saying this hack would've been so much better if c8 and c12 didn't exist. Nevertheless I'd still hope that more hacks similar to this would been made, instead of only pumping out more SNR style hacks.