I wanna say this is a great hack. Because there's a lot great about it. Kaze really took SM64 and made a sort of open world Zelda game that feels like something honestly pretty unique. Lots of upgrades, lots of great stars...
And then some of the game is just really not that good. Shadow and Spirit in particular were a struggle for all the wrong reasons, mostly cause the shortcuts would close every time you re-entered the dungeon. Also the Spirit Temple was the most jank test of patience I've had in a long time. Also the removal of Mario cam was kinda annoying.
I also had a ton of issues with controls/physics, but I'm gonna be honest, that's a huge problem with SM64 itself, so I can't blame the hack or anything.
Overall it's a pretty interesting experience and a really impressive hack, but there's some stuff really holding it back.
And then some of the game is just really not that good. Shadow and Spirit in particular were a struggle for all the wrong reasons, mostly cause the shortcuts would close every time you re-entered the dungeon. Also the Spirit Temple was the most jank test of patience I've had in a long time. Also the removal of Mario cam was kinda annoying.
I also had a ton of issues with controls/physics, but I'm gonna be honest, that's a huge problem with SM64 itself, so I can't blame the hack or anything.
Overall it's a pretty interesting experience and a really impressive hack, but there's some stuff really holding it back.
This review contains spoilers
I feel bad giving this such a low score, but entire texture types were completely invisible to me. Made for an incredibly frustrating experience. I tried numerous fixes online and none of them worked. I had to play it alongside someone else's playthrough because puzzles seemed impossible until I realized there was a switch that hadn't loaded in.
A great concept, though.
Update 1/5/24:
So I did find a way to play this without that texture glitch. It is really fun and worth a playthrough.
There is one major downside, however: The Spirit Temple. It is horrible in this game. You assemble spinies to progress, except the physics for doing so are extremely wonky. If you die, you go back to the start and have to assemble them all over again. I save-stated through this one.
Aside from that, the dungeons could have used more checkpoints.
The final boss fight also was kinda frustrating as the cloud placement could be such that accessing the cannon was not possible, leading to a ton of wasted magic and eventually you just jumping into the lava to reset the fight. Boiled a great fight down to RNG.
A great concept, though.
Update 1/5/24:
So I did find a way to play this without that texture glitch. It is really fun and worth a playthrough.
There is one major downside, however: The Spirit Temple. It is horrible in this game. You assemble spinies to progress, except the physics for doing so are extremely wonky. If you die, you go back to the start and have to assemble them all over again. I save-stated through this one.
Aside from that, the dungeons could have used more checkpoints.
The final boss fight also was kinda frustrating as the cloud placement could be such that accessing the cannon was not possible, leading to a ton of wasted magic and eventually you just jumping into the lava to reset the fight. Boiled a great fight down to RNG.
Technically incredible, but mechanically very bad.