Incredibly inspired and well-made fan romhack. Got frustrated with it when I tried to 100% it, but its undeniably fun and high quality stuff. A wonderful reimaging of a wonderful game that is wonderful to experience.
A fun re-imagining of the original game, although the last level had me quite stumped...
Starts off extremely strong, but starts falling apart halfway through, and worst of all, in ways that could've been entirely preventable.
At least 1/4th of the game is composed of "bad" levels, or at least levels that are an absolute chore to 100%.
The new diamond counter is a nifty idea, but the way its implemented often clashes in the worst way possible with how the game decides to implement its challenges. This game has a considerable amount of "gotcha" moments, in which the game, with no prior warning, gives you only a single chance to get a diamond. If you fail, the level objects required for that puzzle to be completed do not respawn. And the thing about that, is that Diamonds, specifically, follow Yoshi's Island rules for their collection, meaning that all Diamonds in a stage (out of which some stages might have upwards of 11) must be collected in a single run, meaning that, if even a single "gotcha" moment catches you, that's a reset, because you cannot come back later just to grab that one diamond the game forced you to miss.
The worst part is that in every case of a "gotcha" moment, the game later proves that it did NOT have to be like that, the game proves that it can absolutely respawn the objects that do not respawn in those instances of one-shot challenges. So, yeah, there's no way to defend that here, these situations were a deliberate choice, and they sour the entire experience of what otherwise would've been a great collectathon platformer.
I still say give it a go, but around Topaz and Sapphire Passages, don't feel bad if you feel like a stage is too bullshit to 100% and you want to skip it.
At least 1/4th of the game is composed of "bad" levels, or at least levels that are an absolute chore to 100%.
The new diamond counter is a nifty idea, but the way its implemented often clashes in the worst way possible with how the game decides to implement its challenges. This game has a considerable amount of "gotcha" moments, in which the game, with no prior warning, gives you only a single chance to get a diamond. If you fail, the level objects required for that puzzle to be completed do not respawn. And the thing about that, is that Diamonds, specifically, follow Yoshi's Island rules for their collection, meaning that all Diamonds in a stage (out of which some stages might have upwards of 11) must be collected in a single run, meaning that, if even a single "gotcha" moment catches you, that's a reset, because you cannot come back later just to grab that one diamond the game forced you to miss.
The worst part is that in every case of a "gotcha" moment, the game later proves that it did NOT have to be like that, the game proves that it can absolutely respawn the objects that do not respawn in those instances of one-shot challenges. So, yeah, there's no way to defend that here, these situations were a deliberate choice, and they sour the entire experience of what otherwise would've been a great collectathon platformer.
I still say give it a go, but around Topaz and Sapphire Passages, don't feel bad if you feel like a stage is too bullshit to 100% and you want to skip it.
Nice remix of the original, final secret level is bullshit though.
Played for RetroAchievements. Haven't played the original, I'm sure it's just as good, but I really liked this. Always been a fan of Wario games but I haven't played a bunch of them. This was honestly really good, and assuming all the levels were original designs, really impressive for a hack. (But even by normal standards it was still great.)