Salty Sagan World

I've heard a lot of negative stuff about this hack so I was hesitant to try it but wow, it was just incredible. One of my favorite pre-2020 hacks for sure, every level was a blast and the fact that it was (almost) all vanilla was impressive given its size and scope. 5/5

One of the more miserable experiences I've had playing kaizo. Sections are long with extreme, unnecessary tightness. I played though Casio Mario World recently, which also has excessive tightness, but there at least it is in service of a unique creative vision. Salty Sagan World, on the other hand, features standard 2017 levels in the style of Dram 2, GPW1, and other hacks of the era, but with the tightness dialed up to 11.

The high exit count also contributes to a slog feeling. I took frequent breaks to play other hacks, coming back to this one to get in an exit here and there. It felt a bit like doing homework.

That being said, this hack is not terrible. There are definitely fun, clever moments, like the fire spit in Discard After Use or some setups in Sunrise Land and the Ultra Star level, etc. It's just that my enjoyment of these was dampened by the many frustrating design choices that exist to make the game harder and to make the player "salty".

This hack is all about blurring the lines… between Kaizo: Intermediate and Kaizo: Expert, between SMW and Mario Maker, between fun to play and ANNOYING AS ALL HELL. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the effort that went into making this hack and there were definitely some fun moments, but overall this was quite the painful experience. In my opinion this is the probably one of the hardest Kaizo: Intermediate hacks on the site and honestly really makes me wonder why it's not listed under Kaizo: Expert. It’s hard to explain but this hack felt very anti-player to me in that it felt like it was designed to be as annoying as possible instead of as fun as possible, which makes it sort of artificially difficult instead of genuinely difficult. It’s like the creator had the intention of wearing the player down and making them salty instead of giving them an enjoyable experience. That and how the hack doesn’t respect the player’s time by not being able to save midways so you have to beat the level all in one sitting, which if you are playing on an actual console or otherwise don’t have access to save states then you will feel the pain.

As far as the levels go, I thought Dungeon Demice was a fantastic level, and I actually enjoyed The Escort Mission despite the other reviewers here saying to watch out for it. Although I wish I had more warning for Blargg’s Lava Pit, that was seriously one of the all time worst levels I’ve ever played, like sorry but there were some objectively bad design decisions made in that level. Discard After Use was quite painful too but felt great to finally beat. But my god, the last castle level was just WAY too long to be enjoyable at all, if you don’t use save states to practice every trick (which is probably what Oskise did while he was making it) then it’s extremely painful to make any progress in this level the traditional way.

Overall, I think a few changes would make this hack a lot better and would make me actually recommend it, but as it is I can’t give it higher than a 3/5. Although I was so glad I finally beat this hack that even if changes were made I will never play it again. However if Oskise were to make another hack I’d still be interested in checking it out since there was potential shown in this hack. But for the love of god, condense your ideas down and make shorter levels.

This Hack really makes me feel a unique sense of accomplishment!!! The levels I've won so far have a certain time for each jump or maneuverability of the items, and that makes me crazy with lust!!! 5/5 and I really hope to beat the 22 levels (I'm looking forward to getting to Blaarg's Lava pit, which will be an extremely challenging level)

FANTASTIC HACK! Well worth the grind.
- Thanks Oskise!

A murderous and sadistic kaizo hack, but don't be deterred. This hack is EXTREMELY fun and addictive because it is 90% classic platforming challenges, with a few item tricks here and there to spice things up.

And I am NOT a top-tier kaizo player. I still recommend it.

5/5

I just noticed how the death counter in the screenshots is 42 everywhere.

The Escort Mission was probably the hardest stage, and maybe the most frustrating also, although it was still a very fair stage, and after Version 1.1 the door entries were way more forgiving, which is probably the only reason I even finished the hack. Overall, an amazing hack with great design, I really wish Carl had the time to play it, especially since it's nowhere near as unfair as it used to be.

The escort mission was too much

Just played half of the hack and I can see good level design in this hack so far. (Especially the cave level and 'The Escort Mission' in world 3). Had a lot of fun playing this (even my finger is kinda hurt now).

5/5. I recommend this one for experienced kaizo player.

i cant believe carlsagan has an entire planet named after him

This is a tough kaizo hack that requires a great amount of previous kaizo experience. The 1.11 patch fixed a lot of the issues I previously had and for the most part everything seems fair(for a kaizo hack) and well tested.

The levels flow very nicely and are well-paced. The Vertical Escort mission and the lava level were great spins on existing kaizo archtypes.

Small glitch abuse required for 100%: Double eating sprites with Yoshi and an easy keyjump.

Difficulty: 4/5

Um.. SCREENSHOTS IN ZIP??!

Muito Bom... Wouuuuu

WOW IS AMAZING

SeemsGood

Designer genes!!!!!!

Instantly hooked!!

The ZIP has screnshots in it!

@Oskise No, if you're close to the top, you can jump and stand in the ground out of the screen and skip some parts. Is easy to do. For example, watch this video in the minute 1:41:13
https://youtu.be/10ZGIPoCFgc

@HLXY is that for the TAS only?

You can skip some parts in the levels. You can put some hidden blocks in the top of each level to fix it ;)