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Rob-omb's Quest: Easy

Super Mario World Hacks → Rob-omb's Quest: Easy

Submission Details

Name: Rob-omb's Quest: Easy
Author: videogamerpat
Added:
Demo: Yes
Hall of Fame: No
Length: 84 exit(s)
Type: Standard: Normal
Description: The magic powder keg, which allows bob-ombs to explode without getting hurt, has been stolen! You are a rob-omb, and you are going to try to get it back. In this hack, you fight against Toads, bob-ombs and more! It's a medium hard hack, so be prepared to get a few game overs! These aren't the original screenshots.

Moderator Notice: The exits number is how many exits are actually possible to unlock, but due to bugs in the Easy Version, you may not be able to find that many.
Tags: asm exgfx music traditional
Comments: 1 (jump to comments)
Rating:
4.0 (3 ratings)
No rating
Download 263.36 KiB | 2,050 downloads

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Comments (1)

GeminiSunfall Link
Before I go into any further detial, I should point out that this is NOT the definitive version of Rob-Omb's quest, this is just the seven-world demo version. The definitive full version does exist, it just isn't hosted at SMWCentral. A quick Google search should help you find it.

So yeah, this review is for the demo version of the hack, and some of my comments may not apply to the full version found elsewhere.

Graphics & Music
This hack was made back in 2001-2002, which makes this among the earliest hacks out there if you don't count FPI's first works like Chaos CompleX and the original Second Reality Project. That said, it is largely done in Vanilla style though there are some instances of ExGFX used for the objects such as replacing the cement block with the SMB3 metal block, and also imported SMB3 graphics specifically for one world in particular, a remake of SMB3's World 1.

In addition, most of the enemies were reskinned as well, though using Toads as Koopa replacements, especially when their "shelless" variants are basically walking around without their mushroom caps, looks really weird.

Now onto the bad stuff. While most of the custom palettes are decent, some are just plain oversaturated or lacking in color variety, such as the case with some Ice Mountain levels where its hard to make out the ice blocks in front of the white hill backgrounds. Several levels use the default SMW grassland palette in places such as caves and castles where it looks really ugly.

The worst of it is the graphical errors and glitches. Cutoff can be seen in many places throughout the hack, most notably around pipes but you can often find the wrong ledge corners being used here and there too. There are many instances of glitchy noteblocks and sprite memory errors that cause sprites to look weird or vanish. You can bring Chogabi (the Yoshi replacement) into several levels containing the vertical fireball, which messes up his face.

...Oh right, there was music in this hack too. It's basically just the old Super Mario All-Stars SMB3 music pack that replaces all of SMW's default music with SMAS-SMB3 tracks. It -is- Snes9x compatible so no worries there.

Level Design
The level design actually isn't too bad, especially for such an old hack. The levels incorporate a good variety, using most of SMW's innate assets while also finding new uses for them as well. It also maintains a decent difficulty curve as well, outside of a few borderline-Kaizo extra stages (which do NOT count towards the exit total). Some of the secret exits were also quite clever, though a few felt rather cryptic, like the fake walls in one particular ghost house and the hidden wall spring in the ruby forest.

The problem is, there are a lot of small things that were never properly tested which ruin the whole experience after a while. These include:
-Levels leading to the endless bonus room (Twin Towers 1 and Dark Volcano, the latter of which is unbeatable as a result)
-Wrong tile behaviors used in places (Grass Land 6 has solid foreground decoration bushes/ledges, cave lava in some levels acts differently, sometimes not even being lethal)
-Cheatsy's Doomship has some insane glitching going on in the ceiling.
-There's a spot in the Secret Tower House that should've been lined with wooden blocks but was a ledge you can jump through instead, which traps you between two high walls until the timer runs out.
-Remember how I mentioned the sprite memory errors? It happens in many places, and the VideoGamerPat was clearly aware of this too... because in one stage an info box in one stage points out how the Banzai Bills can make things turn invisible! As if he was trying to turn this into a stage gimmick? No, just, no.
-Some levels lack vertical scrolling when they could really use it (Grass Land 2, and especially Ruby Isle 1, since it makes getting the secret there impossible--oddly enough, this is fixed on the Hard Mode)
-Some level have nonfunctional midway points (Dark Volcano, Kootie Pie's Castle, ??? 2)
-Some levels have midway points that kill you upon re-entry (Cheatsy's Doomship, Cold-Blooded Manor, Castle of Kooky--the last is an issue of the Layer 2 scroll not being set)
-Several levels contain Bomb Coins placed on the subcreen boundaries (Lemmy's Land 2 & 3, Radicale Highway 1, Desert Land, Koopa Troopa Beach, Twin Towers 1, Classic Wire Bridge, Ice Mountain 3).

Beyond that, the author also had a nasty habit of throwing in enemy genertors in a few levels for the sake of instant difficulty. This becomes a LOT more common in the Hard mode version of the hack, but the flying fish in this hack alone were quite frustrating.

Lastly, there are the Pits of Despair. While it isn't too common, it most definitely sucks for explorers and completionists to go down pipes only to stumble upon a room where the only escape is to fall down the bottomless hole and die.

Overall
If you really want to play an old hack, I suggest seeking out the definitive full version (which is not hosted at SMWCentral). It too has several issues, though its definitely more polished (not to mention is actually complete) compared to this demo version which is loaded with bugs and issues that make it not fun to play, especially if you aren't using emulator tools to get out of trap situations.