Haven't posted in
AGES, but wanted to log back in after finding this hack in the forums! Lovely work! This might be my new way to casually play Mario World.
I really enjoyed a lot of the quality of life changes the Game Boy Advance port added (introduction, progress screen, and playable Luigi in Single Player). This hack carries a lot of that stuff over quite nicely, so I can enjoy the GBA version's features without having to deal with the slight screen crunch. While it might not sound like much, it makes a world of a difference. I also appreciate the use of the SMAS+W Luigi sprites instead of the ones introduced in Advance 2 - I feel the SMAS+W sprites give Luigi a little more personality.
A lot of the 'creative liberty' changes that weren't present in any official release are so far a pleasant surprise too. I appreciate the restoration of the little 'overworld NPCs' that help the world map feel a bit more alive. Hard Mode ended up surprising me in a positive way without feeling too cheap. You don't realize how badly you miss the Item Reserve box.
Kinda freaked out when I realized Chargin' Chucks were invincible. You got me good there!
Going off of just clearing Yoshi's Island, I only have two oddities I'd like to note:
- The end of Castle messages are still written as if the player is using Mario, which is strange. I believe the Advance 2 messages were re-written so the messages work regardless of if the player is using Mario or Luigi.
Just Keef Edition also did something similar. Could something neutral to Mario and Luigi be implemented?
- For some odd reason, there was a change that partially broke this ROM hack's compatibility with
SNES9X's 3DS port. When the player reaches a Switch Palace and presses a Switch, the message box pop-up causes the game to crash with some nasty graphical glitches and the audio engine just dying outright. To confirm it wasn't an issue with the ROM file I was using, I've tried the ROM hack with several other hacks that modify the Switch Palaces and had no issue. Using libretro's Snes9x 2005 Plus Core also works fine. I'm unsure what change might have caused this issue? I assume this isn't high priority as the emulator's accuracy is lower than most modern standards, but felt it was worth pointing out. I can provide more information if necessary. Just a slight bummer to an amazing hack since I prefer to play SNES titles on my 3DS with it.
Great hack overall, regardless! I feel a lot of people overlook Advance 2's changes due to the SNES version being the overall prettier way to play the game, and this feels like the best of both worlds with some nice creative changes that feel like they would've been in place had the developers had more time to develop the title. Thank you for it! Look forward to more updates.