I've been waiting for this! Since my hack is sort of in the same variety (That is, a hack of SMW that isn't recognizable as Mario), I hope to learn a thing or two to make my hack better.
*excitedly downloads the demo*
Some first impressions:
I think the graphics are great, and I love the cutscenes (You gotta teach me how to make the screen move over one page when you push A). The level layout is fresh, and fun to explore, but the ruins are a little tough to figure out for such an early level.
The controllability of the character is a bit frustrating. It's hard to land on some of the one-tile-wide platforms when jumping because the speed is so fast, and I found myself in the spike pits quite often. I suck at wall jumping, and there's a lot of it, but that's just me. I never could do it well in Metroid, either.
There's a glitch with the star pad. If you glide into a wall, you die.
Other than that, I have no complaints. It's pretty freakin' cool.
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I've removed my NoFades patch until I can find the brightness code for Star Road warps.