[FEATURED] Mario's Amazing Adventure Revitalized by superwiidude

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Hands down, this is one of the most entertaining hacks I've played. While it could look like the generic SMW hack from the screens, this is actually very fun to play.

What impressed me the most are two things mainly: the simplicity of the whole hack, and the excellent work with the overworld.

The former could be a minus if you think about it: a simple hack has poor chances of being fun in most cases. Moreover, we're all aware that today's hacks use quite a lot of fancyness in many fields: from HDMA, parallax scrolling, to fancy asmy gimmicks, unique graphics and so on. This hack uses none of what I just listed, but the fun thing is that it's still an enjoyable experience and, as said in the intro, one of the best hacks of its genre. It offers a kind of gameplay which suits every kind of player (exluding kaizo players for obvious reasons): the hack starts very simple, maybe even hilariously easy, but during the playtime, you can see the hack getting gradually more and more challengy. It's admirable how the difficulty curve has been handled here, despite the complex intricate overworld.
That's what I want to underline here: the hack has no fancy codes nor any kind of impressive design, yet... it's so damn good to play. Its simplicity makes it one of the best I've played. Sounds weird, but that's how it felt to me, lol.

Anyone who has proper knowledge of what good level design is can do that; although I didn't touch the factor I loved most yet. Yes, I'm talking about the way the Overworld is made of. It's rare to see such kind of overworld nowadays, and it's sad too, since this hack's overworld is what I'd define an the perfect "vanilla" overworld; "vanilla" as in, not many extra gfx tiles, this could be easily reproduced in any vanilla hack. Obviously, not talking about graphics, nor fancyness in tile placing and so on: I'm talking about the paths. Since the beginning, you can choose from two paths, one of them is a double-exit level which opens for more paths, while the other one opens another two-exit level once cleared, which brings you to two more paths, and so on; it feels like you can decide to change path anytime, going in a certain location rather than another. But it doesn't over here just yet! There is also a magnificent job made with Switch Palaces, where you can't explore a few zones if you didn't press them yet. I'm aware this isn't something very "OMG OMG I LOVE THIS HACK AAAAAA 5/5" to do, but what this overworld does is pulled off very well. As said already, one of the few hacks I personally played which has a neatly made overworld in terms of paths. This should be an example of how paths in an overworld should be like.

This is my experience so far. If I had to choose, I'd probably be more lenient to a feature rather than a rejection.
What about you? Feel free to post your thoughts and reviews!

Deadline: 2nd October 2016

I don't think I can improve on Wakana's review of this hack, he's said everything that can be said for this hack. The design is generally simple and vanilla, yet creative and most levels have a well-defined gimmick that, if not vanilla, rely on little more than a few custom blocks or sprites. My one complaint, though minor, is that there a few levels that do heavily use ExGFX and they seem to clash with the rest of the game. The overall level design isn't outstanding, but it is consistently good and doesn't become dull or excessively difficult like some other hacks.

The overworld is one of the best of any hack and is deliciously non-linear. Activating the switches, rather than simply making platforming easier, is required for progression and unlocks secrets in previously beaten levels.

I vote to feature it.

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I really like this hack, so I vote to feature it. Architecture, design and overworld are very good.

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Who is your favourite player?

"Cristo Ronaldo, Suey!" - iShowSpeed



P.S. 10 years of using SMWCentral... I think that's not enough.

Probably one of my favorite hacks; I vote to Feature it.

A really fun hack. I vote to Feature it.

Ahhh...Mario's Amazing Adventure. While I haven't yet played this revitalization, I do have experience with the original MAA, so take that into consideration.

By and large, the design of the original 100 exits hasn't changed. The only major changes are to ensure play-ability on accurate emulators and the original hardware. superwiidude knows how to make levels, that much is fairly apparent from the beginning, taking mainly vanilla resources and turning them into a visual masterpiece.

Difficulty is nearly perfect, starting off fairly simple, and only posing a mild challenge towards the end-game. The non-linear nature of the main map gives a nice break from the harsh point-to-point style common in most SMW hacks. A certain world proving to be a tad much? Just head down a different path and come back later! Make sure you do return, though, especially if you want that *105 on your file...

And for those speed-runners out there, there's a couple active categories on speedrun.com for this hack - All Switches, which for this hack is a solid 90-120+ minute journey through most of the game - and the much quicker (and more competitive) 10 Exit route that can be completed in just over 15 minutes!

All told, this one's a gem. Play it. Enjoy it. FEATURE it.

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I can still remember playing this hack a few years ago and it's still as awesome as back then. There are quite a few reasons, why it still holds up today as a hack worth checking out (remember that this hack is about 10 years old).

First of, I'm a huge fan of the level design, which doesn't focus on particular style, but rather varies from level to level. One level might be a simpler and more flat level, while the other level is a complex pipe maze, or tricky athletic level. Because of this, the levels neither become boring or repetitve and there should be levels for everyones prefences. I personally always enjoy collecting yoshi-coins, if the hacker actually puts effort in placing and hiding them, which is the case here. Not only did I find it fun to explore the more non-linear levels for yoshi-coins, but also in the more flat levels, where you have to watch for trickyly placed enemies or jumps. The difficulty curve is a huge problem in a lot of hacks I've played, however MAA manages to have a very fair difficulty curve, which increases from time to time. There are also challenges for the more experienced players, like the previously mentioned yosh-coins or 3-up moons, so they feel unchallenged. I also want to mention that I found only very little errors or blind jumps, that affected the gameplay or fairness.

However there are also a few things I'd like to criticize. Cascade already mentioned the graphic clash in some of the levels (e.g. Vanilla SMW and metroid GFX). However I didn't had a big problem with it, as the main focus should rather on level design. Also I felt like the time limits on some of the levels was way too short to explore the levels. Btw I think the pipes for world 7 are swapped, as you start out with the 7th castle.

But there is one thing where the hack manages to stand out from a lot of other hacks. It's the hack's overworld, as already mentioned by a lot of others here already. It is very complex and makes you come back to worlds you hack already cleared. The reason for that are the switch palaces, which play a big role in this hack (other that in about every other hack). With them you can get secret exits, you normally couldn't get, which then lead you to new worlds to explore.

The overworld actually pretty much sums up my thoughts about the hack. I simply love it. It made me wanting to continue playing, find all the secret exits and look back to all the fun and entertaining levels I've played. I think you already expected by know that I feel that this hack deserves it to get featured.

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It's a great hack overall, but I have to admit that sometimes while playing I wasn't really sure if this really was material for a featured hack, as it had some downsides in my opinion (which were overweighted by Pros throughout my time playing it).

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Cons:
I really wish that the hack sticked all the time to graphics that fit the most with SMW's default (such as the tileset used in Excavation Tunnel). It's just weird when a few levels have a completely different tileset from the usual and that really isn't into the main graphical style of the hack, such as levels YI graphics were used in both BG and FG. Keeping graphics as consistent as possible is the best, and sometimes the hack fails to deliver it.

Personally talking, I didn't really enjoy playing levels that used tracks that didn't fit the mood/scenario the level was supposed to go for, and the best example I can give here is Bullet Beach. Buoy Base doesn't fit a beach level like that, at least to me it's just way out of place when you have other levels where the music choice was good.

Lastly, there are some levels Yoshi really shouldn't be allowed to have access to. Not because he breaks the level but rather because you have to abandon him. Molten Volcano says it, unless you have a Blue Yoshi (I'm saving comments for him in the Pros).


Pros:
The variety in this hack is incredible. Not only in level design, but also in scenarios, the overworld and ideas in general. The hack never felt boring or like it was recycling things you've already gone through earlier.

The overworld is the best thing here. There's no linearity here so you can basically go wherever you want until walk into a level where a Switch Palace is required to have been pressed, which gets you to make a change of plans, play more levels that unlocks more different paths, and so it goes. I really had fun when it came to go to other submaps beat levels in order to beat Switch Palaces and play the level you previously wanted to but couldn't. Its colors after you beat the special world looked pretty nice by the way. The author did an spectacular job here.

To the levels themselves, I had fun with them. You're not forced to backtrack or keep thinking how to beat them unless you want to find their secret exits, which is fair. It's interesting how the Yoshis were distributed in the hack, and how rare the Blue Yoshi was in the hack, as . Most of time music choices and scenarios were pretty nice - I really dig the aesthetics in the ship levels .

The gameplay isn't very different except you've got some custom sprites, the Cape is replaced by a Super Leaf and the powerdown is now similar to SMB3/SMA2, although it's a little too generous when you still have an item box.

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Overall, it's a fun hack and you won't get bored from playing it, so recommended to play if you're bored or whatever. As small as the Cons might seem being overweighted by the Pros, if they were fixed I believe the hack could've been even more fun to play.

So yeah, feature. In the end, it seems deserved.

Don't let your memes be memes

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Lovely reminder for MARIOWORLD and aterraformer:

My last post on SMWCentral was 3,5 years ago, but when I saw my favourite hack, which I played tons of time like 6 years ago, being voted for featuring, I decided to log back in for a nostalgic vote.
The level design was very creative. Playing them was just a pure pleasure.
Yet the overworld was absolutely astonishing. I can't imagine a solid, respectable hack without a solid overworld design - its appearance and paths creativity. Superwiidude has got an unique talent in creating overworlds and I even found an old, odd PM to him from 12.2010 when I was searching for OW advices.

And overall I think the map harmonizes perfectly with the levels, which are full of fun and simplicity. I vote for featuring.

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...Huh?

Featured it is!