The way I see it, there's two ways to make a hack challenging.
One approach, the popular approach, is technical difficulty, requiring precise movements and an understanding of quirks and tricks in the game's engine. Everything from mockball to hbj to short charge falls under this category. Some of them are easier than others. Even a novice can do these with slow-down, though, so it's not necessarily experts-only.
The other approach is a more, uh, intellectual challenge, I guess. Rather than expecting a player to perform well-timed actions, you can put them in a room with some tools at their disposal and leave it to them to riddle out the solution.
For the most part, Aegis doesn't ask much for its main path--don't get hit too much, kill what's in your way, get the item to get through that door you can't open yet and then come back later. There's no technical difficulty there, not even walljump.
Item-hunting, however, is a different story. There are very sneakily-placed items hidden in ways I've not yet seen in any other hacks. If anyone gets 100% in Aegis without using SMILE or a guide... well, it's possible, but I'd be very impressed.
That's not to say items are hidden in random bomb blocks. Even the original SM does this at times and that really annoys me. No, every item upgrade has -some- suggestion that something's hidden here. It might be subtle, it might be obvious, but it's there. Is there an enemy where it seems like it can't do anything? It's there for a reason. Is that set of blocks a little out-of-place? That's not an accident. It's really amazing what you can do with the SM engine if you put some thought into it.
So to answer the discussion above, no, I don't really do spikes or lava much, except where they're useful and reasonably placed. I want Aegis to be a bit different than that--more of a "man, that was fun finding that item" or "I enjoyed exploring this area" sort of feeling. There's plenty of great hacks out there that provide that other challenge anyway.
I have knocked around the idea of a hard-mode Aegis hack, but I'm just as much inclined to hand it off to someone else--once Aegis is done, I want to invest in a new project, not re-vamping an old one.
Thank you Acheron. From your description this sounds like the exact type of hack I want to play. I can't wait until you're done. Tell you what, I'll 100% for you. :D
Thank you Acheron. From your description this sounds like the exact type of hack I want to play. I can't wait until you're done. Tell you what, I'll 100% for you. :D
The clever placement of items sounds cool. It was always weird to me how SM placed some items in random blocks... guess they just knew players would be picking up the players guide. Like that missile expansion in the Maridia spinning-turtle room. What the heck? How's someone just gonna stumble on that?
I don't like the uber hard hacks, I got through Redesign (BARELY) with a keyboard, but Cliffhanger, or Impossible... oh dear lord. TORTURE!!!
I'm doing the cheapskated easy version of Cliffhanger on a keyboard, I almost got Phantoon dead by 4 missiles, but some piece of crap fireball fell on me. I'm normally sick of hacks that are trick-based and sometimes life-or-death.
Maybe if anyone had the chance to do Aegis on legit console (flash carts without savestates, anyone?), I would guess it might take five or six hours on the first run. I can wall jump alright on a keyboard now, so I can do this. I do wish I had a flash cart.
Black Telomeres: Is your username on GameFAQs "Bloody Excrement"?
It is. Saw him on GameFAQs in the SM: Soup thread.
Someone said "Impossible is like handing you a stick and asking you to take down a guy with a broadsword." My post was above that, mentioning that "I don't want hacks that require extensive use of tricks (I'm looking at you Impossible)."
And thats my friends. Is why I think Aegis is even better then SM-R befor even playing it. This is the sort of hack I have been trying to make. But.. I fail to be unlazy. Oh well.
Right now I may sound a bit lame. But the comments on what is bad and needs to be fixed can only be said after testing. So there is not much to say befor that other then praysing/blaming the content shown. :/
Is why I think Aegis is even better then SM-R befor even playing it.
If you've never played a hack I seriously doubt it will be enough to make comparisons right off the bat. In fact, I think it will be a long, long time before a hack is released that is better than Redesign. Aegis sure has potential though. I'm looking forward to see how the "generators" and new bosses will work.
I hope this hack has alot of those hidden passages that at first glance look obvious because theres something there that fakes you out. Only by farting around or laying a power bomb is the real path revealed. I also thought the lore addition to cliffhanger was pretty cool, I don't know if anyone else has added text to the map screens or not before.
I also thought the lore addition to cliffhanger was pretty cool, I don't know if anyone else has added text to the map screens or not before.
Lore has never been used and actually been REALLY incorporated in the game. Cliffhanger didn't even do that really; I never saw any traces of the story ingame other than statues. But I've never seen another game with that much text.
And why are you posting about Cliffhanger here; it didn't seem to have any relevance with what you or anyone else posted.
