I tend to find Sonic ROM hacks to play via YouTube recommendations, which I have carefully pruned over time to ensure is the only Sonic the Hedgehog related content I see on the site. People love to complain about how bad the algorithm is, I say they just don't know how to game it, and I like to keep a clean homepage. This is how I found out about Metal Sonic Rebooted, the sequel to Metal Sonic Hyperdrive, a game I don't like very much. In fact, I was only made aware of Hyperdrive after watching footage of Rebooted, and I guess seeing Metal Sonic fight with the RX-78-2 Gundam is all the motivation I needed to play both.
Thankfully, six years of experience and building a game on top of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 results in a much better hack than Hyperdrive. It's still more suited to classic Sonic veterans who want something a bit more challenging, but it is nowhere near as unforgiving as the previous game, and Lone Devil has picked up a thing or two about enemy and hazard placements. It's upsetting that the spin attack feels so heavy and connects with this horrible unsatisfying crunch, but hey, I'm not constantly being smashed against the ceiling, so I see this as a top-to-bottom improvement.
Of course Rebooted is immediately identifiable as a ROM hack thanks to its liberal use of borrowed 16-bit assets, but you'd never tell based on the level design. Each zone is intricate yet always pushes you forward, and Lone Devil has a pretty firm understanding of what makes the intersecting paths of the classic Genesis Sonics work. This more reserved approach to designing zones is appreciated after the gauntlet Hyperdrive put me through, but they got the old Lone Devil to design the special stages, so some of that malicious spirit is still there.
The special stages are modeled after the half-pipes of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, so already I don't like them, but Lone Devil has edited these stages to be so precise in what they expect from the player that mistakes amount to immediate failure. The fourth and seventh emeralds are especially irritating as you need to pull a near perfect run in each, and I found I was frequently falling short by one or two rings, no hits. Just grazed by them, pixels weren't lined up, they got posters of me around town calling me a hack and a fraud.
The cost of retrying a special stage is thankfully low as you now have a rolling bank of power rings that carry between acts and zones. Metal's new air-dash and pseudo-super state both require rings to activate, though I found I had so many at any given point in time that I could be pretty frivolous with both. I appreciate the sort of risk vs reward concept sitting at the heart of Metal's abilities, even if the game isn't balanced in a way that makes you interact with them as intended.
It's rough around the edges as any ROM hack will be, and it doesn't open on a 16-bit cover of Smile Bomb, but Metal Sonic Rebooted is a vast improvement over Hyperdrive and I actually had a pretty good time playing it, vestigial stomp attack, dogshit special stages and all.
Thankfully, six years of experience and building a game on top of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 results in a much better hack than Hyperdrive. It's still more suited to classic Sonic veterans who want something a bit more challenging, but it is nowhere near as unforgiving as the previous game, and Lone Devil has picked up a thing or two about enemy and hazard placements. It's upsetting that the spin attack feels so heavy and connects with this horrible unsatisfying crunch, but hey, I'm not constantly being smashed against the ceiling, so I see this as a top-to-bottom improvement.
Of course Rebooted is immediately identifiable as a ROM hack thanks to its liberal use of borrowed 16-bit assets, but you'd never tell based on the level design. Each zone is intricate yet always pushes you forward, and Lone Devil has a pretty firm understanding of what makes the intersecting paths of the classic Genesis Sonics work. This more reserved approach to designing zones is appreciated after the gauntlet Hyperdrive put me through, but they got the old Lone Devil to design the special stages, so some of that malicious spirit is still there.
The special stages are modeled after the half-pipes of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, so already I don't like them, but Lone Devil has edited these stages to be so precise in what they expect from the player that mistakes amount to immediate failure. The fourth and seventh emeralds are especially irritating as you need to pull a near perfect run in each, and I found I was frequently falling short by one or two rings, no hits. Just grazed by them, pixels weren't lined up, they got posters of me around town calling me a hack and a fraud.
The cost of retrying a special stage is thankfully low as you now have a rolling bank of power rings that carry between acts and zones. Metal's new air-dash and pseudo-super state both require rings to activate, though I found I had so many at any given point in time that I could be pretty frivolous with both. I appreciate the sort of risk vs reward concept sitting at the heart of Metal's abilities, even if the game isn't balanced in a way that makes you interact with them as intended.
It's rough around the edges as any ROM hack will be, and it doesn't open on a 16-bit cover of Smile Bomb, but Metal Sonic Rebooted is a vast improvement over Hyperdrive and I actually had a pretty good time playing it, vestigial stomp attack, dogshit special stages and all.