===AVERY SECTION===
Hi, Avery here, I’m bad at introductions so here’s my first bit of the review.
So originally I was gonna compliment the neat concept this had, the end was not too badly executed, and overall it was a pretty good map-pack until I realized this is just sm64.z64 but with SRB2.
Now don’t get me wrong, it is still well executed, but compared to the original it just.. Lacks something. You managed to recreate the feeling of emptiness pretty well and the progressive HUD image changing was pretty neat, but I feel like it lacks something.
The way the original rom-hack executed the end pretty well, the objective is now to leave, and the sound of the race starting, the timer activating, everything turning red, and the inevitable appearance of the Mario was the cherry on top and creates fear well. This just.. Lacks that. The sudden jump scare of the green Sonic (or Slowboi, whatever his name is) just kinda removes that feeling of dread entirely, it's cheap. It’s not well executed, there is no buildup, it’s just done and dusted.
Aside from that, Hell zone was neat, both me and Neon though it was a clever little reference, it doesn’t add much to the game aside from a really REALLY annoying challenge that just removes all sense of horror, but it isn’t really important.
Another thing is the special stages, the entities are there they chase you yada yada. The weird thing is that you can just beat both of these, for the Floral Field one you just go backwards and avoid the cave and for Toxic Plateau you just go around twice. I don’t get why these are even here aside from a cheap scare, beating them adds/changes nothing and it just sends you back to GFZ part 2 lol
I think my main ick with this is the ending. There’s nothing. Sonic gets you and then that’s it. Poof, nothing else. SM64.Z64 had a mysterious ending, the whole “Everything is better off without you.” Was something out of the blue and added a whole new layer of mystery. There’s nothing here. I get that SRB2 isn’t capable of adding more to the game after crashing without modifying the source code, but it just left us both with a feeling of disappointment more than anything else, not of fear or anything else just.. “Oh.”
I wish more than anything there was an explanation for any of this. A story, a conclusion, something would’ve been nice I think. The inclusion of “hell” would’ve been a good way to add at least some clarity or aftermath but it’s just another stage with everything removed and only adding Tails, even immediately after beating it you just go back to GFZ part 3. Nothing else happens.
Before giving my input into the rating of this, I’d like to hand off the review to Neon so he can share his thoughts:
===NEON SECTION===
SUP FUCKERS!!! NEON’S HERE TO TELL YOU WHY THIS MAPPACK IS MEH AT BEST!!!!!!!!
I’m not into the sm64 creepypasta schtick so I’ll just say what was on my mind when I first played it.
We played this in a netgame so instead of going to gfz1 part 2 we were immediately sent to hell, so uh not fun. We decided to play individually for this review and tbf, not a fan of how it goes, gfz slowly becoming barren did make me feel off here and there but it’s nothing that’ll make me shit my pants. Part 4 was.. Interesting to say the least.. It was pitch black n all so i guess bonus points there, but when the EVIL 2.1 Sonic attacked me and game crashed i was just confused, this started us digging through everything in the mod. Files, ingame stuff, special stages, hell even tried to escape scary seanice!!
But starting from this review I shall drop the occasional “what you could change/improve” list so the mappack can be better than it already is :]
==IMPROVEMENT LIST==
- Title Screen could be edited to only have Sonic appear or the old 2.1 titlescreen appear instead, maybe with a lower tone jingle, would add to the atmosphere.
- you could have the scary sonic and tails send you to a room based on a snippet of gfz1 instead of crashing the game, it’d be a nicer ending instead of crashing with no real explanation. You could try using the "MobjCollide" and "MobjMoveCollide" hooks to achieve that, and use a special camera angle linedef to make it impossible to move the camera. Here’s a mockup of what we had in mind: [THIS HAS BEEN SENT TO YOUR DMS BANDDY, WE COULDN'T UPLOAD IT ON THE REVIEW]
- Some sort of an explanation to what’s going on would be neat I think.
- If someone cheats and hacks in 40 emblems, all the hints were messed up or spiting the player for cheating like in coronation day, it would be a really neat touch, since special stages have subtitles like “You’re not on the right track” and “Huh?”.
- Beating both of the special stages could maybe change something in the story as you’ve not followed your muscle memory/the plans of the entity, so it gets mad and stuff like that, maybe something THZ related??
- GFZ 4 could be changed up a bit. The darkness could slowly transition to a red mist, in the cave near the goal-post could teleport the player to a copied snippet of the level, so when the escape sequence starts, it would seem the level is longer and the 2.1 Sonic would catch you no matter what. For the escape sequence what could happen is the Race Countdown begins and then I assume something along the lines of Takis’ Happy Hour trigger, just as a linedef, since luigibudd is a dev for some of your mods I think this could be easily achieved.
- Make Hell relevant to the story, like make it more than a thingless RVZ. Base it off the old RVZ, parts of the new and the old one could mash together to create an interesting stage or something, do something cool with it!!!
==FINISHING THOUGHTS==
Overall, we don’t think this mod deserves the 4-5 star rating like everyone else has been giving it. Not yet at least. The feeling of uncomfortability was short lived and if anything I just feel disappointed after playing it. I definitely feel there’s more room to add to this, if you end up updating this then by all means, tell us and I’ll change our rating, but as of current, our review stands at this:
3 / 5
"Cool concept, not so cool execution."
