Silverhorn v1

This is the best mod ever

I dislike the review system and would rather leave extended commentary in the thread itself (which I did so here: https://mb.srb2.org/threads/silverhorn.40332/page-2#post-623050)

tl;dr extremely ambitious, strong presentation, and captures the original storytelling in srb2 that I crave over everything else.
Enjoyed the characters' gameplay a lot -- which is the most important aspect of the mod -- but much of its original content was held back by some pretty unforgiving or obnoxious design. Felt like it missed a few polish passes it would have needed to be something I could comfortably call "peak" -- but it was definitely the larger part of the way there, and that deserves praise. :p

So many amazing, high-effort character mods that came this year! I can only hope 2024 will be even better.

I love the story these two characters have and I very much appreciated the tutorial. More modded characters with easy-to-learn, hard-to-master controls like these should have tutorials. Loved it when Cacee did it. I also LOVE the hangout map. Stutters a little, for me anyways, but still playable.

Inazuma is a pretty great speed character. Has an interesting homing attack, a "thok", and an electric shield. With the homing attack, it seems like you gain more height and maintain your speed when the targeted enemy is further away from you. My problem with the homing attack is that it'll sometimes target enemies way off screen or will sometimes just miss enemies even when you're close to them. Very inconsistent. Would recommend changing the code to target enemies in view. I also don't like that you come to a complete halt when you home in on an enemy if you're on top of them. The electric shield makes levels almost no challenge at all, which I like, but others may not. Having the shield active and running into those flying enemies that heats themselves up will still get you hit. Not sure if that's intentional or not.

Aether is an amazing wildcard character! I feel like her flight should make you fly up faster, especially when super/ XMod hyper. Had this same problem with Blaze where she just flies up soooo slow for no reason. Don't like that her magic wheel doesn't preserve your speed. I got used to just using the weapon buttons. Have to use a very specific keyboard layout tho since I only play with a keyboard, but that's fine.

As Aether and Inazuma said in the tutorial, they work better as a team. With being able to switch between them at ease, Aether's flight and magic and Inazuma homing attack and speed, they make for a potentially great speedrunning duo! Can't wait to see what you guys cook up next. :)

Ill be honest, this mod is really great and i love the polish, having played 2.1 Inazuma im happy to see he turned out great here.

If i had to do a request tho, it would be to make the mod have a client sided save, for uhm, "that" stuff if you see what i mean. I lost what i had done the VERY hard way.

The mod overall is flashy, awesome and satisfying to play- but a couple of nitpicks drop the rating from a 5 to a 4.

https://mb.srb2.org/threads/silverhorn.40332/post-623135

The review system wouldn't let me say what I need to say, so the real review is in my Discussion post.

Aside from Inazuma being able to harm Aether when playing as the tag team duo and the difficulty unlocking Mindscape (i dunno how to do so), a phenomenal add-on.

I've not done everything, I know there's stuff I'm missing, but what I've seen it's really great.
Inazuma is a really simple but capable character. I'd say his moveset is kinda perfect, maybe a little basic, but with enough depth and speed to make it really cool, he doesn't need much learning to make it fun to play as.
In the other hand, his brand new, magical girl partner, Aether is... A little confusing, but so fuckin' COOL. At first glance her moveset is just too much, 5 moves on 1 key and a spell that is basically useless? It sounds terrible, but if you just take a moment to learn how it all works, you start to see the potential, with good execution she can do some crazy stuff and even without execution, she's kinda OP.
Really good characters and with the bonus stuff, I gotta say it's a really good mod overall and a fitting return for my boy Inazuma, I missed how crazy things got when he showed up on the old servers and yeah, maybe this won't be his old glory, but he now comes with less lag and a waifu, so I can't complain. A 5/5 only cuz' I can't give it a 4.5/5

Ok, kindoff an edit cuz' there's no edit button, so uummmmm.. The secret level is bs, I mean it's really cool, ambientation is amazing, the challenge is fun and boss is just epic, but 3 lives for a hard 8 min level with a boss fight that's literally a bullet sponge at the very end? That's just unfair.
And also, it made me realize my only problem with how the characters control, Inazuma's thok thingy is controlled by the camera on Manual mode and that's a problem when your camera is pointed on a direction you don't want to go to or even worse, when your camera is FORCEFULLY LOCKED INTO AN ENEMY and you need to dodge. I know this can be fixed by playing on Automatic, but I don't play on Automatic, I play on Manual, why are his controls diferent on both modes? And why there's not even a way to change it?
I know these are thing that can easily be changed with an update and for that I won't lower my score too much, it's still an amazing mod with little to no problems, but these 2 problems should probably be fixed

The amount of content the mod give was worth the wait however I'm not a fan of some of the content. The characters are very interesting to play.

There is an extreme amount of effort put into this from so many angles. The flash and nuiannces of how these characters work is excellent in a way that's extremely powerful whilst still being bound to the traditional play of SRB2.

I would definitely say Inazuma is the more fun of the two characters in the pack as his play is generally more straightforward, but don't let that detur too much from Aether as she's got some sauce to her play also.

There are however some small issues that are probably more nitpicks though one of these is an issue I can't help but feel to address.

The one aspect of Inazuma I've found distracting in his play is the homing attack. A weird quirk you'd think as a staple 3D Sonic move but with how SRB2's main levels and some custom maps/level packs I actually find this ability more of a hinderance than a boon?

This is mainly coming from someone who plays with keyboard and mouse where I'm use to aiming things myself rather than relying on homing. Would be nice to have a toggle to have homing on or off.

More on the nitpick side is that there's a strange sense of self indulgence in the pack. Not for Astra himself but more-so for the close knit connection of people who made this. In a time where I find SRB2 discussion hard to talk about I kinda can't help but feel wary. Probably not something to worry about much with this group but it's a nagging feeling.

Last thing is just few unnecessities. For the most part it's fine. Most of the unnecessisary things are just their to be flashy or tongue and cheek but there was one design thing I felt kinda weird on, but that's getting into spoiler territory so if I'm ever talking on here or somewhere SRB2 related I'll probably bring it up there.

Pretty cool otherwise so it's on the high end of custom characters.

An outstanding pack with two amazing characters and very impressive maps that end on a very sour note due to questionable level design and honestly awful balancing issues on its last stretch, only really "fixed" by utterly breaking the level using aether's abilities, but still an amazing mod in every other aspect and absolutely worth any player's time

Its clear that there is so much effort put into this! It's just that its another blatantly overpowered character mod. Inazuma's abilities can be described as "long glorified homing thok" and of course the ability that negates the existence of enemies. You love to see it. Aether's Abilities feel empty and too complex. Now someone might be like "oh but with max potential she can blast through a level" but the thing is a character shouldn't be able to "blast" through a level. You should have to actually play it. My 3 stars here are from the spriting, effort, coding, and mapmaking.

The mod itself is very good, but besides mindscape being difficult (I liked the challenge it brings) whenever I exit the game I lose all the progress I made with silverhorn (all the work to get Ultimate inazuma) since I always have to do everything again, if there is a meditation I don't know but please fix it.

Inazuma is a great character... and that's kinda it. Aether is just downright confusing and not fun to play as. And the mod could *definitely* could've done it without the extra baggage. Still 3 stars because Inazuma is very fun.

The characters themselves are great, if a bit overpowered. Though Inazuma 2.1's *thing* was being overpowered, so the status quo is met there.

The thing that knocks the review down a peg is the bonus content. 3 lives is not enough for a boss fight which keeps eating your jumps, and having to constantly replay GFZ1 *and* the level before it (which takes about 5 minutes in total) just for another three attempts (assuming you didn't die in the stage at all) at a boss fight where you're fighting the game itself rather than the boss is just... not fun. Would probably work a lot better if the slopes were more shallow. (Or better yet, flat.)

Really soured the whole experience overall.

This is one of, if not THE, best character mod I have ever played. Inazuma and Aether both control very well, their Super and Sol forms are great to run around with, and I managed to beat the regular campaign as them. I do however, have some issues with the secret content.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

Mindscape Zone is a pretty decent challenge... is what I would say if you didn't only get three lives to start with on top of all the bottomless pits, and trying to master the Homing Attack and Bolt Stream abilities.

Facciolo is stupid to fight since you hardly have any rings, and if you manage to smuggle in a Super form to fight the guy, his attacks pierce through Super forms similarly to Big Arms from the original Sonic 3. Why?!

I just straight up gave up trying to unlock Ultimate Inazuma without beating Mindscape Zone because of Facciolo alone. I mean, does he have to be this difficult? I'd rather play the final bosses of Sonic Superstars. That's saying a lot because the community disliked those bosses due to their difficulty.

Overall, incredible characters, bullshit secret content. I would give it 5/5, but Mindscape Zone and Facciolo drop it down to 3/5. I'm sorry.

my copy can't save for some reason when i beat the mindscape stage
if anyone knows why i'd be glad to hear about it in the discussion page.
the mod itself is fine aether's okay kinda boring though inazuma's moves a good nothing to flashy while still being good but nothing stellar and the mindscape stage which may be the mods main focus is no good as a main attraction (I should point out that i beat it twice) the 1st boss phase is honestly harder than the 2nd phase but only due to mildly annoying aspects like the damn pool and the fact you can be sniped off stage. all in all it's fine but could use some improvement

I like the designs of the characters but there gameplay style is not really interesting at all there's low key better characters in Robo blast that makes the game worth coming back too