Sicari 2 - The Brink of Time
Sicari 2 - The Brink of Time is the fourth SMW ROM Hack created by Eevee developed in 2018 and finished in 2022, serving as the third instalment to the canon Sicari Franchise. The game is known for being a complete overhaul ROM Hack that focuses on two distinct playable characters, with a level-specific third character that appears in a couple levels.
Following the release of Sicari Remastered, MANY people patiently waited for this one to arrive. This also marks the first time Sicari gets some brand new original music, mainly written by Daizo Dee Von, Pinci, Sinc-X, and the author themself. Some returning exclusive porters like Wakana return to port over some music for the project. Unlike the last few games, this one aims to be a much more challenging and fair game, really thinking about the level design over the aesthetic. This ROM Hack also features a brand new set of original boss fights, much like the last game. These boss fights were provided by Blind Devil, K3fka, Major Flare, and Mellonpizza (responsible for both Sergeant Bolts and the final boss). Erik returns as an exclusive coder as well, but this time for the game's unique overworld.
Story
One year after the events of Sicari Remastered (6 months after K-16 Story of Steel), a brand new villain known as "TS-94" makes their name known across time, sending her adversaries to gather the Shards of Serpos. The god "Paradox" recruits Sicari to gather these shards in order to stop TS-94 and her goons before it's too late.
Gameplay
The player gets to choose between Sicari and K-16 during most of the game, though there are a handful of stages where Anna is playable. This is a returning gameplay mechanic from Sicari Remastered, but unfortunately Gracie and Eclipse aren't playable this time. However, one big improvement over the original is the distinct tell between enemies you can kill and enemies you cannot. Unlike the last game, the character-specific weapons no longer affect bosses. The acorn returns to give a "Super Mario Bros. 3" float to all the characters.
Sicari
She receives the most changes of the three. Not only does she retain wallkick and the "Mario World" jump and spinjump, now she has a brand new dagger which can instant kill most enemies. There are only a handful of baddies which cannot be taken out in one shot. When Sicari gets the weapon upgrade powerup, she can spread 3 shots with her blade.
K-16
Her changes mostly come to her nerfs. Now she can only fire 2 shots instead of 3 on screen. Other than that, she acts like how she does in Sicari Remastered; always able to fire shots, cannot swim, and cannot spinjump.
Anna
She acts like a combined version of the two characters, and is the second most changed character. Her main weapon is a staff that casts a magic attack that can only shoot once on screen. She has the spinjump, walljump, and can swim.
The big thing about Anna's levels is a handful of them take place in the skies on her new broomstick, where these levels allow you to move freely in the level and rapidly shoot projectiles.
Development History
The progress thread of Sicari 2 is posted a month after the release of Sicari Remastered's release, at first showing off the tilesets in a slight topdown perspective like Donkey Kong Country, but was then later decided to revert this change back to what was present in the other entries (about 2 days later). Yukivee did attempt the perspective again on July 21st 2018, but the "Oh Ship!" stage was reworked to have a flat tileset. On January 4th 2019, the first demo releases to SMW Central, and with it came the realization that the game features brand new original music by Pinci and Sinc-X! The second demo releases on September 24th of the same year. The game's trailer releases on July 3rd 2020 titled simply as "Sicari 2 - The Brink of Time TRAILER" to excitement. The thread itself would stall for a number of months from March 12th 2020 to September 13th 2020, and progress would continue revealing that the final world is being progressed as well as the new take on "Oh Ship!" with the flattened tileset. Another gap from April 21st 2021 to September 23rd 2021 would reveal the first 3 bosses in their near-finished state. One more gap between then and May 18th 2022 would be the announcement that Sicari 2 would release in full that Summer C3...and thus it does on July 7th 2022.
On September 13 2022, the hack would release it's final update addressing many of the bugs and adds many QOL improvements such as the improved final boss, lives saving, improvements to the token collecting sidequest, and other tweaks. The final boss now has a checkpoint between the two phases as well as improved telegraphs on some of the attacks. Once you beat the main game final level, the game will point out which levels have tokens. Another small addition is Daizo Dee Von's "Jinker Bolts" character being added as graffiti art in the Backstreet stage.
Sicari 2 proved to have a much longer development time than all the other hacks Eevee has created, continuing the trend of every hack of theirs taking longer and longer to finish. Despite that, the quality improves per hack so the time is well spent.
Trailers
Fun Facts
- Every song relating to TS-94 was written by Daizo Dee Von. The song "Suppression" (TS-94's main theme) was proposed as the final boss theme, but Daizo was surprised to hear that Eevee wanted him to make a "boss variant" of the track. Daizo wipped up "Unshackled" on his laptop, tho he felt it was a basic sample swap with a couple tweaks. His opportunity to "redeem" himself would be when Eevee offered Daizo to compose the Phase 2 theme, "Unbroken". Daizo was requested to compose something inspired by tracks from "Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn", though he took a note from Saga Frontier 2's "Miβgestalt" in replicating it's beat. Daizo ended up being very satisfied with the end product, though his let's play showed his surprise when he witnessed the boss fight the song takes place in. Coincidentally, Mellonpizza was the one who coded the final boss, the same Mellonpizza who is co-creating 100 Rooms of Enemies with Daizo.
- Sicari's Theme was composed by Eevee but ported by Daizo Dee Von. He offered to port it considering how quick of a job he could do it, though he stalled for months until November 2021 where he knew he had to finish it for Sicari 2's release. Eevee was surprised to know that the "bass" instrument, unlike all the other instruments, is unsampled!
- Of all the games in the Sicari franchise, Sicari 2 took the longest to finish. This might be due to small story rewrites and the bigger focus on level design and polish.
- Originally, you were meant to collect every single Shard of Serpos in order to see a "true ending", much like a Crash Bandicoot game. This idea was scrapped, citing that most people don't care to 100% hacks. Though, the second Special World is unlocked after all exits and tokens, so the idea was at least reworked for another completion bonus.
- Jinker Bolts was added because of an inside joke between Daizo and Eevee.
Reception
"Sicari 2 - The Brink of Time" proves that Eevee has not lost their touch, and in fact aims to improve with every single game in the series. Better graphics, better levels, better boss fights, and a great new villain to boot. Some people don't quite grasp the game's story since it leans heavily in some of the relatively easy to miss details in K-16 Story of Steel, and some folk who more lean to the kaizo genre saw no use in the game's character specific weapons, considering the game not interesting in terms of gameplay.
On October 11th 2022, the YouTube Channel "SNES Drunk" posted a video covering many ROM Hacks where Sicari 2 was featured alongside hacks like 100 Rooms of Enemies and A Plumber For All Seasons where the hack received the most positive response any project could receive. Eevee even got personally thanked in the comments section alongside the other two hackers mentioned.
What's in store for the future of Sicari? Consider the cliffhanger ending, we may see eventually.