So Little Garden

So Little Garden
Release date: Oct 31, 2015	Author: MetroidMst	Download: Version 1.0 (3980 downloads)
Genre: Exploration [?] Game:	Difficulty: Veteran [?]	Average runtime: 1:21 Average collection: 73%
Read Me: [None]	Forum Thread: A.N.T.I. Contest Thread	Rating:
Other Links: Release Trailer	Awards: A.N.T.I. Contest Top Hacks 2015: Most Creative Gameplay, Best Quick Play

Description

So Little Garden was MetroidMst's entry for the A.N.T.I. contest held on Metroid Construction. It is relatively small due to limitations in the contest parameters. It also features custom music, custom items, custom bosses, and other strange and wonderful things.

Difficulty is above average. This is a MetroidMst hack, so expect some difficult sections and/or bosses to appear.

Screenshots

Ratings and Reviews

By Vismund Cygnus on Nov 10, 2015 (

)

100% in 1:27

(v1.0) Possibly one of the best minihacks around, and definitely the best thing MetroidMst has done yet. Manages to find that delicate balance of stupid, unfair, and fun, and yet still doesn't overstay its welcome. Plenty of cool new things, including bosses, music, HUDs and graphics, and it'd be worth checking out just for that. However Mst manages to also pull off a good hack in the process. I'd almost consider rating this 5 stars, if not for a few bugs about the place that need squashing. I don't care if the map borking is in your story. It's bad.

By Cirno on Dec 11, 2015 (

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No completion stats.

its okay

By Cpt.Glitch on Feb 03, 2016 (

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No completion stats.

One of the best hacks by Mst. It features many interesting bosses that are all shaktool related in some way or another (except one). However the grapple physics are wonky and racing this hack is a fun, but painful experience.

By Aran;Jaeger on Dec 07, 2016 (

)

100% in 1:33

Proper Item Collection display: 100.0%.
No animals to be saved.

Quick Summary of the meaning of my SM hack ratings:
5 orbs: SM hacks within the 80% to 100% (90% ± 10%) range of perceived perfection; SM hacks for outstanding wholesome playing experiences and at most minor inconveniences.
4 orbs: SM hacks within the 60% to 80% (70% ± 10%) range of perceived perfection; Well done SM hacks with noticeable design problems.
3 orbs: SM hacks within the 40% to 60% (50% ± 10%) range of perceived perfection; Normal decent average SM hacks.
2 orbs: SM hacks within the 20% to 40% (30% ± 10%) range of perceived perfection; Overall messy, confusing, or punishing SM hacks with some upsides.
1 orb : SM hacks within the 00% to 20% (10% ± 10%) range of perceived perfection; Ruthlessly unplayable, broken, or barely from the original game changed SM hacks.

Judgement parameters summary:
° Creative ideas and features, polished design, how enjoyable and fun the hack can be, lack of hard to find or cryptic required game elements, the difficulty, and if the hack can be finished without major guides or tools.
° Note that the length of a SM hack will not necessarily contribute to my rating of the SM hack, since instead the averaged out experience over the whole hack will be taken into account to get a relative comparison between SM hacks.
° Besides this, lack of impactful changes from the original SM game also went into the evaluation of SM hacks (otherwise one may consider them among the 3 stars hacks) as follows: Ultimately, for my ratings I consider a situation in which an SM enthusiast that already has, knows about and is familiar with the original game and its prominent mechanics could only choose 1 new SM hack to play and thus would really want to make sure he/she will get a fresh and fantastic experience or journey out of his/her 1 choice.

The goal of all these SM hack ratings is so that rather new players have an overview of the whole spectrum of SM hacks and how to sort them in, in relation to each other, where SM hacks that are rated lower might still be enjoyable for more experienced players.

Finally, sometimes for SM hacks it can be relevant that they may be significantly more enjoyable from a player standpoint at which the player is well practiced and familiarized with Super Metroid's game mechanics in general, and that in particular some of the best SM hacks may not be the outright best first SM hack choices to play otherwise because of this, and for beginner SM hack players this typically steers the best first SM hack choices towards some of the SM hacks that I rated with 4 orbs instead of 5.

Rating for some hacks may be off by 1 Star, but arguably not more, and ratings are not attempted to be provided within the precision of ''half orbs''.

By kojakt on Feb 11, 2017 (

)

No completion stats.

This hack belongs amongst the best. It tries to be so many different things, and it succeeds at basically all of them. Atmospheric, frustrating, unique, and fun, SLG does so many things well that it's hard to identify things to be objectively critical of. If you were to try to make a hack and it came up just short of SLG, you'd have done a really good job. Highly recommend giving this one a shot. You won't be disappointed. Excellent soundtrack as well. 9.5/10

By Zexis on Aug 31, 2017 (

)

62% in 1:35

Unique and frustrating.

GOOD:
- custom music. I don't think any of it is from Metroid, it's pretty funny. Dire Dire Docks is beautiful as always
- custom tileset for a strange mish-mash of metal and forest
- the area and item names are fun and sometimes straight up memes
- final boss gimmick is a strong nod to Prime 3
- lots of secrets, many I'm sure I missed
- new mechanics, like the rocket ball's climb and frozen enemies breaking blocks is really cool
- custom HUD is neat
- so much Shaktool

BAD:
- map bug. Make a save state after you use a save station and reload that when you die if you don't want to "cheat" - playing normally will break your map
- Dire Dire Docks wears on you after awhile, as does the tileset
- Spaghetti-O spam to the point of lagging the game gets REAL OLD REAL FAST
- too much grapple for how slow it is
- a lot of vertical level design with wall jump removed makes the map slow and at times frustrating to navigate
- some of the bosses are just too tanky and too spammy, missiles go from powerful tool to fart cannon

Conclusion: SLG has a lot of unique and fun features that make it worth playing, but expect some heavy frustration the further you go.

By cazort on Aug 01, 2018 (

)

67% in 2:23

I LOVE this hack. Along with Hyper Metroid, it's tied for my favorite hack ever, and it's funny how I like both because the two hacks are about as opposite as you can get in a lot of ways.

I also find the other reviews a bit puzzling and I think unfairly hard on this hack. People describe it as "frustrating" and even "unfair", but I'm not getting that. I think this is one of the more accessible hacks, even though it does get genuinely difficult. It seems very carefully designed and never "unfair". Contrast with Eris, a hack I found unnecessarily difficult. This hack is hard, but it has all the types of challenges I like without the ones I don't.

I'll list my pros and cons and that'll make clear just how much I like this hack.

PROS:

* This game is marked "veteran" in terms of difficulty level but I find that it is much more accessible because the difficulty level ramps up gradually. There are some genuinely tricky points, but I find that it starts out very easy, and it gives you ample opportunity to develop the skills necessary to get through the tougher points. In early areas, enemies don't do too much damage, and they do more as the game progresses. It felt natural to me...I became more challenged as I went through the hack, and although it got up to a pretty advanced level, it felt like it took me there on a gentle slope. Save-stations are conspicuously and conveniently placed before boss fights. Nothing ever felt like it was wasting my time or toying with me; rather it felt like this hack was genuinely challenging me the way I wanted to be challenged.
* Beautiful, and totally new world with a radically different look-and-feel, incredibly well-executed. Even though it's all in one area and it just has a single tileset, much less diverse than the original game, it looks really slick. This is one of the few hacks out there that looks as good as a professionally-made game. (Eris being one of the others.)
* All new music and I love it. Not only does the main area have new music, but there is quite a lot of new music in the boss fights, and it's really great music too.
* I know some people list this as a con but I LOVE the removal of wall-jumping and bomb-jumping. I think wall-jumping is often abused by more advanced players to the point that it makes the game less fun...and this game throws a wrench in that. Maybe people complain about this game being frustrating because they've basically developed wall-jumping and IBJ to the point of breaking the intent of the original game...this game kinda restores it in a sense, and it felt more like the sort of exciting process of playing Metroid for the first time.
* Secrets are just brilliant. Some items are out in the open, some items are hidden with obvious hints, others are hidden in new and creative ways, and there are some really tricky things, utilizing new game dynamics, to get some of them. It's a great balance. And I still haven't found a large portion of the secrets...it's like there's a lot more to explore even though I've finished it.
* Some opportunity for sequence breaking using advanced techniques (including at least one trick specific to this hack.) This gives this hack rich potential for speedrunning.
* I like starting with 500 energy, and then having energy tanks only give 100. I think this makes for a smoother game progression early-game...in some hacks, and the original game, the difference between 0, 1, and 2 energy tanks feels way too big. Here it's not a huge game-changer to get a single energy tank, but it does make a difference to get a lot of them. (And the boss fights get tough, to where you actually need them.)
* Long and rich for a mini-hack. I know it's marketed as "relatively small", but it is big enough to make it feel like a real adventure. And it's a relatively full hack in the sense of using a wide range of items in the game.
* Some substantial changes to items and game dynamics. The rocket ball is such a unique idea, and synergizes beautifully with the removal of wall jumping and bomb jumping, and the different behavior of the ice beam is interesting, especially how you need to utilize it in different ways to get items and even get through the basic game progression. I love the changing of the space jump to a single-use boost. I also like the physics of double-jumping...it plays very nicely and the rooms are impeccably designed to fit with the physics.
* A lot of the really hard stuff, like some of the really difficult grapple-beam parts, is neatly compartmentalized so as not to be necessary, i.e. it's mostly to get optional missles, and you only need to do it once. Although you need to traverse certain areas of the map many times, there is nothing tedious or difficult about the retraced routes (*cough* unlike Eris *cough*) and the difficult acrobatics are mostly compartmentalized into one-time-only things.
* Enemy placement and behavior makes you think, much more than the original game. The enemies are pretty simple, for the most part, but they're used in clever ways that can throw you for a loop. Because some common enemies are pretty tanky, but easily killed by missles, I also needed to switch between missles and beams more frequently in this than in the original, and I liked that.
* I love the silly area names, and the general silly vibe. This game never seemed to take itself too seriously and that made it even more fun to play.
* Boss inovation! Rather than just replaying the same bosses with minor tweaks, this game creates totally new boss fights. Some of them are pretty simple, and some of them are more interesting than others, but the experience is novel. The game ends with a familiar boss used in a very novel way -- one that forced me to adjust my usual strategy and die several times before I got it.

CONS:

* The map is hard to read; it makes it hard to see where you've been and where you haven't. And then there's the map bug; just use savestates if you want to save.
* Boss fights lag because of too many rinkas. And in general, the over-reliance on the rinka in boss fights was the one thing I found uncreative about this hack. It made the boss fights feel too similar. But only slightly...a lot of them were genuinely fun (and sometimes hard, a few of the bosses I got killed and had to replay once or twice.)
* Several bosses you kill, but there is only a weak signal that you've progressed...i.e. the rinkas keep coming and a door opens (which might be off-screen.) This could have been better executed...maybe a change of music, stop the rinkas? I don't know. It felt anticlimactic.
* A random bug crashed my emulator once and I have no idea what triggered it...I lost a little progress (thankfully not much.)
* I wish every hack were this good. And do wish this hack were a little bit bigger. This hack really highlights all the things I want other hacks to do more of: new music, new bosses, new look-and-feel, natural progression of difficulty, change to game physics.
* Screw attack (which you can get pretty early with a minor sequence-breaking trick) makes all bosses except the last one too easy. I think this game would be improved by either making the screw attack defense-only, or making the bosses immune to it.

But these are small concerns. Overall, this hack is pretty much golden.

By Sapphron on Sep 09, 2018 (

)

58% in 0:53

Not enough shaktool
Hud looks really nice
Plenty of hidden items and ice's gimmick is really cool
Music was also really nice

By Croakomire on Dec 11, 2018 (

)

No completion stats.

Felt like I was in a garden

By SnakeLancer on Feb 12, 2019 (

)

54% in 1:24

Good hack, but no walljumps so one orb less :p

But I realy enjoyed it! Bring me more custom musics and custom enemies!

By Syphon on Nov 04, 2019 (

)

67% in 1:06

Awesome hack.

Map bug and massive lag during the boss fights and especially during the Monstool Mash fight were annoying but those are my only complaints.

Loved everything else about it. Nice custom graphics, custom hud/music/enemies/items. Good level design with many secrets.

Play this hack.

By Paragon on May 05, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

First hack I've ever played.

It's really very interesting, and quite difficult. The music lulls you into a false sense of security before dropping you into a deathpit of angry Shaktool gears and Rinkas. (Oh god the rinkas) Pausing will lag really bad. I thought I'd crashed the first time, but it resumed really, really slowly. So if you need to pause, use the emulator. I haven't died this many times since 1996. It's great!

By Daniel94Gomes on May 10, 2020 (

)

94% in 0:44

I Play The Version 1.0

By RealRed on May 13, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

So little garden features an interesting mix of content of concepts. The varying quality of audio and visual from ripped sources, however can quickly change experiences from sublime to jarring.

By Kremit44 on Oct 16, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

Love the aesthetics from music, tiling, to custom enemy sprites this is a very charming hack. It also has some impressive custom features, like how some powerups and bosses work, that make me wish there was more. Things are very well hidden and platforming is rarely stale with most rooms requiring the use of interesting techniques to progress. However the lag and annoying nature of some bosses/rooms near the end almost makes this a 3 for me as it was quite annoying and tedious to deal with at times. This is a hack that shows a lot of potential but unfortunately begins going off the rails a bit at the end and then ends. Still I'd easily recommend it to veteran SM players. Thanks to the creator and all who may have helped make this awesome hack... except for Monstool Mash, I'm still salty about that. lol

By benox50 on Oct 20, 2020 (

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No completion stats.

The lag is outstanding x)

By OmegaMalkior on Aug 03, 2021 (

)

No completion stats.

By Zincoshine on Jul 13, 2022 (

)

No completion stats.

I approach every mod I review as if it were its own game and judge them accordingly, ignoring any similarities to super Metroid (for obvious reasons). The idea is to analyze the mod from the perspective of someone who bought it as a game on Steam. With this disclaimer out of the way, here's the review:

The biggest problem with this is the unrealistic layout of the rooms and their massive size. The rooms themselves offer boring uninspired repetitive gameplay. As such, this doesn't feel like a Metroidvania even though it is. It just feels like a rom hack. The design of the third boss was so poor that at that point I decided I was done with this mod. I'm however giving it 3 orbs because of all the original content added.

edit: oh and the difficulty rating is wrong. It isn't veteran, it's just slightly more difficult than vanilla.

By therealsusan on Oct 24, 2022 (

)

No completion stats.

Not sure the extent to which it will happen, but right before monstool mash if you open the map it'll freeze the game.

The music is a nice change of pace. Got old after a while, though. Nature tiling can be really tough to make look good & I think this game does a pretty decent job at it.

Level design is pretty bland. Felt like the whole goal was "get an enemy to knock them down in a spike pit." It does a good job at making the game feel bigger than it actually is, though, I suppose.

Boss fights were mildly interesting. Reminds me of old arcade games designed to eat quarters with how many projectiles there are though... That's what presumably causes so much lag.

Didn't finish it, but I'd say it's worth checking out.

By mosul on Jan 23, 2023 (

)

54% in 0:53

Problems holding this hack back from being 5 stars:
- Wall-jumping is removed.
- Bomb-jumping is removed.
- Rinka spam
- Probably the worst lag I've seen in any hack
- The bosses consist of spamming missiles and hoping you have enough ammo and energy to survive. Not fun or engaging.
- Too much grapple usage. I actually like grapple, and this hack had too much even for me.
- The map is misleading. Blank map tiles and filled-in ones look the same; only room borders are visible. This makes it very hard to read.
- There are too many large rooms. This probably comes down to personal preference.
- If you die and reload your save, there is a map bug and the game freezes if you pause the game.
- The hack is mostly too easy, except for some random difficulty spikes.

I recommend this hack overall. It's a pretty fun and short hack with some rough spots.

By RX-78-2 on Feb 26, 2023 (

)

96% in 1:00

eternal shaft is honestly the best part of this hack, I honestly liked fighting Ridley while free falling and I also liked the excessive use of shaktool.. this hack isn't the best imo but it's pretty solid and a hack I guess is worth playing.. nice job MST, you did well on this hack, for the most part.

By Forever on May 17, 2023 (

)

No completion stats.

This hack was damn near unplayable at multiple spots due to lag. As mosul said in his review, if you die and reload your save, you get a pretty much frozen game if you pause, though you can wait about 30 seconds to wait it out. As someone who likes to actually use my map when playing hacks, this sucked a lot, though I found if you go to your items page, then unpause it only takes about 4-5 seconds.. yay. I also found it difficult to remember which rooms were which in this hack, so some things I remembered seeing earlier I had no idea where they were later on once I got an item. On top of that, I personally hate bullet sponge enemies in SM hacks, it just feels, well, shitty to shoot something 20 times and have it still not die. also projectile spam early on was pretty frustrating. yes the hack is above average in difficulty as the description says, but it just isn't any fun to me, the only redeeming thing was the music..

By KaptenR on Sep 30, 2023 (

)

54% in 1:18

Amazing hack! Short and sweet! I liked it a lot!
Interesting new bosses and items etc.
I got a lot of lag with some bosses, but it was still playable.
One minus was the map, that it was all black, same as background color, which made it hard to see where I had been or not.

By OmegaDragnet9 on Mar 27, 2024 (

)

71% in 2:04

Savestates used.

There's a lot to be enjoyed from this hack. The art direction in the screenshots is what drew me in in the first place and in that regard it doesn't disappoint.

Custom music abounds. For a small hack, the Dire Dire Docks theme was the perfect choice for the area. A stressier melody might have caused problems but this kept the mood chill in a hack a bit on the more difficult side.

Really loved the enemy GFX and AI tweaks. There are quite a few custom enemies that really depart from their vanilla behavior and it's great. There is a particular boss battle that really sells the wow factor.

Physics are changed, but it makes sense within the context of the game. Took me a while to realize select switches my beams, but that's on me.

I would love to see a revision that addresses some of the bugs, as a few broke the immersion for me (and compelled me to use save states where I might not have.) That being said, it introduces some very ambitious changes and should be commended for such. (Especially given the short time window of contest hacks.)

All in all I thought was a really good hack with a lot of heart and some technical wizardry. I might be mistaken, but this is the only hack I've seen prior to Ascent that features room names in the HUD.

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