| Name: | SMW: Gaiden |
| Authors: | Adam, Truxton, lolyoshi, rextep |
| Added: | |
| Demo: | No |
| Hall of Fame: | No |
| Length: | 124 exit(s) |
| Type: | Standard: Very Hard |
| Description: | v1.13 In search of the princess, Mario finds himself led directly to the foot of the Mushroom Kingdom's most seldom challenged mountain, M2. In spite of any anxiety regarding the less then reassuring success rate (1 in 108), he continues without hesitation. What started as a simple level design exercise spiraled out of control into a full-fledged pseudo collab. Main influences include SMB2J and various Japanese romhacks. We hope to have succeeded in capturing that same feeling. |
| Tags: | asm less exgfx music original graphics traditional |
| Comments: | 36 (jump to comments) |
| Rating: |
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Comments (36)
The hack is above all “technical” in the sense that it elevates level design to a science. No, really, it's higher mathematics what's going on there. Everything revolves around the philosophy of how to make the player as uncomfortable as possible with as few elements as possible. Every jump, every object that pops up when scrolling the screen is meticulously planned to achieve maximum effect. This happens at such a high level of frequency throughout, it's amazing.
I've played some Kaizo hacks, which are of course completely railroaded in their level structure, and this is no comparison. Kaizo and “Standard: Very Hard” hacks are two completely different pairs of shoes that cannot be compared in terms of difficulty because they have a completely different focus.
The hack starts hard, harder than any Super Mario World level, and just keeps increasing. I never had the feeling that the difficulty level was stagnating. It just gets consistently harder. Once you've mastered a level, you can be sure that the next one will be even harder. With the exception of castles, which are a bigger spike for a brief moment, and haunted houses, which are almost a kind of recreation due to the puzzle-trial-and-error principle (and I usually HATE haunted houses). It makes the hack incredibly exhausting that I've been sitting on it for over 6 months. With 124 exits, it's also one of the biggest Super Mario World hacks.
Unfortunately, just after the halfway point, it gradually moves into trolling territory. A few nasty “headbutts” for a few laughs are okay, especially when you still have the chance to react.
But the hack overdoes it at some point, so that it feels like every 2nd level has some unfair “gotcha” moment. Worst Offender: Here's the penultimate Special World level, where you have to instantly prevent two opponents from killing each other with thrown shells just before the finish, otherwise you're softlocked. You can't possibly know that and the level is the most absolute snot I've ever come across, with constant ice physics (even on moving platforms) frame-accurate blue-block jump-up-throws while jumping off a moving platform that's being shot at with giant banzai bills, and that's one of many sadistic parts in a level that has no checkpoints. Adding something like that is just a No-Go!
At the end, the game goes completely uphill again,
However, there is a trick here too. You can't choose which of the 4 rooms you enter. The rooms are selected purely at random.
Once you have completed a room, the next room is again one of 4 random rooms. Then you enter an intermediate room and then the next set of 2×4 rooms. So it's much longer than Bowser's castle and the rooms are deadly in different ways. In other words, you can never be too sure that you have learned something completely off the top of your head, as the next time you get any combination of different rooms. It takes a lot more time to really get behind everything and of course some rooms suited me better than others.
Once you've done THAT, it's still not over. Then you end up in a kind of 8-3 Bowser's forecourt level with classic Super Mario Bros. music, with numerous hammering brothers and also those on crack who throw 20 of them in a row, with a scrolling section just before the end.
From then on, we're probably already 8 minutes into the level. (Timer is set to 10 minutes)
And then when you're about to reach the checkpoint that will save you, there's a LAST troll that was just added for pure, unbridled sadism. The bridge collapses, normally the spots are marked and you can then briefly “bounce” forwards or backwards with Mario, this time it's not indexed, so you push forwards in panic, where a moving Bowser statue is already leaping towards you. My heart really stopped beating just before that, holy fucking shit, but everything went well. Otherwise, the level was absolutely fair.
And then you finally get to the final fight, which is completely contrary to a hack like this that's out to get everything out of the classic elements. Completely custom is with a multi-phase mecha bowser, then against a giant toadstool (there couldn't have been a more fitting antagonist, as often as toadstools suddenly spawn in the hack).
With the unique twist that you have to jump into the large poisonous mushroom and deliberately allow yourself to be hit so that it becomes smaller. It's basically a one-hit-wonder, because you collect a resource to deliberately get hit. Poison mushrooms spawn constantly and sometimes there is also a normal mushroom. In the end, the poisonous mushroom sits in your own item box and you have to use Select to get it down as soon as you have another mushroom, while you avoid a conveyor belt of other poisonous mushrooms that keep spawning.
The part of this game that shined to me the most was the smooth progression in difficulty; how the levels go from relatively easy to some of the hardest things that standard has ever seen. And that final boss, OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS THAT FINAL BOSS
Of course, I did have a few nitpicks with the game, which I'll explain.
For one, the star world overworld was a bit of a downer, simply just being the vanilla star world with the only change being some palette editing.
Some of the secret exits were just absurdly hidden with not enough hints as to where to look, such as Senbei Ghost House where
Next up is Abyssal Hollow 1, which has you
Abyssal Ghost House is probably the most infamous out of all of them, the gimmick being that
OVERALL: For one of the hardest standard hacks, it sucessfully managed to establish its difficulty well without being unfairly absurd. GG
Gaiden has some of the hardest levels imaginable (just watch that title-screen movie for a taste of what you're about to experience), but for some reason, they're so much fun to play. This hack will test your patience and your precision skills. As a commentor said below me, it seems every enemy in this game is placed in just the right spot to kill Mario, and rightfully so, as it does feel like Mario is always in danger in this hack. No jump is completely safe in this hack, as you might just get attacked by enemies as you're landing on the next platform. Some secret exits are also extremely cryptic and tough to find, and they require a great deal of exploration and patience.
Level design is varied to an nth degree that no level ever felt like a repeat. There's no shortage of diversity here; each level feels like a brand new adventure and boredom is very unlikely. This is another reason this hack kept me interested and why this hack will likely have an extremely high replay value for me.
Some of the bosses though were very tough.
I'm not quite finished with this hack yet, but I know it's going to be a wild ride from here on out, and the journey has just begun.
Gaiden is a true masterpiece. Mario World experts must play this! Also play this if you love being challenged and enjoy lengthy hacks, and most of all, have an adventurous spirit.
Absolutely fantastic job with this collab!
I enjoyed most of it but there definitely was some troll moments and some SUPER annoying levels like the jungle level with the jumping Fuzzys that stick to you. I wish the boss battles were a little more creative but definitely made up for it at the final boss. The final bosses were definitely the best I've seen in any SMW rom hack.
Definitely took a lot of time to get all 124 exits.
But overall I thought it was an excellent hack.
That’s the only way I can describe this hack. It’s so much fun, it’s so creative, it’s hard as heck, and super rewarding. SMW: Gaiden is one of my favorite standard hacks of all time, and I’m sad it’s over. It’s 124 exits of really tough Mario platforming, and I enjoyed virtually every minute of it.
On the surface, some levels look innocent enough, but it’s not until you realize what the level asks of you that you say to yourself “Welp, looks like I’m in this for the long haul.” There’s a good variety of level difficulties and ideas, so you are not going to get bored or too comfortable with any particular designs or obstacles. This game will kick your ass, but you will keep coming back for more.
While Gaiden has primarily a vanilla design, this hack does have custom sprites, but they honestly don’t look out of place. It definitely doesn’t feel like the creators just stuffed their levels with custom sprites because they could; rather, the sprites felt appropriate and gave each level a sense of uniqueness and challenge. The few custom sprites in Gaiden honestly should have been in SMW in the first place – they fit the hack theme so well. The
Similar to what Morsel said, Gaiden truly feels like a true sequel to the original SMW: it’s tougher level design that’s out to get you at every moment.
Even with this praise and love for the hack, I do have a couple issues with only one level and a suggestion for Gaiden 2 (which I sincerely hope happens because I want more pls gimme):
Maou Koopa’s Castle -
Level 1B0 (green background with wood pillar smash): I could never clear this room without a cape - the final jump seems way too far to be possible without one – is that the intention? Additionally, I couldn’t find a consistent way to spawn the pillar smashes, so sometimes I’d be blocked at the end of the room through no fault of my own. I guess I can’t blame this room too much since it’s in the first pool of rooms, but it still caused me some trouble.
Level 1B8 (Left swimming room): Is it even possible to clear this room as big Mario? I couldn’t figure out how to get under the spikes at the end while also avoiding the firebar. Making the player lose their powerups and get the checkpoint as small Mario puts the player in an extraordinarily difficult position after this room.
Right before the checkpoint: having the bridge break unexpectedly with absolutely no indication is beyond fucked. I would have gotten the checkpoint after about an hour if not for that map16 troll, and that death added another 75 minutes or so to my attempts. Granted, 2 and a quarter hours for this checkpoint given the structure and design of the level isn’t awful, but I was so pissed when that happened, especially as small Mario.
Suggestion: the World 8 ghost house secret exit was way too cryptic. I honestly tried to solve it on my own, but I ultimately looked in Lunar Magic to see how to get through it. The fact that the player has to get lost just to even find the message box with the hint to the four levels with other hints (which is also way too obtuse imo) was pretty frustrating. I really do wish I could have made more success with the puzzle because I love those kinds of things, so I hope that any future puzzles allow for more opportunities to actually figure stuff out.
Overall, SMW: Gaiden is an amazing hack that will put your skills to the test. It’s tough, unforgiving, pretty, and downright fun. If you are into this style of game/hack, you owe it to yourself to play through it.
Fan-fucking-tastic work.
Spoiler:
There are some edited vanilla bosses. They're pretty funny and surprisingly tough. I have not seen any custom bosses yet though. Maybe they're closer to the end idk.
I finally beat #6 Wendy's Castle after weeks of trying, so that was very exciting. I am now more than a little concerned that I will never see the end of this hack though, considering that it's taking more than one day (or week) to clear a single level
5/5.
It is difficult to describe what makes the level designs interesting. It feels sort of like what a full version of NOT SO SADISTIC MARIO would have been like. Levels start out as standard 8-bit/16-bit Mario platforming, but even early on, you'll find the difficult platforming you would expect from a hack rated "Very Hard". It pulls no punches and will freely trick/troll/trap you to death, even when you're fully expecting it. The levels look simple, but everything's placed in just the right way to kill Mario, and very little error is allowed. I don't think every level is a winner, but the moment-to-moment is almost always engaging, or at the very least you'll always need to be on the edge of your seat and pay attention. It's the kind of hack that makes me want to take notes, or the kind of hack that I think to myself "man, I wish I made that!"
How mean is this hack? There's no shortage of "think fast!" moments, which I personally am not always a fan of, but you'll grow to anticipate it. There's the occasional bonus room to get extra lives, but some of them are evil and may even send you backwards in the level like SMB2J. Honestly, it can be dumb and annoying, but at least some of these trolls are creative or funny (#4 LUDWIG's CASTLE has a funny troll in it) At times, it feels like Poison Mushrooms are more common than normal powerup boxes. Red Piranha Plants feel more common than Green Piranha plants, and a few enemies have different behavior, guaranteed to catch you off guard more than once. Also, the castle levels at the end of each world always seem to be way harder than the levels before it. Needless to say, SMW Gaiden is mean.
As I approach the end of this hack, I just KNOW that the levels are going to start becoming extremely long and not have any checkpoints. I can see it coming a mile away!!
I'm not a huge fan of the vast majority of music being Super Mario SNES music, but at least it makes the soundtrack feel consistent, and the overworld music selection is nice, more varied, and breaks up the Mario music. Graphics are a mix of SMW and SMAS, with the occasional custom palette to spice things up.
Currently, I've been stuck on the World 6 castle for over two days now. Can't even reach the midpoint. I recently finally beat the secret exit of KONPEITOU PIPELINES 3, so progress is still being made. I would like to write a longer review when I finish this hack. I might sound a little harsh on this hack, but I really do want to see it to the end. For all of its rudeness, being able to conquer this hack will hopefully prove satisfying.
So overall, 3/5
Very solid hack overall.
But then, I stumbled in the worst aspects of the hack. It captures TOO WELL SMB2 Japanese level design, as well the inspiration of other japanese hacks. To the point that it subtracts from the overall experience with unexpected trolls, one of them forcing the player to redo an entire stage, because someone thought it was funny to make the player kill themselves after a rough section of platforming. Other bad troll includes one stage where a blue koopa is very close to Mario to the point that one milisecond, you already take damage from a kicked shell. Also, there's one that the player starts falling out of nowhere and has to react quickly, in the same manner of the Squid Adler (Volt Kraken) stage from Mega Man X5 (same energy). When the level does not try troll me I blast through the levels. But most of the time, it's a frustrating experience at best. The fortresses and castles have a lot of too precise platforming moments, along with nasty trolls. And it's such a shame, I enjoyed most of the levels, but because of a few bunch, it left a sour taste.
Overall, I give 3/5 for this hack only for it's sheer audacity, but because of some questionable level design choices, I detracted two points.