I found this weird mario ROM hack on Super Mario World Central yesterday. I’m still confused about it, as it was weird as hell, due to it’s contents.
Opening up the game on Snes9x gave me no title screen. It was just a black screen with box that said “continue game?” After pressing A, the box changed to “Level Select”. It was a level select screen, of course, but it wouldn’t let me choose any other level than 1. Trying to choose other levels would crash the game. Choosing level 1 gave me a screen that would ask to start from which specific checkpoint. Of course, starting from unobtained checkpoints would crash the game. Interestingly, there were 10 checkpoints. I chose the option to start from the beginning.
The beginning had some sort of a cutscene. There was a man in his attic, grabbing some stuff, finding an old SNES console, and a copy of Super Mario World. He put the game cartridge in his Snes, plugged it into an old TV, and booted the game. So, apparently, I was playing a Mario World ROM in a ROM hack. It was front the point of view from the man playing, sitting right next to the TV, so it had borders on the screen, making it a bit hard to play right due to the screen being smaller.
I also had a useable phone, but I could only text and receive emails from it. The texts were from 2 contacts, one named “Charles”, the other, named initials “S.M.” I couldn’t text them at all, but they were able to at certain points. Checking my emails, and there is only one, by that same “S.M.” The email said something about welcoming them to the company that the person is working at.
The game was completely normal, and playing through Yoshi’s Island 1 & 2 was easy as normal. I was already at checkpoint 4, but at the “Yellow Switch Palace” level, there was no yellow switch at the end, instead, I was in a hall, and all sounds stopped, and was replaced by faint talking noises. After getting closer, there was a room at the end of the hall. In the room was a hospital bed, with an old man in it. More noticably, there was a second Mario, but he was completely still. His mouth suddenly opened, and a weird, crazy noise played for a second. It crashes the ROM hack, forcing me to play it again.
The noise, which I had to record via the Xbox game toolbar, turned out to sound similar every time I were to replay the audio. I heard a bit of the overworld theme, the underwater theme, the underground theme and a whole bunch more. It was a single second of every sound and music from Super Mario World. All of it.
Upon starting the game again, Checkpoint 5 of the first level was highlighted, and after opening it, I was at the TV again. This time, however, It was night, and choosing to play as Mario would crash the damn game again, forcing me to play as Luigi.
I was at Iggy’s Castle, even though I hadn’t beaten Yoshi’s Island 3 and 4 yet. There weren’t enemies, but there were some text boxes. The first one said “You cannot replace me, Kevin. -Mario” The second one said “There are no chances left for you. -Mario” The third one said “Go back! - S.M. If he had known”. The last one, the fourth text box, said “Death will not bring you on top, Kevin. -Mario”.
At the boss fight against Iggy, he wasn’t there. There was no boss fight. There wasn’t even the normal boss fight room. It was the living room. But now I was playing as Mario again. At the living room was a weird sprite of a man, sitting in front of a TV. A text box appeared, saying “Don’t look behind you, Kevin. -Mario.” It suddenly turned into a cutscene, where the player would look behind him. Nobody was there. When returning to the TV, Mario’s sprite was gone. The player’s phone then started to vibrate, as they got a text message from a new contact, “???”.
”???” Texted to the player “Hello, Kevin.” The player, presumably being, “Kevin”, replies “Who are you?” “???” Texts back “Mario”, and then the game crashes once again.
This time, checkpoint 10 was highlighted, but it only shoved a picture of a room. Slowly, the picture started zooming out, and there, was “Kevin”, having committed suicide by hanging himself. But then the TV turned on. It wasn’t a picture, it was a recording. It was the screen from after beating the boss, but the texts said “Kevin, the “Would be” replacement for Mario, has been dealt with. Mario will stay who he is.”