Why Is That There?!: Review of “Mario’s Lost World”

11? That's ridiculous, that's not even funny.

Mario’s Lost World is a ROM Hack that was originally “Super Mario World”, which features an entirely new fan storyline, revamped sprites, and the difficulty meter cranked to 11. Let’s get something straight here: This is unlike the Super Mario World you’ve played when you were a kid. This is a hack that adds such nefarious tricks such as the “Invisible Block In The Way”, “Enemies From Out Of Nowhere” and careful level maneuvering.

Albeit this is a radically changed game that was remade with the difficulty ramped up to 11, the concept of the plot is pretty simple: Mario tries to save the Princess by Bowser, all by traversing a tropical, strange world unlike he’d never seen before. u could see the plot from a mile away and still know what it is.

Like I said earlier, the game is well, Nintendo Hard. This game will throw every single, possible way of making you waste those five lives in a cinch. Ranging from frustratingly placed enemies, malevolent   architecture which plays a constant fear of death, to being killed in one shot(In this case, It’s you running around as Mario with no power-up). This game hates you, and it makes it very clear that it wants to see you see that Game Over screen.

Oh, and I did mention that this game has an actual level dedicated to the infamous Minus World?

In other words, I am utterly fascinated by how the hackers redid this game in a lot of ways, from changing the World Map to the sprites themselves. It makes you forget that you’re playing a SNES game, when it looks this could pass off as a Gameboy Advance, probably even better than the rehash of Super Mario World. I was frankly surprised by this even more so that they took the time to redo the graphics. The sound is still memorable, albeit slightly different.

Overall, this is not easily a game for the weak-minded. This game is hard, but with the helpful function of Save States (which I horribly abused), it just might be bearable, and dare I say it, fun.

Score: 4.25/5