Game:

Super Mario World (1990)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 12:04

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3

Here it is, Bowser's Castle, the final stage in the main part of the game. (This *would* be the day my headphones broke...oh well.) In fact, Bowser's Castle is the only stage I'm doing here, although you do get to see the end-game cutscenes, credits, and cast of characters as well.

So, anyway, Bowser's Castle. For the final stage, it's actually pretty easy (if you take the right path...) The main castle has three parts. The first one consists of doors 1-4, the second is doors 5-8, and the third is the anteroom. You don't need to go through all 8 doors; you simply pick one from the first set and one from the second set. After that is the fight with Bowser. I decided to take doors 3 and 5 the first time and 2 and 7 the second time (I timed door 5 badly and died), but for the benefit of people who haven't seen this stage before, here is a brief description of each door:

Door 1: Auto-scrolling area with Podoboos and Layer 3 smashers. One of the more difficult areas, but even more so if there are any switch palaces you've missed.
Door 2: Fence area with net Koopas, reflecting fireballs, and spikes below.
Door 3: Maze of...canvases. (You have to see it to get the idea; fortunately, that one shows up in the video.) This sublevel is the only one in the game that contains these canvases. You can walk behind them, and some of them are not solid on the bottom. There are Mechakoopas all over in here as well.
Door 4: Area with stone blocks, Hotheads and Sparkys, and a moving background.
Door 5: Area with Thwomps in between Layer 2 spikes. This one is the quickest of the eight to get through, but if you don't time it just right, death is almost inevitable.
Door 6: Vertical underwater Layer 2 scrolling area with spikes, Fishbones, and Dry Bones. Hardest of the eight to get through.
Door 7: Open area with Bowser statues.
Door 8: Area with a lot of Bouncin' Chucks and not much else.

The spotlight area is laughably easy; the darkness doesn't impede vision enough to be a problem, even without the light on. The battle with Bowser is the most difficult boss battle in this game...but that's not saying much. He has three different attack patterns, and he changes phases every time he takes two hits.

After beating Bowser, we get some cutscenes and credits, along with a slide show of most (not all) enemies in the game. Yoshi's friends are safe (he only had 7 friends and they're all unborn children?), Mario and Peach are together at last...ahhh. I could end the game here if I wanted to, but that I shan't do...there are lots of secret exits to find, plus two bonus worlds to play through!


Also, by the way, I would like to mention something at this point. I've been asked a few times if I'm going to LP any ROM hacks of Super Mario World, since I'm doing the original game. I said something about this in part 5, but I'll recap here. My answer is...maybe. It depends on what the hack is. I'm not going to play just anything:

1) I won't play anything that doesn't work on bsnes. I support accuracy in hacking, although the crappy Addmusic programs we have now make this tricky sometimes.
2) I won't play anything that is locked in such a way that Recover Lunar Magic can't unlock it. I don't like hack locking. I understand why some people would want to do it, but I don't encourage it.
3) I'd rather not play any puzzle hacks, or even normal hacks that are excessively nonlinear. That's not to say I dislike these kinds of hacks (Yes, I do prefer more linearity, but it's not a requirement for me to enjoy it)...to quote myself in my earlier video, I just don't think they'd make very good LPs, at least for me personally.
4) A full hack, rather than a demo, would be nice. I don't really want to do an LP and have to quit partway through because the game isn't finished yet.
5) No blind runs. I want to play a game (and beat it) at least once before recording a playthrough of it, and hacks are no exception. (If anything, they would be even worse for blind runs...every hack always seems to throw a few curveballs here and there.)
6) Difficulty is a huge factor. No hack I've ever played has come close to being as easy as the original SMW, true, but no hack I've ever played would qualify as "easy" at all for me. I'm not going to record only easy games, obviously, but there's too difficult to play, and then there's too difficult to record...and sorry to say, the latter category is quite vast. I don't like excessively difficult video games, hacks or otherwise. I don't mind a good challenge, but the keyword there is "good", as in "fun", and both hackers and professional designers seem to have ideas that differ widely from mine as far as what a "good" challenge is. Artificially increased difficulty, unfairness, and just plain annoying level design are NOT part of a good challenge.

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