New Super Mario World 1: The Twelve Magic Orbs - Powered-Up
released on Sep 15, 2023
A mod for Super Mario World
A remake of New Super Mario World 1: The Twelve Magic Orbs which aims to polish the original hack by improving the level design and giving more replay value.
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Last year, I finished The Second Reality Project 2 and Super Mario World Central Production 2 and those two titles vied to be my new favourite SMW romhack. But in comes New Super Mario World 1: The Twelve Magic Orbs POWERED-UP, a game I loved as much as its title is long.
Its fundamentals are unchanged from SMW proper, aside from disallowing powerups to be saved and allowing certain powerups to arc their projectiles upwards. What it adds, besides tons new levels, are a dozen new powerups. Ice Mario shoots freezing balls instead of fireballs. Bubble Mario shoots bubbles which turn enemies into bubbles that can be used as a good boost jump. This leads to my big flaw with the romhack...
Some powerups aren’t very good. Cloud Mario is cumbersome to use effectively. The game has the super leaf as a powerup– Raccoon Mario from SMB3. It uses that tap-jump-to-fly input method which I think is annoying. SMW fixed that with its Cape Mario (which is in this game, too!) which was easier on the hands.
And some of them are not very clever conceptually. Superball Mario is like what if Fire Mario’s fireballs bounced indefinitely and you could only use one at a time. There’s also the game using special blocks that require specific powerups to break (which, to be fair, are always available in the level). Some powerups fit very well into SMW’s moveset and previously established powerup system, but only a couple.
I had a great time anyway. The level design is top-notch and there is a lot of level in this game. It’s hard to elaborate but there weren’t many levels I’d say were outright mediocre aside from gimmicky ones like the minecart levels or maybe the ice levels with their ubiquitous slippery surfaces. World progression is very simple with one world leading to the next and only one secret exit per world that would lead to a switch palace or some other bonus. Maybe it was the size of the game map but the world of The Twelve Magic Orbs felt expansive.
And after I scoured the game for all 276 Star Coins so I could unlock the secret final world, I completed the last couple challenges. The game ends on a cool climax and once I was done, I looked back on a superb romhack. This one is my new favourite.
Its fundamentals are unchanged from SMW proper, aside from disallowing powerups to be saved and allowing certain powerups to arc their projectiles upwards. What it adds, besides tons new levels, are a dozen new powerups. Ice Mario shoots freezing balls instead of fireballs. Bubble Mario shoots bubbles which turn enemies into bubbles that can be used as a good boost jump. This leads to my big flaw with the romhack...
Some powerups aren’t very good. Cloud Mario is cumbersome to use effectively. The game has the super leaf as a powerup– Raccoon Mario from SMB3. It uses that tap-jump-to-fly input method which I think is annoying. SMW fixed that with its Cape Mario (which is in this game, too!) which was easier on the hands.
And some of them are not very clever conceptually. Superball Mario is like what if Fire Mario’s fireballs bounced indefinitely and you could only use one at a time. There’s also the game using special blocks that require specific powerups to break (which, to be fair, are always available in the level). Some powerups fit very well into SMW’s moveset and previously established powerup system, but only a couple.
I had a great time anyway. The level design is top-notch and there is a lot of level in this game. It’s hard to elaborate but there weren’t many levels I’d say were outright mediocre aside from gimmicky ones like the minecart levels or maybe the ice levels with their ubiquitous slippery surfaces. World progression is very simple with one world leading to the next and only one secret exit per world that would lead to a switch palace or some other bonus. Maybe it was the size of the game map but the world of The Twelve Magic Orbs felt expansive.
And after I scoured the game for all 276 Star Coins so I could unlock the secret final world, I completed the last couple challenges. The game ends on a cool climax and once I was done, I looked back on a superb romhack. This one is my new favourite.