A mod for Super Mario World
The long-awaited sequel to An SMW Central Production, finally here after over a decade! An evil company known as Norveg Industries is expanding its business worldwide, including the Mushroom Kingdom. Can Mario put a stop to its business before nature as they know it dies out?
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Since starting this SMW binge, my October has been playing one enjoyable romhack after another. I think Super Mario World Central Production 2 is the standout, though.
The fundamentals are splendid with snappy level design that takes advantage of the hack’s expanded obstacle and enemy roster. Many levels include some kind of tricky mechanic like blocks that flip the gravity. There are so many that gameplay still feels fresh across the hack’s ten worlds.
The difficulty level is a step above my comfort zone so to curb it I used save states– both a little and a lot. I don’t mind the Very Hard difficulty but early on the difficulty fluctuates quite a bit and across the journey, there were moments where mechanics felt as hacky as they actually were. The roller coaster level was gimmicky and subpar and from the same world, the carnival games switch palace was extremely frustrating, prompting me to ragequit and leave a heated initial review where this review now resides.
I cooled down and returned to this hack though because it stuck with me. Again, the level design is mostly great and the difficulty gets more consistent later on in the game. The graphics are phenomenal with a soul candy colour palette and a crisp cartoony look. And there are a lot of graphics in this game. There might be forty level themes for all I know, ranging from construction sites to mesopheric vistas to lush autumnal forests. The world map is fairly non-linear too, like the original SMW. The music is excellent too– all original stuff. I’d even call this romhack maximalist for its extensive scope including a surprising post-game.
The villain designs are quite sharp even if the story is underdeveloped. It’s not a big deal but I feel like there should have been a scooch more narrative to this game and it would have been cool if these characters, who look awesome, had more explicit personalities.
But I guess the villains symbolize what makes this hack special: the creators were really going for it. They wanted to make something very original with higher production values than your typical SMW romhack– something with its own identity– and that’s what they accomplished.
The fundamentals are splendid with snappy level design that takes advantage of the hack’s expanded obstacle and enemy roster. Many levels include some kind of tricky mechanic like blocks that flip the gravity. There are so many that gameplay still feels fresh across the hack’s ten worlds.
The difficulty level is a step above my comfort zone so to curb it I used save states– both a little and a lot. I don’t mind the Very Hard difficulty but early on the difficulty fluctuates quite a bit and across the journey, there were moments where mechanics felt as hacky as they actually were. The roller coaster level was gimmicky and subpar and from the same world, the carnival games switch palace was extremely frustrating, prompting me to ragequit and leave a heated initial review where this review now resides.
I cooled down and returned to this hack though because it stuck with me. Again, the level design is mostly great and the difficulty gets more consistent later on in the game. The graphics are phenomenal with a soul candy colour palette and a crisp cartoony look. And there are a lot of graphics in this game. There might be forty level themes for all I know, ranging from construction sites to mesopheric vistas to lush autumnal forests. The world map is fairly non-linear too, like the original SMW. The music is excellent too– all original stuff. I’d even call this romhack maximalist for its extensive scope including a surprising post-game.
The villain designs are quite sharp even if the story is underdeveloped. It’s not a big deal but I feel like there should have been a scooch more narrative to this game and it would have been cool if these characters, who look awesome, had more explicit personalities.
But I guess the villains symbolize what makes this hack special: the creators were really going for it. They wanted to make something very original with higher production values than your typical SMW romhack– something with its own identity– and that’s what they accomplished.