12 of the craziest Mario hacks

“Mamma mia” just doesn’t cover it

Words: Lucas Sullivan on August 13, 2012

THE UPLIFTING

Kumikyoku “Nico Nico Douga”

A hacked version of: Super Mario World

What makes it crazy: Not every Mario hack is designed to whittle one’s soul away until it's utterly destroyed – some build up your spirits instead. Automatic Marios are levels designed to play themselves; without a single input, Mario will zoom about each level in time to some rad music. This one’s set in tune to a medley of popular Nico Nico Douga videos (essentially Japan’s YouTube), clocking in at an insane 11 minutes of precisely-placed “notes” to play along with the song. Bonus points if you can name the tune each melody hails from.

Our favorite part: The sick koopa-stomping bassline that drops at 5:07.

Automatic Mario - Little Busters!

A hacked version of: Super Mario World

What makes it crazy: Think it’s difficult syncing up one Mario level with a song? How about four at once? We cannot even imagine how long it took to put this together, but we’re eternally grateful for its creator’s time and effort. With each level acting as a “part” for the guitar, drums, bass, and vocals, each changing their role constantly, it warps the mind trying to figure out how this was planned out so perfectly. If poppy Japanese rock isn’t really your thing, you can always go with the equally impressive Auto-Mario rendition of Queen’s Don't Stop Me Now.

Our favorite part: We try to use the word “epic” as sparingly as we can – but no other word could so perfectly encapsulate the amazing moment at 2:21.

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Nintendo time capsule: Mario commercials

19 comments

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AuthorityFigure - August 14, 2012 6:01 p.m.

TWELVE hacks? That's a lot to get through. What about the best five or seven or something.
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DirkSteele1 - August 14, 2012 6:05 a.m.

Only completed Super Mario World on the SNES a few months ago. Think I might download a few of these, place them on one my SNES Flash carts and try playing them on original hardware sans any tool assists. Better start writing my obituary!
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EroticInvisibleMan - August 13, 2012 10:40 p.m.

>Not including any of the VIP hacks List invalidated.
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Ljrepresent - August 14, 2012 9:49 a.m.

Hadn't heard of those before; Youtube research proves they are indeed crazy, lol. Thanks for expanding my knowledge, yo!
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J-Fid - August 13, 2012 9:50 p.m.

Three tunes from the second-to-last video: Beware of the Forest's Mushrooms, Super Mario RPG Dr. Wily's Castle, Mega Man II Yoshi's Island, Super Mario World I know there were a lot more songs, but alas, I could only recognize three.
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TheNPC33 - August 13, 2012 9:03 p.m.

I can't even visually process that Item Abuse game. It seriously hurts to think about playing some of these.
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tehtimeisnow - August 13, 2012 7 p.m.

mario ganes suck and there destyroing the industy cuz we need a real innevation not mario cuz mario games r the same game over and over again and the grafics suck its rated e so people shuold just stay away from mario unless they want hte game industy to b destroyed
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IceBlueKirby - August 13, 2012 5:32 p.m.

Jesus Christ. I thought I was good at Mario games, but I wouldn't last a second in any of those hacks. (without assisting tools I mean) The Automatic Mario videos were really cool and enjoyable though.
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jackthemenace - August 13, 2012 5:30 p.m.

I quite enjoyed this, despite not being a big Mario fan. What'd be nice would be a similar one for Pokemon- recently, I started playing Flora Sky, and I find the original story's are far more interesting than just playing through the same 5 Generations that I've already played to death.
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Moondoggie1157 - August 13, 2012 4:27 p.m.

I really tried to enjoy these, but I couldn't. I think it's because Mario has always been about precise platforming, timing skill and what-not. To see levels that were made just from and for pure exploitation seems pointless. Now, if there were similar hacks in an open sandbox game, I might think otherwise. But I dunno, knowing that there was no skill involved (aside from a level editor) it kinda makes them worthless.
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Slider64 - August 13, 2012 3:41 p.m.

Is it just me or when you see TAS (Tool Assisted Speed-run) you immediately ignore everything about that video, they feel completely meaningless at that point and I just can't care.....hey were clearly cheating and ruining the point of this game....woo-hoo
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Darkhawk - August 13, 2012 3:53 p.m.

Agreed. There's absolutely zero skill involved in this whatsoever. How about some actual proper hacks?
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Ljrepresent - August 13, 2012 4:11 p.m.

They're more for entertainment than demonstrations of skill, methinks.
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Craza - August 13, 2012 8:20 p.m.

What you said. Most TASers will admit that they do it for fun and to entertain others, not to show off some sense of "skill". I think they're fun to watch myself, but I love good ole fashioned speedrunning more.
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Slider64 - August 14, 2012 3:02 a.m.

Its not just about the skill for me its just completely boring and pointless when you make TAS. My brain shuts off and is like this is fake and silly.I guess its a reaction people have to Professional Wrestling
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veryweirdguy - August 14, 2012 3:22 a.m.

Most games, especially early Marios, gives the player a series of rules and physics and asks them to use them to get through a level. TAS is just changing the rules, not comparing it to the normal game. As long as they're honest about using them, I see no problem. (It's not as if these levels are designed to be played without TAS.)
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Craza - August 15, 2012 3:09 p.m.

Well, I love watching videos of glitches and exploits of various video games both new and old, so that's probably a large part as to why. Plus, there's that small bit of amazement you feel after seeing one of your favorite childhood (Or present favorite) games that you struggled and toiled to beat for dozens of hours be completed in about 10-20 minutes. I watched Ocarina of Time be completely ripped apart once speedrunners discovered you could wrong warp from Dodongo's Cavern to escaping Ganondorf's castle while it crumbled. The game could be finished (From start to landing the final blow on Ganon) in less than 30 minutes, all as child Link. It was absolutely intriguing to watch the first few times, then it got old.
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tyler_14_420 - August 13, 2012 3:39 p.m.

I knew about the Nico Nico Douga auto-play but never the Quad-Level Jap-Rock one. Cool article!
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