Akogare Mario World by Mega
When I began my journey in playing Kaizo in 2020, Akogare Mario World was one of the first hacks that was recommended to me. I knew this hack wouldn't be a cake walk, but I also knew that if I wanted to be a better SMW player, then playing and beating Akogare was one of the best ways to grow. Now, six years after its release, it remains one of the most recommended hacks I know of, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Akogare's clean vanilla design, easy to read setups, and simple yet elegant aesthetics helped forge a standard of hacks that we continue to see being made 6 years later. Beyond its designs, however, Akogare also helped introduce and popularize easier Kaizo hacks; hacks that would still prove a challenge, but could help players level themselves up, and ones that experienced Kaizo players can complete within a day or two.
Mega's hack helped to define a generation of players, and a generation of hacks following in its footsteps. I sincerely hope Akogare continues to be recommended to new players for many years to come. No matter if you're brand new to Kaizo, or have been playing for years, I would still encourage you to heed Mega's advice: Do try to have fun and remember to enjoy yourself.
Java
Akogare's clean vanilla design, easy to read setups, and simple yet elegant aesthetics helped forge a standard of hacks that we continue to see being made 6 years later. Beyond its designs, however, Akogare also helped introduce and popularize easier Kaizo hacks; hacks that would still prove a challenge, but could help players level themselves up, and ones that experienced Kaizo players can complete within a day or two.
Mega's hack helped to define a generation of players, and a generation of hacks following in its footsteps. I sincerely hope Akogare continues to be recommended to new players for many years to come. No matter if you're brand new to Kaizo, or have been playing for years, I would still encourage you to heed Mega's advice: Do try to have fun and remember to enjoy yourself.
Java
Gaijin Mario by Morsel
It's such a good level. I absolutely don't buy the hate it gets; because, even as a disaster teenager with zero kaizo experience, I was able to beat it and love it. The way those disparate setups get glued together so seamlessly is insane. It feels great to gradually lock into coordinated movements through the unindicated, open-ended terrain. Being able to scout ahead on a failed run and envision the mushroom's movement broke my little mind back then. This mushroom escort showed me a beautiful new world of sadism - one of obscurity, tasteful complexity, and Rube-Goldberg-esque wonder. It put me in a kaizo frenzy that lasted four entire years. And that's just the second level. Whew.
(I did eventually beat the rest of the hack, by the way.)
Anyway, serious mode now. I'm not here to tell you Gaijin Mario invented that sort of design, because it didn't. There's plenty of older, equally great hacks that I could've had that same revelatory experience with. But, oddly enough, its indebtedness to other hacks is precisely what makes Gaijin Mario special - or more precisely, how openly it declares that indebtedness. Each gameplay gimmick is introduced alongside a message box telling you what hack and level it was taken from - not in the credits or in the readme file, but right then and there in the game, unavoidably baked into the core of the hack. That's extremely rare to see, even in contemporary hacks. Much digital ink has been spilled about originality in SMW hacks, but regardless of your stance on the matter, you've got to appreciate Gaijin Mario: here, we have a hack that handles homage in the most honest, straightforward, and unpretentious way possible.
And we could leave it at that. But if you compare Morsel's levels to their original counterparts, you'll find that they are far from the direct adaptations you might expect. He has iterated on their ideas in remarkably fruitful ways, to the point that his rigorous attribution might seem amusingly cautious (some hacks could certainly use this level of transparency, but this one?). It goes to show that successful inspiration-taking is oftentimes less about recreating what's good about the source material and more about realizing how much untapped potential lies just out of reach of the original work.
Lazy
Hackers Dreams: Pipe Dream by anonymousbl00dlust
There's an old saying, “restriction breeds creativity.”
Some time in 2020, I was watching anonymousbl00dlust play an early version of Let's Give Up, when he got stuck on a level. After some discussion, we realized it was because he didn't know that you could turn around while flying by pressing the other run button.
There were slim pickings for cape kaizo in 2018. 2015's Super Panga World by Linkdeadx2 had set the standard. “Linkdead's Castle” condensed into one level all the cape skills that the author commanded as a world-class runner of a Super Mario World cape category, and then some. Subsequent cape kaizo levels tended to follow the same formula: fly through a tunnel, slow down, speed up, fly over or under some obstacles, do a sticky fly. Sometimes there was a tight spinfly section.
The other notable mention is the only cape hack in existence at the time: 2015's Volpey's Friend by pogyo. Though very innovative and technical, its emphasis on mastering vanilla turnaround turned off most kaizo players and it was instead embraced by a few members of the vanilla Super Mario World speedrunning community, from which pogyo also hails.
Given his influences, it is perhaps no surprise that anon's cape level was like nothing before it. While kaizo hackers in the mid-2010s were influenced primarily by Takemoto's original trilogy, anon drew inspiration from a diverse assortment of hacks such as Michael Nguyen's Super Mario World: The Master Courses, the VIP series, and worldpeace's Cool or Cruel.
anon told me that one of his goals for Pipe Dream was to enable movement arcs not normally possible with cape. Without using cape turnarounds, but instead a combination of screen-scrolling pipes and blocks which give Mario flight-invented specifically for the second half of the level-he blew open cape kaizo by showing us the spectacular new kinds of movement and setups that were possible with only a modest amount of but very clever use of ASM. It became possible to have a dense set of obstacles with seamless transitions into and out of flight state, without forcing the player to run around on the ground to refill their flight meter.
Pipe Dream's impact on the genre was swift. In 2019, the year after its release, CarlSagan42 released Fly Me to the Stars, the first full-length cape kaizo hack, with heavy influence from Pipe Dream. Then, in 2020, I released Let's Give Up, with Pipe Dream also one of its major influences. And, judging by the number of people who have asked me for the flight blocks from Let's Give Up-which I made to mimic the ones in Pipe Dream-this list is likely to grow.
BeeKaay
Some time in 2020, I was watching anonymousbl00dlust play an early version of Let's Give Up, when he got stuck on a level. After some discussion, we realized it was because he didn't know that you could turn around while flying by pressing the other run button.
There were slim pickings for cape kaizo in 2018. 2015's Super Panga World by Linkdeadx2 had set the standard. “Linkdead's Castle” condensed into one level all the cape skills that the author commanded as a world-class runner of a Super Mario World cape category, and then some. Subsequent cape kaizo levels tended to follow the same formula: fly through a tunnel, slow down, speed up, fly over or under some obstacles, do a sticky fly. Sometimes there was a tight spinfly section.
The other notable mention is the only cape hack in existence at the time: 2015's Volpey's Friend by pogyo. Though very innovative and technical, its emphasis on mastering vanilla turnaround turned off most kaizo players and it was instead embraced by a few members of the vanilla Super Mario World speedrunning community, from which pogyo also hails.
Given his influences, it is perhaps no surprise that anon's cape level was like nothing before it. While kaizo hackers in the mid-2010s were influenced primarily by Takemoto's original trilogy, anon drew inspiration from a diverse assortment of hacks such as Michael Nguyen's Super Mario World: The Master Courses, the VIP series, and worldpeace's Cool or Cruel.
anon told me that one of his goals for Pipe Dream was to enable movement arcs not normally possible with cape. Without using cape turnarounds, but instead a combination of screen-scrolling pipes and blocks which give Mario flight-invented specifically for the second half of the level-he blew open cape kaizo by showing us the spectacular new kinds of movement and setups that were possible with only a modest amount of but very clever use of ASM. It became possible to have a dense set of obstacles with seamless transitions into and out of flight state, without forcing the player to run around on the ground to refill their flight meter.
Pipe Dream's impact on the genre was swift. In 2019, the year after its release, CarlSagan42 released Fly Me to the Stars, the first full-length cape kaizo hack, with heavy influence from Pipe Dream. Then, in 2020, I released Let's Give Up, with Pipe Dream also one of its major influences. And, judging by the number of people who have asked me for the flight blocks from Let's Give Up-which I made to mimic the ones in Pipe Dream-this list is likely to grow.
BeeKaay
Il Maniero Spettrale (Halloween 2018 Version) by Duraner Hawkeye, RednGreen, and Stormkyleis
Il Maniero Spettrale's overall design is a ghost house maze where the player is tasked to find the souls of the others who have tried to solve the labyrinth. There are 3 different endings depending on how many souls the player finds. The hack exhibits some cool ASM that was definitely inspired by other “metroidvanias” - the highlight being a room where the player plays piano. The level design has a really great loop and puzzles that are at the right level of difficulty for a quick 30-minute jaunt through a damn near perfect Standard: Normal experience. Graphically, the hack is enticing: a pleasure to look at, and very well-themed. A completely original score of five ports by RednGreen rounds out a fantastic experience that I cannot recommend enough. It is a perfect intersection of level design, graphics, and music that any hack player should thoroughly enjoy.
I was very happy to discover this and play it for the first time. I played it in 2024 and it holds up so well. Just simply, an extraordinary experience of a well-crafted hack that I am proud to offer up for induction into the SMWCentral Hall of Fame.
cardboardcell
Invictus by juzcook
Quite possibly one of the best and biggest examples of custom mechanics - or “chocolate” to the base engine's “vanilla” - in a kaizo hack, Invictus is a triumph that heralded the modern era of Super Mario World hacking. juzcook's experiences in the Mario community became a perfect storm of influences for Invictus. He came up in the old days of the foundational vanilla hacks like Dram World and Panga World and was hailed as one of the best kaizo players. At the same time, he was enamored with the new style of level creation happening in Super Mario Maker, as well as innovations happening in the SMW hacking community with influential works like Morsel's Storks and Apes and Crocodiles and idol's 2018 Kaizo Level Design Contest entry, “Hyperousia.”
The last sentence of the opening message of Invictus is well known at this point: “Chocolate makes everything better.” But it's talking about addition and not replacement. Invictus still feels like Mario. The tight platforming and solid fundamentals of vanilla hacks are enhanced with smart addition of custom mechanics here. It's not that the screen wrapping of “Biohazard” is so cool, it's that the level is designed around it to make the movement and jumping fundamentals give the player the feeling that they're doing something cool. The switching in “Stellar” is a neat trick, but the level itself is built on a foundation of the old, Ultra Star-type levels that started in Kaizo Mario World, and the result is brilliant and fresh because of it.
My two kaizo pals and I, who started learning how to play kaizo together, viewed Invictus as the benchmark to reach because it represents how everything is possible in the world of kaizo. And so would it be for us if we beat it.
SilentSnake20
The last sentence of the opening message of Invictus is well known at this point: “Chocolate makes everything better.” But it's talking about addition and not replacement. Invictus still feels like Mario. The tight platforming and solid fundamentals of vanilla hacks are enhanced with smart addition of custom mechanics here. It's not that the screen wrapping of “Biohazard” is so cool, it's that the level is designed around it to make the movement and jumping fundamentals give the player the feeling that they're doing something cool. The switching in “Stellar” is a neat trick, but the level itself is built on a foundation of the old, Ultra Star-type levels that started in Kaizo Mario World, and the result is brilliant and fresh because of it.
My two kaizo pals and I, who started learning how to play kaizo together, viewed Invictus as the benchmark to reach because it represents how everything is possible in the world of kaizo. And so would it be for us if we beat it.
SilentSnake20
NOT SO SADISTIC MARIO by lolyoshi
Not So Sadistic Mario looks towards old Japanese hacks and “vanilla” Mario games for inspiration, and it delivers some of the most creative movement in any standard hack of 2018. A good standard hack, no matter the difficulty, should look at Mario's movement and jump geometries and create a design in which these mechanics are presented as choices to the player in real time. These branches of movements are strung together in engaging ways, allowing players to remain active throughout the entirety of a level. Lolyoshi is perhaps the best at this in our community, and Not So Sadistic Mario is a bite-sized example of that prowess. Some might be turned off by its aggressively vanilla aesthetics and design, but that is the kind of hack I love.
This hack has meant a lot to me personally, it was the first Standard: Very Hard hack I ever played back in 2018 - and it was my introduction to my favorite creator in the community. It is a real honor to be the one writing this little induction piece for a game that has meant so much to me. If you think vanilla and “traditional” standard hacks are boring, I implore you to play this hack and see how wrong you are.
cardboardcell
Quickie World by Valdio
Before Quickie World, new Kaizo players were greeted with an intimidating prospect: the landmark hacks available for them to test their chops on were extremely difficult and unforgiving. It was the era of "A-hole Mario,”' and Kaizo (perhaps a bit deservedly) was stuck within the perception of being cruel and sadistic. Nonetheless, players were conquering hacks like Takemoto's Kaizo Mario World and Panga's Dram World, and finding they contained much more than just "unfair garbage." New folks wanted in on the action, but the road up the mountain of skill was often perilous, cryptic, and unassailable. One of those new players was Valdio, who would go on to help bring about a new era in Kaizo itself.
Already an accomplished musician, Valdio had immediately recognized the artistry possible within SMW Kaizo. He also recognized the challenges new players face when learning such difficult games. Quickie World was designed from the start to act as an entry point for new players. It seemed almost paradoxical - an "easy impossible" game, but Quickie World resolves this paradox beautifully. Valdio's level design isolates the important basic skills in Kaizo, and presents them as entertaining, creative challenges: cool action and fair opportunities to learn, instead of trolls and unfair setups. Combined with an excellent custom soundtrack and polished graphics, the game became an instant hit. Nothing quite like this had ever been attempted before; suddenly, interested new Kaizo players had a point of entry.
The impact of Quickie World is still being felt today. It is something close to a rite of passage for new players to complete the game, struggling for a bit on the infamous "Sawrfing Castle". New players, encouraged by their success, began to gravitate toward skill and artistry in their level designs. To date, Quickie World has the most submissions of any Kaizo game on speedrun.com, and DécioSpeedMaster's record is one of the most flawless, optimized runs in all of Kaizo. At AGDQ 2015, Dram55 showed the world the beauty and fun of Kaizo with his run of Kaizo Mario World. At AGDQ 2019, four years after he inspired a generation, Dram sat next to Valdio on the couch at AGDQ 2019, to watch the race of a hack that he had inspired.
There are certain landmark works in every art form that become unavoidable to anyone venturing even slightly inward. One can't explore classic literature without hearing names like Dickens or Poe, nor can one explore classic rock without hearing about Hendrix or Zeppelin. Aspiring artists all look at Van Gogh and da Vinci. It's almost impossible to get into video games without hearing about Super Mario Bros., and it's just as impossible to get into Kaizo without hearing about Quickie World. It is a unanimously-agreed-upon classic that boldly reshaped the medium into something greater than what had come before it, and will likely remain a staple of the Kaizo genre forever.
GlitchCat7
Already an accomplished musician, Valdio had immediately recognized the artistry possible within SMW Kaizo. He also recognized the challenges new players face when learning such difficult games. Quickie World was designed from the start to act as an entry point for new players. It seemed almost paradoxical - an "easy impossible" game, but Quickie World resolves this paradox beautifully. Valdio's level design isolates the important basic skills in Kaizo, and presents them as entertaining, creative challenges: cool action and fair opportunities to learn, instead of trolls and unfair setups. Combined with an excellent custom soundtrack and polished graphics, the game became an instant hit. Nothing quite like this had ever been attempted before; suddenly, interested new Kaizo players had a point of entry.
The impact of Quickie World is still being felt today. It is something close to a rite of passage for new players to complete the game, struggling for a bit on the infamous "Sawrfing Castle". New players, encouraged by their success, began to gravitate toward skill and artistry in their level designs. To date, Quickie World has the most submissions of any Kaizo game on speedrun.com, and DécioSpeedMaster's record is one of the most flawless, optimized runs in all of Kaizo. At AGDQ 2015, Dram55 showed the world the beauty and fun of Kaizo with his run of Kaizo Mario World. At AGDQ 2019, four years after he inspired a generation, Dram sat next to Valdio on the couch at AGDQ 2019, to watch the race of a hack that he had inspired.
There are certain landmark works in every art form that become unavoidable to anyone venturing even slightly inward. One can't explore classic literature without hearing names like Dickens or Poe, nor can one explore classic rock without hearing about Hendrix or Zeppelin. Aspiring artists all look at Van Gogh and da Vinci. It's almost impossible to get into video games without hearing about Super Mario Bros., and it's just as impossible to get into Kaizo without hearing about Quickie World. It is a unanimously-agreed-upon classic that boldly reshaped the medium into something greater than what had come before it, and will likely remain a staple of the Kaizo genre forever.
GlitchCat7
The Search for Salmon by GlitchCat7
Difficulty is a slippery subject when it comes to kaizo. Once-feared hacks become overlooked in favor of newer, more challenging experiences or simply through the passage of time and completion by many outstanding players. Few things remain audacious goals: Kaizo Mario World 3's Bowser and Casio Mario World come to mind. But, like these two examples, something sticks out about The Search for Salmon; it still holds a place of reverence in the minds of those who haven't experienced the unique and enjoyable—though yes very challenging—levels of a (vanilla!) hack that set the standard for difficult, precise, input-heavy kaizo.
Let's not glide past how this flag-bearing really influenced what was to come. Much of what can be considered “German kaizo”—a category marked by long, tight sections with lots of difficult setups—can trace their lineage to The Search for Salmon. Nothing would be quite what it is now without the cat that is this hack clawing at those who approached. A scratch in exchange for the knowledge of how to likewise attack? Let it not be said there is no magic in romhacking, for we may have been mistaken all this time.
I spent 127 hours beating The Search for Salmon in 2019; it was something like my thirteenth kaizo hack. I too have earned the right to try to go beyond, yet, despite my attempts, I have been unable to. This hack remains a masterclass in good, difficult kaizo, which you should give a chance if you're feeling up to it.
shovda
stick mice in my head and then beat my head in with a hammer and let them back out by JUMP Team, idol
SMW Central is special because of the amount that each of us contributes to making, and playing, some really cool things. It's easy to take that for granted at times, but when we stop and really look at some of the amazing work being done, sometimes all we can do is celebrate it. During the 2018 Winter C3, JUMP Team (with idol's direction) did just that: it took a small part of what the 2018 Winter C3 had to offer (lx5's powerups! Custom boos! Amazing ports! butt.smc!), and began to make a showcase hack. Two weeks and one convoluted name later, the community received what would come to be referred to in shorthand as mice.
Mice is, simply, an absolute joy. It knows it is giving the player something they likely have never seen before, and so it uses each of its elements from snout to tail. Whether it's a custom powerup that you have never seen before or an enemy you had no concept of, each level in mice is a new chance to smile. All of this culminates in a true test for the player, but a test they have been building to the entire time. Along the way, the colors are bright and cheery, the music is engaging, and everything just feels fun (yes, everything. Even that level. You know the one).
Personally, I will always associate this hack with the grin it put on my face when I first played it. For the first time since starting to play SMW hacks, I felt like I was a kid, unaware of what was coming next and reacting to everything with delight and amazement. It's not only a testament to the immense level design skills of JUMP Team, but to each and every member of our community who comes here to share what they've made with the world.
BD_PhDX
Mice is, simply, an absolute joy. It knows it is giving the player something they likely have never seen before, and so it uses each of its elements from snout to tail. Whether it's a custom powerup that you have never seen before or an enemy you had no concept of, each level in mice is a new chance to smile. All of this culminates in a true test for the player, but a test they have been building to the entire time. Along the way, the colors are bright and cheery, the music is engaging, and everything just feels fun (yes, everything. Even that level. You know the one).
Personally, I will always associate this hack with the grin it put on my face when I first played it. For the first time since starting to play SMW hacks, I felt like I was a kid, unaware of what was coming next and reacting to everything with delight and amazement. It's not only a testament to the immense level design skills of JUMP Team, but to each and every member of our community who comes here to share what they've made with the world.
BD_PhDX
Super Mario Bros. 1X by Koyuki
This might be one of the more influential standard hacks ever - these kinds of hacks let other creators know that this kind of level design is a viable option. I maybe did not realize how influential this hack was to my tastes until I replayed it in 2024 before doing this write-up. I imagine it has been important to many others as well and I think it shows by not only its nomination but also its inclusion in the 2018 class for the Hall of Fame. Koyuki really grew from his first attempt at this style, SMB3X. Everything SMB3X does well, SMB1X does better. It's a real testament of an evolving and hard working creator.
This hack is also special because it is probably a good first hack to play. It can be the gateway to this weird little community we have created. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it is probably one of the only hacks in the 2018 class that could be accessible to newer players, the other one being Il Maniero Spettrale. If you haven't played many hacks, I would recommend this one in a heartbeat, and even if you have there is still so much fun to be had - a rare gem that can enthrall the newest and most veteran players.
cardboardcell & lolyoshi