Mario's Return Again beta release

Hello. My name is Michael Stark. You might know me as an administrator on board2. Several years ago, I made a Mario World hack named "Mario's Return." While I liked the core of it, it had many flaws and could have been much better than it was. It also had a number of very odd glitches. I thought about showing it to some friends of mine about a month ago, but realized that there was just so much about it that was utterly ameteurish in terms of design... It would not have been very flattering for me. With that in mind, I tossed around the idea of going back through it and fixing up a few things from here to there. It didn't go anywhere for awhile, but at one point, I found spare time, and I set to work. It quickly developed beyond just making it a bit better; I wanted this to actually be something worth playing, rather than the forgettable trash that most ROM hacks end up as. I went through many levels, especially the most linear ones, and touched things up, adding a few extra paths and items here and there, and adjusted the difficulty curve to be in general more forgiving but basically just more consistent. I also completely remade a few parts which I just didn't like. One level in particular, Secret 3, was basically utter trash, and I replaced it completely. I went out of my way to find complaints about the previous release and address them. For various reasons, I couldn't address all of them, but I won't say I didn't do my damnedest. I also rewrote pretty much all the text in the game, as it was quite poor before. In addition to general touchups and making it suck less, I also added a small amount of completely new content. I added a new Big Boo fight to replace a Reznor fight in the secret path of the last fortress. Further, one of the most common things that people said is that there's no real 'reward' for getting everything. Now, however, completing the secret world grants a new final level, which is... Interesting. I like how the whole thing turned out, to be certain. Still, if you have played the original "Mario's Return" then there's not much that will surprise you - this is very much the same hack, it's just been polished. This is a beta not in the commonly-seen sense of "I want to show something off even though I'm not done," but rather in the professional sense of "I think this is done, but if testers find problems then I will address them before distributing the completed product." One thing in particular that you should keep in mind, however, is that this is very much a hack from 2006, and I have kept my old sensibilities. There's little ExGFX, and all graphics retain their simple, "everything is the same style, nothing is out of place in Mario World" aesthetic. I also am retaining the game's original music, because I like it, and I feel that it fits. There are a few custom sprites, but nothing made with Sprite Tool or what have you, because that tool was not available to me when I released the hack the first time. With that said... This hack contains 88 exits across 68 levels. Now then... Screenshots. And the IPS patch. Please feel free to give all criticism that you can. I crave that sort of thing. Without it, I can't improve my craft. This is, of course, the entire point of posting a "beta release" and not a "final release." I'm confident that people will find issues with this, or things that they simply feel could be improved. My intent is to make this the best that Mario's Return can be. Heaven made men for its own reason. Men respect men for their own sake.

Originally posted by army128 At the level, Mysterious Castle 1, the left message box is empty. Ah, thank you. Originally, there was text referring to a later secret, but that secret was replaced because I felt it was too obscure, so I dummied out the message box. However, I guess I forgot to delete the actual message box itself. I've uploaded a version that has this fixed. Heaven made men for its own reason. Men respect men for their own sake.

Originally posted by Ultimaximus The OW pics of Mario on "Harmony Island 2" and "Star World 1" show that those OWs are blatant edits of the original. Be creative and make your own, don't edit the existing ones. I'm sorry to be rude, but... I'm an actual programmer. On quite a few occasions I have worked with others to make actual videogames from scratch. This is just a simple side project for me. Oh, you don't program videogames? Why not? Be creative and make your own, don't edit the existing ones. Do you see how foolish that line of reasoning is? The overworld is perhaps the least important part of a hack. It does not affect how it plays. If I find something serviceable, then I see no reason to change it. Heaven made men for its own reason. Men respect men for their own sake.

It's fair to say they look similar, but you can't say that they're worse for it. Still, if you were to play the hack, I'm sure you would agree that they play quite differently, Star World in particular having very little in common with the original aside from being in the same shape. If you judge a book by its cover, you miss out on pertinent information, the kind that cannot be conveyed in simple screenshots... Heaven made men for its own reason. Men respect men for their own sake.

Originally posted by FirePhoenix ultimaximus: The problem here is that this hack was made a number of years ago, under a different set of standards for SMW Hacking. Nobody minded if your Overworld was similar to the original. When judging a hack, try to take into account when it was created and what the standards might have been back then. I would prefer it if I was not defended based on the merit of past standards. Rather, I want this to stand on its own merit now. I intentionally wanted this to feel very similar to the original Mario World - it is a stylistic choice. That is why the graphics look the way they do, in a similar style to old - not because my hack is from many years ago, but because that was my choice from the beginning. I had the ability to use more graphics, better graphics even, but I didn't because they did not fit my vision, as they still do not. The overworld is constructed similarly, and everything about it is designed to evoke the feeling of the old Mario World's overworld. I simply do not see how this is a bad thing. In fact, I actually believe that I did a better job at this than one might think. Here's a comparison image. I actually did make the Harmony Isle area itself on its own, I did not do a simple edit. The peak area happens to sync up, which is an interesting coincidence, but for the most part it is simply inspired by the original, and has more differences than it first appears to have. Heaven made men for its own reason. Men respect men for their own sake.

So here's a few things that have come up. This is exactly how it is in the currently uploaded version, it merely occurred to me that it was odd that I didn't have any shots of either of the levels not featured in the original Mario's Return. This is an autoscrolling level, and those are normally pretty boring, but those green blocks are stationary and kind of dynamically affect the stage as it moves, so it's more interesting. This is actually a massive update of a level in a hack that I made before Mario's Return. That hack was mostly awful, but I always kind of liked this idea. ____________________________________________ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ It might not be the easiest thing in the world to tell, but the message blocks are now shaded like other blocks. The question mark is also smaller, though it still noticeably stands out from that used on question blocks (as it should). ____________________________________________ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ The status bar here was slightly screwed up (or, more than it's supposed to be). Now it looks as it should. ____________________________________________ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Also, I fixed the animation pause on the bottoms and tape of midway points (a problem which existed in the original Mario World). Not really sure why I didn't get to that earlier, since it's a trivial fix. ____________________________________________ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ <~blackhole89> Luccara Cemetery: Too easy as a whole. Probably the shortest level to beat so far, and I found the secret ending before the regular one by just going to the right and following what seemed like it was made to be followed <%Stark> Cemetery being easy I'm ambivalent about <%Stark> I could definitely make it longer though So that level was updated with additional content. Kind of doesn't make sense to post screenshots, though, since the graphical style there has already been shown off and coherent design is kind of difficult to represent in screenshots. ____________________________________________ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Speaking of updated design, some of the more common complaints with the last version were that 'Blaze Caverns' was boring and linear and that 'Dark Cemetery' was extremely repetitive. I've addressed these problems to some extent in the beta release, but there's more I'm doing for the final now that I realize it's necessary. 'Blaze Caverns 2' is getting a lot more sections to it, because right now it's both very long and very linear. I would just scrap it, but I kind of like the base level there, it's just wildly in need of improvements. 'Dark Cemetery 2' is being scrapped and replaced with something completely different, because out of the areas of 'Dark Cemetery' it's by far the most linear, and it's also right in the middle, so a change there will be the most noticed. I'll probably post screenshots of the new 'Dark Cemetery 2' when it's completed, because it'll likely be sufficiently different that it'll be worth posting about. ____________________________________________ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Again, if anyone playing through the beta has any problems with design, I'd like to know about them, so that they can be addressed. Even if it's mostly good but a few things just kind of bug you, I'd still like to know. After all, the little things are the easiest to design. Heaven made men for its own reason. Men respect men for their own sake.