Mario Adventure is a ROM hack for Super Mario Bros. 3. Actually, that's wrong. It's a fully-realized 2-D Mario game that only seems like a hack. It's that good, it's that ubiquitous, and it's the very first project that should come to mind when it comes to fan-made game mods. It was released in 2004, ancient by Internet standards, so there's a good chance that you may already have played it once or twice. Even so, it's such a well-developed and complete Mario experience that it still deserves to be brought up five years later. If you love classic Mario gameplay, you owe it to yourself to hunt down this ROM and plug it into your favorite NES emulator.


Epic battles such as this await

What makes Mario Adventure so good? It's all about the levels. The design and layout of the game's dozens of stages is clever and intuitive, satisfyingly difficult without being overly punishing. There are occasional times where you can feel like you're playing I Want To Be The Mario, with some portions that require guesswork or a leap of faith to overcome, but even these spots never come across as being cheap for their own sake. There are some areas where you'll have to dig deep into your Mario-playing lore to progress, a nice wink and nod to the game's target audience.


If you can figure out how to get out of here, you've done Mario proud

Like in SMB3, there are seven stages to traipse through before you get to Bowser's castle. The first five are faithful, well-worn archetypes- grassland, volcano, forest, ice/underwater, and outer space, all places you've been with Mario before, and all places with distinctive, unique terrain to cover. Worlds 6 and 7, however, are particularly worth notice.



World 6 is Colossal Classics, which remixes level designs from SMB1, SMB3 and the Lost Levels, and sends them all into Giant Land. The double-sized classic stages force you to find new ways to traverse familiar terrain, a quality of any good remake.


You're going to need bigger mushrooms

World 7 is Desert Dares, which puts an entirely new spin on the Mario experience. Awaiting you here are about three dozen mini-levels, each one requiring a clever trick, a specific path, or a distinct feat of platforming to complete. There are no instructions or hints to help you out, it's all up to you to find out if you need to limit your jumps or collect all the coins or do whatever else you need to complete the stage. You'll need a great deal of trial and error to pass this challenge. Good thing the game's way ahead of you on this one.


This one screen is the entire level. Good luck

If you've played any Mario game since Super Mario World, you know that the life count is a mere formality. A good player in any Mario game made in the past two decades can rack up extra lives in the triple digits before the end. So, Mario Adventure does what the main series needed to do a long time ago- ditches the 1up system altogether. Dying just sends you spiraling back to the beginning of the level, and you get as many lives as you need to complete each level. Coins are still as plentiful as they ever were, but now they're used to buy items at the Toad Houses.


Yes, Toad finally discovered capitalism

A few of the other mechanics have changed as well. Like in the Lost Levels, Piranha plants no longer always retreat into their pipes when you stand next to them, or even on top of them. Shyguys are back, but they now act exactly like Koopa Troopas, a good stomp turns them into kickable masks. The wandering Hammer Bros. on the map now take you to full stages loaded with all four brands of bros- the woefully-underused Fire Bros. well-represented among them, Most importantly, Boom-Boom has moved out of the fortresses and now awaits you at the end of nearly every level in the game. Thankfully, three quick stomps does the job as swiftly as it ever has.


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Like with any worthwhile Mario game, there's some new items at your disposal. The super mushroom, invincibility star, and raccoon leaf are joined by a few welcome additions to the classic arsenal.


- Flowers now turn you into Fire Fire Mario, an upgraded version of the classic power with higher jumps and straight-flying fireballs that pass through obstacles.
- There's also the invisibility hat from Mario 64, a curious addition to a 2D game. Clearly hacked from the Tanooki suit (you can still whack enemies with a tail that isn't there), this power-up lets you disappear behind the background of the stage, keeping you safe from enemy harm. Naturally, this ability is more useful in some places than others- it's a godsend in water stages but totally worthless in the air. It's one of Mario Adventure's roughest edges, but it's an easy one to overlook.
- Ever wonder what would happen if Mario kept one of those magic wands for himself? Then you'd get Magic Mario, whose super-powered stomps and star-shots make this powerup a solid stand-in for the fan-favorite Hammer Bros. suit. Unlike the classic outfit, however, this power-up takes three hits before it vanishes.
- Finally, there's Kuribo's f'n Shoe. It's back, it's as badass as you remember, and now it comes with you between levels. Who loves you, baby?


Cry some moar, Boom-Boom

Of course, Mario Adventure isn't without its faults. The difficulty is steep by modern standards, you'll need to be a pretty adept Mario 3 veteran to stand a chance. That you have to find a hidden key in each world to progress to World 8 is more aggravating than innovative, and the game's weather system – the graphics cycle from morning through night, and occasionally coat a level in rain or ice – is only as novel as it is annoying. Still, these are faults that would be forgivable for an official Nintendo release, let alone the work of a single programmer.


WTF, Mother Nature

That's right, this game is the work of only one person- DahrkDaiz, whose work here speaks for itself. Mario Adventure is the product of sixteen solid months of work, including coding on notebook paper while working at a fast-food restaurant. DahrkDaiz was at one point working on a sequel prominently featuring Luigi, but that work unfortunately remains unfinished to this day. Still, in a community where promising coders and projects vanish on a weekly basis, there's a quality finished product here for posterity, which is more than can be said for the great majority of fan-made games.

If you haven't had the pleasure of playing Mario Adventure yet, the ROM isn't hard to find. Just run a Google search, or click right hereand scroll to the end of the article for a link.