Mario hacks seemingly all too often devolve into trial-and-error “kaizo” gameplay, which is a style of game-design that I don’t enjoy, and so I usually stay away from them. However, because I always enjoy a good holiday-themed hack, I decided to take a chance and try out Green Jerry’s Super Mario World hack, The Hunt for the Chocolate Egg, and I’m glad that I did.

The Hunt for the Chocolate Egg is a short but sweet Easter-themed hack, which sees Mario engaging in an Easter Egg hunt in order to go and challenge Larry Koopa, who has stolen a large chocolate egg from him.

The game takes place across a single world, and you are tasked with finding 15 small decorated eggs, which will then grant you access to the final stage and the face-off against Larry. The level-design is fun and fair, though it does expect you to have played Super Mario World and know a couple of tricks from that. It is made clear early on that differently-coloured coins indicate that something is hidden nearby (I can only think of one spot in the game where this isn’t the case), so you’re never without direction on where you should look next for those elusive eggs!

The soundtrack is composed of music from other games, but it’s mostly from Yoshi’s Island, and this goes surprisingly nicely with the bright and cheery Super Mario World-style visuals - though it might throw you off if you’ve played a lot of those two titles. I was also surprised to hear a tune from Kirby Super Star on the title screen.

The entire game is well-presented and well-polished, and I found it to be an enjoyable experience throughout. If you like platformers (or Super Mario World in particular), holiday-themed hacks, short-but-sweet games, or all of the above, The Hunt for the Chocolate Egg is well worth adding to your library.

I tested this game in the versions of RetroPie for both the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and the Raspberry Pi Zero W, and it worked as it should with both.