I’ve had a bit of a snobby attitude toward vanilla Super Mario World romhacks. I tend to only play the ones that have fancy new graphics and music so I can pretend I’m playing a new retail release. But I decided to give this one a try as it has a pretty good reputation.

I will say up front I had a great time with this hack. It really does kind of feel like more Super Mario World, like if Super Mario World had an expansion pack or something. There’s also some really clever ideas in this game, unlocking all the levels was very satisfying.

My one complaint is that a lot of the levels that aren’t that clever are painfully basic, like they’re very flat levels with a lot of enemies dropped in here and there and maybe some pipes to jump over. This is a problem the original Super Mario World had that kept it from being an improvement over Super Mario Bros. 3 in my book, so it’s disappointing when a hack does the same thing.

That being said, it’s not a huge offense and the more clever levels make up for it. So I would recommend this one to fans of Super Mario World who are looking for more content that doesn’t dip into Kaizo territory. I was able to complete this on my real Super Nintendo without saves, which is a benchmark for a well made hack in my book.