I heard good things about this hack, and gave it a shot.

So, this hack does a few things I dislike. The top thing is that it changes enemy behavior so that most enemies will jump over koopa shells. I’m not sure why this was added. The koopa shell is one of Mario’s most reliable way of dispatching enemies, especially in groups, and this game is very generous with the enemies.

Next is custom bosses. I always appreciate the effort into making new bosses in SMW hacks, but they rarely work out very well. Their movements are usually too fast or sudden, no telegraphing at all, and their hit boxes are usually not easy to suss out, you can often get hit by them when jumping on their weak spot, so you can do everything right and still take damage. This is still true of this hack, though I will say these are some of the better custom bosses I’ve seen in a Mario World hack.

This hack has a mechanic that keeps Mario from falling to his death if you miss a jump, instead of dying, you lose your power up and get bounced upward, which is kind of nice, but A. That won’t help you if you fall from a point where you can’t make it back onto a platform. And B. This hack saves after every level, and it saves your life count between play sessions, which is good. So maybe this would have been best saved for a harder hack. This hack has very fair difficulty, save for a few of the bosses.

My only other complaint is that some of those hidden exits are a little too obtuse. Particularly the ones where you need to hit a P switch and then backtrack to find a platform where the key would normally fall before you even see it, or make those leaps of faith holding a key and hoping to find a keyhole over a bottomless pit.

Beyond all those complaints though, this is a SUPER solid hack. I think this has much better level design than even the original Super Mario World. It’s challenging but not to a degree that is more frustrating than fun. I also really dig the changes to the color pallet. I was never a fan of the original look of Super Mario World but these subtle tweaks go a long way.