User blog:A, Mori/Super Mario: Canto 34 - Kaizo Mario World 3 Playthrough

before playing it
Before I played this, I knew so little about it. For Kaizo Mario World, I'd seen playthroughs of it on YouTube, and it was pretty famous, so I knew what to expect. Though Kaizo Mario World was less popular, I still had seen a bit of it in YouTube playthroughs thanks to the Beard Bros., who played it. But for Kaizo Mario World 3? I knew pretty much nothing about it, except that it existed, and was made by the same person who made the other two. However, I got some pointers from a friend of mine who's a bit into speedrunning, and I got to learn more about it.

Takemoto apparently gave a lot of information on this one, writing little stories for each level, about why he created them, what they were based off of, and other related things. There also existed a translated version of the game, so I was able to read the text boxes that Takemoto put in instead of just having to look at the additional notes not included in the game, but both were a great touch.

Though it had taken several sessions troughout a couple of weeks, I was able to beat the first two games without using save states. However, for Kaizo Mario World 3, sources say that only three people are confirmed to have beaten the entire game without cheats, glitches, or save states. If I were to do this, I would be on a list of people that you could count on a single hand. The thought was a bit exciting. But, I had no idea how hard it would truly be to do this.

With my other playthroughs, I was, usually, able to complete more than one level in a single sitting. However, with this, each level (aside from the levels where you only had to do one thing to win, obviously) all got their own sitting because I had to take so much time beating them. Some levels even took SEVERAL different sittings for me to complete... especially... that one level...

Intro
In the very intro, you have the potential to die. You're blocked off from everything to the sides, there's a bottomless pit under you that you're going to fall into, and a Thwomp is coming down.

Now, for the average player, it's easy to get stuck on this perhaps forever, but I'd seen this before. The previous two games had similar death intros. I don't remember which one this was, because the intros to the three were all pretty similar, but I'm pretty sure this one was just, I hugged a wall side and spin jumped, managing to push Mario from under the Thwomp to above it, allowing him to survive long enough for the intro to end and the game to begin. It might've also been that I duck so that the Thwomp could be avoided just long enough, I'm not sure.

Wakayama
Immediately, a Pokio falls down and blocks your path. So you have to start running right out of the gate to avoid it. Then, note blocks that lead you into a bunch of bullets that shoot and kill you. But you have to use the bullets to get over to a platform. And then throw a Koopa shell at a block with a vine in it to get up to a dangerous upper area that hides, a P switch, which is used to progress past a bunch of brown blocks to a midway point. After that, you need to get perfect timing with a mole that jumps out of the ground so that you can reach a platform higher up, then you need to get perfect timing with hitting a ? block to make an unreachable kicked Koopa shell hit a ? block above it, so that said ? block hits another unreachable kicked Koopa shell, so that THAT Koopa shell hits a ? block above it, so that it releases a Yoshi egg, which can then be used to walk on the Munchers blocking the way forward. Then, after jumping off the Yoshi a bit later for height, you need to make a String Bean jump up to a platform, then a few jumps off of note blocks, then, the goal post is above Mario. There's a hallway you need to go down, then at the end of the hallway, there's a surprise when several bullet bills shoot out of the right side of the screen. So, you run back, avoiding the bullet bills, and then you have to jump on one of them to get the height needed to get to the goal tape. To top it all off, there are munchers and pipes all over the level, making moving around a lot harder, and, in especially annoying areas, a few Charging Chucks-- but these Charging Chucks throw baseballs that kill you when they hit you. They're not a common enemy in SMW, and it's obvious why; Just one of them on a bouncy section can make things ridiculously hard, especially with the added RNG of them changing the rate of throwing the baseballs depending on your height reltive to them at the moment. If there's more than one Baseball-throwing Chuck, though, then it stops being Mario and suddenly becomes a Bullet Hell game.

Now, this level certainly wasn't the hardest level of the hack-- not by a longshot-- but it gives some real perspective about the difficulty of the entire hack. This one level is, in my opinion, harder than any level in Super Mario World. Still just my opinion, but it's harder than any level in any Mario game, perhaps, even more difficult than Champion's Road. That is the theme of this game. Great difficulty. Champion's Road-tier difficulty in the beginning of the game. And I don't consider myself some sort of novice in Mario-- I mean, I've beaten the previous ROM hacks, so this truly is no joke. But even future levels in the hack make this one look like a joke in comparison.

THIS IS CURRENTLY A WIP

I want to write about my entire experience through the game in more detail, and, well, it's taken me over an entire week's worth of time to complete it, as well as compile the footage, so I'll have to look back through it so I can not only describe the detials of my experience from memory, but also through observation of what happened through the footage so I can do it more justice.