A new ROM hack that represents “nearly three years” of work has just been released for Super Mario World, giving players a challenging new adventure to play through.
Simpatico is the result of a collaboration between the hackers BigRedBoy and RealBChin (with additional help from Stivi) and follows Mario’s brother Luigi as he sets off on an adventure with his arch-rival Waluigi in tow.
In the hack, players will travel across a colourful overworld hopping from level to level (with 27 exits in total), with the overall objective of each stage being to solve a bunch of puzzles and then lure Waluigi through various obstacles without him being able to touch Luigi. This requires a ton of precise movements from the player, as Waluigi will not only try to catch up to them to issue a kiss of death but will also copy your inputs — albeit with a slight delay.
The creators describe the hack as “A fun, light-hearted adventure between two estranged pals”, with the story apparently focusing on the dysfunctional relationship between Luigi and Waluigi.
As things stand, we’ve only played a very small section of the hack so far, but some of the things that immediately stood out to us from the first level, include its references to other Nintendo games like Donkey Kong Country 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the presence of a playable console featuring a simple NES-style platformer, and the appearance of Captain Toad in the role of a helpful NPC.
If this at all sounds appealing to you, you can download the patch now from SMWCentral.