the mantras of Rao-
spake thee of equines...Viva!
La Revolución!
Additional Comments:
I believe this was one of the last, if not the last game I completed before I started Beat All Games. Doesn't count.... Damn!
Where to begin on this madness. I've always felt like ASMT is the Rolling Stones to SMWCP's Beatles - raw, drunken rock 'n roll that appears to be going nowhere and everywhere all at the same time. Quite possibly, ASMT is nothing more than a group of hoodlums mashing together a giant maelstrom of creativity. Trying to wrap your head around some of the abstract reconstructions of simple platforming is no better than trying to make sense of the bizarre guitar riffs and drumming techniques used by the Stones. Their music is so simple yet so baffling, exactly as it is with this game, er hack. I suppose the same could be said for any of the other initial entries among the various community hacks, but they've never felt as creatively rambunctious as Talkhaus' budding candidate.
For those outside the know, A Super Mario Thing, or ASMT, is exactly that - in the words of Raocow - a thing. There's really no better way to describe it. But if I've got to knuckle down and spell it out, it's yet another community hack of everyone's favorite SNES game, Super Mario World. Much like SMWCP or the various VIP and Walls, ASMT is a full blown reinvention of the wheel; in this case 'the wheel' being Super Mario World. Everything from basic Mario platforming to outrunning Gutsdozer to facing off against a danmakufu inspired Touhou boss and ducking a runaway subway can be found within. However, there's a catch. Mario's nowhere to be found. Neither are any of the known fauna of Dinosaur Land, or heck, the Mushroom Kingdom. Well, that's not entirely true. There are a few known miscreants thrown in there; most importantly the Yoshis and the various Chucks, er Charlies. But then their essential given the game is based on Raocow lore as opposed to Mario lore. In many respects, that may be the hardest pill to swallow of all - the fact that there is enough Raocow lore spat out from his endless gaming non sequiturs on YouTube or elsewhere that an entire game can be crafted. And unfortunately, if you're unfamiliar with Raocowology, as the game puts it, absolutely everything will either fly right over your head or sound like nothing more than a bunch of verbose and/or ill-written cheese.
Despite not being part of Something Awful, Talkhaus, or any other corner of the net Raocow may inhabit, I've seen enough of his stuff on YouTube to understand the silliness that is Raocow lore. It is that lore which has set the foundation for ASMT, and I find there is one defining aspect that is the glue that holds it all together: nonsense. Pure and simple nonsense - but not in a Dadaist aspect or a Pythonesque aspect even, but in his own fantastical realm of perverse gobbledygook. And so we have ASMT, and Demo, an alien cyclops on her quest to obtain vegetables for her impatient overlord only to find herself deep in the turmoil of war between dinosaur and footballer. We will trek across plains, through forests, deserts, monochrome chalk drawings, abstract tapestries of color, and Kanji-shaped structures the size of mountains. It all sounds perfectly reasonable. Wait, how did we get from Mario to this?
As far as collab hacks go, ASMT is my favorite based on creative out-of-the-box thinking but struggles to retain such laurels as emulation tools become a de facto necessity throughout. While the difficulty easily cripples the game from shining as a perfect gem, a majority of the levels are a marvel to experience. However, I can only point towards the innovation within the levels, but not the level design itself, which unfortunately suffers from a lot of claustrophobia, pixel perfect jumps, and flat out unfair setups. With each successive level, it's a guessing game as to what the next gimmick may be, and nearly everything taken from Super Mario World is open to interpretation. Of course, some ideas may have been brilliant on paper but somehow translated poorly. An Echoing Call comes to mind - love the idea, and rather like the look of the level, but the overall cramped conditions defeat the novel approach to precise physics. Not to mention, after the hundredth time being interrupted mid-jump by that stupid speaker box, the level loses all its charm.
Interestingly, the first time I played the game, I loved it, though I was incredibly frustrated at times - especially the Yoshi h4xor area in the final level that rings reminiscent of Rampage, not to mention various puzzles throughout the desert world. It was one of those games that after finishing it, I could only breathe easy that it was finally done. Whereas something like Kaizo Mario squeezed all of its frustration and agony into a few short levels, ASMT spread it out across a whole game and refused to let up. Still, my lasting memories of the game were high which more than anything drove me to return for inclusion in Beat All Games. I regret my decision markedly.
While I knew attempting the game toolless was a venture in futility, I had to know how far I could manage. Not very. What a pathetic player I am. But seriously, while I hate abusing tools in emulated play, I feel no remorse using tools on ASMT as nearly 100% of the level design is asinine when it comes to balancing appropriate difficulty. It's flat out stupid at times. But I think a lot of the difficulty could have been more than acceptable if the game made use of more checkpoints. Only issue is I'm fairly certain the ability to set up multiple checkpoints wasn't available at the time, so not exactly an option.
To say I regret my decision markedly may be a tad harsh though, or at least misconstrued. Yes, the level of frustration throughout the game is through the roof, even with tool abuse. But it's the Dark Cloud or Faxandu syndrome all over again. My original experience appears to have been exaggerated by time. Levels I once thought were fun quickly became strolls down abominable lane. More often than not, as I entered a level, I was suddenly smacked with the realization of, 'Oh crap! This level." I had to mentally prepare myself for certain levels. Levels like Overly Hot Beach, CURRENTS, Over There..., and Trial of Iron, especially the Gutsdozer room and the h4xor room sapped all of my mental energy. Seriously, fuck those two rooms in Trial of Iron! I had to question how I ever managed them in the first place.
It's next to impossible to argue the difficulty in this game, however, I believe I placed far more emphasis on difficulty than necessary for this playthrough. Since I always include dragon coin collecting in my SMW 100% stipulations, the challenge of completing the game is definitely increased. Compared to my first playthrough, I know there were several levels that turned up the heat once dragon coins were involved. That's still not to say my abusive use of tools would have subsided had I decided to neglect the quintuple set of tokens spread throughout each level.
I don't think it's worth discussing any of the music at length as a majority of it is ported from other games. However, the music choices are phenomenal and is definitely one of the highlights of the game. Something I do want to point out though is two "jokes" that really ruined the tone of the game. First, the Cat Planet paroxysm - I get it, I understand why it's there, but it serves no purpose. As far as so-called easter eggs pointing out Raocow themed folklore, his overjoyed excitability regarding Cat Planet just seems so out of place. Maybe it's just me. Probably is.
Nano-Rant:
But wait, didn't you say there were two disconcerting jokes? Ah yes, so I did.
The second "joke" is one of those eye-rolling moments - no, it's more than that. It's one of those moments that made me think the maturity level in this game just dipped below the lowest of the lows. It's the type of moment that makes you question if it's even worth playing any more as you have no desire to support such juvenile idiocy used purely for a cheap laugh. Why, oh why, is there a blatant drug joke? Why? ...? I'm lost for words over stupidity like this. It adds absolutely nothing to the game, especially in a game that has zero correlation to said joke to begin with. I'm...fuckin' aghast....and that's all I can say.
Rating: 4 reasonably priced pantsuits out of 5*
*Tough to grade but creativity pushed the numbers more than anything.
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