Retro Gaming Life returns with another retro platforming battle!
This clip features a boss fight against a giant Piranha Plant in New Super Mario World 2, a fan-made SNES hack inspired by Super Mario World.
The oversized plant lunges from the pipes while Mario tries to dodge and strike back in this classic-style castle fight.
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Super Mariomon was really good. Sprites looked amazing and it perfectly combined the lighthearted plot and feel of a Mario game with the Pokemon formula. The humor was good, but inconsistent. It wanted to be a Mario story, but it also wanted to be a metahumor silly references story. I think if the metahumor was toned down in the last half, or greatly increased in the first half, I overall would have enjoyed it more. Definitely worth a play though, it is a fantastic romhack.
So been playing a hack called fire emblem sacred stones reforged and I got this character that got added in and it seems like she’s a Trainee class like Ross is and I might give her an item added called a secret scroll that boost all growth rates (shown in the third image) by 5%
Kurisu’s NDS hacks have been updated!
Update (v1.2) for Moemon Black 2/White 2 Vanilla+
Update (v1.5) for Moemon Platinum Vanilla+
Update (v1.5) for Moemon HeartGold and SoulSilver Vanilla+
They include changed sprites and bug fixes. To see a full list of changes, join our Discord!
New Super Mario World 2 (SNES ROM Hack) 🍄
This gameplay video showcases a fun and polished ROM hack that builds on the legendary Super Mario World. New stages, classic controls, and beautiful 16-bit visuals make this a must-play for retro fans.
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Never tried out crt filters before, but it’s a pretty good time!
Courtesy of ShaderGlass and the CRT Royale NTSC SVideo filter in particular.
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LIPService is a series that puts a spotlight on notable ROM hacks and fan works.
A total conversion hack built upon Super Metroid, Super Junkoid takes the mechanics of its base game and creates a new game out of it by radically altering the context and aesthetics of all its parts. Bosses, abilities and sounds are reused, but by remixing their placements and artwork Super Junkoid creates its own original adventure that uses the player’s familiarity with the original work to create an uncanny atmosphere.
The story begins with a young girl named Junko saving a snake from dying in the sun. Becoming obsessed with her, the snake follows her everywhere, eventually even into her dreams, where it worships Junko as a goddess, and creates a dream realm dedicated to her, trapping her within.The game begins with her waking up, her bed mysteriously caught in the middle of snowy forest scene.
Super Junkoid carries the vibe of an RPG Maker horror game. It begins with mundane environments like snowy mountains and distant cityscapes. As you descend deeper it evolves into disturbing temples dedicated to Junko, lakes of blood, haunted laboratories and the labyrinthine guts. The obsession of the snake grows clearer as you descend, going so far as to attempt to replicate her, with mangled duplicates of Junko populating its depths.
Junko herself is rendered as a cute young girl, a magic wand replacing Samus’ arm cannon, with whimsical substitutes for each of her abilities. The morph ball turns into a rat transformation, complete with the cute touch of Junko holding the wand in her mouth. Missiles turn into baseballs, and the various suits turn into amulets and trinkets. The more “moe” artwork for her character provides a contrast with the horror of the situation, amping it up.
The environmental art is the real star, reusing parts and motifs from Super Metroid, but more often transforming tilesets until they’re barely recognizable, with deep, saturated palettes that add to the surreal atmosphere. Hatches are changed into the crow doors from Doki Doki Panic, the new context making entering their mouths threatening, as if each door you pass through brings you further into being digested by the snake, with the increasingly organic environments adding to the feeling.
The environments paint a clear picture even without direct narrative, with tableaus decorating the backgrounds. Images of Junko repeat throughout in statues, stained glass windows, and eventually replicas of Junko, living, dead and partially animated. A few areas even require you to intentionally take damage, gritting your way through as your health depletes, only able to catch your breath at the hot spring safe rooms.
The snake’s appearances throughout are all desiccated and rotting, with leftover parts of it forming the entrances to deeper parts of the map. It’s clear that the snake’s idea of worship is one with no care for Junko herself, but one of control, and even consumption. These feelings eventually coalesce in chimeras made of exposed skeletons and viscera, warped by the snake’s obsession.
The chimeras are the best demonstration of Super Junkoid’s uncanny recontextualization of Super Metroid’s parts. Many of the original game’s most iconic bosses are used for the chimeras, with their patterns and behaviors immediately recognizable even in their transformed forms. It adds to the feeling that this is wrong, that something is out of place.
That extends to the moveset, which has its order remixed, and sports small tweaks to change their restrictions or make them easier to use. The wall jump is now a dedicated upgrade intended to be used frequently, Speed Booster can now only be used when in rat form and likewise Shinespark now uses ammo, but can be done anywhere, without the need to run and charge it up first. It’s all enough to throw off someone familiar with Super Metroid, but ultimately how you use them in Super Metroid is how you use them in Super Junkoid.
The jumps have the same strange nuances of the original. Air time is long, and you’ll get a somersault variant if you’re moving, which changes your jump physics and is required to pull off moves like the wall jump. Wall jumping works against your muscle memory from other platformers, requiring you to somersault into the wall, then push away from it for a second before pressing jump, rather than performing the inputs together. Once the rules are internalized it’s satisfying to pull off, but knowing those quirks are essential.
Notably, pulling the wall jump off consistently was one of the few times I felt the latency of my emulation method mattered. I originally played Super Junkoid on a lower end emulation device, and the inconsistent latency made it difficult to perform the wall jump with any consistency, due to the tight timing requirements. Switching to a more modern emulator like BSNES quickly removed that issue.
The level design is where Super Junkoid distinctly pulls away from its Super Metroid origins. Super Metroid and its contemporaries tend to push for more sprawling map designs, extending horizontally, with labyrinthine corridors to create the sense that you’re exploring a massive space. Super Junkoid’s maps are dense, layering on top of each other, and repeatedly looping back to connect to previous areas. Instead of creating a sprawling space by giving you a large area to walk through, it extends into the background, showing you other areas you can’t reach, hinting at an endless dream space.
Areas begin split into a tier of surface levels, before leading you deeper into the dream. The wings of the map funnel into a buried hub area, before pushing you further down, and down once again for the final confrontation. The emphasis on your vertical descent amps up the threat of the latter half of the game, and alongside the progressively more threatening environments, lends to that feeling of being consumed.
Progression in Super Junkoid isn’t strict, with many areas allowing multiple approaches. It ended up making walkthroughs hard to reference, as I’d often find I had reached certain items before progressing to the point the other player was currently in. This was unintentionally exacerbated by various major updates to the game, including the new DX version, which added several features as well as majorly reconfiguring parts of the level structure. Until I realized this, it made even recorded playthroughs of the game seem unreliable, as I’d hit the same area the player had reached, only to realize that it was structured completely differently. It was as if we shared the same dream, but recalled it differently.
That dreamy, half remembered feeling is what makes Super Junkoid successful to me. A few moments show its limitations as a ROM hack, but it’s largely successful at using any familiarity with the original game to add to the uneasy atmosphere it builds. The progression from the cute, fantastical surface areas to the gory, disturbing depths never feels edgy or unearned, and the escalation drives home the desperate obsession of the dream’s creator. Super Metroid’s strengths are put to good use, with only small changes for a modern audience. Super Junkoid was clearly made with love for the original’s quirks, and a desire to preserve the character its friction creates.
Many contemporary entries in the genre struggle to find their own identity, having to come up with novel takes on abilities, layering RPG elements upon their progression, or providing deep, complicated combat to keep your attention.
Super Junkoid manages to create its own identity without any of these, telling a new story with pre-existing parts, building upon them with original visuals, rich atmosphere and layered level design. It manages to impress through the technical work needed to refashion the original game, and its many outstanding artistic choices. It’s a collage that a keen eye can comb through to see its original parts, but combines in a way that adds to a cohesive, blended whole.
Eszett idling (curious, benevolent edition) and Eszett idling (fucked up and violent edition)
2025 Game of the Year Countdown
#2: Pokemon Orange Island Walker
Pia Carrot (Romhack)
Nintendo Game Boy Color, 2023
A romhack of Pokemon Crystal, Pia Carrot started this hack in 2017 and put the finishing touches on the version I played in 2023. This game aims to tackle the greatest season of the Pokemon anime, and the only region to feature in an entire season that we never got to visit in game form: The Orange Islands Archipelago.
I was on the ground floor for Pokemania back in the day, and I can’t conceive of a season of the show that was more highly anticipated than this one. Pokemania was at its absolute height when it debuted, and without the same sort of wide Internet ubiquity we enjoy today, we had to wait for shows to actually air in order to see things for the first time. Fans were rabid for new Pokemon, even as mundane as Marill.
I have been waiting decades for a truly good adventure in the Orange Islands. Gen VII had promise as a substitute, but was a big letdown filled with hand-holding of the player and nothing like what I had hoped it to be. There was Pokemon Naranja, a Gen III romhack from around 15 years ago, but it was unfinished and relatively uninspired. And there was also Pokemon Orange, a romhack of Pokemon Red, but it felt cobbled together and boring. So when I stumbled upon this romhack, I was interested, but didn’t expect much.
Instead, Pia Carrot lovingly crafted a game worthy of publishing. It’s nearly as fun as the better generations of Pokemon, and shines brighter than some of Game Freak’s own efforts. The choice to create a romhack from the best Pokemon game and the best generation, Crystal and Gen II, puts the game squarely in the same timeframe when the anime was released. It also takes advantage of what I consider the superior stat system, pre-nature and before the severe limitations that the EV system brought. I want the stat experience system back so bad it hurts! I know Gen II competitive fights (at least the 6v6 ones) became long-winded due to a full set of maxed stats – and I don’t care.
We do lose the animated sprites that were so unique and fun in Crystal version, but the fact Pia Carrot was able to add in fairy types, and literally hundreds of new Pokemon from subsequent generations, all without overwhelming the player or feeling out of place is astounding. Including mainly Alolan Pokemon makes total sense, and I was really glad to see the Orange Island designs, too. I wish we had regional variants from the start, and it took Game Freak entirely too long to institute them in the games.
Orange Island Walker has plenty of new music to go with the region, too. Most of it is decent, and there are a few remixes and motifs that come back, as well. The sprites created for post-Gen II Pokemon all look really good and feel like they fit. I actually didn’t know the game had new Pokemon until I ran into a Wingull; it even took me a few seconds to realize it shouldn’t be in Pokemon Crystal because it looked good and should obviously be included in any island game, being a seagull.
I have mixed feelings about the incredibly strict roadblocks in the game, but I also understand their existence. Despite this being an archipelago of islands, there is an ever-present roadblock in every body of water that keeps you on a short leash and a very planned-out path. Part of this is to keep the order of islands set, as Ash and the gang visit the islands in a certain order, but I’m also sure it helps keep the level scaling at a manageable level. It does feel weird, though, since the idea of having a Lapras to ride all around the islands sounds like freedom personified, only to be corralled at every turn.
Battle difficulty isn’t much different from a regular Pokemon game, at least in the early game, but I did find the stretches between islands a bit challenging. Pokemon Centers were sometimes hard to come by, and there were a few times I was running low on HP and had run out of PP. But I like this sort of thing. I wish we had more of it in the games. It’s one of my favorite parts of exploring Mt. Coronet in Sinnoh; we set out on a long journey, not knowing how long it’ll take and how long our supplies will last. It feels like a real Pokemon journey, at times.
Later in the game, however, I found a few of the battles more challenging than expected! I was definitely not running an ideal, varied team, choosing to run some favorites instead, so maybe I just put myself in a bad spot. But the addition of new types, new moves, and new movesets for Pokemon all made for a number of surprises during key battles. It kept fights interesting for sure, and the AI felt notably improved from the dunce AI that the base game gave us.
However, I was expecting a bit more of a challenge against Drake. I know it’s hard for Dragonite to overcome that 4x ice weakness, but my Alolan Ninetales wiped half of his team without taking any damage. And I wasn’t overleveled, either.
Finally, Pia Carrot added some post-game content, as well. There’s a short little excursion that recreates the plot of Pokemon the Movie 2000, complete with characters and songs from the movie. 8-bit Lugia’s Song made me pause and just listen for a while, as it’s one of the more contemplative-mood-inducing songs in Pokemon history.
I’m not sure if this hack is finished or not, since I haven’t come across any updates since 2023, despite stumbling upon Pia Carrot’s in-game avatar, who thanks you for playing and refers to the hack as a beta version. Whether it’s complete or not is immaterial, because it’s a phenomenal romhack, regardless. Two years ago, I called Cataclyptic’s Johto update to the Pokemon TCG for GameBoy the greatest romhack I’d ever played. Pokemon Orange Island Walker comes darn close, and a few tweaks and finishing touches could put it over the top. If you enjoyed the Orange Islands season of the anime, or if you are a fan of the classic Pokemon generations, you should do yourself a favor and try out this romhack.
…yet they’re treated as some kind of non-essential bonus. Why? Imagine favourite game. Now imagine your favourite game now goes on forever. How awesome is that?
Valve’s Half-Life will never have the G-man team up with a time travelling Adolf Hitler. Nintendo’s Luigi won’t ever go on a brain cancer psychosis-induced killing spree. Maybe all for very good and sensible reasons but, what if…? The only rule is: There are no rules. A Zelda character calls someone a douchebag. Valve never made HL2: Episode Three? There are fan-made versions, and one of them has the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek as the interior of the Borealis and Gordon Freeman drives a Mini Cooper.
This is not corporate AAA slop. It’s not a contractual obligation spat out too early before the dev team is fired and the studio disbanded. It’s made by people who loved the originals enough to dedicate countless hours of their lives to learning how to make more of it and doing just that. Some are made to look and feel as much like official parts of their series’ canon as possible, and others put more of a personal spin on the worlds they’re playing in. Maybe Gordon Freeman is friends with Jack Carver from Far Cry and they hang out and kill Combine soldiers together, because why not? What if Mario had a shotgun? What if Doom was a psychological horror set in some haunted urban house? What if Alyx Vance was a 00-Agent? What if that fighting game you used to play had characters from loads of other franchises in it? What if every 80’s and 90’s mascot platformer you can imagine was turned into the same damn horror game where you walk along, see gore of friendly characters and then get chased by a giant evil version of the lead character?
It’s made by either one person or a small team of people. It won’t always have months of extensive playtesting, sometimes you get softlocked or they crash or something weird and random and funny happens, but it’s fine because it’s a labour of love and it’s free. Sometimes they’re a bit of a bitch to set up and get running (especially using various online patching tools for ROMs), but it’s usually worth it. It’s why I love gaming so much.
Just finished documenting the stat changes for a romhack project of mine. These are some sneak peeks of some of my favorite changes.
Beat Pokemon Prism! It had a few cool ideas but only really used them like twice and I did finally settle on a team I really liked. Rampardos, Manectric, Slowking, Kangaskhan, Cacturne and Swellow!
So the open world pokemon game kept crashing on me and I don’t feel like figuring out why when I got so many of these stockpiled so now I’m playing Pokemon Prism a crystal hack with updated mechanics and look how weak and frail my trainer looks, the thought of this shy looking sickly victorian child becoming this powerhouse trainer no man or god could take down was SO FUNNY I decided to play this one. There’s apparently somehow like 20 badges and I’ve got these weird stats?? I dunno man but like Mario always says “Let’s Get To It”
I beat Pokemon Gaia! It was really oldschool with no share all just a held exp share but check this out, it didn’t even show my actual pokemon at the hall of fame pic its like the makers didn’t even think somebody would bring those mons to the end lmao
Talonflame I get cause its p much the most lackluster bird pokemon but forretress???? isn’t it like high tier waddahell
yes i did in fact go out of my way to make sure my final team were all shinies lmAO
Darkrai is completely powerless against her because she has magic bounce and their only attacking move is nightmare
I caught them in a cherish ball btw
