I don't think I've ever played any hacked games before, but I don't think I’d ever want to after the experience I had...
It was a warm summer afternoon, I was playing Super Mario Sunshine until I heard the mailman something in my mailbox and leave. I paused my game to go see what I got in the mail, the only thing in the mailbox was a CD case and a letter. I took it inside. I read the letter first, it was from my best friend Kyle, I haven't heard from him from in a month, his handwriting looked a little rough and hard to read, as if he wrote it in a rush, but this is what he wrote:
"Tom,
I can't take it anymore, I had to get rid of this thing somehow before it was too late, and I thought you could do it, I can't, he’s after me, and if you don't destroy this DVD, he'll come after you too, he's too smart for me....
Destroy this damned disc before he finds you too, if you destroy it, you'll kill him, but do it quick or he'll get you, and whatever you do, do not play the game, that's what he wants.
-Kyle"
I then looked at the disc and it seemed like any other DVD-R, but it had "MARIO.AVI" written on it, it didn’t look like Kyle's handwriting, so he probably got it from a pawn shop or eBay. When I saw "MARIO" written on the disc, I wanted to play it, because I'm a massive Super Mario fan, much like other people, and just from reading that, I thought Kyle was just pulling my leg, I mean, it's just a game right?
I went back to my room, put the disc in my computer and installed the game. When the title screen revealed it was the first Mario game, I was like "Cool!", mostly because I never imagined there being a PC port of any kind. The first thing that was out of place was when I pressed start, there was a split second where the sky was black, the title logo was tattered, and Mario's eyes were red. Considering how short it was onscreen for, I assumed it was just a glitch.
After a few seconds, the character select from Super Mario Bros. 2 popped up, the background was from the underground levels from Super Mario Bros. 3 but red, and that the music vaguely sounded like the theme from the Caverns of Winters in Earthbound but reversed, but I was wondering "what the Hell is this doing here?", then I noticed the character select, there were only three characters: Luigi, Toad and King Koopa. That was a real surprise, since when could you play as Koopa in a mainline Mario game? At this point, I realized that this wasn’t some buggy port, it was a ROM hack.
I picked Luigi, when I selected him, the game froze for a bit and I heard a laugh that had an uncanny resemblance to the one Kefka from Final Fantasy had before cutting to black.
After a few seconds, the level card would appear, the text only read "WORLD, -1". The screen cut to Luigi in World 1-1 from Super Mario Bros., though the music was different, it sounded like a somber piece being played in reverse. I had Luigi start running, for some reason there was nothing but flat ground and a few bushes for about a minute or two.
I suddenly saw something and I stopped to see what it was; it was one of the enemies lying dead on the ground bleeding (the music started to slow down at this point), I noticed Luigi had a shocked look on his face when he stopped, and when I had him move on, he kept that look on his face.
As he kept moving I saw more dead enemies as Luigi moved past them looking more and more worried as the music lowered and he moves past more dead enemies, I was shocked to see how they all died, they were killed gruesome ways; a Koopa Troopa was gagged on a bush with what appeared to be its entrails, a Goomba had both of its legs torn off and a Hammer Bro had its eyes gouged out. Luigi seemingly felt sick to his stomach when he saw this massacre, while I was mostly shocked. After a while there were no more enemies and the music seemed to have stopped, I still had Luigi move forward.
After the music stopped, Luigi stopped, it wasn't until I saw why; Mario was there on the other side of the screen with his back against Luigi with his eyes closed. Luigi looked happy to see Mario but then his smile faltered, noticing that Mario wasn't responding to him, as if he was oblivious of Luigi's presence. Luigi walked slowly toward Mario, I heard faint static growing louder as Luigi was but inches away from Mario and stopped and stuck his hand out to touch him. In a split second I saw Mario's eyes open and they were black and red, the screen turned black and the sound cut off, then white text appeared forming a message reading "Hello. Do you want to play with me?" At that point I was a little creeped out.
I was taken to a different level called "HIDE AND SEEK", it was the World 1-1 level from Mario 2 and it looked like everything was on fire, Luigi seemed like he was horrified this time, He looked at the camera and made frantic gestures as if he wanted to get out as fast as possible. I made him run as fast as he could, that creepy theme when you’re in the Kero Sewers from SMRPG was playing as I made Luigi trek through these desolate plains, trying to help him escape from whatever he was trying to run from. Suddenly I heard that laugh again after a while, that’s when close-ups of Mario started flashing across the screen with black and red eyes.
The music stopped to play that hurry up theme, and when it resumed it changed to the Castle theme from the first game as I see Mario slowly gaining up on Luigi, flying. The flying sprite looked very similar to his flying pose in Mario 3, except he wasn't in his racoon form and he had the black and red eyes again, and he also had a deranged looking grin on his face as if he was enjoying the torment he was giving his poor brother as he gained up on him.
Suddenly Luigi tripped, the music stopped and Mario vanished. He laid there and started crying for a moment, then Mario appeared right in front of him and he looked up in horror. Blood started to come down Mario's blackened eyes as a grin slowly grew from his face as he looked down at his brother, and just in a split second Mario lunged at Luigi right before the screen went black, there was a loud screeching noise. Another line of text appeared that read "Thank you so much for playing my game, wanna play again?" and then that laugh came with, Did Mario murder Luigi? No, there’s no way, he and Luigi are brothers, right? Why would Mario do that”
I was brought back to the character select, Luigi looked different, his eyes were bleeding, his hat and shirt went from green to black and seemed tattered.
I picked Toad next. The laugh came back as the screen cut to black, the level card appeared again, it was called "WON’T GET AWAY". I couldn't really tell if this was a horror based ROM hack or some kind of prank, but I kept playing.
This level looked like the first airship from Super Mario Bros. 3, but the background looked like the main menu, the music sounded like Giygas' theme from Earthbound. I also noticed that Toad looked a little unnerved, he looked as if he wasn't sure about going on. I had him move anyway. He ran down the straight pathway, and as he did the screen started to flicker red static a couple times and then that laugh, which was slowly driving me insane, came again. After a few seconds of running I noticed several bloodstains on the ground. Suddenly, Mario appeared right in front of Toad with those black and red eyes, red static appeared again, when it vanished, all I saw was text reading "FOUND YOU!", that genuinely startled me, Mario found Toad already? Red static appeared again and then I was back to the level, Toad looked like he was panicking, and Mario was nowhere to be found. And this time something that sounded like Silent Hill's final boss theme was playing. This looked like a boss battle with Mario.
Mario then appeared right behind Toad in what appeared to be pixelated black smoke, I made Toad turn and jump on him, but he vanished in black pixelated smoke before I could even land a hit, that damn laugh went off again. Mario appeared behind Toad again, I made him jump, Mario vanished laughing. Toad was panicking even more, I felt like I was about to snap, Mario was seemingly playing some kind of mind game with me and Toad. Another cutscene would play as Toad fell to his knees and clutched his head sobbing, I kind of empathized with him, Mario was driving me crazy too, then in a split second Mario lunged at Toad and the screen went black with another distorted screeching noise, then another message appeared:
"So many souls, so little time..."
I was starting to wonder if Mario was actually trying to talk to me through the game, but I was brought back to the character select, this time Toad changed, the red spots on his head had darkened to a reddish grey and was dripping with blood, his eyes were missing and bleeding, and he seemed had a look of sadness on his face. I wondered if those were the actual characters, but I couldn't really bring myself to that conclusion.
I shut off the game and took a nap, I probably shouldn’t have, because I began to have this nightmare, I was in pitch black darkness, though I was under the light given off by a lamp that hung high above my head. I could hear the pleas of Toad and Luigi nearby. They were saying things like, "Help us..." and "Why did you give us to him?" and "Run away, before he gets you too..."
Their cries died out as I then heard Mario laugh, his laugh sounded a lot like that distorted Kefka laugh.
"You're lots of fun to play with kid, just like your friend Kyle, though he didn't last long..."
I was scared and looking around for the source of the voice...
"Won't be long now until you join him and all my other friends..."
I saw him walking toward me, flickering in and out in several directions...
"You won’t get away, kid. You're in my world now. Just like the others..."
When he grabbed me. I saw his bleeding black and red-eyed, grinning face, then I woke up.
After a couple of hours, I decided to turn the game back on. I selected Koopa, the level title appeared again and this time it said "...", it then cut to some kind of hallway, didn't really seem like it was from any of the classic Mario games, though it had the same art style; the floor was shiny and checkered, the walls were dark green with animated candles and some bloodstains, there was also a red curtain hanging above on the top part of the screen that swayed very slowly. The music was quite melancholic, I soon realized that it was the same song that played in World -1, just not in reverse. Koopa didn't look entirely nervous like Luigi and Toad did, but he did have this paranoid look on his face, when standing still, he'd turn his head left and right twice then shrug as if he had no idea what was going on. I had Koopa move forward, then I stopped at a long flight of stairs leading downward, Koopa seemed unsure of himself, but I’d have him move forward anyway.
As I led Koopa down the stairs, I the walls got darker and reddish; the red torches turned blue. We then landed onto another hallway, this one was longer than the last one (or at least it felt like it), we headed down another flight of stairs, this one was much longer, I then heard that damned Kefka laugh again and then the music slowly faded until it was quiet, as it did the walls turned dark red and the torches were barely visible. When Koopa landed onto the 3rd hallway, I noticed he now looked really creeped out, though he tried to hide it. All of a sudden, Mario popped right in front of Koopa the same way he did with Toad, it then cut to red static, after a while, it would then show me a quite unpleasant image...
It was a near-lifelike portrait of Mario, standing in the darkness, it looked so real you could actually see the hairs in his mustache, he also had the most unsettling smile I had ever seen. His eyes were wide and black and leaking blood like before and there were two small glowing red dots in those eyes staring at me, as if he was staring into my soul. His grin was wide, it stretched to the sides of his face, he also had sharp, yellowish fangs, and looking closer, he had stains of blood and small bits of flesh on his lips and fangs as if he ate an animal or a person or something.
I stared at that picture for a while, I felt as if he was actually looking at me, smiling at me, that face seemingly took mere seconds for it to etch itself into my mind.
The screen flickered with red static 3 times, on the 3rd time I heard the Kefka laugh, except this time it sounded distorted, monstrous even, it went back to the image, except this time there was a distorted message, it was pretty much one of the most unnerving things I read at since I had played this game:
"I AM YOUR GOD NOW."
As soon as I read that message, I realized something: this wasn't Mario, this was a sadistic, borderline demented monster, his victims, including Luigi, Toad, Koopa, potentially even Kyle, are just his little toys, and this game is the gateway to his chaotic hellscape and the horrors that await within.
Suddenly in a split second Mario lunged at the screen screeching loudly with his mouth wide open to an unnatural length revealing nothing but a spiraling abyss of pure darkness before the red static came again, this time much louder and distorted, so loud that it hurt my ears, I held my ears as the red static screeched for a few seconds, it then stopped and the screen was blank, after a few seconds, one last message would appear:
"Ready for round two, Tom?"
The Kefka laugh, now sounding more clear as if Mario was right behind me, played again 3 times as I read the message in confusion. It went back to the character select and this time Koopa was in the same, tormented state as Luigi and Toad; his scales turned a dull grey, his hair drooped and had darkened, his eyes burst and had blood pouring out, and he had a dead expression on his face. I took just one good look at Luigi, Toad and Koopa and I knew they’d be trapped within this game, forever tormented by that demented plumber. The computer then crashed and shut itself off, I couldn't turn it back on no matter what I did, I sat there for a minute, thinking about what had happened.
"Mario" is the embodiment of all that is evil, he plays with the minds of the people who play his game, when he gets bored he quite literally drags you into the game where he can torment you for all eternity.
I can't get the game out. I think it's stuck in there, but at least I managed to turn it back on now. I’d sit there for a while until I heard a voice behind me, it whispered:
"Let's keep things interesting, Tom."
I turned around to see where the voice came from, and what I saw made me scream, sitting on my bed, staring right at me...
...was a Mario figurine with bloodstains under its eyes.