This is Super Mario 64.
SM64.z64 is a short Super Mario 64 romhack by realjefftastic featuring a time attack challenge at Bob-Omb Battlefield. Upon finishing each run, something will change.You can download the patch here
, and play it again and again
until you can finally
leave.
Objective: Tropes
- All There in the Manual: The entity is named M'' ,:;, or just M, but this isn't stated in-game.
- Antepiece: The player is required to play Bob-Omb Battlefield three times before the climax. The third loop has a dark sky, foreshadowing how the next one gets so dark one can't see the way foward. Clearing the stage 3 times will also prepare the player for doing it on a time limit at the end — not that it matters, as there is no star at the end.
- Arc Words: 'SOMETHING CHANGED', the error message in the Nintendo 64 Error Handler that appears at the conclusion of the first three loops.
- Artificial Stupidity: M'' ,:; will try to follow after Mario, but there are ways to get it stuck next to walls. For example, waiting at the very corner of Bob-Omb Battlefield by the mountain will cause the entity to get stuck on the mountain's second gap. Even if you run around the opposite side of the map, the entity will not follow at all until you get directly above or below it.
- Big Bad: M is the strange, white Evil Doppelgänger of Mario who chases him in the last level and kills him.
- Blackout Basement: The fourth run of Bob-Omb Battlefield is set on darkness. As the timer runs down, most of the terrain will turn pitch black only to light back up when it ends and M arrives.
- Bleak Level: All the areas in the hack are devoid of any objects or characters. Progressing through the loops will also drain the water in the castle's courtyard and turn the nearby hills monochrome.
- Collision Damage: The entity follows Mario until it touches him, which crashes the game and apparently erases Mario from existence.
- Controllable Helplessness: M will fly faster and faster until it catches Mario and there's no way to stop it, fight it, or escape from it.
- Downer Ending: M will capture and erase Mario to prevent the player from playing any further. It then claims things are better that way.
- Exact Words: The final goal is to "leave", but the level is unwinnable. After so many signposts telling the player to turn back, this is essentially the game's final warning that the player should literally shut it down, or else...
- Falling Damage: Falling damage doesn't exist in the hack.
- Four Is Death: M awakens on the fourth loop.
- Gag Nose: M'' ,:; is a Mario model with its nose stretched down, which makes it look kind of goofy when viewed from the side.
- Game-Breaking Bug: Invoked Trope; as the game will freeze every time Bob-Omb Battlefield is cleared. Resetting will bring up "SOMETHING CHANGED" as the message in the Error Handler before gameplay resumes.
- Glitch Entity: At the end, a deformed black-and-white Mario called "M'' ,:;" with garbled coloring on its face and overalls will chase after the real Mario and eventually erase him. It might be the hack's interpretation of the "Personalization A.I." that haunts Super Mario 64 in fanfiction, but who knows for sure...
- Hell Is That Noise:
- The cheerful race start fanfare is this due to the sheer Mood Whiplash it causes upon playing from out of nowhere at the final level.
- Ominous music plays as the countdown ticks down. When it ends, it cuts to silence for a few moments until you hear the static and rumbling that it makes as it follows Mario.
- Left Hanging: While the story of the hack on its own wrapped up by the end, a floating patch of flowers surrounded by signposts was supposed to have some kind of significance in a sequel, but it was never made since the developer got tired of making Super Mario 64 hacks.
- Level Goal: The Power Star atop the Bob-Omb Battlefield's mountain, including the version of the level with a blank objective but not the final version in which there's no escape.
- Madness Mantra: On each crash, the game will pop up an error handler stating that SOMETHING CHANGED SOMETHING CHANGED SOME—
- Mind Screw:
- M wants you gone. But then, who was it that wanted you to collect the stars and asked to "do it again" in the trailer?
- A patch of flowers is surrounded by signposts and it floats off the ground near the climax for some reason. This was meant to have significance, but the romhack never received a sequel.
- Minimalist Cast: This romhack only features Mario and… M a r i o?
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The player is implicitly draining the world of life by collecting the Power Stars, explaining why M believes removing Mario will set things right.
- Nothing Is Scarier:
- All the areas are empty and eerily lonely. With each loop, the castle courtyard becomes barren and the corridor to Bob-Omb Battlefield will grow longer as if discouraging the player from advancing. The level's portrait will also lose each of its Bob-Ombs with each visit.
- On Bob-Omb Battlefield, signposts point against the direction of the goal. A patch of flowers will appear by the mountain with signs pointing to it for no apparent reason. The third loop has a pitch black sky, a blank goal prompt and the flower patch will be raised above the ground but still nothing happens.
- The final version of Bob-Omb Battlefield is further shrouded in darkness and orders the player to leave. It's only a while later that the silence is broken and the terror starts for real.
- The title screen after Mario is erased is blank. Upon starting the game, the world is back to normal but it is unplayable. After a while, sad music plays and a disembodied narrator claims that "Everything is better off without you". The game will remain like this until the player quits.
- Notice This: There are signposts all over Bob-Omb Battlefield pointing away from the goal, as if discouraging players from advancing.
- One-Letter Name: The Big Bad, a bizarre white Evil Doppelgänger of Mario, is identified as M.
- Shout-Out:
- The official trailer ends by paraphrasing the Fallen Child's invitation to "finish the job" at the end of Undertale's demo.
- On the ROMHACKING.com page for the ROM hack, the description simply reads "This is Super Mario 64. The end is never the end."
- The official trailer
- Surreal Horror: There's no explanation of what is going on or why M wants to remove Mario from the game.
- Timed Mission: The fourth Bob-Omb Battlefield visit starts on a timer but without any indication of such. After a while, the race fanfarre plays and an on-screen timer shows up. M will arrive shortly after this countdown ends.
- Trailers Always Lie: Promotional material for the game invites players to play it. And again, and again. In the actual game, however, players are repeatedly told to leave until M just gets rid of them and says that's how things should be. The in-universe significance of this contradiction isn't known.
- Unwinnable by Design: There is no Star atop the mountain on the fourth visit to Bob-Omb Battlefield, no matter how fast you get there.
- Wham Shot:
- The sudden appearance of the chase fanfare in the fourth and final loop of Bob-Omb Battlefield, cutting the silence like a knife.
- The absence of a Power Star in the fourth and final loop of Bob-Omb Battlefield after all the effort one puts in to clear the area on time. It is inevitable.
- Wham Line:
- During the fourth and final loop, the intro message of Bob-Omb Battlefield changes from just "Objective" to "Objective Leave", hinting at the presence of M in the level.
- Following the conclusion of the fourth and final loop, you are greeted with a view of the courtyard, but Mario is gone. After a few moments, a text box appears:
Everything is better off without you.
That was fun.
Let's do it again.
Let's do it again.
