"This is... the video game version of cutting yourself." Welcome to Hell.
An insanely difficult
Game Mod of
Super Mario World,
Kaizo Mario World (literally, "Hacked" or "Remodeled" Mario World; known as
Yūjin Mario in Japan) is well known for being the
Trope Codifier of the
Platform Hell genre (well eclipsing the popularity of earlier examples such as
Jinsei Owata no Daibouken and the then-unnamed
Super Mario Forever), and for being the game that launched a lot of
Let's Players' careers on
YouTube.
The whole thing is rumored to have started as a simple
Mario World hack made by a Japanese internet user to challenge their friend, and by some unknown stroke of luck, was found and
LPed by a team of
Something Awful LPers as 'Asshole Mario World', based off the difficulty. The popularity of these original playthroughs spread across the internet, causing a lot more people to play the game. The game is pretty much also responsible for the wave of "super difficult"
Platform Hell Mario World hacks that have been released, including most on the trope page in question, and those designed specifically to be played by commentators on
YouTube for the frustration of the player in question.
There was also a sequel,
Kaizo Mario World 2, which was more of the same, with new levels and boss battles. There have also been a few unofficial sequels, although none have gained the popularity of the originals. In late 2012,
Kaizo Mario World 3 was created.
Lord help us all.
Similar to
Super Kusottare World ("kusottare" is Japanese for "asshole") and
Super Tabarnak World ("tabarnak!" is a religious Quebecois swear). Compare to
I Wanna Be The Guy.
You can get all three hacks (as well as the creator's Pokemon hack)
here.
This game provides examples of the following:
- Ascended Glitch: You'll have to pretty much know a bunch of glitches in the Super Mario World engine to get through this hack.
- Big Boo's Haunt: The ghost houses are a sadistic homage to the already frustrating and labyrinthine ones found in the original. The Big Boo boss is made ridiculously hard.
- Bonus Boss: Arguably those at the end of the Special World.
- Brand Name Takeover: Thanks to this game, "Kaizo" is now fandom speak for any ridiculously hard SMW hack.
- Couch Gag: Each of the three games have variations on the opening Thwomp trap pictured above. The first game positions it so that you won't die unless you jump, the second game inverts this (you have to jump in the right spot to activate an invisible block that stops the Thwomp from hitting you), and the third game puts a pit below you (though, like the first game, the text box will pop up before you fall off the screen).
- Cranium Ride: Spin jumping on dangerous enemies to pass over spikes or the like.
- The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: The extreme difficulty of the game seems to be designed so that even with save states, you will rip not only all of the hair from your head, but from at least 40% of the rest of your body as well.
- Everything Is Trying to Kill You: As with most Platform Hell games.
- Fake Difficulty: Lots.
- Follow the Leader: Where to begin. This, based on many LPers reactions, brought about a good few hundred similar Mario World hacks, often sent just to annoy said LPers. Every single trap used in the original two games has been copied to no end. And it pretty much set up a difficulty arms race between quite a few people.
- Game Mod: Obvious.
- Grimy Water: Gray water = DEATH WATER!
- Guide Dang It: The sequel mixes it up a bit by having a level consist not of ridiculous deathtraps, but a convoluted, Rube Goldberg-esque series of actions required to access the end of the level.
- Hailfire Peaks: Special World 4 combines The Lost Woods flavour with Big Boo's Haunt foes.
- Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: Compared to the hell that's come before, Invisible Bowser is relatively easy. Underwater Bowser is another cakewalk.
- Helpful Mook: Accidentally Assisting flavor. See Cranium Ride. "Move FASTER, Pokey!"
- Instant-Win Condition: Subverted, especially with the Kaizo Trap. If you fall off a cliff to nothingness after finishing a level in Super Mario World, you will still die; the original game was just kind (or smart) enough to not put cliffs there. Kaizo, not so much.
- Invisible Block: Infamously. The reaction to these by a certain LPer is probably why they show up so much in imitators.
- To put it in the words of Elemental Ogre, "DAMN YOU JON! AND YOUR PROTON!"
- Kaizo Trap: The Trope Namer, of course.
- Leap of Faith: Required way, way, way too often.
- Let's Play: What made it famous, and the purpose of most of the imitators.
- Nintendo Hard: The easy levels. The rest are Platform Hell.
- One Hit Point Wonder: Enforced; many passages are only big enough for the small one-hit Mario to pass.
- Platform Hell: Most of the game, although taken to further and further degrees by imitators.
- Press Start To Game Over: The title screen opens with a Thwomp crushing Mario, and quite a few levels try to kill you a couple seconds after they start.
- Save Scumming: Beating this hack and others of its ilk legitimately is virtually unheard of.
- Sequel Difficulty Spike: The second game just increases the hellishness of the first one.
- Slippy Slidey Ice World: Hope you have your ice sliding skills perfected, these games exploit the mechanic's difficulty for all its worth.
- Speedrun: Especially the Tool Assisted kind. Some imitators are actually made purely for Tool Assisted Speedruns.
- Spikes of Doom: As Munchers and normal spikes, and in great quantity in all levels.
- Temporary Platform: Used throughout the mod, including the infamous Kaizo Trap.
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: You won't see many traps until you get killed by them. This is, again, one of the most common features of both the original and imitators.
- Video Game Remake: Kaizo Mario Advance 2. How shall the gameplay of Luigi from the GBA version work with these levels?
- Serial Escalation : How insanely difficult will this stage be? Practically gets turned into an artform.
- Shout Out: The third level of the first game is called Cerulean Cave, a reference to a location in Pokémon.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: The reward for beating the Special World in the first game is a Feather, so you can actually avoid the One Hit Point Wonder rule... Only it's stuck in a place that you can't reach without making the level Unwinnable by Design.
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