Video Game / Mario's Mystery Meat

"Me? Gongagagagagaga—" "Shut, the fuck, up!"

Mario and Luigi have an endless supply of spaghetti. However, they always end up lacking meat. And what is a meatless plate of spaghetti? A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough talk!

Since Mario and Luigi are too busy saving the world, it's down to Sponge to go find a reliable source of meat.

— Intro cutscene

Mario's Mystery Meat is, at first glance, a ROM hack of Super Mario World based on various in-jokes surrounding Vinny from the livestreaming group Vinesauce. While this is certainly true, the hack also contains a tremendous amount of gameplay and content not normally possible in the Super Mario World engine, thanks to some seriously impressive coding. It was released by Eminus in May 2020, just after Vinesauce's tenth anniversary. The story is that Mario and Luigi want meat for their spaghetti, but have none. They are too busy saving the world, though, so it falls to Sponge, a depressed third Mario brother created by Vinny, to find some.

On his way, however, he runs into Meat, a giant Eldritch Abomination earthworm, and winds up swallowed by it. Now Sponge must escape the literal belly of the beast and traverse the strange worlds the beast has devoured, eventually embarking on an adventure to save the kidnapped Princess Bleach from an unknown entity and escape this Meaty madness.

Being a Vinesauce fangame that's partly a celebration of the channel's decennial, the hack contains a plethora of references ranging from as recent to mere weeks before the game's release to as early as the channel's founding in 2010. As such, the game is best approached by those with a comprehensive knowledge of Vinny's content and in-jokes, though it can also serve as a rather good way to familiarise yourself with them if you do happen to be going in blind.

The full stream of Vinny's playthrough and a compilation of it have been uploaded to the Full Sauce and official Vinesauce channels respectively. The hack itself can be downloaded here.

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This fangame contains examples of:

• All Just a Dream: Subverted twice:
  • About halfway through, Sponge is killed, only to wake up in Chat City, seemingly having dreamt the whole thing. Of course, it becomes clear that he is still inside the belly of Meat, and the town is simply a world it swallowed.
  • In Bad End 1, Sponge wakes up in his bed after seemingly falling to his death... and, in a bizarre Bedmate Reveal, sees a Meat worm next to him.
• Artifact Title: Mario isn't the main character, Sponge is. Subverted as his full name is "Spondage Mario," and the game is about trying to find a reliable source of meat for Mario.
• Bait-and-Switch: At first it looks like the game will follow Super Mario World's system of having a map to access different levels. However, once you pass the first level and enter Meat, the whole game takes place inside the same level, with a respawn point system instead of traditional lives taking place.
• Bedmate Reveal: A bizarre one occurs in Bad End 1. Sponge, after seemingly falling to his doom, wakes up in bed... and sees a Meat worm from the dream next to him.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Meat and vineRizon are the main threats. The former is the giant, wormlike Eldritch Abomination that swallowed Sponge, sparking his quest to escape, while the latter is a giant blocky head that represents Vinny's struggles with Verizon internet connection and the kidnapper of Princess Bleach.
• Bilingual Bonus: Towards the end of the spaghetti level stands a sentient pickle beside a giant pickle who speaks in Italian: "Queste polpette non sono carne, sono tofu... rivoltante!". Translated, its dialogue says: "These meatballs aren't made of meat, they're made of tofu... revolting!"
• Bittersweet Ending: Sponge, in the "Good" ending, has escaped Meat with his life and sanity intact, but was forced to see that Princess Bleach had died waiting for him (possibly again, if this game is part of the Super Sponge Bros. canon), and was unable to secure meat for Mario and Luigi. The last part didn't even matter, as Mario and Luigi can't even eat meat. After defeating the final boss, Sponge hangs his head in despair and curls up into a ball as the credits roll.
• Black Comedy: At one point, the Mario's Early Years: Preschool Fun voiceover asks Mario and Luigi their opinion on CBT (cock-and-ball torture).
  Mario: It is against the teachings of christ and torture of the male genitalia is a sin.
  Luigi: YEET that MEAT! MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT MEAT
• Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: Sponge smacks Yoshi on the head whenever he uses his tongue, followed by a "smack" sound effect and a pained, but hilarious human voice from Yoshi, referencing the infamous cut content of Mario physically assaulting Yoshi in Super Mario World to make him stick his tongue out.
• Body Horror: Daksu is a duck-shaped amalgamation of five animals (four ducks: Molly, Bill, Freckles and Ketchup, and Apple the hamster) from Animal Crossing: New Leaf.
• Chekhov's Gun: Minor version. In Daksu's Pop Quiz, he will ask you at one point whether Mr. Dink or Ringo Starr is fatter, and claim it has no real relevance to the quiz. A bit later on, whichever one you pick becomes the Warmup Boss.
• Continuity Lock-Out: God help you if you're not familiar with all the in-jokes of the Vinesauce community, or you'll be totally confused by this.
• Cruel Twist Ending: At the end of the game, Sponge finally reaches Princess Bleach, only to find that she died sometime while waiting for him. Just to twist the knife in, Meat swallows her corpse.
• Curse Cut Short: The first "level" of the game is called "GREEN GRASS EAT MY A" with only the first letter shown (also due to level name space).
• Cutting the Knot: Choosing "Let me in" when taking the quiz prompts Daksu to say "Over my dead body" and then die, letting Sponge literally pass over their dead body.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Sponge can never experience a Game Over, unless a requirement for achieving one of the endings is met.
• Defying the Censors: The same prisoner who can change Sponge's tears into piss can also make phalluses fall from above if you talk to them a second time.
  Chazam: Four five six... It's raining with dicks!
• Disney Acid Sequence: The whole hack is very weird, but there is a level just before the Rizon Fortress where you must navigate through a trippy landscape filled with vaporwave music, vineRizon monuments, dabbing clowns and Rem Lezars.
• Disproportionate Retribution: If you end up encountering Ringo Starr, he will rob you at gunpoint for ruining his meal.
• Easter Egg: A good deal of them are littered through the hack:
  • On the map screen right before you enter the giant Meat worm, look around the map by pressing Start. On the lower-right of the screen is a text that says "Made you look", and on the top-left of the screen is a demotivational poster about clown meat.
  • In the first section of Daksu's closet, there is a pipe on the left that you can enter, which transports you to a room where it says "sorry nothing". On the right side of the room is a bunch of blocks lying around, and picking up one of those blocks reveals a star. Pressing up on the star prompts a text box to appear, which says "ert2", and when you return to the pipe you entered the room with, the "sorry nothing" text is replaced with a Pepperoni secret.
  • There's a mandatory puzzle where you need to bring a B-block to Scoot's grave. You can keep carrying the B-block with you after you completed the puzzle, and with each subsequent section the block will change appearance. Entering Scoot's headstone gives the block a washed-out palette, entering Daksu's closet turns it into Drake's disembodied head, carrying it to the "sorry nothing" room turns it into an ordinary block, proceeding to the section where you run away from Smile Ghosts turns it into a Smile Ghost itself, and entering the pipe turns it back into a now-bloody disembodied head of Drake.
  • Before entering the spaghetti level, walk to the far right side of the restaurant to meet a buff Gordon Ramsay who yells "YES GET FUCKED". This is a reference to a popular Gordon Ramsay-related animation that Vinny often makes references to.
  • Right before you arrive at Rizon Fortress, there appears to be a pitfall underneath a green rectangle you can swim around in. Turns out Kermit is dancing underneath it, and he gives you a mushroom for finding him.
• Eldritch Location: Inside Meat. Although the initial exploration of its innards contain little other than creatures and places which have been consumed by the worm, suddenly the player will find themselves launched into a staffed restaurant. From here, the journey becomes increasingly more improbable and ridiculous until the defeat of the smaller Meat, which allows Sponge to escape up the large Meat's throat.
  • The most peculiar part is how much Meat can store in its body, as vineRizon's fortress is described as the "tallest fortress in the universe" in there. Plus there's a few areas where there's sunlight, meaning a day-night cycle exists inside the worm somehow.
• Eyes Always Shut: Yoshi has his eyes constantly shut in reference to a Super Mario World corruption where he was stuck in a blinking animation from one of his idle poses. This extends to his baby form in this game. He only has open eyes during a still image cutscene where he looks normal.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Beginning in the town at the halfway point, you can see a bunch of statues of vineRizon, a Vinesauce meme character, and these statues continue on throughout the game. He finally makes an appearance and is the one who kidnapped Princess Bleach.
  • After the Rewind Block in the second Will Smith section is hit, it plays a backmasked message: "When he got there, the princess was dead." This is foreshadowing Princess Bleach's fate.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Pausing the game and unpausing it again during in the level where the Meat Worms sing Hong Kong '97, the meat worm platforms glitch up making the level unwinnable.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Partway through Rizon Fortress, in the second section, Will Smith "logs in" out of nowhere to hinder Sponge's progress.
• Green Hill Zone: Greengrass Eat My A. It's the first and most normal level in the hack being the only level of the game to have normal versions of the original enemies from the game.
• Halfway Plot Switch: The original goal is to find meat for Mario and Luigi's spaghetti, but because Bunji ate the last remaining meat and the Mario bros. reveal they can't eat meat at all, the last half of the game revolves around rescuing Princess Bleach from vineRizon and escaping the Giant Meat.
• Harassing Phone Call: When you speak to a Dog character in the Chat City area, its dialogue is interrupted by the Nokia ringtone. The Dog picks up, and hears, "Plae DMC2 is da best!" The Dog then proceeds to threaten the person on the other end, telling him that it knows his number and where he lives.
• Have a Nice Death: At the end of the Mario's Early Years: Preschool Fun section, Sponge is unavoidably killed. The voiceover then says, "You suck!"
• Hypocritical Humor: Ringo Starr's parting words when he ends his fight with Sponge are "peace and love", despite the fact the former threatened to rob the latter at gunpoint for ruining his dinner.
• Level Ate: The spaghetti that Sponge attempts to eat, which he instead gets sucked into and enters a level where everything is spaghetti and meatballs (which are really made out of tofu).
• Marathon Level: The whole adventure inside the giant Meat technically counts as this, since completing the first stage as Sponge in 2 Player Mode makes you play the stage again as Pretzel, but after that the player controls Sponge when they enter the giant Meat all the way to the ending.
• Mind Screw: The game has you traverse various increasingly nonsensical locations with equally bizarre enemies and little-to-no explanation, in a similar manner to Yume Nikki (in fact, a few set-pieces actually show up here as a reference to the game).
• Mood Whiplash: From a game about a weird variety of characters and places inside of a giant worm (some which shouldn't even make sense), this game is definitely bound to have them.
  • From Daksu's Closet, the game's tone changes to a very nightmarish one, with the music even from Silent Hill with the area all dark and red. You expect it to get worse from there after going to an area all black... but then Howard the Duck appears, which then takes you to a nice and quiet cave area, where Piss Mario proceeds to piss in, which leads to an oddly nice underwater area.
  • During the Mario's Early Hell segment, the first few segments start off rather innocently, then the voiceover starts making really creepy messages between each one. Once things start to take a really uncanny turn, we get to see one that's a Take That! to Jay Leno and has nothing creepy about it other than the changing colors and background music.
  • Near the ending, you're put in a very dark room with barely any music playing and a creepy statue of Meat. Go through the "Sicko Mode" pipe on the left and you're greeted with a bunch of dancing Marios in a rather funny area, while a rendition of Despacito plays.
• Multiple Endings: Three of them, depending on what you do at the final area (the incognito mode room with the Meat statue in between two pipes):
  • Bad End 1: Fall off the final area at any point or exit the house leading to the final boss. Sponge will fall down a pit full of Meat worms. He wakes up, realizing it was All Just a Dream... until he sees a Meat worm next to him.
  • Bad End 2: Lose to the final boss once. Sponge turns out to be watching the whole adventure as a YouTube video, then speaks with Vlinny, an evil version of Vinny from his Tomodachi Life streams.
  • Good End: Defeat the final boss. Sponge escapes Meat by riding on a mushroom going up Meat's throat. Unfortunately, he lost the meat he was going to bring back, the Bros cannot eat meat, and Princess Bleach was Dead All Along, so Sponge winds up feeling like he accomplished nothing.
• No Endor Holocaust: When Sponge finally escapes Meat's body at the end of the game, his world seems to be no worse for wear despite Meat's rampage at the start of the game.
• Non-Indicative Name: The song in the game's soundtrack named "Sicko Mode" is actually a cover of "Despacito" in the style of the Fortnite default dance.
• Number of the Beast: Referenced in one bit where the voiceover begins counting blocks... and when she gets to six, she repeats it twice.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: Happens multiple times throughout, mainly in reference to the Vinesauce video game corruption streams:
  • The first occurrence is at the end of the first level, where the level turns purple and Buzzy Beetles can be seen floating in the air. This serves to herald the appearance of Meat.
  • In the Mario's Early Years section, the colors change when the Number of the Beast is said, and later, the choices and audio appear corrupted at the screen just before the fire chase.
  • Attempting to enter the incognito mode pipe in the final area more than 4 times results in this, with the coloration of the area switching at regular intervals. Continuing further results in the final area degrading more, until eventually a portrait of Princess Bleach is reached. Exiting that room once more returns the area to the 4th loop.
• Or Was It a Dream?: In Bad End 1, Sponge wakes up in his bed, realizing it was all a nightmare... only to see a Meat worm next to him.
• Perpetual Frowner:
  • Sponge never smiles. After defeating the final Meat boss, instead of celebrating, Sponge simply hangs his head in despair, because he failed to rescue Princess Bleach.
  • This game's Yoshi also always frowns, in reference to a corruption video that made Yoshi look this way.
• Pop Quiz: A five-question one is delivered by the amalgamation of Animal Crossing ducks, Daksu. The questions are mostly related to Vinesauce jokes, and it's likely that even an avid watcher of the streams will find themselves answering the first four several times. Choosing "Let me in" skips the quiz altogether.
• Save the Princess: Around the halfway point, you are tasked with saving Princess Bleach from vineRizon, going to the Rizon Fortress to get her back. Sadly, by the time you get to her, she is dead, and Meat swallows her corpse.
• Sdrawkcab Speech: A voice clip of Vinny is played backwards after the Rewind Block in the second Will Smith section is hit, which foreshadows the end:
  Vinny: When he got there, the princess was dead.
• Shockwave Stomp: Meat's final form does this whenever it walks. Oddly enough, it doesn't create shockwaves when it jumps until it Turns Red.
• Shout-Out:
  • Many of the characters, worlds, and such are references to Vinesauce videos.
  • Sponge is sent to find meat because the Mario brothers need it for their spaghetti, and what is a meatless plate of spaghetti? "A miserable little pile of secrets! But enough talk!"
  • "Megalovania" plays during the Mr. Dink boss fight after breaking his grill, itself a reference to an infamous Imagine Spot from Doug. The juxtaposition of it with an EarthBound parody further nods to The Halloween Hack, where the song first appeared.
  • In the underground arena, Kermit the Frog and Scoot the duck can be seen in the audience.
  • In the Dark World section of Chat City, Yume Nikki set-pieces can be seen in the background as a nod to the similar Surreal Horror approach the hack takes.
  • The dancing animation for Twitch Chat NPCs is an obvious nod to a popular Blender animation of Bob from Animal Crossing by Geibuchan, most prominently featured in this viral Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp fan video.
  • When Will Smith makes his appearance, a text box appears saying "Will Smith has logged in", and the castle theme (mixed with "It's rewind time") from Super Mario World plays. This references a section from Toilet In Wonderland, where Mario "logs in" to the game and chases the player around to the same castle theme.
  • Meat's second form during the final battle appears to be a nod to the Crimsicles, a fictitious race of gemstone-eating lizards created by and used as a mascot for Vinesauce collaborator AlizarinRed.
  • The game's soundtrack includes covers of "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi (inexplicably named "Sicko Mode" here) and "Steppin' Out" by Joe Jackson, both of which are arranged for Super Mario World's soundfont. It also contains an 8-bit rendition of "You" from Higurashi: When They Cry (originating from a corruption stream from 2018) and a looped version of "炎色鳥 - Can You Feel" by vaporwave artist Torchkas, which itself samples "Another Life" by Italo Disco artist Kano. In these cases though, the songs are straight imports of the original, albeit compressed to fit within the game's memory limitations.
  • The Meat worms in one late area of Rizon Fortress sing the theme to Hong Kong '97.
• Surreal Horror: While there is some humor in regards to the many Vinesauce references, the hack has a very disturbing atmosphere throughout, as it starts with you going through the belly of an Eldritch Abomination and later has you go through the strange worlds it has eaten. Much of the NPC dialogue makes little sense, the enemies have creepy designs, and the whole thing is trippy beyond belief.
• Take That!: The section based on Mario's Early Years: Preschool Fun requires you to pick, as one of the questions, the "opposite of funny." The correct answer? Jay Leno, which is not only a jab at the man himself, but also Vinny's less-than-popular Stylistic Suck impression of him.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: At one point, the game has an EarthBound-style JRPG battle against Mr. Dink or Ringo Starr. There is another section later on where the game imitates U.N. Squadron, one of Vinny's favorite shmup games.
• Urine Trouble: A lot of it, in fact.
  • Mario Pissing, being a known meme in the Vinesauce community, shows up multiple times.
    • The Mario from that video saves Sponge from a pit by filling it up with piss. This segues into an underwater adventure. ^note Wow...
    • During the aforementioned "show me the opposite of funny" section, the other answer is the head of Mario from the video with the caption "PISS" under it. Choosing that will say "You picked pipi. It is funny."
    • A fountain with a statue of Mario from the same video appears in the plaza section. Guess where the water's coming from.
  • In the same plaza section, in the jail, one of the characters can change Sponge's tear weapon into piss. That he shoots out from his eyes.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Rizon Fortress, where vineRizon is holding Princess Bleach captive. After making it to the fortress, there are five sections; a normal section, a section where Will Smith takes over, an upside-down section, a section with a bunch of singing Meat worms, and the section leading to the final boss.
• Wham Line:
  • While being interviewed about their thoughts on cock-and-ball torture, Mario tries to calm Luigi down by telling him that "We can't even eat meat."
  • After the Rewind Block in the second Will Smith section is hit, a voice clip of Vinny is played backwards, which states "When (Sponge) got there, the princess was dead". Though this only applies if the player decoded the message before continuing, thus learning the plot twist early.
• Womb Level: With the exception of the first level, the entirety of the game takes place in the inside of Meat, a giant Eldritch Abomination worm. Though only the first area of Meat really has this aesthetic, as the rest of the game takes place within the worlds that Meat has swallowed.
• Word-Salad Humor: The NPCs in the village have dialogue that was obfuscated using the Bing translator, leading to utter nonsense.
  Char: The missing screen lady should say, "It's time to get the skin."
• Worthless Treasure Twist: Sponge has set out on an entire adventure with the purpose of finding meat for Mario and Luigi, only to find out partway through that Mario and Luigi actually can't eat meat at all.

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