Howling winds and mountain waves have sunk your ship.
You've landed in a world of adventure and peril.
You've landed in a world of adventure and peril.
— Intro text
Released in 2019, Grand Poo World 2 is the sequel to Grand Poo World and the second chapter in a trilogy of Super Mario World Kaizo ROM hacks by BarbarousKing. After Mario's ship is wrecked, he finds himself in a new land. The IPS patch can be found on SMW Central
, while the game's soundtrack is available on Youtube in two parts: Part One, Part Two.
A sequel, Grand Poo World 3, was released in 2023.
Grand Poo World 2 contains examples of:
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: You play as Luigi for a single level in "Fraternal Fortress".
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: "Hanzo Castle" is themed around inversion and subversion. In one segment, Mario can safely stand on Munchers, but attempting to stand on ordinary wooden flooring kills him instantly.
- Bookends: The game both starts and ends with Mario aboard a ship.
- The Cameo: Digitized portraits of several well-known Mario streamers appear hidden throughout the game.
- Classic Cheat Code: During the puzzle sequence you can press B, A, R, B, Down, A, B, Select ("Barb dabs") to bypass the puzzle entirely.
- Collapsing Lair: After beating the final boss, the player must complete a Metroid-esque escape sequence where they race upwards, pursued by rising lava.
- Continuity Nod:
- If you pan the camera in the overworld, you can find parts of the world map from the first Grand Poo World.
- "Widow's Peak" from the original Grand Poo World reappears here as a hidden secret level. Beating it earns you absolutely nothing.
- Dedication: No, it's not Toilet Humour. The "Poo" in the title refers to content creator GrandPooBear, to whom the hack is dedicated.
- Double Meaning: Several level names carry multiple meanings:
- "Poo's Laughter House" seems like an appropriately lighthearted name for the brightly colored level. But it can also be read as "Poo Slaughterhouse" — a threatening statement of the level's difficulty.
- "Idle Hands" refers to the expression "idle hands are the devil's workshop". But it also refers to the hands of the clocks scattered throughout the level which, when activated, cause everything to idle (i.e. cease moving).
- Dramatic Irony: Following the end-game credits, a statement appears: "Hopefully there is no sequel". The sequel was released roughly 4½ years later in 2023.
- Garden of Evil: "Mirkwood" is a corrupted forest full of poisonous mushrooms and deadly purple sludge.
- Interface Screw: "Hanzo Castle" contains "reverse water", which inverts your directional inputs while you're swimming through it.
- Kaizo Trap: In "Mount Moon" the player must carefully time when they grab the orb to coincide with the moving platform below them, otherwise they'll walk directly into the lava during the end-of-level fanfare.
- Multiple Endings: The game has two endings, a bad ending and a good ending. The bad ending involves Mario being trapped and dying in the final level, while the good ending involves defeating Bowser at a hidden area in the final level.
- Platform Hell: This hack is notoriously difficult. Its creator described it as "the sequel to one of the hardest Kaizo: Light hacks ever made".
- Poison Mushroom: "Mirkwood" is filled with these deadly fungi. One touch means instant death.
- Secret Path: Immediately prior to the final boss, there is a power-up mushroom hidden behind a seemingly solid ceiling. This makes the boss fight significantly easier since it allows the player to take two hits rather than one.
- Shipwreck Start: A shipwreck provides the Inciting Incident for the game's Excuse Plot.
- Shout-Out:
- The "The Hall of Champions" level contains portraits and tributes to those who helped make the game, as well as the then-current record holder for speedrunning the original GrandPooWorld.
- Many level names are shout outs to literature and other games:
- The desert level "Arrakis" is named after the desert planet from Dune.
- "Caradhras" and "Weathertop" are named for locations in The Lord of the Rings, while "Mirkwood" is from The Hobbit.
- Likewise, "House of the Undying" and "The Eyrie" are locations in Game of Thrones.
- The cavernous bat-filled level "Mount Moon" is named after an infamously (Zu)bat-filled cave in Pokémon Red and Blue.
- The castle level "Sen's Fortress" is named after a castle in Dark Souls.
- "Yacht Club Castle" is a reference to the developer of the Shovel Knight series, Yacht Club Games.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The frigid level "Caradhras" requires players to use low-friction ice physics to slide under obstacles.
- Toilet Humour: The level "Deuce Lair" takes places in an Absurdly Spacious Sewer filled with deadly brown liquid, and the title is a Double Entendre; it can also be read as "Deuce Layer" — one who drops a deuce.
- Time Stands Still: In "Idle Hands", hitting a clock will cause everything except Mario to temporarily freeze in place.
- Video Game Caring Potential: A baby Yoshi is waiting near the exit of the final escape sequence. You can grab him and take him with you as you escape — or you can leave him to be consumed by the rising lava.
