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'the (Video Game)
again?

'the (also known as Coronation Day) is a Horror themed Super Mario World ROM Hack released by Medic, Torchkas, and underway in January 2016, with a major update adding extra content being released in August 2025. The hack centers on Mario's journey through a forest-like environment, with various strange messages coming from a disembodied voice, but there's something more to it than that...

Download it here.

Tropes with their own pages


Examples:

  • And Now for Someone Completely Different: After escaping Ghost Peach and going through the cavern, the game reloads the initial Forest again, but with you playing as Peach.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • When prompted to "DRINK THE MILK" after the ending where Mario is caught and treads through the Frozen Forest, going back on the same route allows him to not only do just that, but also allow access to one of the Peach-based endings without needing to escape from Ghost Peach.
    • If you need to quickly restart a loop without needing to get either ending of the Frozen Forest, pressing Start at the first bridge before activating the "I'M" "the heart" trigger and causing it to collapse will send you right back to the beginning again.
    • After unlocking the red door with the key and stepping inside, the door in question will permanently remain in the hidden area of the Frozen Forest for you to reaccess at any time.
  • Arc Words:
    • "again?"
    • As of the 2025 update, "There's nothing here for you.", as well as "I'll miss you."
  • Automatic New Game: There is no logo or title screen. After loading the hack, the game goes straight to the intro screen.
  • Big Bad: Ghost Peach, probably; it seems to be responsible for the strange happenings, and is the only enemy character, but the “story” is so vague and surreal that it is hard to tell either way.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The closest thing to the best ending in this game is this. While Peach manages to get inside an abandoned laboratory and break herself free from the cycle entirely by leaving the world, the screens that she passes by in the outside void confirm that Mario has not been freed, and due to the in-universe game cutting out, Mario is essentially trapped in the "Groundhog Day" Loop for all eternity, unbeknownst to Peach. Fortunately, one more ending afterwards ensures Mario can also escape, and reveal Peach's separate role in this story...
  • Bloodier and Gorier: Than the original Super Mario World, obviously. Also overlaps with Darker and Edgier.
  • Collection Sidequest: As of the hack's 2025 update, various items can be gathered by Mario, including turnips, body parts, a key for a giant door and even colors. Some items are necessary to access areas you wouldn't be able to otherwise.
  • Cosmic Horror Story: From what can be gathered, Ghost Peach is an Eldritch Abomination that is forcing Mario to repeat the same level again and again, with a grisly ending waiting for him at each path. And none of the endings, save for two that are the closest thing to a Golden Ending, have him escaping this hell.
  • Dark Reprise: One of the few music tracks in the game, "beginning", is mostly a haunting repetition of the first few notes from the regular Super Mario World overworld theme.
  • Demonic Possession: Implied to be what's going on with Peach, especially given the dialogue in the Pink Forest ending.
  • Developer's Foresight: If you manage to lockpick the ROM, open it in Lunar Magic and discard the overworld's custom palettes, you'll be greeted with hidden text reading "DON'T YOU KNOW HACKING IS A SIN?"
  • Easter Egg: Every song in the game has a title, scrambled within the game's coding. In alphabetical order, they are called "a rage"*, "beginning"*, "crawl"*, "death"*, "dark"*, "memory"*, "mistake"*, "mystery"*, "recall"*, "world"*, and a track with no name*.
  • Eldritch Abomination:
    • Whatever Ghost Peach is, it’s not normal. It looks like Peach but is gruesomely mutilated, calls itself the god of the Forest, and seems to be a Reality Warper that keeps Mario trapped in the Forest.
    • Whatever is described in the Burning Forest is likely to be this. It may be Ghost Peach itself.
      Its head towered in the light, horns larger than its head, sounds that weren’t from this time. What a staggering sight.
  • Gainax Ending: Pretty much all of the "endings" described below count as this. They seem to form a vague outline of events when put together, though.
  • A God Am I: Ghost Peach proclaims itself this before it chases you.
    I BELIEVE I AM THE GOD OF THIS FOREST
    ARE YOU LOOKING FOR ME?
    I AM THE ONE THAT (glitched letters)
  • Golden Ending: Fulfilling all the requirements to reach it finally allows Mario a chance to escape the endless cycle, with a voice commending him in various aspects and saying he knows what must be done as the world glitches away before him, likely with Peach also freed and the forest demon long gone. This is essentially the hack's definitive ending, and the only one to finish with complete credits.
  • Guide Dang It!: Getting certain endings can be obtuse, and the in-game hints are cryptic, not helped by the Mind Screw nature of the game. In particular, one ending requires you to stand in place and do nothing, and another requires hacking the game.
  • Jump Scare: After passing the black screen, loud and distorted noise endlessly plays as Ghost Peach begins chasing you, which can catch the unprepared off-guard.
  • The Lost Woods: The entire game is set in this.
  • Madness Mantra: Disabling layers reveals a hidden message on the map screen.
    HE DID NOT KNOW HE DID NOT KNOW HE DID NOT KNOW HE DID NOT KNOW
  • Mind Screw: A major part of the horror comes from how little sense everything makes, including the text.
  • Minus World: The cave is an incomprehensible mess of mangled sprites.
  • Monster Munch: The only surviving Rex which Mario can meet in the game's first level gets attacked and instantly Eaten Alive by Ghost Peach. Said Rex has both of its eyes gouged out of their sockets, which meant it probably wasn't long for this world anyway.
    • There is one more ending to find should the player decide to hack the game to find a hidden location. It can be found here. (Fair warning, the Pink Forest takes the hack's blood and gore factor much further than the rest of the game.)
  • No Fair Cheating: Subverted. Not only are cheats not called out on in the game, but they also prove a necessity to uncover several of the more hard-to-find secrets introduced in the 2025 release.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: Part of the game's scariness is that half of the time, it's just you and the background noise. In addition, there is little-to-no context for the weird happenings, making them that much more frightening.
  • Ominous Visual Glitch: The scenery is heavily glitched when Ghost Peach begins chasing you. If you get away, the graphics in the cave afterwards are almost entirely garbled.
  • Pacifist Run: It's possible to tread through Peach's part of the Forest without killing a single Rex, thus botching the sacrificial ritual. In doing so, the voice's usual two sets of dialogue towards her are replaced with accusing her of playing coy and not giving a good show, though nothing else in the level is affected. It does cause a major change to the dialogue seen in the "I WATCH" ending, however, with the addressed "honey" completely absent and the narrator lamenting how alone they are now.
  • Palette Swap: The Forest has various incarnations that usually boil down to different colors and sometimes entities. The most radically changed variations are the Burning Forest and Pink Forest.
  • Random Event:
    • The dialogue contained within each text box has several different variations that can appear randomly through each loop. This doesn't apply to "story-significant" dialogue.
    • After a first run through the game, the first level's layout is changed between four variants, each sporting a different message before the Ghost Peach chase and one holding a fridge you can step inside. Alternate paths are also occasionally opened depending on where you're going.
  • Replay Value: Several come to play as of the 2025 update, meaning manual ROM restarts aren't necessary to see all the content.
    • After each of the four original endings, Mario gains access to another area of the Forest, home to a mysterious Oracle who provides cryptic hints to uncover more mysteries. After the fourth ending, the Oracle will have permanently departed, never to be seen again.
    • Following the second visit to the Oracle's place, bigger Marios (some sporting Facial Horror) show up at random in the first level and say something before sinking into the ground.
  • Royal Brat: The shadowed king you encounter in the pit of a room hidden by a red locked door proves himself to be so arrogant that he doesn't bother helping you with how to properly advance and leaves it up to you to figure out. Fortunately, once you get your hands on a knife, you can use it to kill him and take back the crown he stole, allowing you access to the once-blocked off path on the outside.
  • Run, Don't Walk: Inverted; the run function is straight-up disabled, although button presses are still recognized. This is important for the Burning Forest ending.
  • Sampling: The trumpets used in The Rage (the song that plays in the burning Forest) is sampled from Tannhauser, WWV 70 played by the US Marine band.
  • Shifting Sand Land: One of the hidden areas that can be accessed is a desert that Mario can trek through, which is home to one of the hidden colors. The narration here employs Dissonant Serenity to a disturbing degree as it describes every inch of pain Mario seems to be feeling, always topping it with "You love the desert.".
  • Spectrogram Spectacle: The spectrogram of "world", the music track heard upon entering a level and viewing the "again?" message, reads "start anew where the light vanishes."
  • Surreal Horror: There is very little explanation for anything, the text boxes are vague and cryptic, the game acts in weird ways, and the possible Big Bad is an Eldritch Abomination version of Princess Peach.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: In the 2025 update, a cat can show up in a hidden area of the Frozen Forest and the last room of its associated ending. In both cases, you can use X to pet it, and judging by the hearts that appear each time you do this, it really appreciates the affection.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Discussed in the collectible Apocalyptic Log. An unnamed worker is stated to feel uncomfortable about the sounds of pain the test subjects of the simulation are in, and feels they're more human than their own co-workers and managers.
    "I was told they don't feel pain, but those sounds... they sound more human than anyone else here."
  • Wham Shot: A sign that you're on the path to the closest equivalent to a definitive ending to the hack is when, if the right criteria are met before the "I WATCH" ending, Peach suddenly appears in place of Mario, before defiantly jumping into the blood waters and extending her gameplay for that run by one more level. And upon reaching the end of said level, the very next loop reveals you now have a book in your inventory that can be read.
  • Wingdinglish: An alien lifeform presumed to be the forest demon's true form, alongside some things directly tied to it, speak in a language the player alone has no way of knowing. The true ending reveals that Peach is fully capable of understanding it, and she deciphers some of the things it says for you and Mario.
  • Word-Salad Horror: The text boxes can be seen as this if one doesn't try to connect any of the scattered pieces — they are very cryptic and do not make immediate sense.


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