Imagine this scenario: Hey you got your Portal in my Super Mario Bros.! You got your Super Mario Bros. in my Portal! It's delicious! This is what I'm guessing went on at Stabyourself.net that led to the development of their latest release, mari0. To distill it down to the most basic description, it's the original Mario with a portal gun, which on it's own is pretty neat-- but it's the extra stuff that really sells it.
Initially, I actually found the game kind of boring. Same old Mario levels we've all played a million times with a portal gun that the levels weren't designed for. The SMB original stages make the use of the portal gun (basically the whole draw of the game) more or less optional. You could get through the whole game without using it! I spent the whole time with my amateur game developer hat on going "Why not limit Mario's jump so you have to use the portals!?" or "They shoud of made changes to the stages that make the portal gun necessary!" Just experimenting with the gun in tired, old Mario levels wasn't enough for me. That's before I explored the additional level packs and various options. This is where the game shines. The Portal pack the game comes with requires puzzle solving and actual portal using-- it plays like a game designed to use the abilities given to the player. There's also a DLC pack (free, thank god) that is the same way. Basically the concept of playing SMB1 with a portal gun draws you in, but it's the Portal pack and DLC where the game's actual meat is. The multiplayer (which I didn't get to try) looks like a neat addition too. There's also an awesome cheats menu that you can unlock for slogging your way through the Mario stages that give you all sorts of fun options to play with, including a Minecraft mode, Giant Mario, a mode that constantly spawns Goombas just off screen, and most importantly: the ability to pull off THE SONIC RAINBOOM!
This game just got about 20% cooler.
Get mari0 here!
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