Review Information
Game Reviewed Super Mario Bros: Kill Bowser, by Hello
Review Author TheTwelfthRocket
Created Feb 24 2016, 4:00 AM

General Commentary and Game Overview
({[DISCLAIMER: The version I played was NOT the actual version of the game. The version of the game I played was the Hello Fangaming Time Capsule on GameJolt version. Disclaimer ends here.]})

Super Mario Bros. Kill Bowser.

Well, that's a great sign of what's to come, isn't it?

Super Mario Bros. Kill Bowser is one of the many games Hello made in 2007.

Is it an enjoyable game? Let's find out.
 
Pros +The engine
+Music
+SOMEWHAT decent level design
+I guess it's fun at times
 
Cons -The engine
-Tiles won't tile on OS's above Vista (I think)
-Fatal level design flaws
-Name is stupid
-Saving is a bit awkward to manage
-No checkpoints (Which is a problem since each level is fairly lengthy)
 
Impressions
Gameplay
5 / 10
Now as you could already tell, the game was made with Ultramario's engine. Now I'm not really a fan of Ultramario's engine. While it's okay at best in my opinion, I found some quirks with the engine. Other than the obvious fact that like the whole engine was made with Drag & Drop, the engine is also a bit slippery too. The way the engine handles Mario when he has his head or lower part of his body stuck inside of a solid acts like the outdated NES games, as well. Honestly, to me, it really feels a lot like the Hello Engine III recreated with Drag & Drop. Before Hello Engine III.

Now at the title screen, the logo reads Super Mario Bros. Kill Bowser, you know, the most original fangame name evar!!

Apparently, there is also a save system. Now to save, you press Enter. However I think the save system is kind of hard to manage, usually I press the Enter key a second time expecting it to be used as a way to quickly close the "game saved" textbox only to find out that it opens the textbox again. So I'm supposed to press Enter first, then click "OK" on the textbox.

The map system is also actually very similar to SMB3 as well. Of course, Mario is only allowed to go through paths once the level that is in the middle of that path is done. However throughout my entire playthrough of this game, I found a glitch where I was able to enter the Toad House twice. Actually, what if the Toad Houses in this game are actually houses that people temporarily left and Mario is robbing them? Hmm...

The level design is...actually somewhat decent, which is surprising in a Hello game. Of course, I have found some fatal level design errors. I'll just list them below...

-In the second level, for one, there is a switch and a pipe. However, It seems as if Hello expected everyone to leave the switch block ON. However, anyone who is curious enough to see what happens (like me) switched the block OFF and went into the pipe afterwards, they would have to fall into the pit since they cannot go back into the pipe afterwards.

-In the third level, there is a section where many of those Buzzy Beetle-like thingies throw mountains of blue bricks, which effectively means that as soon as you enter the second section of the level, you have to immediately take cover.

-In the fortress level in World 1, there is a part where Mario has two paths; one for Small Mario, and one for Super Mario. I took the Small Mario path even though I was Super Mario because I couldn't for the life of me find the spin jump button. However, when I let go of the duck button when I was still under the blocks, Mario started gliding right and eventually he was gliding along the ceiling, and eventually gets stuck inside of the ceiling. BUT! I was magically able to get out somehow. However, when I died later in the level, I had to start over, going the same path I went with Super Mario again, being the naive person I am, and I got stuck again. I was expecting to magically get out again like last time, but that didn't happen. So guess what. I had to wait until the time runs out. So while I was hopelessly running around in impatience waiting for the time to run out, I thought there was a pause button, so I pressed Enter and then...Mario spin jumped?! Okay, what the heck Ultramario. How the heck is anyone supposed to have the idea that ENTER, of all keys, was the spin jump button, but not any other key, like Up + Shift or C, which could've been a way better choice? Seriously, I don't know what's up with that.

I also found some errors in level's in general but they're mainly the engine's fault, such as the time still revolving around Mario even when he is busy warping through a pipe, or the lack of checkpoints. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but Ultramario's engine had checkpoints, did it not? I really don't know why you didn't use checkpoints, Hello.

So I stopped like halfway through the game at World 2's fortress. I once again got stuck gliding along the ceiling for the same reason as the earlier fortress level in World 1. There I decided to call it a day.

OK-ish.
 
Graphics
4 / 10
Now if you're expecting a lot of the graphics to be changed...well, sorry to say, but most of the default graphics used in the original engine are still here. The only new thing you'll see is the new HUD, which looks a lot nicer than the one that comes with the engine.

The reason Hello didn't change like 99% of the graphics is that apparently, "He kept them because he likes Black Squirrel's graphics".

Now as with a lot of people that played the game, the tiles don't tile. However, the OS I'm using to make this review along with playing the game is Windows Vista, so the tiles DID tile for me. From what I heard, it's possibly because using anything above Vista will cause the tiles to not tile, which makes the game look very unpleasant, which may be caused due to it being made in GM6, I think...

Not very good.
 
Sound
5 / 10
Now on the other hand, music is pretty decent. It's low quality, yes, but it's basically MP3s...so...yeah. Even if the music is low quality, it's still pretty enjoyable to listen to. So good on that, I guess.

Now as for sounds, they're mostly just...normal. No explaining needed to be done here.

Now the things that annoyed people a lot were the voices in the Super Mario Advance series. While they never annoyed me personally, I have no idea at all what made Hello think it was a good idea in the first place. Now in the original Ultramario engine, Mario didn't have any voices. Here, he does for some reason. I just feel the voices are a bit too exaggerated here. It'd be nice to hear a few, but it seems Mario does it everytime he does something. Now honestly, the modern Mario voices don't bother me as much as the SMA voices even if I don't find them THAT annoying. Yeah, that's honestly the reason why I didn't mind them that much in Dynamo...

OK-ish.
 
Replay
1 / 10
Well, even though it's fun at times, there is really nothing to come back here for. You've basically seen everything here. Even if there are SLIGHT alternate paths in some levels, they really aren't that interesting.

Of course, I don't count replay towards my final score.
 
Final Words
5 / 10
Kill Bowser isn't anything special, but I still found it enjoyable. Anyway, it IS one of Hello's older games.

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