Review Information
Game Reviewed Super Mario World: 1 1/2, by alexand2
Review Author Roo
Created Aug 20 2021, 6:13 PM

General Commentary and Game Overview
Reviews on MFGG tend to over-emphasize the badness of whatever is being reviewed (#PaperMarioWorldIsntTheWorstThingEver), especially when it already has a negative reputation and/or a lot of negative reviews. I went into SMW1½ fully aware of the fact that the fourteen 1/10 reviews and the 1.4/10 average score might skew my opinion of it somewhat.

However, after playing it, I genuinely think the average score is 0.4 too high. Aside from the acceptable graphics, this sorry mess is basically as bad as it could be. I'd say the only thing that would've made it worse would've been if it infected your computer with a virus, but I feel like that would've been more fun to play with.
 
Pros + The... the graphics are... decent? I guess? Maybe???
 
Cons - Literally everything else. EVERY. SINGLE. THING.
 
Impressions
Gameplay
1 / 10
I don't often say this, but where do I even begin?

The engine is the default Clickteam movement with the movement speed cranked pretty high and a lot of the obstacles are "weirdly" shaped, meaning you get stuck on everything all the time, especially if you're riding on Yoshi.

Speaking of Yoshi, he's here. He doesn't really do anything, he's obscenely fast (and goes faster to the left than to the right (perhaps he's trying to make a political statement?)), and you die to one hit even if you've got both Yoshi and a Mushroom, but he's here.

Speaking of power-ups and collectibles, in addition to coins (that don't do anything) and a single Dragon Coin (that you can't collect), there are Mushrooms. Collecting one makes you big and gives you three benefits. First of all, you can only swim in water and walk in lava (?) if you're big (or on Yoshi). Secondly, you can take a hit from an enemy, though the lack of invincibility frames means you're probably going to die anyway. Thirdly, you can only ride Yoshi if you're big. God knows why.

Speaking of god knowing why, this game has one of the weirdest glitches I have ever seen in a video game; sometimes (only if you're not big, I think), the game spawns another Mario into the world, and the camera starts repeatedly flickering between both Marios, leading to the whole thing becoming basically unplayable (not that it was very playable to begin with).

Speaking of not being very playable, the level design is... barely existent. The single level in the game is mostly flat, with some uninteresting objects and platforms and enemies scattered here and there, alongside some lava moats you have to get over with the help of floating platforms (or you can just walk through if you've got a 'shroom). It takes well under a minute to get to the end of the level even without skipping the lava — and when I say "the end of the level," I mean the place where the developer simply stopped making it. That's right; the single level in this demo isn't even finished.

Speaking of not being finished, if you die, you go to a white screen you can't escape from without restarting the game. Not much of a bother, as it's only ~45 seconds long, but still. There's also an "options" option in the main menu you can't choose, and if you drop into the bottomless pit on the main menu, nothing happens.

I don't think I'm even remotely exaggerating when I say this might genuinely be the worst thing this site has ever accepted.
 
Graphics
5 / 10
(Almost) all of the graphics are from Super Mario World, so there's some consistency to them, at least. However, a lot of them are used badly (stretching, cut-off) and the game forces itself into a seemingly unchangeable, poorly-scaled fullscreen mode, which looks very ugly.

One thing I do have to give credit for is that there's a swimming animation for Mario. You're not actually swimming, just walking at the bottom of the water, but the fact that the developer went through the effort to give Mario a specific animation for just that is laudable (and confusing).
 
Sound
1 / 10
The only three sounds in the game are the jump sound, the "getting on Yoshi" sound, and a low-quality recording of the SMW death sound. You know things are bad when one starts to miss that generic SMW overworld midi all these fangames tended to use.
 
Final Words
1 / 10
This truly is the nadir of fangames.

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