As anyone who’s played Super Mario Sunshine likely knows, Luigi isn’t present in the game at all. He’s not playable in any form. He makes no cameos like he does in Galaxy 1. Heck, the characters in the game don’t even mention his name!
It’s basically the one Mario title Luigi has the least to do with, for reasons unknown to everyone but Nintendo.
However, that’s all changed now! Because thanks to a hacker and speedrunner called redfuzzydice, Luigi has now been made playable in Super Mario Sunshine!
So here’s a video showing him in action:
Yeah, it’s not exactly a perfect change. The HUD still shows Mario’s face. The pre-rendered cutscenes still feature Mario. And well, the voice clips haven’t been edited either. It’s just a single character model swap.
But it’s still pretty cool none the less. Luigi’s model (taken from Mario 64 DS) works perfectly in the game, and it gives you a nice taste of what it’d be like if Luigi was the main man in Mario Sunshine.
So if you’re a fan of him… give it a try. See what it’s like to have Luigi clean up Isle Delfino in Mario’s place!
Wow, this is quick. Just one day after Super Mario Odyssey got a new trailer at E3, Super Mario 64 ROM hacker Kaze Emanuar has redone it in Super Mario 64! He’s redone the enemy possession and hat platform mechanics in the game’s engine.
Here’s a trailer showing his work in action:
Plus a picture showing part of the mod itself:
This one has Mario use his hat as a platform in Jolly Roger Bay.
And well, it’s a really good recreation. Lots of enemies and animals can be taken over. Everything has unique movesets and abilities. Even the hat works perfectly too. It’s practically perfect.
Which is especially good given how it was done in a matter of hours. So good job Kaze. You mimicked Nintendo’s work just hours after they released it themselves. You have some damn impressive coding skills to do that.
A while back, quite a few gaming sites covered a rather interesting mod for Mario Kart 8 on Wii U. Adding Kirby to the game, this mod was one of the first model swaps to become popular, and hinted at the possibilities for other custom characters to come.
Possibilities which the modding scene certainly picked up on! Because now, Kirby and Sonic are only some of the interesting characters added to the game!
For example, here’s Petey Piranha, Lucas and Guzma as Mario Kart 8 characters:
As well as some very nice looking mods adding Captain Olimar and Ganondorf to the fray! So now you’re able to race your favourite tracks with a Pokemon villain team leader, the Hyrulian king of evil or the main man from the Pikmin series!
It’s certainly a neat character line up!
And that’s not the only thing that’s been hacked in either. Oh no, we’ve now got the first fully custom track:
Which is hopefully the first of many to come on. As well as Block City from Mario Kart Double Dash as the first custom battle arena:
That one isn’t perfect just yet. Since you know, the AI don’t move correctly.
But it’s miles ahead of the original game’s battle tracks none the less. Indeed, if other ones were like this, battle mode may have been worth playing!
2D demakes of 3D titles are not exactly a new thing. We’ve had Breath of the NES released recently, which tried to convert the mechanics from Breath of the Wild to a Zelda 1 style 2D experience. There have been legions of 2D Super Mario 64 remakes in the past, with Super Mario Sunshine 64 and Super Mario 63 being two well known examples.
And well, where Ocarina of Time is concerned, history is littered with the husks of 2D demakes past and present. I mean, you could almost fill a 20 game list with Ocarina of Time 2D games alone!
So it shouldn’t surprise you that the same thing has just happened to ARMS. Yep, as the title suggests, a game development studio called Angel Wire Studio has remade ARMS as a 2D Smash Bros style fighting game! Here’s a GIF showing the game in action:
Plus some screenshots from the official site:
As you can tell, it’s pretty simple compared to the real thing. It’s only got one game mode, compared to the dozens in Nintendo’s actual game. It’s got just one stage and one set of gloves, rather than the tons the actual title has. And well, online multiplayer is obviously absent for practical reasons.
But it’s still an interesting little title none the less, and one that ARMS fans should enjoy playing for the time being. So if you want to try it, get it from the official site before it gets taken down by Nintendo.
Cause let’s face it, this game will get taken down at some point. Nintendo hasn’t exactly been good to fan games in the last year or two (as AM2R and Pokemon Uranium found out), and demakes of heavily hyped titles are even more targeted here. I mean, look what happened to Breath of the NES when everyone started covering that game!
So ARMS 2D is probably not long for this world. Download it before the mainstream media cause it to get too much attention!
In recent times, fan game development has become a bit more difficult than usual. It’s been under fire from lawyers and internet sites, with claims going around that it’s of questionable legality. It’s seen an increase in take downs from paranoid companies (like Nintendo and Konami). And with the recent track record of projects released to classics like Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, many developers are now looking for an alternative.
And in most cases, that means turning to indie game development. Or just rebranding their projects so they’re not based on an existing IP.
So here are some examples of this. Here are some examples of fan game creators becoming professional game developers, starting with a small company you may not have heard about yet…
Despite actually knowing the fan games they’ve developed. Why? Because the folks at Fusion Gameworks were responsible for Mushroom Kingdom Fusion, Super Mario Fusion Revival and Mega Man Day in the Limelight. Yes, that Mushroom Kingdom Fusion:
The one where Mario (and a bunch of other characters) save the multiverse from the forces of evil in an absolutely gigantic mega crossover. That was these guys’ first (and most well known) project.
Since then though, they’ve slowly gotten tired of the fan game world, eventually culminating in their recent decision to stop making them altogether. That’s in part because of Nintendo’s recent fan project shut downs, and the team deciding Super Mario Fusion Revival (their most recent project) was too risky to continue in that form.
So they quit fan game development for the time being, and are working on a bunch of indie games with a similar gameplay style to their fan projects. I can’t say more than that yet, but they do look really good none the less.
And hey, talking of crossover fan game devs, they’re not the only ones to have moved to the indie scene…
Oh no, their ‘rivals’ in crossover fan game development are doing likewise. That’s because Exploding Rabbit are the creators of a game called Super Mario Bros Crossover, and they’ve also decided to move into the realm of indie games.
They’ve done this with a game called Glitch Strikers, a 2D platformer mixing various gameplay styles from the eight bit era. This project (previously titled Super Retro Squad) was announced back in 2012 and had a successful Kickstarter campaign to go with it, raising over $50,000 from more than 1,800 backers.
Unfortunately, that’s where the story kind of goes a bit wrong. Why? Because it turned out that $50,000 isn’t really all that much in the greater scheme of things, and the title’s development eventually collapsed on itself. This was not taken well by certain people online. Nor by certain gaming blogs, who accused them of ‘spending the money on a house’ or funding it with Super Mario Bros Crossover revenue.
Still, it’s back in development now, with a new trailer:
And more updates on their official site and YouTube channel. Hopefully this revitalised attempt at making the game will work out a bit better than their first one.
Either way, onto a slightly more experienced example of fan game dev turned pro now. Why more experienced? Well, because they’ve actually made multiple games. Two full titles in a seriescalled Last Legacy, and without having to raise any funding for either on Kickstarter.
But this wasn’t where they started off. Oh no, they started off with some fairly well known fan game projects beforehand, and those were what they build their name on. Said projects were a Super Mario 64 demake called Super Mario Sunshine 64:
Plus a more advanced one called Super Mario 63:
Both were damn impressive works in general, and their indie works were arguably just as good. So yeah, it seems making the move from fan games to indie games can be done successfully.
