Breakfast time: Let's Play Super Demo World: The Legend Continues!

I just realized that he was putting secret exits in the castles that collapse when you beat them the normal way, so there is no way to go back to them. Eviler and eviler!

Well, you can reenter castles by pressing L and R simultaneously, even in the original. That's no barrier. I'm not finding Crystal Castle's secret exit because I hate it and want it to die screaming, not because I'm unable to.

Huh, I never knew that. Of course, after seeing the sheer, unadulterated horror on display in these stages is probably all that I'd ever want you to force yourself through. Really though, did FuSoYa honestly think all of these were good ideas? Did he even think about playtesting these with normal human beings before putting them in the final product?

Honestly, the mind boggles.

Super Demo World does make for an interesting Tool-Assisted Speedrun though.

If you're interested, it's on this page. There's an 'any% run' and a '100% run' (over 2 hours!). You can either download the avi through the provided torrent, or if you have the rom and the correct version of SNES9x to play it you can just download the smv file and play the movie in the emulator. Though you can't track to various points this way. But you can, at least, fast forward (+ and - buttons) and use save states to mark specific parts, if you load a save state you made in the movie while it's playing it'll take you back to that part and resume playing, for instance.

There's also a run of Mario Adventure on that page as well. No other SMW hacks though.

Anyway, the Tool-assisted speedrun of Demo World makes a mockery of the levels in the way only a Tool-assisted speedrun can. Like the runs through Crystal Caverns 3 and the Crystal Caverns Castle, for instance. It IS possible to get through the Crystal Caverns Castle without having to die, but that doesn't mean any normal human playing would likely ever do it.

Jump over spike columns?! The mind boggles.

Welcome back to Let’s Play Super Demo World. Last time, we left the stupid ridiculous unfair Crystal Castle in our wake, and moved on to World 5, the Sky World. After the various irritations of the Crystal Caverns, Sky World is actually quite soothing by comparison. It has a handful of irritating levels, but nothing too terrible in store for us.



Let’s get going, shall we?

Sky World 1



Like most first stages in Demo World, Sky World 1 is a very straightforward, basic-platforming-type level designed merely to introduce you to the various gimmicks the world will be springing on you later on. Sky World 1 has lots of bottomless pits and falling platforms, as you’d expect, but the enemies are really thick in this world, with bouncing and flying Koopas, Bob-Ombs littering every flat surface, and, every once in a while, Lakitus.



Super Mario World has one of the weirder Goomba designs. Unlike in most Mario games, SMW’s Goombas don’t squish when you jump on them — they flip over and can be tossed around like shells. This evidently rubs some romhackers the wrong way. In a lot of romhacks, you’ll see “Goombas” are actually shell-less Koopas reskinned with the SMB1 or SMB3 Goomba sprite. SMW’s Goomba enemy is then usually passed on to the intrepid Shy Guy, as seen here.



This type of setup can get really annoying in a hurry with the right (or should I say wrong?) enemy placement. Because you can pass through these platforms when you jump from below, the slightest jump in a sequence like this sends you back to the beginning. Placing enemies in a platform setup like this basically requires the player to a) have the Cape, b) have Yoshi, or c) bend over and take it. Luigi’s Adventure is filled with segments like that.



The cool thing about Sky World is that it’s usually really easy to skip the hard parts if you have a Cape. These bubble enemies are actually intended to interfere with you as you take a collection of falling platforms below, but with a bit of flying you can jump this mildly annoying sequence entirely.

Sky World 2





Sky World 2 uses another of those pieces of abandoned programming from the original SMW: The infinite Lakitu cloud. When you steal a Lakitu’s cloud in the original, it will usually only last for about half a minute before dissolving, but this one will stay solid for as long as it remains on the screen. Presumably early builds of SMW had a level design or two based on the Lakitu cloud, but the addition of the P-Balloon rendered it redundant.



Anyway, this level is filled with Pitchin’ Chucks and Volcano Lotuses, so you’re constantly weaving around, trying to dodge all the shrapnel the game is throwing your way. You are helped in this endeavor by the massive slowdown caused by having so many objects on the screen at once.



To get to the secret exit in this stage, you need to grab a shell and carry it through this gauntlet of Piranha Plants. This is tougher than it looks, because if your shell hits a Plant, you lose it and have to try again.



Once you get it through, though, the solution is obvious.

Sky Secret



The Sky Secret is the same as pretty much all the others. Our gray block in this world grants a green shell. Each world with a Switch Palace gives you the shell of the matching color in its Secret, so we’ll keep our eyes open for the Green Switch Palace in this world.



Sky World 2’s regular exit is just a stone’s throw beyond the secret one. Good thing, too, because this level gives you very little time for some reason.

Sky World 3



Sky World 3’s secret exit is, conveniently, right at the starting point. Bring a Cape and fly left until you see a pillar poking out of the bottom of the screen.



At that point, drop down to find the key and keyhole. Sky World 3’s secret exit is just a shortcut to the Castle…



Sky World 3 is another one of those boring straightforward platforming stages without a whole lot to show off or talk about. There’s a segment in the middle where you have to dodge Lakitus, and a few of these hopping fireballs from the Special World in the original SMW…



The awesome thing about pipes is that they’re so ingrained into the Mario mythos that they don’t even have to make sense anymore. Usually you can sort of imagine the pipes leading into a sewer or network of pipes that Mario can navigate to get to where he wants to go, but where is this pipe supposed to lead, exactly?

Sky World 4



Sky World 4 is by far the hardest level in World 5, although not the most annoying.



It’s an airship level, filled with the usual airship obstacles: Bottomless pits, Bob-Ombs, and Bullet Bills. It’s very long and fraught with opportunities for you to mess up, which is why I usually just fly over as much of it as I can. At least it doesn’t autoscroll, unlike the other airship level in the game.



You can’t skip the whole level, though — at various points, you have to go inside the ship and negotiate these big piles of crates. My advice is to use shells to clear your way here; trying to get through without fighting will usually put you in a situation where you don’t have a clear jump because there are too many enemies in the way.



Remember these guys from SMW? No, you don’t, because they appeared in exactly one level and it was underwater. That doesn’t stop romhackers from using them as often as they can, though.

You can actually spin jump on Torpedo Teds safely. Some romhacks (coughTSRP1cough) include segments where you have to “ride” a Ted across a long gap in this manner.



Believe it or not, this is actually one of the harder jumps in the game. You have to enter this pipe by jumping off a falling platform, and if you mess it up, you’re doomed. Without savestates, this part has “cheap death” written all over it.



The pipe leads back inside the ship, where — of course — we need to go find another P-Switch before we can exit.



We uncover one by heading left. With it in hand, we turn around and backtrack, going as far right as we can manage…



Watch out while you’re hitting the Switch here, as there’s a Torpedo Ted launcher behind the wall of brown blocks. It can blindside you if you’re not paying close attention.



Finally. At least this level doesn’t have a secret exit.

Sky World 5





Sky World 5 is a lot like one of the Butter Bridges from the original, in that it’s swarming with Super Koopas. About the only difference between the two is that this one autoscrolls, and there is generally more shit in your way.

The cool thing about Super Koopas, though, is that they’re ideal for doing the old “bounce of enemies without touching the ground for 1-ups” trick. I amused myself waiting for the level to scroll to the end by bouncing off Super Troopas, and finished this level with about 64 extra men. And that was without savestates.

Of course, this isn’t even the best extra lives gimmick in the game. You can see the other by letting the game’s intro run for a while.

Sky World 6





What Demo World is trying to say here is that this level is an example of one of the more common romhack maze types. While the regular exit to this area is very short and easy to find, the secret exit requires negotiating the level, essentially, eight or nine times.



See, what happens is that if you go through this pipe right here, you end up in a maze of clouds. This maze has several pipes which lead to copies of the maze, and each of those copies is identical in layout, differing only in a few minor details. The key, for example, is found in the “night” copy, but the keyhole is found in the “day” copy. We’re in the “day” version right now, so the solution to the puzzle is to find a sequence of actions to get to the “night” version of the level, grab the key, and then retrace our steps to get back to this point.



First we head down into the lower-left of the “day” area to pick up (what else?) a P-Switch. We then use this Switch to create some blocks that we can then climb to a pipe.



This pipe then leads to the “morning” area. We take the upper path and head right until we spot a pink pipe, which we then enter.



This leads to the “night” area. In this area, we head as far right as we can to find the key, then head back to the “day” area. Once there, we head to the spot that the key was in in the “night” version to find the keyhole.

This all sounds really obtuse, and it is, but it could have been worse. At least the areas are differentiated (in their background). Some versions of this puzzle make the copies seem absolutely identical (thus making the level seem like one continuous area when it’s actually not) to further confuse the player. The infamous “Lost Pipeline” level of TSRP1, for example, allows you to exit by entering, say, Pipe X in Copy A of the level. If you try to enter Pipe X in Copy B, C, or D, you'll find that it won’t go anywhere. But, since all four copies of the level look the same, what you end up doing is checking Pipe X in B, C, or D, deciding that this pipe doesn’t lead anywhere, and then ignoring Pipe X from that point forward. This inevitably degenerates into you entering pipes at random over and over until you luck into the solution.

tl;dr: Mazes suck, and they suck even more when the designer won’t even let you know the rules of the game.

Green Switch Palace



In the Green Switch Palace, the gimmick is that you lead this flashing yellow shell around the stage, allowing it to defeat enemies, until it earns you a 1-up. Of course, we’re loaded from 1-ups from Sky World 5, but never mind…



Green ! Blocks are by far the most useful, because they release Feathers. Demo World uses the ! Blocks very irregularly, though…



As mentioned, Sky World 6’s regular exit is extremely easy to find. Just head right, ignoring the pipe nonsense, and you’ll find the exit.

Sky Castle





Sky Castle is pretty straightforward… I was hoping for something along the lines of Raphael the Raven’s Castle, which is one of my favorite levels ever, but it’s just the usual SMW castle stuff. Thwomps, Dry Bones, Grinders…



There’s also a segment where you’re supposed to ride a lift as it weaves through these Balls ‘n’ Chains, but I don’t know why anyone would when they could just Cape through instead.



Magikoopa! My mortal enemy. Magikoopa is dangerous because it can’t be permanently killed — stomping on it just causes it to stop appearing for a bit. Fortunately for us, Magikoopa can’t turn these breakable bricks into enemies the way it can with Spin Panels in the original.



Hitting the Green Switch Palace makes this part of the level extremely easy, as the only thing you really have to worry about is Magikoopa’s shots. You’d have to really suck to fall to your death with all these blocks around.

Anyway, this brick I’m under? It contains a P-Switch. We grab it and head to the next area.



If you hit the Switch here, near this upward-pointing arrow, an invisible door will appear. Pressing up there takes you straight to the keyhole and the Sky Star Road.



Continuing on, however, takes you almost directly to Roy Koopa’s doorstep. I wonder if Crystal Castle and Sky Castle got mixed up in development somewhere? Because that was really easy.



Roy Koopa mimics Morton’s attack pattern, with the added twist of the walls closing in as the fight continues. We don’t have any trouble with him, though.



Halfway home!



Next time: Breaking the ice

It's funny because you don't really notice the grayed out star until it turns into star road.

Oh, yes, I do, because Soda Lake is one of the hardest, most traumatic stages in Super Mario World, up there with Tubular and Outrageous. And all because of Torpedo Ted.

There we go. Those are (mostly) the kinds of levels ROM Hackers should aim for when playing around with the game, not... whatever the hell the Crystal Caverns were. Hopefully there'll be more like it afterwards, but let's not get our hopes up here.

And yeah, Torpedo Ted is instantly memorable for the hell he puts you through in Soda Lake. Granted, I can breeze through the stage nowadays, but the scars still remain from the first time I played through it.

Not only that, but the mushroom does that too. A nice touch.

Dude, swim under the screen. That's what I did. You're within an inch of death, but it's not like you weren't already.

Anyway, this LP got me into the romhack scene and...well...

Why can't they make one that was, say, fun and not infuriating?

I was going to ask if any of these hacks aren't pain distilled into binary.

And the flower...becomes the switch palace. Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Soda Lake is the hardest water level but there's no way it compares to Tubular. I don't know if I'd even put it in the top ten hardest levels in SMW.

I think a list of the top ten hardest levels in SMW would probably be Tubular, Outrageous, and then eight blank spaces. Seriously that game is cake.

That's why so many romhacks are brutal, I think; they try to set a more difficult baseline and end up overcompensating. There's a reason the original doesn't have you bouncing off paratroopas over a giant pit of lava, and it's not "that would be too hard".

Number 3 is the fortress in world 8. But otherwise, yes.

I'm trying to place the background in the level with the infinite latiku cloud, but I'm drawing a blank.

ANSWER KEY: it's from Yoshi's Island!

Oh man, how did I miss that?

Welcome back to Let’s Play Super Demo World. Last time, we soared through the airy heights of World 5 and into the frigid wastes of World 6, Ice World. Onwards, then...



Ice World 1



In Super Mario World, ice is annoying. Because of the way Mario World’s engine works, you can’t use ice selectively — it’s all or nothing. If you have ice in a level, literally every single flat surface in the whole stage will be slippery. You can’t have some normal spaces and some ice spaces — if you’ve got ice, it’s all ice. This makes for extremely frustrating platforming, because any sort of precision is basically out of the question.

(If you want to test this, go to one of SMW’s few icy areas and jump on a ? block or a cloud or something—you’ll find it’s just as slippery as the ice proper. The original designers realized the limitations of ice and used it sparingly, but romhackers are slaves to the idea of themed worlds and always force you to play a bunch of icy stages in a row.)

Note also the Yoshi’s Island graphics here... I’m not a fan. While I think Yoshi’s Island is a beautiful game, its graphics only really work in their own context. When you combine them with Mario World sprites and Mario 3 (or Donkey Kong Country) backgrounds, they tend to clash.



The Koopas in this World all wear Santa caps, though, which is sorta cute.



Ice World 1 has two exits, but the hidden one is really easy to find. At the end of the first section, you can pass through a snow drift to uncover the key and keyhole. I wish they were all that easy.



The main exit is a little trickier. It uses the Yoshi’s Island “holey wall” backdrop as its base, and includes several Pipe Lakitus to get in your way. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that the hitbox for the Lakitus extends quite a bit south of the visible sprite, so you end up taking a lot of cheap hits as you try to traverse this area. Moreover, the jumps here require that you use every inch of jumping power you can manage in order to get across, which, when combined with the aforementioned ice, makes things difficult.



Finding both of Ice World 1's exits creates a forked path. We’ll head south first, along the main path.

Ice World 2



Ice World 2 also has two exits. The regular one is a standard “head right, jumping occasionally, until you reach the exit” affair. Actually, that understates it; there are a lot of enemies on this stage, and the slowdown is awful.



To get to the secret exit, you have to slide under this low-hanging icicle to reach the key, then...



...Lug it back to the entrance and drop down a small pit to the keyhole.

Blue Switch Palace



Ice World 2's secret exit leads us to another Switch Palace, this one of a blue hue.



The Blue Switch Palace is so unbelievably boring that I couldn’t even be bothered to screenshot it. Think the Yellow Switch Palace from the original and you’ve more or less got it.

Ice World 3



Hmm... I don’t recall precisely where this background is from... I believe it’s Donkey Kong Country 3, but it might be Donkey Kong Country 1, so don’t hold me to it.

After a short above-ground segment, the stage drops us into the icy caves below, where a Fire Flower is waiting. We need it, because...



We have to melt these ice blocks in our way. We haven’t seen the last of these little bastards, believe me.

Ice World 4



Ice World 4 blows. It revolves around a layer of ice blocks that block the exit. To exit, you need fireballs and a silver P-Switch (to remove the Munchers once you’ve unfrozen them). The silver P-Switch, however, is nearly impossible to get to. You need to use a P-Balloon to float to the platform where the silver P-Switch is, but it’s nearly impossible to get to that, as well. As near as I can tell, the only way to reach it is either insanely skilled Cape flying, or a suicide jump off Yoshi’s back.



So, yeah. Sucks. Let’s just move on to the next level...

Ice World 5



...Which uses the same damn puzzle. Okay, this time you need both a regular and a silver P-Switch, and the Switches aren’t so difficult to get to, but still. You can really start to see FuSoYa running out of ideas in this world.

Ice World Igloo



The Igloo is the only really interesting level in this world. (Even its Star Road stage is boring. More on that later, though.)



Inside, it’s so cold that Mario’s fireballs become iceballs, allowing him to freeze coins and Munchers into blocks! This is of course super-cool (no pun intended) and has a wealth of potential applications...



...Not that we’ll find any of them here, where we need only to change a few coins into platforms. Most of this level can be skipped with a Cape, as well.



Of course, it wouldn’t be Demo World if the game didn’t also give you a chance to screw yourself over with your new toy. If you freeze any of these coins, you can’t get through here and thus can’t complete the level (since Mario can’t squeeze under blocks on these slanted surfaces). And since Mario can’t melt ice blocks in this stage because of its unique gimmick, you have no choice but to go find a pit to throw yourself into so you can try again. For that reason, unless you specifically need the iceballs for something, it’s better to wear the Cape in this stage. (And every other stage. But still.)



This level’s secret exit is found by pressing up against a wall towards the end to uncover a secret tunnel leading to the keyhole. Gotta love “secret” exits that would be blaringly obvious from Mario’s perspective...

The secret exit here leads to the Ice Secret, but it’s just like all the others and its gray block contains a blue shell, so I’m not going to bother showing it.

Ice Castle



AKA, Castle McBorington. Nothing much to see here...



This jump annoys me. It’s about a block or so too wide to take unaided, so you need to move about a screen to your left in order to find a P-Switch to help you across. The P-Switch has no other effect, making this jump effectively just busywork included to satisfy FuSoYa’s P-Switch fetish...



You need either a Cape or a shell to get through here. Once you’ve entered the pipe to the right here...



...head right back in and backtrack to the pipe you entered the basement by. It was a normal pipe before, but now...

...It’s a screen-scrolling pipe that takes us to the secret exit. (This is an example of the “mirror levels” I discussed in the last update.)



For some reason the Ice Castle ramparts look really hideous to me. The combination of SMW sprites, Yoshi’s Island snow, and SMB2 blocks just really offends my sensibilities.



Wendy O. Koopa is the boss here in the Ice World, and she’s almost hilariously easy compared to the rest of her domain. Three bops on the head and it’s into the lava with her.



So that’s it, then: Goodbye and good riddance to Ice World, the worst combination of boring and difficult in the whole game. The next world is just as tough to get through, but at least it’s got some interesting level layouts to make up for it.



Next time: Pipe dreams

That world seemed shorter than average. Was it because you sped through because it sucks so bad, or was there actually less game time in it?

It's about average length for the second half of the game, but there's not a lot interesting here to talk about. Except for the Igloo, it's all the same sorts of "regular platforming" or "go find P-Switches, joy-boy" stuff the other worlds have, only with ice.

The next world should offer more stuff to talk about.

That background is DKC3, I'm fairly certain. DKC1's snow levels had trees or blank gray fog for backgrounds if I remember correctly. Sort of makes me want to play DKC3 again, oddly.

You are correct, good sir. I remember those brutal barrel launching segments in DKC1 set against that murky gray background all too well.

This LP actually made me go and try out demo world. I worked my way to just before the pyramids but then decided to call it quits due to my lack of professional Cape Mario skills.

Eugh, you're right. That is hideous. The art direction for those three games were never really meant to mix, were they.

You know, it occurs to me that FuSoYa might have been better off programming in the Snowballs as a separate item as opposed to taking over the Fire Flower (possibly using the extra ! blocks to release them). Still, otherwise that was a pretty clever idea, and it's a shame he didn't try to use it more throughout the world - he could have gotten a lot of milleage out of it creatively in the other stages if he wanted to.

Welcome back to Let’s Play Super Demo World. After our long slog through the tundra of World 6, we’ve emerged into World 7, otherwise known as Pipe World. Three guesses what this world revolves around.



You’ll recall that we opened up a shortcut to World 7 way back in the third update. This is handy for us, because it allows us easy access to World 3’s Secret. As Pipe World’s Secret isn’t available until near the end, this gives us a ready supply of feathers (not to mention other things).

Pipe World 1



After the annoying gimmicky levels of the last few worlds, it’s nice to be back on solid ground. Pipe World 1 is a fairly long level with a lot going on. Early on, we have to cross a long stretch of Munchers by bouncing off Paratroopas.



I’m not sure what these blue coins are supposed to be. They’re evidently in the original game code, but they don’t seem to do anything. I have no idea the significance of finding them here (and only here.)



Finding the secret exit requires carrying the key through most of the level. This isn’t too difficult, but it makes it impossible to swipe these Piranha Plants out of the way.



Here we are: The awesomest lives gimmick in the game. If you stand beneath this cross-shaped block structure while small and throw the key up, it will cause a fountain of 1-ups to pour out, as seen in the game’s intro. This is technically a glitch (there are a few places where you can do similar things in the original SMW), but FuSoYa deliberately added this one in.



How are we supposed to get through this one block opening? The green pipe above us is a screen-scrolling pipe that’ll dump us out on the other side. As you might expect, it’s worth it to check every pipe we encounter in this world.



The second-most obnoxious part of this level is crossing this gap. See, we have to bounce over to a pipe off one Bullet Bill, then bounce to another off a second. The two gaps are too wide to jump across, so this means that we can’t pause even for a second between them.



The most obnoxious part of this level is getting the key through this one-block gap. What we have to do is toss the key up, duck, jump, then catch the key and grab the vine at the same time. If done properly, you’ll grab the vine, but the game will still read you as ducking, and you can squeeze through the gap. This is incredibly difficult, and there’s nothing you can really do to make it any easier.



Fortunately, though, this level can be flown through in its entirety if you’re just going for the regular exit. Just be prepared to look at this screen for a while.

Pipe World 2



Worst level in the game. Sure, the Pyramid was bad, and the Crystal Castle sucked the proverbial nut, and we’ve still got a few whoppers to come… but believe you me, Pipe World two laps the fucking field. It’s not too incredibly difficult, but for sheer annoyance value no other level even comes close.



Pipe World 2 is a pipe maze.

That’s it.

Now, I know that doesn’t sound too bad, but consider this: There’s no such thing as a good pipe maze. It's as impossible as falling up. Even Nintendo can’t make one. What they boil down to is entering pipes at random trying to find the way forward, and as you might expect this doesn't make for particularly compelling gameplay. Attention all romhackers: Pipe mazes suck. Stop making them.



On top of that, Pipe World 2 isn’t even a good pipe maze by pipe maze standards. Not only is it entirely, 100% trial-and-error — there are no hints whatsoever as to the correct way forward, so what you inevitably end up doing is trying each pipe in sequence, getting dumped back to the beginning, and trying again — but it’s also a puzzle, containing Demo World’s usual preoccupations of coin-block-bridge-building and P-Switch hunting. Here I’m building a coin-block bridge, and after I finish I’ll be forced to head back to the very beginning and retrace my steps so that I can proceed.



Then, you have to go in search of a P-Switch, because the exit pipe is blocked by two brown blocks for no other reason, I can only assume, than to make you stay here longer.

Oh, and you need a Cape to get the P-Switch, so if you enter this level without one you have to take another detour in order to find a feather.



I can’t imagine anyone possibly finding this fun. You could get just as far in this level by pressing random directions on the control pad in time to the music as you could by drawing upon all your knowledge and intuition. There’s not even any pretense at testing your platforming skills or your puzzle-solving abilities, just find out which pipe leads where, and go to A, B, and C in order… just a disaster of a level. I’d tell you the solution but I don’t remember it; I looked it up, and if you happen to be following along, so should you.

Pipe Fortress



Despite being listed as the Pipe Fortress, this level uses the Ghost House overworld sprite. In addition, it looks like it has two exits, but it actually has only one: it can be approached from two different directions.