Super Mario World, which is almost 25 years old at the time I am writing, is still a popular game with cultural currency. The early Super Mario Brothers games have gotten a role in popular culture even amongst those who have not played them: "Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!", from the first game, is a phrase that is familiar to people born fifteen years after the game was released. Super Mario World, the first entry in the series for the Super Nintendo, is perhaps not quite as culturally prominent, but certain aspects of it, such as Yoshi the dinosaur, have become part of the series' mythology.
The biggest continuing impact of Super Mario World isn't in that people are still playing it, it is that they are still rewriting it. Super Mario World is one of the most, if not the most, hacked and modified games ever. The reason the game is so popular for modification probably has to do with the widespread familiarity with the game, and the technical ease of modifying it. The levels in Super Mario World are made up of discrete and easily manipulable tiles, but these elements can be rearranged in new and surprising ways. The game is also relatively stable, even when it is doing things it is not intended to do, but it still has enough glitches to be interesting. The level of sophistication I have seen in Super Mario World hacks varies from people who were just noodling around to fully developed hacks that rival the complexity and attention to detail of the original game. Although hacking Super Mario World has been around for a long time, much of its popularity derives from sharing of videos of people playing hacks on youtube.
Some of the varieties of hacks include:
- "Vanilla" hacks where the game has the same basic look, feel and difficulty level of the original game, but with different levels.
- "Kaizo" hacks, named after "Kaizo Mario World", the first entry in the series. "Kaizo" hacks are meant to be difficult to the point where they are unwinnable without the use of an emulator. Many Kaizo hacks can also only be won through use and abuse of glitches.
- "Automatic" hacks, which are the opposite of a Kaizo hack. An Automatic hack sends Mario through the level using automatic interactions with his surroundings, and can be won without any player input. These levels function as elaborate Rube Goldberg machines and are a showcase of the designer's cleverness.
- "Engine" (or "total conversion") hacks. I don't know if there is another term for this, but sometimes a hack uses the basic Super Mario World engine, but uses such modified graphics and sound that it plays and feels like a different game.
These are some of the basic types of hacks, although there are many versions of the game that combine or confuse these categories. Those interested in the wondrous world of Super Mario World hacking should visit
http://www.smwcentral.net, the forum that hosts many hacks, as well as the tools for making them.