Forest of Illusion

I've always been a huge fan of the Mario franchise, especially nintendo's earlier works. I used to watch the 3 DiC cartoons (Super Show, 3, and World) all the time and play nintendo's virtual console library on my Wii. Their recent titles are good too of course, Super Mario Galaxy was fantastic and nintendo did alot with the space theme. But the retro titles have always had a charm that stood out to me.

Super Mario World was always one of my favorites, it's aged really well. If it was released today it'd be among the likes of indie titles like Cave Story. With a variety of level themes, fun level designs, and secrets it's become one of my favorite Mario games, even in the face of modern titles.

But after I completed all of the main exits and secret exits I wanted more from the game, so i started messing around with glitches.

One of them was power-up incrementation, it basically needs you to go to a platform with a yoshi and do some stuff to get glitchy powerups beyond the usual mushroom, fire flower, and cape feather.

I had fun messing around with this, getting fun powerups like Disco Luigi. The 135th powerup was when it started to get really interesting. It has a glitched palette like all of the other powerups, and in this one Mario's face was blacked out. He started as small mario, but after I started moving and decided to spin jump he grew to big mario and the game seemingly froze, until the mario sprite started moving again on its own and a single large red eye appeared in the void of mario's face. I saw him grow slightly taller for a few frames before the game actually crashed and the screen became a garbled mess of tiles.

No biggie, I can just head back to the wii menu and restart the game. For some reason the Wii's Health and Safety warning popped up a second time even though that shouldn't happen for super mario world. I thought it must've just been because of how the game crashed and I moved on.

I tried to select the 1 player option like I usually do but it wouldn't work. The 2 player option however did.

I entered the world map, or atleast Mario did. Mario still had the glitched 135th powerup and the eye and I wasn't able to control him. He moved across the map and went to the Forest of Illusion (not using the star road shortcut), but when the Forest of Illusion map loaded it had none of the stages unlocked besides the first and the player character was now Luigi. I was able to control Luigi, so I entered the first level.

The music was a seemingly reversed piece with an SNES synth piano and violin that used the Forest Of Illusion motif (the motif was in reverse, but it's distinct enough to be recognizable), but gameplay went as normal. That was, until the end of the level. After the goalpost was a mostly regular Mario with a cape and missing eyes.

A text pop up appeared with the same UI as the message blocks:

"Illusion lies ahead. Follow me, brother."

The background then faded to black and the two stared at eachother while the level end theme played.

I returned to the world map. Strangely, I was somehow playing as Peach, who had a fire flower. I was now able to enter the second level, so I went inside.

There was no music for the start of this level, and no enemies trotting its ground. Other than that gameplay went on, until I lost control over peach like a cutscene and she threw a fire ball on her own. The music kicked on and was a boss-like remix of the star theme.

The camera panned over to show that an even taller and hunched over version of the glitchy Mario sprite was there, along with Luigi, who had one of his arms missing and was sitting on the ground crying. The fire ball hit Mario, who seemed unaffected.

"Leave Luigi alone."

I gained control over Peach again and a boss fight insued against the Mario. He would teleport and jump around to dodge attacks, and shoot fire balls for his own attacks. Whenever I tried to use a fireball on him, it'd seemingly have no effect. Out of desperation I tried to stomp Mario, but Peach just got hit, causing her to lose the fire flower.

Eventually, "Mario" came up behind Peach and reached out his arm around her neck.

"Mario is missing, who will save you now?"

The world paused as the level end theme played once more and I was sent back to the world map.

This time the player character was Mario, who's name in the corner was now replaced with "PS135." I still could not control him, so I powered off the system and I headed off to bed. It was getting late and I had had enough of this game for the day anyway.

I continued to think about the game in my sleep (which is fair, it was the most interesting thing that happened that day.) I had a dream about a lost episode of the DiC Mario World cartoon.

The plot showed Mario transforming into PS135 then attacking Luigi and Peach like seen in the game. PS135's dialogue was still in Lou Albano's voice, but was distorted with effects like bitcrush and reverb.

PS135 went to burn down Oogtar's village after this. Oogtar and Yoshi tried to fight back but PS135 effortlessly tore Yoshi's arms and lower jaw off, leaving the dinosaur's long tongue touching the ground. Oogtar was not killed by PS135, and the reason he gave was that it's more fun to scar children than kill them.

He certainly succeeded, Oogtar was driven to madness by this life ruining event, and after self-debate he went to confront PS135 about joining his side in fear of what else may happen. If you cant beat them, join them.

The rest of the episode showed PS135 using his power and the power of the characters on his side (whom he called his "souls") to gain total control of Dinosaur Island. PS135 and King Koopa struck a deal so that PS135 wouldn't kill him if he gave up the Koopalings. The Koopa King agreed and fled the island (turns out Bowser ain't the most selfless guy), leaving all 7 Koopalings, Luigi, Yoshi, Oogtar, and Princess Peach on PS135's side.

The credits rolled and I woke up. After eating, getting dressed, and all that jazz, I decided I would write down everything that happened, and continue playing the game to document more.

The Wii safety screen had its double take again, and this time Mario World's title screen showed the Forest of Illusion instead of Donut Plains. And there was no Single Player or Multiplayer option, just a button that said "Let's play." I pressed it and entered the Forest of Illusion as Mario.

Not PS135, but still not entirely normal. Mario had a fire flower and cape at the same time, and was missing his signature cap. He also seemed to have a scar of some sort and a more serious look on his face.

I had more trouble deciding which level to enter this time, since all of them were now available. When I looked at the level names however, I noticed one of them was different. The level leading up to the castle had the name "Goodbye Mario." Figuring this one would have the most interesting results, I entered it.

Mario had a burning cape feather in his item box. This level had the same music as Luigi's level, except no longer reversed. The layout of this level was just a long stretch of mostly empty land, sparing background decoration and some logs to jump across. During the trek to the end, many message boxes appeared.

"Go ahead and face me, battle if you must."

"Your skin will be eaten up, as if it were crust."

"Here you'll rest in a state of confusion."

"For you are trapped in my forest of illusions."

Right after I finished reading the final message box, a one-block platform with a door appeared in its place. I hopped on the platform and entered the door

It was a screen with the usual Forest of Illusion set pieces, and PS135 standing there.

"SAY GOODBYE, MARIO!"

The music changed to the intense star theme used in Peach's stage, and a fight insued similar to that of Peach's fight against PS135, except after 30 seconds or so of trying and failing to hit PS135, Luigi appeared in PS135's place.

Luigi still had his arm missing, and Mario's facial expression changed to look more somber. Luigi tried to attack by jumping on Mario, though seemingly against his will. I was putting off attacking Luigi since I felt bad about it, but eventually I used the fire flower and it unsurprisingly hit. Luigi knelt down while holding his one arm over the wound and then faded out.

Mario's face went back to the serious expression and Peach appeared in Luigi's place, with her head detached and floating above her body. She was using her parasol to charge at Mario. She was able to hit me once, though I only lost the cape and not the fire flower. At this point I got the gist so I fought back with the fire flower (though I had to attack her from behind while she's charging at Mario, since the parasol blocked attacks.) After a few hits she faded like Luigi, and PS135 appeared again.

After a back and forth fight between us, PS135 teleported out and Oogtar and Yoshi switched in as a pair. I was very confused since Yoshi was injured in the exact same way as my dream, and Oogtar isn't even present in Super Mario World.

Either way, Oogtar was riding Yoshi and commanding his attacks (which were just using his tongue to try and eat Mario.) Thanks to the length of the tongue, I was able to get hit. Mario was swallowed by Yoshi, and I had to mash the A button to escape just like in New Super Mario Bros Wii. I left as Big Mario (no fire flower), but I didn't use the item box yet since I wanted to save it for PS135, so I tried jumping on Oogtar/Yoshi to damage the duo. It worked, and after a few hits they faded.

PS135 reappeared and was attacking like ever, until suddenly Luigi appeared and was attacking alongside PS135. Then Peach. Then Yoshi and Oogtar. It was too much to dodge, so I inevitably got hit down to small Mario. I remembered the item box and used it to collect the burning cape feather. PS135 stayed as far as possible away from it while the souls seemed to try to reach it. I bounced on Oogtar's head and reached the powerup before any of the souls, however.

I gained the fire power and cape as expected, and was trying chip away at the souls' health from above. Luigi was first go down. My cape feather was lost while trying to defeat Yoshi and Oogtar, but they still got taken care of. I got a few hits in on Peach but I lost the fire flower. I tried to stomp her but I hit the parasol's hitbox, bringing me down to small.

Peach faded on her own though, and the background faded with her. The music calmed down and PS135 appeared behind the shrunken Mario and lifted him up with one hand, with fire floating from the other hand. The level end theme played once more.

Rather than the world map appearing, I was sent to a variation of the "The End" screen. Mario was sitting down and facing away from the camera. He was still missing his cap but he now had the cape and fire flower outfit again. Peach and Luigi were standing beside him with their described injuries, and after a few seconds Mario turned around to show dark voids in place of his eyes, and an additional scar beneath his mustache.

There wasn't anywhere to go from this screen, so I restarted the game. The title screen still showed the Forest of Illusion, but it had no options this time, and PS135 was credited for the copyright instead of Nintendo. After fiddling around with the buttons for a while, a message block-style pop-up appeared, that simply read:

"Game Over."