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I'm a big fan of the first two Lost Adventure episodes, and this is another solid entry. It starts off a bit slow, but once you get into the second world, things start to pick up. The custom tilesets and music draw from some great sources from all sorts of video games, and the periodic Mega Man levels are great. There's one level in particular that's absolutely enormous, and there are some pretty clever boss fights. My favorite level by far is a trek deep into the darkest depths of the ocean, while Beyond the Deep Blue Seas from Final Fantasy 5 plays; absolutely beautiful.

The game is not without its flaws, with a few glitches here and there, like some ramps that don't always work, and a pipe that leads to an inescapable bonus room, but nothing completely terrible. A few of the bosses could use some work, too; as cool as it was to see Zero, I still don't completely understand what causes the blocks to fall down, which you use to damage him. Other than that, this hack is solid, and has some very interesting locales. Looking forward to Episode 4!

If you read my reviews of episode 1 and 2, you probably know how good those hack were. The episode 2 sequel doesn't disappointed.

The hack is,just,SPLENDID.Epic and lovely musics,epic levels and gimmicks with moderate difficult,beautiful graphics and lots of customized bosses and enemies.It´s literally a hack to have.

It also allows you to SAVE AFTER EVERY LEVEL,yayyyy :D

It also features lots of crossover and references like FFVI(I think it´s VI :P),Sonic,Megaman and Castlevania,where later on you´ll have to fight their antagonist,such as Dracula,Death,Kekfa,Metal Sonic,Bass,even Zero(All well made battles).Even thinking that the crossovers were too constant and too frequent in the second half of the game,I have to admit that they´re cool.There´s some other minimal references like Pac-man,Tetris and Zelda as well.

Few things that where a bit disappointed or needs some work were Peach's gameplay(where she only uses one single sprite to everything)The checkpoint in the Castlevania level(the level requires to get itens to reach the next section, which DOES take a while to do, and the checkpoint is after all the loooong maze, so if you die even if you where close to finish, you lost all the progress),that flying enemy in Central highway that never get away from you and you can´t jump on it,and mainly,the random crashes when you try to scroll the screen,BUUUUUUTTTTT since you can save after every level you don´t have to redo levels :D

Even with few issues(which every hack had)This hack is still a marvelous one.Seriously if you have to play one SMW hack,play this one.I guaranteed you that you´ll love it.

It's wonderful. I just finished doing an LP of it and despite some of the usual quibbles I have with SMW hacks (sometimes too hard, bosses can be maddening, uneven music volume) I had a blast. The music in particular is a highlight, featuring some of the most appropriate appropriations I've heard.

If you want to watch me play it, check it out on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHp0da770Ws&list=PLaE0mwJnqG1osLAwOSbWITIXDGJnQGeEG&index=1

Before I played this game, I have to say I was getting a bit bored with the world of Super Mario World ROM hacking. Oh sure, SMW Central exists and I've been working on my own project for a while. But the hacks were starting to blend together and feel a bit samey. They were all feeling like clones of Super Mario Bros 3 with the same old graphics and music and ideas.

As a result, I didn't really have all too much hope for this one.

But oh boy, I was wrong. This hack, was great fun to play. And do you know what else it was?

Different. Original.

And much of that came from the interesting crossover ideas present throughout. Whereas most Mario hacks have the usual 'grass land, desert land, water land, etc' theme-ing, this one came up with new ideas for worlds and levels based on such series as Castlevania, Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man.

You had a level based on Castlevania where Mario fought through a maze like castle before facing off with Death and Dracula in classic 8 bit style.

You had levels exploring Wily's Fortress. A level where Mario had to fight/escape Metal Sonic in a boss battle. Dr Eggman and Dr Wily were present as opponents, along with Kefka from Final Fantasy VI.

But what really sold the game to me, was the retro style zone. Why? Because all the levels were based on classic video games. You had a Mario level with SMB 1, 2 and 3 themed worlds. A Game Boy Mario level with Super Mario Land 1, 2 and even Wario Land 4 all present and accounted for. Levels there existed based on Minish Woods in The Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap and one of the palaces (I think Eastern Palace) in the Legend of Zelda A Link to the Past.

Original ideas and crossovers aside, this game did a lot of other things right too.

For one thing, the graphics in the game worked perfectly. Yes, some were of different styles and some people might call 'clash' as if its the end of the world. But I thought they mostly worked rather well, with the graphics in the Zelda levels actually amazing me in how well they were put together.

Music was pretty good too. Nothing annoying, with a few nice tunes from your favourite NES, SNES and GBA games included to make the levels feel immersive.

And level design, at least for the most part, was done well. Levels were fairly lengthy and used enemies and obstacles in interesting ways. They were varied, with ideas not being overdone in a monotonous fashion. For the most part, I just enjoyed playing the game.

Add a lot of content in general (I counted something like 20 different worlds in this game, if the castle numbers are to be believed), and you've got a great SMW hack that has lots of new ideas and feels fun to play.

That said, there were a few issues I found with the game.

One of these, was the bosses. Yes, some of them were pretty cool, like the Metal Sonic battle. But others? Felt a bit boring to fight, likely because the author had to make do with your bog standard sprites from SMW Central. This can be seen best in the battle with Kefka, which despite the cool ideas and graphics, is really just a fight with Pix (those bouncing diamond boss creatures from the Kirby series) where Kefka stands in the background and looks a bit menacing. So on that point, I think the game would have benefited significantly with some custom boss programming that let the bosses live up to their concepts, or perhaps some sprites from Brutal Mario reskinned a bit instead.

Still, minor quibbles with boss programming aside, Super Mario World The Lost Adventure Episode 3 was a great SMW hack, and one I'd definitely suggest anyone with an appreciation for Mario or the SNES gets around to playing.

Heck, I've even told a few LPers about it on the hope they'll feature it in a video Let's Play series!