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I know that this hack is seven years old, but I am not sure why people keep passing it over. It should not be. I don't know where I should begin giving it praise.

Every world and every level has been totally redone to perfection. The graphics are beautiful. I love how he was able to make full use of the NES' color palate on the map screens and in each level. Especially his making use of pastel colors. Along with the new layouts of each map screen, he added a "Clubs" space which is a coin collection area. And these are fun and a nice break from the actual gameplay.

Regarding the music, the standard level BGM has not changed. As for the 8 map screens, be prepared for some new and quite catchy tunes.

Let's talk about the actual gameplay. At first, the levels start out easy, but as you progress be prepared to make full use of your emulator's save state feature. I say this because the further you get the more difficult each level gets. Trust me, they do get quite difficult. because of all the twists and turns and the secret areas that need to be found in order to make your way out. Yes, you will be cussing out your PC due to its difficulty, but it's the increasing difficulty that makes this ROM hack fun.

In closing, allow me to say that Super Mario Bros. 3: A New Journey is a ROM hack that was done with love. Love for the game, and most of all love for the entire SMB franchise. As you can tell, I definitely recommend this hack.

I don't mind difficult Mario games, but the difficulty seems unfair here. For starters, every Mario player knows that Piranha Plants do not come up if you standing on the pipe.....in this game, they do. This means you can't trust any pipe, and if you have to jump from one Piranha Pipe to another......accept that you WILL take a hit.

Also, some (if not most) of the power-ups are in extremely difficult to collect areas. 1-4. hit the block, and the mushroom goes to the left in most cases. Even if it doesn't, jumping to collect it while not falling into the pit, OR getting hit by the Venus Trap's fireballs is extremely hard to do.

I like the challenge, but this hack has unfair aspects to it.

You know the drill: grasslands, desert, forest, jungle, ice world, fire world, etc. Mario games, Platformers, and even a lot of hacks fall into the same basic designs, with maybe a unique or semi-unique idea here and there. This hack, on the other hand, has things I've very rarely or never seen before, least of all in a Mario hack. Sure, I've seen mushroom worlds before, but they're still semi-unique, and cool to boot. But South American native ruins? That's a new one; Tombs & Treasure is the only thing that comes to mind, there, and that's not even close to the same genre. A crystal world? Very cool! Even the obligatory water world was very specifically a lakeside, and was neat to explore. Unfortunately, this did taper off toward the end, and the final world was... astonishingly normal; I kept expecting things to go all whaaaaaaaaaaaat, but they never did.

There were lots of nice little touches, too! Every king not only has a new form, but is also transformed into something completely different. The overworld maps had some neat dancing scenery that was brand new, and were just as cute as the originals. I also liked how, in addition to the spade bonus games, there were club bonus stages, which were usually some beautiful, strangely-colored wonderland that rewarded great skill with more goodies, but didn't actively punish lesser skill. There was even a story detail that I really liked: in one of the princess's letters, she says, "I miss you." Three simple words, but they really made me feel her plight so much more; it's such a subtle addition, but one that shows that a lot went into this hack.

Of course, you do see the non-recommend, and actual level design is where it falls apart. I loved the first 4 worlds, but right around World 5, it started tipping. As you will likely recall, the base game did have a few puzzle stages, and they were usually neat ideas, but used very sparingly. There's a reason for that; this hack relies heavily on puzzles, especially toward the end, and that makes the fortresses become torturous. These things just drag on endlessly, sending you in circles, wondering where the magic door, pipe, or whatever could possibly be hidden. The other major flaw would be the P-Switches; you have to hit them, and basically make a perfect run to exactly where you need to go, or you have to start over for almost every single one from World 5 or 6 onward, and yes, these do also appear in the fortresses. Again, the level design is good to start, but it gets pretty frustrating by the end, but by no means one of those Kaizo hacks. If you want to check this out, I'd recommend playing Worlds 1-5, at least.

I consider myself a fairly avid mario player having beaten mostly all games in the series multiple times (lost levels being one of the exceptions I can't stand) so I figured I'd give this hack at least a try. After an hour and a half I feel ready to drop it, and I'll probably not pick it up again.

It was a couple of years since I played SMB3, but this hack was clearly not made for people at my skill level, it's definitively hard. I'm not sure if I'd say the level layouts are bad, but there are quite a few obstacles that comes too fast, the boo in the first fort being one example. This generally leads to a lot of situations where it feels like the player is expected to already know the layout of a level in advance in order to deal with it.

Quite a few powerups are also placed in rather hard locations even as early as world 1. Getting the first item box in the first auto-scrolling level in world 1 is rather difficulty, and these type placements seem to be the norm.

The world 1 airship also came across as rather over the top with how many canons show up in prime position to hit you as soon as they ready to fire their first salvo. I managed to get through the level on my third or fourth attempt, but I'm not sure if that was down to my skill or just plain luck.

So really, in regards to the difficulty level of this hack I only recommend it for pros. That being said, I don't really recommend this hack at all.

Aside from the level layouts I don't feel the hack brings that much new to the table. Other SMB3 hacks, such as Communist Mario 3, showcases how far the SMB3 engine can be pushed when it comes to the graphics. (And this hack does not even come close). Each world is supposed to have new themes in this hack, but really, it all falls very flat in regards to graphics.

Furthermore, the levels themselves (which is what you'll spend the most time of the hack playing) will not have any new music. The new OW music seems nice, but really, what was needed here to breath some more life into it was level music too. Especially if the author wanted to really sell the new themes.

So, as I found neither the difficulty to my liking, nor do I think it brings anything specially new to the table, I honestly can't recommend this hack.

For over 10 years, Super Mario Bros. Chaos Control has been my favourite Mario 3 hack. With this new addition to the line, however, that has changed: This hack is incredibly awesome! It has so many cool levels with all kinds of puzzles, often with hard to find but very rewarding secret areas. The world maps are all eye candy with new graphical themes, and they all have new cool music, making them feel like 8 brand new worlds rather than 8 revamped worlds like in most other hacks. Many of the levels also have new graphics, which all look great and fit very well into the corresponding worlds they're located in. Some of the enemies have also been altered, such as the pirahna plants now coming up from their pipes even if mario stands on them, making these enemies a real threat now, rather than a nuisance. This hack indeed does as the author promises: It delivers lots of new contents while still sticking to the original Mario 3 formula.

For a semi-professional Mario 3 player like me (I played the original game a lot, but I was never a hardcore gamer), the difficulty is just right as well. It's obviously more difficult than the original game, but not so hard that it makes you want to pull your hair out in frustration. You fail, you learn, and then you do it right. I got game over twice in each world on average, which I think is how it should be for a first run. However, the last two worlds have a very few levels that are extremely difficult though (World 7s airship took 100 tries or so for me), so make sure you have some items left when you encounter them.

Overall though, this hack is really impressive. It has the best level design I've ever seen in a Mario 3 hack. I can recommend this to pretty much everyone who spent a huge portion of their childhood playing Mario 3. Go play it now!