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Tip: Read the "readme" that comes with the game. The Tips given are very helpful to beating the game and finding everything

Based on all the other reviews and the creator's own admission, this game was apparently a bit of a mess in terms of balance and direction in the past, but my experience with the most recent version was pretty good. Sure, you can get unlucky with your first encounter and have to start the whole game over since you hadn't reached the first save point yet, but once you get rolling, the game is fair in its challenge and design. It's a little rough around the edges, but it still has a good amount of content and challenge to make the entire journey an enjoyable one. Unlike most other SMRPG hacks, this one even comes with a short but well-told story to it. The environments, characters, and dialogue are realized very well despite only being able to use palette-swapped versions of the base game's assets.

In terms of gameplay, there is a fair mix of combat, exploration, and puzzles, the latter of which is awesome to see in a hack. It's satisfying to solve some of the unique puzzles throughout the game, and it makes the ultimate goal of the hack (collecting all 5 shells) not as simple as grind, get the best items, and beat the last boss. Unfortunately, exploration is pretty linear, since the author put in a series of checks and blockers that prevent you from going to a difficult area/boss before you are meant to. I understand why it was done, but given the abundance of save points, I personally would've preferred to be allowed to roam a little more (even into areas with monsters that would one shot me). Lastly, in terms of the combat, the game provides you with Mallow early on, and after playing many solo Mario hacks, it was great to have 2 characters to provide some much-needed depth to combat. Though you certainly do need to reach certain LVs before taking on some bosses (without cheesing it via Super Jumps), the amount of EXP gained in battle is very high, so minimum grinding is actually needed. You also have easy access to super strong/useful items as the game progresses, making it easy to boost your FP and get items useful for taking down the stronger bosses.

Last thing worth mentioning is that though the final boss is very difficult, the winning strategy is basically given away in the "readme". You can also acquire as many Red Essences as you want at the end game, which can make it much easier.

Overall, I had a great time playing this hack and hope that any who might've been burned by earlier versions gives this most recent one a fair try!

was below average up until i met the author's original character edgelord ant warrior xxx420eliteninjaassassinslayerxxx that just oneshots my characters no matter what i do

then it was just pure shit

This is a decent hack that stands in a comparative void. There simply are not enough (complete) hacks for this masterpiece of a game, so you take what you can get.

Bobomb Mafia is not without issues, and feels to me like it was meant just to show what is possible as it is extremely short. Abandon all hope ye who wish to complete this game without a faq or a walkthrough though, it's pretty loose as far as context clues go and you'll need help to figure out what you're supposed to do. It's a little dirty, a little clunky, but I enjoyed it and I think most true fans of the original will as well.

I want to take this opportunity to thanks all the staff involved in this hack. I did not only fall in love with the storyline and the game itself but also downloaded Lazy Shell and started to learn how it works, so that I can create my own hack.

Although, I had to cheat a little to beat the hack, but that was not because of difficulty reasons because it is well balanced and enjoyable. I cheated because I wanted to finish it quick, so that I could start working with the editor.

I would have like to have Bowser and Geno in this game as well, but I suppose that they did not make it in because the hack was to showcase some of the editor's tools rather than the hack itself and it does a really good job without sacrificing enjoyability and playability.

Even with my little cheating, the final boss was challenging but not frustrating. In fact the only other time I had so much fun beating a boss in a RPG was fighting the Axem Rangers in the original SMRPG.

I am sorry I am a little extended in this, but I had to let the authors know how a impressive work this is. Both the hack and the Lazy Shell Editor.

This is a review for the newest version so far, version 2.3. I've played the older patches before. Granted, this one plays more smoothly than the other versions, there are still some issues that really rough it up.

The biggest issue is the difficulty. It is uneven as you can possibly give a player. Some of the enemies are fine to deal with, but then you'll find yourself getting one or two-shotted by the next boss, even though you may have think you've done enough grinding. Maybe some of you like to grind a bit more than I would consider, but it would be nice to tone down the bosses.

Another thing to help with the difficulty would be better clarification of where to go. After you beat the first boss and Mallow joins your party, it tells you that you need to go to the plains to get an important item needed to continue the story. However, the enemies on the plains will likely one if not two shot you once you get there at this point. So I decided to look around and found out that I can go to the forest. Once I get to the forest, the enemies there are much more manageable than the ones on the plains. So, was I suppose to go to the forest first or was I suppose to grind a lot to go through the plains? Either way, You'll never know because the forest also contains a roadblock boss that will kill you quite easily. Big surprise there.

I have to wonder what the author was trying to do here, because usually a game will give you enough challenge a few steps at a time. Here, the game takes a few leaps in the challenge. Personally, I think the game requires an unreasonable amount of grinding and also backtracking to go on with the story.

But despite this, I did like the fact that the author made the concept better than just putting a new slap of paint on the characters. It's creative and different. I like the storyline, but I think it could use some polishing and some spicing up. Some of the dialogue is amusing. So even though the gameplay is something I intensely dislike, it's not all doom and gloom for the rest of the elements as well. I just can't recommend this to anyone while the hack has these issues.

Had it not been for me hacking this hack I never would have beaten it. So just WAY too hard.

Well first off it seems complete until you beat it and realize that it is not, and if you play the hack as is you find that you can do one of two things go after the Mafia sword guy that will kill you and cause the game to go black and not show game over, because you will not get to a high enough level to beat him, let alone with stand a hit, or you can load your state back and spend 15 hours killing Poison bombs for 3 experience to go up one level "The only enemy that continues to show up after you kill everything else" and after that still get killed by the sword guy. Unless you load the patched game inside lazy shell and change the experience that you get from the enemies, you will probably never beat the hack and find out that it is a incomplete hack that just makes you angry, because once you do that and collect everything it takes you from the one Mafia landscape or world back to Bowser and he gives you the princess. You would be better off if you just killed yourself first before playing this hack. SMRPG has at least 4 worlds and 30 or more landscapes to adventure through. Enjoy "well probably not'..