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It would be all too easy for me to recommend this hack "if you like a good challenge" or "if you use save states to make some of the tougher bits easier to swallow", but the truth is that Super Mario Skycastle's level design is erratic at best - and at worst, it's very... how do I put this... passive aggressive?

While the hack author prefaces downloading the hack with caution that it's designed to be intentionally difficult, I think that does not magically absolve them from critique. Indeed, I feel like this should put them on a higher pedestal for receiving it. While I think there are interesting level design moments interspersed throughout Super Mario Skycastle, the overall sum of its parts is just too confusing to be truly enjoyed.

For starters, the game's main gimmick appears to be short timers. I got up to the third world and I would say more than half of the levels that I played started the timer at 100 in-game seconds. Obviously, there are hacks made around the idea of speedrunning them, but I get the feeling this was not the main objective with Skycastle. I think it was just used as a quick and dirty way to make the levels feel harder than they actually were.

A lot of the game's actual challenges come from non-intuitive moments. There were a few moments where coins intentionally placed led me astray from the actual level, and either flung me to my death (bringing to mind Syobon Action) or into a false pipe (wasting my time and restarting the level). These are not really legitimate challenges insomuch as they are cheap thrills, I feel.

There are strong points to this game. The concept is interesting, and the graphics look nice and put a unique spin on the borderline-cliched premise of "SMB1 Except I Put The Graphics From SMB3 Into It" by having a more detailed proto-Mushroom Kingdom instead. It's a nice fit! I also thought that some of the game's ASM tweaks were interesting, like flipping the music's pulse waves to give the game a slightly different sound (and also accidentally sounding like an old Famiclone sound chip), and awarding the player for being brave enough to stomp on a Hammer Brother with an extra life is an unusual-yet-intriguing choice of game design.

But ultimately, I can't in good faith recommend this hack to most people. It's a little too rough around the edges to be enjoyable, and what is there that actually caught my eye wasn't enough to hold my attention for too long. A strong effort, but it needs some fine-tuning to really reach greatness.