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Some spoilers below! Warning!

At a glance: the level design is a bit rough in places, but overall, the custom artwork and message at the end of this game make it worth a play through.

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I'll try to be as objectively constructive as possible leaving this review.

My girlfriend and I blind raced this tonight (we both speedrun/stream on Twitch) and her Mario skills can be described as non-existent, at best. I don't often play Mario games and I'm not super familiar with the Super Mario World hacks/games, but I would consider myself "good enough" at Mario games. It took me 1:26:15 to beat and she finished at 3:29:37. So hopefully that gives you an idea of how long it might take.

So, first off:

The custom sprites are beautiful. The music, although it comes from other games, was mostly fitting I felt within the universe, but I feel the strongest thing that this hack easily offers in chronological order was the sprites. The sprites and general universe created was extremely well done and, in my opinion anyway, the highest point.

In second, the message at the end was actually very thoughtful, even if simple, and well-written. We had never seen this hack played before playing it ourselves, and coincidentally my father passed away this September 1st, 2022. I think it hit me pretty hard because of how that made Christmas feel this year. Thank you to whoever wrote "old Toad" and his thoughts at the end. I think it's very important to remember.

In third, the characters, although not all useful, offer a nice variety in terms of what you can do and how you can play the game. They mostly affect boss fights, as the stages themselves don't change a huge amount or offer a big opportunity to highlight their individual strengths. I feel the levels weren't completely designed around their strengths - like for example, my girlfriend used Mario very often and there wasn't very many opportunities in the stage layouts to wall jump. I used Princess, and she's probably a little overpowered. Her float is pretty strong. I did unlock the other character and didn't really find her objectively worth using over Princess.

Leading into the bosses, I greatly appreciate how all the bosses were custom. A lot of Mario hacks don't have custom bosses. I feel the RNG calls on the bosses could be refined in future versions, maybe force them to execute a move after so many failed calls. An example is King Ice-Spiny. On my side, he shot fireballs at me literally like 30 times in a row, then started spinning at me again, and the next cycle he shot one fireball and started spinning. The Ice Witch at the end for her at one point moved back and forth without throwing a stone down for nearly 3-4 minutes as well and kept summoning spikes and waves. It feels a little broken or too random, and we didn't really understand the variance. The other boss (that shoots down 2, then 3, 3, 3...) fireballs or whatever, always has the same pattern, so there's 1 boss that does repeat itself, but other ones are all extremely random. We weren't sure what was intended, but even if you wanted totally RNG bosses, the bosses feel a little too random in terms of giving you the right pattern.

And last, the level design, was definitely a mix bagged. There's new mechanics, like being frozen and drowning (hypothermia) which are sparsely used, but I wish the level design was a bit more consistent. Maybe the best way to put it, is there's not really a consistent theme. Every level feels very different from the last, which kind of works and it kind of doesn't. There's some really good levels, and then there's some pretty rough levels. In particular, the tree level is largely forgettable and the sled level could of been better designed. A lot of stuff in the foreground kills you pretty cheaply, and having access to the "Merry Christmas" level where you can farm for coins/lives comes pretty late, so all the cheaper/easier deaths force game overs.

So, overall, I feel this is worth a playthrough. I feel the message and custom spritework, and to some extent, the custom bosses are all worth checking out. It struggles a bit more with consistent level design.

Thanks to everyone who created this hack! We did have a lot of fun with it.

So the game is cute and short. 31 levels in all with secret exits and the characters all have unique abilities that get split up in 2 player mode too. Some semi difficult spots but nothing that will tear your hair out hard. Secrets galore too, no spoilers on the secrets but 1 is very worth searching for. Short and sweet, not sure where the postcard that Toadette is talking about though after getting all the star coins of what ever they were called but fun nonetheless.

Had a great time with this one! Difficulty is balanced and accessible for players of the vanilla SMW while being overfilled with charming graphics and music that really set the holiday tone. One of the best playable Christmas Specials I've ever experienced.

I recently livestreamed this to completion and it was a lot of fun! I loved the narration of MistleToad telling a Christmas story complete with Bowser taking some time off to spend with his kids. Great stuff.

Level design and original assets were excellent! Good amount of challenge too even if a few bosses are kinda frustrating.

Highly recommended. Give it a go! A very memorable adventure.