Super Mario World: The Second Reality Project - Reloaded
released on Dec 31, 2008
A mod for Super Mario World
"The Second Reality Project" one of the most complete Super Mario World-Romhacks Bowser is back again, more powerful than times ago: He found a power source which let him rebuilt his Airship Fleet. Soon he plans on attacking the Mushroom Kingdom one time more! It's up to Mario to stop him!
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So this is my second time finishing The Second Reality Project Reloaded and I think I had a better time this playthrough compared to the first. Maybe it’s my skill having gone up since I first journeyed this romhack 5 years ago or maybe it was me playing this hack alongside the original’s gruesomely hard version 1.5 and thus this version reflected better, but I was less frustrated with this game compared to when I beat it in 2019.
Although this romhack gets pretty difficult, it’s still easier than the original and the difficulty curve is much smoother with only a few spikes across the campaign. That doesn’t mean every rough edge is sanded down. There are still a handful of levels that are plain too long for a single checkpoint. I was using save states– even moreso than my simultaneous playthrough– so I didn’t feel that lack of checkpoints but god does it knock the difficulty up a bracket.
The new graphics are nice although I think many sprites aren’t animated well. Most of the music is good, though. Having played this alongside the original you can see how closely the campaign of this romhack follows the template of SMW vanilla. For the most part, anyway. Absent from the 2002 original, there’s a second secret world that serves as a finale and accessing it is a cool secret altogether. I can see why this blew people away in 2008.
Most of the updates have to do with Reloaded’s presentation so I’m going to repeat a lot of what I said in my review of the original romhack and say that the level design very clever and stylized. It’s a good time playing through TSRPR if you are ready for some challenge. This one holds up.
Although this romhack gets pretty difficult, it’s still easier than the original and the difficulty curve is much smoother with only a few spikes across the campaign. That doesn’t mean every rough edge is sanded down. There are still a handful of levels that are plain too long for a single checkpoint. I was using save states– even moreso than my simultaneous playthrough– so I didn’t feel that lack of checkpoints but god does it knock the difficulty up a bracket.
The new graphics are nice although I think many sprites aren’t animated well. Most of the music is good, though. Having played this alongside the original you can see how closely the campaign of this romhack follows the template of SMW vanilla. For the most part, anyway. Absent from the 2002 original, there’s a second secret world that serves as a finale and accessing it is a cool secret altogether. I can see why this blew people away in 2008.
Most of the updates have to do with Reloaded’s presentation so I’m going to repeat a lot of what I said in my review of the original romhack and say that the level design very clever and stylized. It’s a good time playing through TSRPR if you are ready for some challenge. This one holds up.
It's been four years since I've played this one but it's stuck with me for representing a lot of the greatness and some of the excess of SMW romhacks.
On one hand, the level design is snappy and the enhanced graphics are eye-catching. On the other hand, the difficulty can get pretty rough and some levels go on for so, so long. Some levels give you the max 999 timer to complete their long labyrinthine trials and those levels are exhausting. The engine only allows one checkpoint per level so even these super-long stages have to stick with one. I won't hold that against it because in the end this was a romhack and I could have used save states and I did use save states.
What makes this romhack so memorable is that the journey takes Mario to a series of fascinating worlds and towards the last leg, it gets pretty epic and surreal– similar to the vanilla game's use of the Star World and Special World. Except way more demanding, difficulty wise.
On one hand, the level design is snappy and the enhanced graphics are eye-catching. On the other hand, the difficulty can get pretty rough and some levels go on for so, so long. Some levels give you the max 999 timer to complete their long labyrinthine trials and those levels are exhausting. The engine only allows one checkpoint per level so even these super-long stages have to stick with one. I won't hold that against it because in the end this was a romhack and I could have used save states and I did use save states.
What makes this romhack so memorable is that the journey takes Mario to a series of fascinating worlds and towards the last leg, it gets pretty epic and surreal– similar to the vanilla game's use of the Star World and Special World. Except way more demanding, difficulty wise.