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The Kaizo Mario ROM hacks cause despair for many players and test not only one’s skills but also stamina.
Kaizo Mario – that’s what’s behind the ROM hack
There are ROM hacks behind the term Kaizo Mario, which are based on the original versions of the underlying games and have been modified by modders.
- The term Kaizo comes from Japanese and actually only refers to ROM hacking per se, but has become synonymous with very difficult Mario ROM hacks due to the extreme difficulty of the very first Kaizo trilogy. The first Kaizo Mario hacks were based on the Super Mario World Engine and were developed and published by developer T. Takemoto from 2007 to 2012.
- With the game Super Mario Maker for the Wii U and Super Mario Maker 2 for the Nintendo Switch, Kaizo levels have experienced a renewed boom. This is because these games provide a way to legally create, share and play Kaizo levels. ROM hacks, after all, are still in breach of copyright as they are based entirely on the original games and their assets.
- The term Kaizo is also used in other gaming franchises, as shown by games such as the ROM hacks Pokemon Blue Kaizo or Pokemon Emerald Kaizo, which also aim to increase the difficulty of the games enormously.
- The appeal of Kaizo Marios is that they break with traditional game mechanics and turn the game completely on its head. For example, invisible blocks can prevent you from jumping or super-fast enemy movement can ensure that you barely have time to react. There are also levels that consist mostly of deadly spiked blocks and require you to jump and move with millimetre precision.
This is why Mario Kaizo ROM hacks are not legal
As mentioned above, Mario Kaizo ROM hacks are not legal and therefore downloading should be discouraged.
- Compared to fan games, which are also based on already existing game IPs, ROM hacks are not legal. The reason for this is that ROM hacks fully take over all the pre-existing assets, i.e. graphics, sounds and other elements from the original game, and the ROM is still needed as the basis for the game, thus violating the copyright Nintendo has for the games and their ROMs.
- Fan games like the popular Pokemon Infinite Fusion, on the other hand, were developed based on specific Pokemon games, but are programmed from scratch. They have their own installer, are not played with an emulator and are not a patch that has to be applied to an already existing ROM. In addition, new assets and game elements have been created for the game.
- So, if you want to enjoy Kaizo Mario, the only legal and, moreover, the most straightforward way is through the aforementioned games in the Super Mario Maker series. These allow players to create and play levels. Since the levels are created with official software, you also don’t have to worry about potentially harmful software that you might otherwise come across when downloading from the Internet.
