Review: Super Punk Bros

Review by unkown author

Normally when I write a review, you know its going to be of some extremely vulgar genitalia-fest. That’s pretty much my turf, as anyone familiar with my work well knows. But what you might not have known about me, is that I’m a huge music fan. Obsessed with it really. And I grew up on punk rock. So today I’m going to walk away from reviewing something like Final Faggot Fuck Fest, and take a look at an old hack of Super Mario Bros. 3, called Super Punk Bros.

Nothing says "Punk" like checkerboards and trees

Apparently we have Jay Roselius to blame for this one. I’m unfamiliar with this hacker, he must have been a one-shot. Searching in Google, it seems that he could possibly be a land developer in Texas, or a judge in Carson County Texas. Google really thinks this guy lives in Texas. If this ROM-hacker went on to become a judge, I can smell a scandal brewing for his next election...

God save the Queen

Unlike today’s Super Mario 3 hacks, which almost always have hacked levels and over-world maps, Super Punk Bros. is just a graphical hack. Before you get disappointed, consider that this mother fucker is 9 years old! In ROM-hacking years that makes it an antique! Note the little orange Mohawk that Mario is now sporting. That’s how you know he is punk. Most punks would laugh at his suspender outfit though. I guess putting him in a leather jacket was too much work for Judge Jay. This is not a good sign for the only punk-themed ROM-hack I’m aware of. Notice how the mushroom houses are now bottles. Because we all know the saying “get drunk, stay punk”. The castle is flying a swastika. Could we be on a mission to defeat the skinheads? Only one way to find out...

The hair don't really look the same as on the map

Mario is the same as usual, except for having a spiky red Mohawk. Luigi has a green one. These aren’t normal Mohawks either. They are so stiff, that literally the top of Mario’s skull splits and slides back and forth like the lid on a cookie jar rather than have that hair move one strand. I think Mario used superglue when he was meant to use Vaseline. I think Judge Jay was sniffing that glue when he worked on this hack.

Smash it up!

The breakable blocks have been replaced by TVs. Although I’d like to think that this is a reference to the band Television, I think Jay is just trying to say punks are destructive and/or hate TV.

Jay is a poser!

The musical blocks have had their notes replaced with oi!. Yea, what can be said, that is so lame...

Is it a paint brush? Spraypaint? Douche nozzle?

Mushrooms are now either bottles of beer or hard liquor. Its hard to tell. That could even be a bottle of ketchup for fuck’s sakes. I’m pretty sure he meant beer though. The people in this world sure pick strange places to hide their booze. Who would ever think to look inside the television set?

At first I thought it was floating underwear

The raccoon tail is now a crudely drawn anarchy sign. Unfortunately catching it does not cause anarchy to break out. Instead you just turn into raccoon-Mario. What a rip off!

It must be a copy of Great Balls of Fire

The fire flower has been replaced by a record. It has the exact same effect as the flower though, you turn red and shoot fireballs. I think Jay is already running out of ideas and I’m not even past the 1st world!

One of Jay's less inspired ideas

The clouds you can walk on are now strange transparent beams with anarchy signs on them. Yea...

In the 1st world, most of the enemies have been altered. First we have the television things:

This is just a Goomba, but with its head replaced by a television screen. I’m not quite sure what this has to do with punks or Nazis. Mario must be really drunk and think that television is walking towards him menacingly.

There is the fire-breathing cop:

It's official, punk is dead

Jay sure put a lot of work into this cop graphic, by his standards. I understand the cop being in this hack, punks hate the police. So does this ROM-hacker. Spit in the face of the next cop you see. But what I don’t understand, is why the hell does a cop inhabit a pipe? And spit fireballs? Maybe Jay is just trying to make the point that they are gutter-slime. But they should throw donuts or shoot bullets. By the way, Jay, punk is in-fact dead. This ROM-hack is proof.

Then there is this thing:

This thing does not spit fire

Is this another pipe-inhabiting cop? It looks to me like a cross between a nun and a police officer. Why are all these law enforcement types in the sewer? Tracking down CHUD?

This graphic took 2 minutes to change

The Koopa Troopas are unchanged other than having a swastika painted on their shell. Mario probably shouldn’t take it out on the turtle, I know it didn’t paint it there itself. It must have been vandalized by some skinheads. But that’s not its fault! In a strange twist, when you jump on them and pick up the shell, the swastika disappears. Such shoddy craftsmanship!

Dude, you totally stole my hair style

Toad sure looks punk, but otherwise he speaks the same. He seems like a very polite young man for a guy with huge spiky hair. He even gives away free boxes. Where is the booze?

At the end of each level the typical mushroom/star/flower thing has been replaced:

Mario must have knocked up some skank while drunk

What the fuck are these things? Is that a baby rattle, baby bottle, and a tit? Those 2 are probably meant to be booze, but what the fuck is that round thing? Oh, I see, its supposed to be a record. It was more interesting when this appeared to be baby themed for no reason!

Very little is changed inside the castle. Predictably someone put Nazi graffiti on the turtles:

Weak

Jay, we’re all getting disappointed!

The little mini-boss in the castle is completely unchanged, but drops a swastika when defeated:

We get it, they are Nazis, move on!

I think I can sum up Jay’s ROM-hacking ethic with this statement: “When in doubt, slap a swastika on it”.

Which brings to mind the next enemy:

Somebody take the god-damned paint away from the Nazis!

Wow, the beetle has a swastika on its shell. How did he come up with that?

That character in no way looks like a skinhead, sorry

So the hammer bros. hurls swastikas now? Oh how incredibly original.

The treasure box says oi!? Fucking lame...

He did change the cards in the card-matching sub-game though. Basically this just further reinforces that Mario hates Nazi’s, and likes beer, records, and saying oi! Like some retarded cartoon version of a punk.

When I got to the part where I have to save the King, my suspicion that Jay did not know how to change the text was confirmed. it’s the same old bullshit story. And nothing looks changed so far. Unless you count this:

Jay is a man obsessed, with swastikas

You mean he also put swastikas on the bullets and the bubbles?!? Holy fucking shit Jay! Your Nazis love to brand things!

Moving on to world 2, and so far there is nothing much of note. He changed the eyes on the fish and the sun to swastikas. You know what, I’m not even gonna put up a pic of it, its too god damn stupid at this point. I’d say the swastika has become short-hand for “I’m a mother fuckin lazy bastard. I’m gay for Hitler too, can't get enough swastikas!”. Look, there is a time and place for the swastika in a ROM-hack. They don’t have that much to do with punk. Really they don’t. Sure, there is that song Nazi Punks Fuck Off, and there have been conflicts between punks and skinheads, but they just are not and never have been terribly important to the typical punk rocker.

World 3 has nothing further to offer, most of the new enemies are unchanged, and the few that aren’t just have more lazy swastikas drawn on them somewhere. It is clear Jay was at best a punk rock poser, and the hack he actually wanted to make was Super KKK Bros. III. The frog suit is unchanged. Mario is not a punk, he is a plushy.

World 4 is where you can really tell the hack is for all intents and purposes over.

Where are the giant swastikas?

Not only is nothing new changed, but the power-ups have reverted back to mushrooms and feathers somehow, and the blocks are no longer TVs. Even the writing on the pipes has become gibberish on most of the pipes. Jay even missed a big opportunity by leaving Tanooki Mario unchanged...

The rest of the game pretty much goes on like that, Jay was even too lazy to put swastikas on most of the enemies. His laziness shows in things like this:

He needs Sunshine donuts

His cop head got reused on this creature, but he was too lazy to change the body, or maybe he just sucked at SMB3 and never got this far. It’s a plant with the head of a cop. Not even a crude swastika body. For shame Jay! Hitler will be pissed at you.

At the very end of the game, in the last castle, Jay tried to put in the minimum effort:

So why is Bowser into swastikas again?

The blocks in the castle have swastikas engraved on them and Bowser spits out fireballs which turn into lies. This took what, 5 minutes to do?

All you get for beating this pathetically incomplete hack is a “Fuck”

Right back at ya Jay!

I’d say that pretty much sums up this hack.

 

(unknown), 2008)