Super Mario Bros.: Crimson Hours
| Super Mario Bros.: Crimson Hours | |
|---|---|
| |
| Developer(s) | Hello |
| Announce Date | Unknown |
| Release Date | September 21, 2007 |
| Genre | Platform/Shooter |
| Players | 1 |
| Input | Standard keyboard |
| Medium | Game Maker 6 |
| Platform | Windows |
| Status | Complete |
Super Mario Bros.: Crimson Hours is a platform game Hello made in the later part of 2007. The game uses a modified version of his Open Source SMB2 Engine and uses Black Squirrel tiles. Unlike most of his games, though, Mario uses a gun to defeat his enemies, and blood splatters upon every hit. Mario can also throw grenades to shatter blocks in his way. Gun ammunition must be conserved, however; Mario only has a certain amount, and it slowly refills automatically. At the beginning of the game, players can choose a game difficulty level that affects the amount of maximum ammunition they have. On higher difficulty levels, Mario can shoot only one bullet at a time and must thus rely on grenades, of which he has an unlimited supply, to attack enemies. On all difficulty levels, Mario can take five hits before losing a life. Fire Flowers, depending on their colors, either add to Mario's life meter or allow him to shoot bullets continuously. The game uses many recolored Black Squirrel tiles and countless red palette-swapped backgrounds. There are 10 regular levels and two boss battles. Most of the music (always MP3s) comes from OC Remix and includes dark Super Mario World remixes. Hello also uses a much-overused fortress song. A save prompt appears after every level.
Story
Bowser decided to shoot Princess Peach to death. When Mario finds out, he grabs his gun and plots his revenge. This story contradicts Bowser's motivations for kidnapping her constantly in the past, but being realistic (or maintaining any form of continuity from his other games) never was Hello's (or Shigeru Miyamoto's) main objective.
Reception
Every time Hello makes a violent game, MFGGers are divided. Some feel the blood and gore is gruesome or even borderline sadistic, while others praise the games for their originality. Players seemed to be split in their opinions with this game and gave the game a wide mix of ratings. The original boss fights were a plus for many players, but some were irked by the juvenile Comic Sans MS message text in such a grim game. Another problem is that Mario jumps the same height off of enemies regardless of whether the jump button is held, and that Mario gets hurt if he touches a stationary Koopa shell from the side. This particular game is almost always considered better than Super Mario Bros.: Dark Days and worse than the later Super Mario Bros.: Bloody Battles. The three reviews posted give an average rating of 6.3.
