Super Mario Land 4: Stairway to Heaven

Super Mario Land 4: Stairway to Heaven
Developer(s)	Kaepora & Someguy
Announce Date	Announced May 2006
Release Date	Unknown
Genre	1 to 4 player platformer
Players	1
Input	Standard keyboard
Medium	Multimedia Fusion
Platform	Windows
Status	Cancelled

This article is about a fangame that has ceased production. No further work is being done on this project, and a release is not likely.

The Saga Continues

Super Mario Land 4 is Kaepora and Someguy's take on the widely accepted Super Mario Land series that appeared on the Gameboy back in it's hayday. The idea was originally pitched to Someguy by Kaepora, who wanted to keep the bizarre style that Someguy introduced with Thingio, but wanted to dab it with a more traditional Mario touch. The inspiration for the idea is said to have originally been thought up after a disgruntled Kaepora listened consecutively eight times to the classic rock band Bostons rock opera "Don't Look Back". The story in the album loosely told of multiple men traversing through outer space. Because of the inspiration, Super Mario Land 4 will not be based on the events occurring in the Mushroom Kingdom, but will rather be taking place on many different planets scattered throughout the universe.

The Game

Perhaps the most interesting element of Super Mario Land 4 is that unlike any other fangame, it supports a 4-player cooperative mode, which is said to almost mimick the multiplayer mode of the Super Nintendo game Kirby Superstar. Of course, the player is not obligated to play the game with 4-players, or even more than one, but it certainly makes the experience much more enjoyable. Other than that, the game plays mostly true to the Super Mario form, with a mix from the recent console iterations like Super Mario 64, which allow Mario to do things like a walljump (although that move in SML4 is exclusively for Mario to use). The other two playable characters are Halo's protagonist Master Chief, and an exaggerated and caricatured version of the late video game designer, Gunpei Yokoi. The exclusive abilities to each character, derived from information given out from the creators, are:

Mario: Has the fastest speed, good jump, can use powerups, and is able to wall jump.

Luigi: Plays like Mario, except he runs slower and jumps higher. He is also able to use power ups, which seem to have a variation, as an image was shown of Luigi with a shining Ruby style pipe. He's unable to wall jump, but some of his upgrades should make up for it.

Master Chief: He carries a SMG, which can shoot as fast as the player can tap the button. However, he runs very slow, and is unable to swim in water, moving through as if it wasn't there. This most likely would let him go through currents or step on heavy switches too. He also is said to have a grenade and some gun upgrades, and also seems to have high HP.

Gunpei Yokoi: He has various martial arts moves, such as punches and kicks, and apparently has a wide variety of upgrades based on his old creations. One such mentioned was a Virtual Boy style visor, which would coat the screen in red and black, and reveal hidden blocks. He is said to have low HP and speed, however, as unlike the rest of the characters, he is for the most part a normal human in a game type world.

Along with exclusive abilities for each player, there are a selected amount of power-ups the player(s) can obtain on the field:

Star: All that was mentioned was You know what this does., this likely means it is the common temporary invincibility item seen in most games.

Allergy Hat: Designed after the Superball powerup in Super Mario Land, this lets Mario and Luigi fire "super boogers" from their nose. At least one of the creators is not into toilet humor and the like, so it is unlikely that the super boogers are anything much else then bubbles or cannonball type objects.

Bunny hat: It was said that it works the same as it did in Super Mario Land 2. In SML2, Mario was able to hold or tap the A button to hover in mid air, with the highest button pressing speed possible in game Mario would not lose any altitude. He also automatically jumped if you held A when you landed, ironically much like the default TGF/MMF movement that this game does not use. One of the Bros. only items.

Flamethrower helmet: A small pipe appears out of Mario or Luigi's hat, which lets them shoot a constant stream of fire in front of them, similar to the Dragon Hat in Wario Land. Some have said they have seen images of a test of various light tricks that could be possible results of using the flame in a dark area.

The game will also mark the return of the "Sky-Pop" and "Sub-Pop", which are two vital variables of Super Mario Land (although they did not appear in the two subsequent games). The Sky and Sub-Pop levels are also set to utilize MMF's Mode 7 extension, allowing a Starfox-like flight game. It is unknown how the multiplayer aspect will be utilized in these levels.

Media

As of this time, along with a barrage of screenshots, Kaepora and Someguy have released an official trailer along with Cloakbass having released a fanmade trailer.

Trivia

• The game has gone through at least three different logos. One, upon the first visual revealing, was a basic Super Mario Land title screen text modification. The second, seen at the end of the official trailer, featured a backwards S and 4. The seemingly current one is seen in Kaepora's signature, somewhat reminiscent of the Metal Gear Solid logo while not directly imitating it, and featuring a reflection of the logo below.

• The Gunpei Yokoi sprites were shown before this game's revealing, as Someguy tried to create sprites for him out of all of NO Body's MFGG Battle style sprites.

• A quote Citrus said in the SML4 topic, "Gunpei Yokoi's it it!?", has become somewhat of an inside joke for the team, referenced in some of Someguy's member titles.

• Someguy's avatar once rotated between concept art of Mario and Luigi's head, and an edit of a pocketwatch from a scene in Full Metal Alchemist, that said "Don't forget 3, OCT, 10", or October 3rd, 1910. The edit changed the numerals to the date of Gunpei Yokoi's death in the real world, making it "4, OCT, 97". Being that Gunpei Yokoi is alive, the game's plot may or may not feature alchemy in the plot, as the main characters in Full Metal Alchemist, the Elric brothers, attempted to bring their beloved mother back to life, going against the laws of Alchemy and destroying Ed's right arm and left leg, and Al's whole body, being forced to have metallic replacements.

• Someguy's rotating avatar also once featured a sprite of Gunpei Yokoi in a "sexy" pose, instead of the pocketwatch, and it only appeared rarely. He soon changed this, perhaps due to it being thought of as the focus of his member title, which says "gravity goes EW GET AWAY FROM ME YOU FRUIT"

• While Someguy is often said to be the main "programmer" of Tech Wing, and the creator of both the official trailer and the current engine, talks of engine changes and redesigns as well as Kaepora's signature having mentioned "Coming sometime after Kaepora knows what the hell he's doing in MMF2" would seem to hint to either a split or change in programming. Kaepora commonly supplies story elements and finds sprites, so if he were to be able to program, it would be possible to take the project and leave Someguy out of the picture. However, this is currently not the case.

• Kaepora has recently had a new SML4 related avatar, featuring the cast hanging on to a GB Kaepora sprite. Around that time he also posted a fake thread stating that the game was back in work, redesigned using the popular Trisoft Mario engine, and that it was to be a one player game featuring only a handful of levels stolen from SMB3. He then showed a random screenshot of a game using SM64 Mario and Goomba graphics.

Sources and Citations

Kaepora's official Super Mario Land 4 topic