This mod I think is close to being fun in its own way, but is like one revision away from being as polished as it could be. The moveset isn't super crazy (It's Mario's bar the punch being a slash you can spam and the torch replacing the breakdance), but the torch is a neat projectile just to have on your person. With enough torched objects you set the world's skybox to the LLL one which is a neat detail, however I wish the music changed to accompany this, its not the most common thing but with the standard camera in 64 its hard to notice when the skybox had changed until it either pointed up or I used freecam. I think it'd be neat to at least procedurally slow the music down as you burn everything, or otherwise replace it with a haunting ambience.
I also wish the torch didn't just erase enemies and npcs with 0 benefit in most cases. If you torch a Star Toad, you just screw yourself out of a star which is less fun than being rewarded for a bit of cruelty. Same for canon Bob-Ombs which absolutely should open the cannon automatically if you blow them up or at the least you should be able to torch the hatch the same way you can burn down the castle doors. This flaw of the torch really comes to be a problem in LLL where you can become the demon very easily and your power trip of being this big monster burning everything with fireballs is quickly ruined as you realize your fireballs don't count for killing Bullies.
The secondary major change is to the caps, I hadn't messed with it very much beyond running around BOB, but it is pretty fun running around as this big demon guy. Not much to complain about beyond it making things like the wing courses a bit of a hassle and it not working nice with default cam in those situations. Would also be nice to have its own star get animation as its a bit awkward to revert as soon as you touch the star.
The last things I wanna talk about are general polish to aesthetic things. The jump animation I think could look a little better in terms of posing, just a bit stiff in a way that doesn't feel quite intentional. I think the slash animation for the punch is similarly a bit stiff, he could stand to take a heftier swing and put his body a bit into the motion, but I do get it could get in the way of it being a rapid attack. The voicelines are a bit all over the place, the 8-bit stuff sounds fine like the standard smb1 jump sounds n such, but the bowser toss line and a few grunts are standout as strangely out of line in terms of audio quality. I think it comes across as unintentional oddness as the laugh is bitcrushed like it was pulled from the NES. This is a leap up in terms of scope but more changes to the ending would have been nice, like just burning down the castle or simply having nobody be there when you get to the bit where they wave goodbye.
Anyway, this is still alright, it's hard to go wrong with Mario plus a few gimmicks, but I'd like to see what it could stand to spruce up and add a couple of updates down the line if it comes to be.
![Daredevil [CS]](/data/resource_icons/1/1382.jpg?1787264591){kind=icon}
