Kaizo Mario World
"...this is like the video game version of cutting yourself."
"Either that, or make more hacks... Either way, the results are torture to mankind."
Welcome to Hell.
An insanely difficult Game Mod of Super Mario World, Kaizo Mario World (literally, "Hacked Mario World", but also translated as "Asshole Mario World") is well known for being the Trope Codifier of the Platform Hell genre (well eclipsing the popularity of earlier examples such as Jinsei Owata no Daibouken and the then-unnamed Super Mario Forever), and for being the game that launched a lot of LPers' careers on YouTube.
The whole thing is rumored to have started as a simple Mario World hack made by a Japanese internet user to challenge their friend, and by some unknown stroke of luck, was found and LPed by a team of Something Awful LPers as 'Asshole Mario World', based off the difficulty. The popularity of these original playthroughs spread across the internet, causing a lot more people to play the game. The game is pretty much also responsible for the wave of "super difficult" Platform Hell Mario World hacks that have been released, including most on the trope page in question, and those designed specifically to be played by commentators on YouTube for the frustration of the player in question.
There was also a sequel, Kaizo Mario World 2, which was more of the same, with new levels and boss battles. There have also been a few unofficial sequels, although none have gained the popularity of the original.
Similar to Super Kusottare World ("kusottare" is Japanese for "asshole") and Super Tabarnak World ("tabarnak!" is a religious Quebecois swear). Compare to I Wanna Be the Guy.
You can get the original Kaizo here and Kaizo Mario World 2 here.
- Ascended Glitch: You'll have to pretty much know a bunch of glitches in the Super Mario World engine to get through this hack.
- Big Boo's Haunt: The ghost houses are a sadistic homage to the already frustrating and labyrinthine ones found in the original. The Big Boo boss is made ridiculously hard.
- Bonus Boss: Arguably those at the end of the Special World.
- Breather Level: The underwater level in the first game. Still difficult, though.
- Cranium Ride: Spin jumping on dangerous enemies to pass over spikes or the like.
- The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: The extreme difficulty of the game seems to be designed so that even with save states, you will rip not only all of the hair from your head, but from at least 40% of the rest of your body as well.
- Everything Is Trying to Kill You: As with most Platform Hell games.
- Fake Difficulty: Lots.
- Follow the Leader: Where to begin. This, based on many LPers reactions, brought about a good few hundred similar Mario World hacks, often sent just to annoy said LPers. Every single trap used in the original two games has been copied to no end. And it pretty much set up a difficulty arms race between quite a few people.
- Game Mod: Obvious.
- Guide Dang It: The sequel mixes it up a bit by having a level consist not of ridiculous deathtraps, but a convoluted, Rube Goldberg-esque series of actions required to access the end of the level.
- Hailfire Peaks: Special World 4 combines The Lost Woods flavour with Big Boo's Haunt foes.
- Hard Levels Easy Bosses: Compared to the hell that's come before, Invisible Bowser is relatively easy. Underwater Bowser is another cakewalk.
- Helpful Mook: Accidentally Assisting flavor. See Cranium Ride. "Move FASTER, Pokey!"
- Instant Win Condition: Subverted, especially with the Kaizo Trap. If you fall off a cliff to nothingness after finishing a level in Super Mario World, you will still die; the original game was just kind (or smart) enough to not put cliffs there. Kaizo, not so much.
- Invisible Block: Infamously. The reaction to these by a certain LPer is probably why they show up so much in imitators.
- To put it in the words of Elemental Ogre, "DAMN YOU JON! AND YOUR PROTON!"
- Kaizo Trap: The Trope Namer, of course.
- Leap of Faith: Required way, way, way too often.
- Let's Play: What made it famous, and the purpose of most of the imitators.
- Angrish: Words fail to express how frustrating these games can be.
- Creator Breakdown: The main joy of these LPs is listening to the commentators going various kinds of insane.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Usually a feature of said insanity.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck: Except with Sir Ron Lionheart.
- Nintendo Hard: The easy levels. The rest are Platform Hell.
- Oh Crap: Expect to say this at just about every new obstacle.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder: Enforced; many passages are only big enough for the small one-hit Mario to pass.
- Overly Long Title: The original title was could be written as any of the following[1]:
- 自作の改造マリオ（スーパーマリオワールド）
- Jisaku no Kaizō Mario (Sūpā Mario Wārudo) o Yūjin ni Purei Saseru?)
- Making my friend play through my Mario hack (Super Mario World)
- Platform Hell: Most of the game, although taken to further and further degrees by imitators.
- Press Start to Game Over: The title screen opens with a Thwomp crushing Mario, and quite a few levels try to kill you a couple seconds after they start.
- Save Scumming: Beating this hack and others of its ilk legitimately is virtually unheard of.
- Sequel Difficulty Spike: The second game just increases the hellishness of the first one.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Hope you have your ice sliding skills perfected, these games exploit the mechanic's difficulty for all its worth.
- Speed Run: Especially the Tool Assisted kind. Some imitators are actually made purely for Tool Assisted Speedruns.
- Spikes of Doom: As Munchers and normal spikes, and in great quantity in all levels.
- Temporary Platform: Used throughout the mod, including the infamous Kaizo Trap.
- Trial and Error Gameplay: You won't see many traps until you get killed by them. This is, again, one of the most common features of both the original and imitators.
- Video Game Remake: Kaizo Mario Advance 2. How shall the gameplay of Luigi from the GBA version work with these levels?
- Serial Escalation : How insanely difficult will this stage be? Practically gets turned into an artform.
- Shout-Out: The third level of the first game is called Cerulean Cave, a reference to a location in Pokemon.
- ↑ the first is it in japanese, the second is the Hepburn romanization, and the third is simply the translation