04-03-2023, 06:30 AM
Super Mario Bros and the Midas Machine was possibly one of the most hyped fan games I had ever seen, with it’s great sprite work, interesting concepts, and creative usage of both the Super Mario and Wario Land series elements, it could’ve been THE greatest Mario fan game of all time.
Alas, the current state of the project is “cancelled”, so for those who were hoping for a full release, you’re basically out of luck there. That said, when MFGG’s 20th anniversary happened, a game collection (or Time Capsule) was released on the main site, which featured various canned and early demos of various Mario fan games.
One of those was Midas Machine, so I figured I’d do a review of that version as it the latest one and would likely be the sole reason folks would even download the Time Capsule in the first place. For the record, I did play the other games in the Time Capsule, but I felt that Midas Machine deserves it’s own review, as it is pretty massive compared to the other games.
Small note: I played the game on a old Mac OS via Wine, and I have a strange feeling that the team behind it didn’t intend on making the game for that hardware combination in mind.
Pros: Great concepts, really fun and challenging gameplay, beautiful sprite work and great music.
Cons: Some of the level design is a bit odd, there aren’t certain cues for various things, some bugs here and there, and it’s not complete.
Gameplay (9/10): Gameplay wise, it’s a standard Mario game. You run, jump, stomp enemies, collect coins, get to the end, the usual. What’s added on top of that is where it truly shines.
The game lets you play as Mario and Luigi, and later on Wario and Waluigi; Mario is the all rounder that he always has been and has the ability to Wall Jump, Luigi is slower but jumps the highest and has the Crouch Jump from SMB2 and the ability to slow his descent, Wario is the slowest and the lowest jumper but maintains his Should Bash from the Wario Land series, and Waluigi is the fastest with the ability to become skinny to fit through tight areas. They also have different Fire Flower stats as well; Mario is the regular one, Luigi’s go straight ignoring gravity, Wario has the Dragon hat from Wario Land, and Waluigi’s behave like the Super Ball from Super Mario Land. There is also a helper creature you’d find in some Question Mark Blocks which’ll basically provide you some air time to compensate for tricky jumps.
Various elements from all across the Mario series are implemented here, including games such as but not limited to; Super Mario Land 2, Super Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros. 2, and many others. Elements from the Wario Land series are also present, which is something I haven’t seen a lot of fan games do, and they fit really well here. You have the ability to talk to Professor E. Gadd via the DS-like tech he provides you, where he would give out hints of the levels as well as say some other stuff. You also have the ability to collect items to use later on, like restoring health or killing all enemies on screen for instance. You can even take screenshots too.
All of these features and more really adds to the game, with all of the content in this demo being an absolute blast to play.
That said, I did have some problems. While most of the level design is very solid, sometimes it’d feel a bit wonky or odd to me. There are also some bugs here and there involving collision, and at one point I fell out of the secret room in Peach’s Castle, and despite being told in-game that I won’t die, when the game went to the inside of the Castle, I didn’t come down and instead ended up dying. I don’t know if this happened cause I was playing as Wario or possibly some other reason, but it did happen.
Also, I did get a bit lost after completing Chapter 3, and I had no idea where to progress as the game didn’t exactly clarify; I managed to find the Well before the boss led me to it, but I couldn’t figure out the “secret” entrance to get to the next world until I started mashing buttons and happened to figure out that you have to press “Up” on the Well level. This wasn’t made obvious and had I not done that I probably would’ve ended my play-through here.
Graphics (9/10): The game is possibly one of the most prettiest Mario fan games I’ve seen to use pixel art; The characters have their personality shine through their animations, some of the backgrounds and level art look stunning, and overall it really feels like it earns it’s Nintendo DS styled theming.
Though, I feel like some of the HUD fonts are a bit, basic? Like I remember a post Mors made about fixing the title screen’s text, going from a basic pixelated Arial font to a more fitting custom font, which was an improvement but I didn’t seem to have been done with the rest of the HUD fonts.
That is a pretty minor thing though, as it is still a really great looking game.
Sound (8/10): This is gonna be a odd entry as I was unable to hear the SFX while playing the game, even after I tried messing with the sound settings.
The music on the other hand I did hear for most of my play through until I eventually turned it off (yeah sorry about that I sometimes would like some silence).
That said, from what I have heard of the soundtrack, it sounds pretty really great! No complaints here!
Replayablilty (7/10): Throughout the game you’d be collecting these Golden Mushrooms, basically this game’s equivalent of Star Coins. Most of the levels have 2, though some have 3 or even 1. There are alternate routes and exits you can take as well.
Unfortunately, the demo seems only to go up to World 4’s Factory level, despite other levels going to World 5 existing in the game’s files. In fact, there doesn’t appear to be a Level 4 in the game’s files, it just goes from 03_factory to 05_sub!
Verdict (9/10): If you want to play the latest version of possibly the greatest Mario fan game that never was, you can’t really go wrong here.
Note for the moderators: No, I do not want to start the trend of posting fan game reviews on the forums instead of the main site. I only did it because Midas Machine really deserves it’s own review and I don’t think I could’ve fit it in a review of the entire Time Capsule itself.
Alas, the current state of the project is “cancelled”, so for those who were hoping for a full release, you’re basically out of luck there. That said, when MFGG’s 20th anniversary happened, a game collection (or Time Capsule) was released on the main site, which featured various canned and early demos of various Mario fan games.
One of those was Midas Machine, so I figured I’d do a review of that version as it the latest one and would likely be the sole reason folks would even download the Time Capsule in the first place. For the record, I did play the other games in the Time Capsule, but I felt that Midas Machine deserves it’s own review, as it is pretty massive compared to the other games.
Small note: I played the game on a old Mac OS via Wine, and I have a strange feeling that the team behind it didn’t intend on making the game for that hardware combination in mind.
Pros: Great concepts, really fun and challenging gameplay, beautiful sprite work and great music.
Cons: Some of the level design is a bit odd, there aren’t certain cues for various things, some bugs here and there, and it’s not complete.
Gameplay (9/10): Gameplay wise, it’s a standard Mario game. You run, jump, stomp enemies, collect coins, get to the end, the usual. What’s added on top of that is where it truly shines.
The game lets you play as Mario and Luigi, and later on Wario and Waluigi; Mario is the all rounder that he always has been and has the ability to Wall Jump, Luigi is slower but jumps the highest and has the Crouch Jump from SMB2 and the ability to slow his descent, Wario is the slowest and the lowest jumper but maintains his Should Bash from the Wario Land series, and Waluigi is the fastest with the ability to become skinny to fit through tight areas. They also have different Fire Flower stats as well; Mario is the regular one, Luigi’s go straight ignoring gravity, Wario has the Dragon hat from Wario Land, and Waluigi’s behave like the Super Ball from Super Mario Land. There is also a helper creature you’d find in some Question Mark Blocks which’ll basically provide you some air time to compensate for tricky jumps.
Various elements from all across the Mario series are implemented here, including games such as but not limited to; Super Mario Land 2, Super Mario Galaxy, New Super Mario Bros. 2, and many others. Elements from the Wario Land series are also present, which is something I haven’t seen a lot of fan games do, and they fit really well here. You have the ability to talk to Professor E. Gadd via the DS-like tech he provides you, where he would give out hints of the levels as well as say some other stuff. You also have the ability to collect items to use later on, like restoring health or killing all enemies on screen for instance. You can even take screenshots too.
All of these features and more really adds to the game, with all of the content in this demo being an absolute blast to play.
That said, I did have some problems. While most of the level design is very solid, sometimes it’d feel a bit wonky or odd to me. There are also some bugs here and there involving collision, and at one point I fell out of the secret room in Peach’s Castle, and despite being told in-game that I won’t die, when the game went to the inside of the Castle, I didn’t come down and instead ended up dying. I don’t know if this happened cause I was playing as Wario or possibly some other reason, but it did happen.
Also, I did get a bit lost after completing Chapter 3, and I had no idea where to progress as the game didn’t exactly clarify; I managed to find the Well before the boss led me to it, but I couldn’t figure out the “secret” entrance to get to the next world until I started mashing buttons and happened to figure out that you have to press “Up” on the Well level. This wasn’t made obvious and had I not done that I probably would’ve ended my play-through here.
Graphics (9/10): The game is possibly one of the most prettiest Mario fan games I’ve seen to use pixel art; The characters have their personality shine through their animations, some of the backgrounds and level art look stunning, and overall it really feels like it earns it’s Nintendo DS styled theming.
Though, I feel like some of the HUD fonts are a bit, basic? Like I remember a post Mors made about fixing the title screen’s text, going from a basic pixelated Arial font to a more fitting custom font, which was an improvement but I didn’t seem to have been done with the rest of the HUD fonts.
That is a pretty minor thing though, as it is still a really great looking game.
Sound (8/10): This is gonna be a odd entry as I was unable to hear the SFX while playing the game, even after I tried messing with the sound settings.
The music on the other hand I did hear for most of my play through until I eventually turned it off (yeah sorry about that I sometimes would like some silence).
That said, from what I have heard of the soundtrack, it sounds pretty really great! No complaints here!
Replayablilty (7/10): Throughout the game you’d be collecting these Golden Mushrooms, basically this game’s equivalent of Star Coins. Most of the levels have 2, though some have 3 or even 1. There are alternate routes and exits you can take as well.
Unfortunately, the demo seems only to go up to World 4’s Factory level, despite other levels going to World 5 existing in the game’s files. In fact, there doesn’t appear to be a Level 4 in the game’s files, it just goes from 03_factory to 05_sub!
Verdict (9/10): If you want to play the latest version of possibly the greatest Mario fan game that never was, you can’t really go wrong here.
Note for the moderators: No, I do not want to start the trend of posting fan game reviews on the forums instead of the main site. I only did it because Midas Machine really deserves it’s own review and I don’t think I could’ve fit it in a review of the entire Time Capsule itself.
Other socials?:
Sonic Retro
NCFC
YouTube
List of projects currently in development* (pictures of logos will probably be added later):
Mario's Rather Unusual Trilogy (Mario's slightly unusual Boss Rush, Mario vs. Some Unusual Foes, Mario's VERY Unusual Final Frontier)
Sonic's Foray into Random/Unusual Zones (spin-off of Unusual Trilogy)
Angry Birds Slingshot Frenzy
Super Mario Flashback: Really Good Edition
*assuming I don't abruptly cancel them
Sonic Retro
NCFC
YouTube
List of projects currently in development* (pictures of logos will probably be added later):
Mario's Rather Unusual Trilogy (Mario's slightly unusual Boss Rush, Mario vs. Some Unusual Foes, Mario's VERY Unusual Final Frontier)
Sonic's Foray into Random/Unusual Zones (spin-off of Unusual Trilogy)
Angry Birds Slingshot Frenzy
Super Mario Flashback: Really Good Edition
*assuming I don't abruptly cancel them