Looking back -- Sumo Fatio Bros.: The Return of Ian, part 1

As mentioned in previous posts -- I didn't make just one "Sumo Fatio Bros." hack back in the early 2000s, I made two of them.  Sumo Fatio Bros. 2 was a glitchy mess with only two completed levels (and only one even remotely playable without glitches screwing you over), but Sumo Fatio Bros. 3 was a bit different.

 It also wasn't actually called "Sumo Fatio Bros. 3," as it turns out, despite the ROM's filename being sumo3.nes.  The actual title is, as shown above, "Sumo Fatio Bros.: The Return of Ian."

As you probably didn't know, Ian was also the name of an especially stupid kid that I was unfortunate enough to be stuck in the same Boy Scout troop with back in the day.  He was a bully, pretty much -- and in case you've never experienced real bullying and still think "bully" means "cartoon character who beats up smaller kids for their lunch money," the reality of bullying is closer to "near-constant psychological torture, then suddenly stopping the moment any authority figure shows up so they don't ever get caught."  Ian and his cronies (who, once Ian was gone, actually grew up into halfway-decent people the last time I checked) got away with so much crap over the years and only actually got in any trouble for anything toward the very end of Ian's time in the troop -- first for leading a gang of kids to surround me and scream in my ears (which led to me, unable to hear but really pissed, chasing Ian down and tackling him to the ground before stabbing him repeatedly with a pen... normally he was able to outrun me, but apparently I was just so angry that time that I actually became faster), and later for... throwing an empty Pringles can at the back of some other kid's head.  Yeah, apparently "it's okay as long as you're only doing it to Eddie" was the rule back then, because the instant he starts doing his usual crap to someone else in my absence he's immediately booted from the troop.  He later went on to lead a gang of 14-to-16-year-olds in vandalizing his old high school a year or two after he'd graduated, for which he ended up in jail, an event which probably caused a lot of people in Alleghany County to suddenly start believing in karma.

 ...anyway, in this game Ian is basically just the leader of some kind of Moronic Army, much like the ones that would later appear in games like Uggy Barfoo under the command of Lord of Moronism Ma-Du Nebozu.  I don't think I ever actually edited Bowser's graphics into Ian, as the Koopa Kids are completely unedited (as you'll see later.)

This is also probably the last game I made where I actually went by the name "Dark Blubber," with the possible exception of Frankfurter's Quest for Soap.  If I'm remembering right, 2003's Fnrrf Ygm Schnish OHRRPGCE game and everything after that all used either my real name or (later on) Fnrrf Ygm Schnish instead.

I also notice that I changed "1 player game" to "1 supor sumo."  Typo of "super" only because the way this screen is set up, not all of the letters exist and I had to change the letters' tiles to get them all in there... which meant replacing the E in "game" with an O for "sumo."

Apparently I figured out how to change these in a better way in time for Ninja Mario Bros., as the "l33t n33nj4h/l33t n33nj4hs" selection there definitely doesn't seem to have been made with the same restrictions as the 1 player/2 player select screen here was.

And here's the first level's map.  It's... pretty different from the original game, though the layout is similar overall.  The door unlocked by beating the castle level is no longer pointless, and some levels have city graphics rather than the regular level squares.  Also, the music here is the underground level song rather than the normal Level 1 song.

 1-1 is... a dark, ghettoriffic city area.  There's turd monsters crawling out of an open sewer pipe, and graffiti all over the place (most of it completely nonsensical -- symbols, Japanese katakana, "2k" and "2k3," random leters that don't actually spell out anything meaningful.)

 Also, instead of the mushroom/flower/star clouds there's clouds that spell out "FAT."  Speaking of fat, Fatio uses the exact same sprites as in Sumo Fatio Bros. 2 for the most part.

 Here's a recurring enemy in the Fatio series... Li'l Sumo-San! Also, look at those awful-looking ?-blocks that aren't even fully block-shaped... weird.

 Actually kind of a neat puzzly thing near the end of the level.  You need to hit the P-switch to get any further, and also you have to avoid getting either of the two coins above it or you'll miss out on being able to climb up on them.

 Here's how it looks with the coins turned to blocks.

And here's the end of the level, with a jalapeño card replacing the Fire Flower.  I'm not sure what the heck is up with the design of the frames on the bottom display.  I do remember that the P-meter being changed to Fs and "GAS" represents how Fatio flies using farts (the raccoon leaf item is even changed to a can of beans), though.

 Level 2 (well, officially Level 1 since the first level is just "numberless city level" now) is less city-ish than the first, and is the introductory level for the Muncher Launcher (as previously seen in Goma-Mario.)  That's Muncher as in the old computer game Word Munchers, by the way -- no relation to the small Piranha Plant type critters known as Munchers from the Mario games.

 Also here: random Chain Chomps that spit bricks at you (replacing the fire-spitting Piranha Plants) and Creatures That Eat Kids, replacing the giant ones.

For those who don't know, which is probably most of you, "the Creature That Eats Kids" was a huge green monster (I later decided it was a species of huge legless lizard) that showed up in a dream I had when I was 5, which apparently had the power to jump out from anything green (including bushes, pipes, dumpsters, the nasty overcooked spinach on someone's cafeteria tray...) in order to suddenly eat kids without them seeing it coming.  I think this is the first of my games that they actually made an appearance in, with Frankfurter's Quest for Soap (also made in 2003) also featuring two of them named Nyurr and Gyah as bosses.

 Also shown: the donut, replacing the mushroom from the original game.

 Hammer Bros. were replaced with "Yo Brothers," which... throw the word "Yo!" at you to attack.

 Some of them also inexplicably spit bricks at you, somehow.

And some of them... walk backwards off a cliff into a waterfall seconds after appearing on the screen.  Whoops!

 Here's another new enemy... the bizarre-looking "Stoopa Troopas" that replaced the Koopas.  Hard to see here with their black outline blending into the background, but they have a giant mohawk.

 Like Koopas, they can be kicked around after being stomped on.

Like the original 1-3, you can find a whistle here.  Except it's not a whistle anymore, it's a Magic Butt.  And the guy who gives it to you isn't Toad, but... some mustached, pointy-nosed guy with a tophat.  Who talks all gangsta-like.  Whut?? XD

 This level's pretty weird-looking.  I'm not sure why I made the objects blur into the sky color so much, but... eh.

 There's a Creature That Eats Kids popping out from some trash cans, appropriately.

And there's red ones too, at least in this game.  Only because Piranha Plants were sometimes red, pretty much -- in my other games featuring them (usually referred to as "Kid Eaters" just for the sake of being able to fit the name into a smaller space) they're always green.

 This fortress level is a little weird.  The colors are changed around pretty drastically, and the background music is... the song that World 6 originally had in Mario 3.  I think this is based on how some episodes of the SMB3-based cartoon used that song as a "mysterious/puzzly" theme occasionally.

 Also, here's the jalapeño, which gives you the power to... throw bricks.  Huh??

 Also, tiny Kid Eaters on chains replace the standard non-fire-spitting Piranha Plants.  Normally they have long almost snake-like bodies, but apparently in this game they had a larval form that was more Numnum-shaped.

 Li'l Sumo-San being helpful here by taking out those Chain Chomps with a rock. XD

 The "crushing ceiling" room is changed around a bit too.  You have to get in the water for a bit to avoid the spikes near the end.

 And here's one of my favorite sprites from this old game (and the only boss-type enemy that was ever changed) -- it's Sum-Sum! Or Soom-Soom.  Or something like that.  Basically "Boom-Boom except now he's just a big sumo guy."

And... this particular room lets you beat him in a somewhat unconventional way... if you can get him to walk or jump into that waterfall, he'll fall off the screen and die instantly.

 The standard "mushroom house" message in this hack.

 And here's the new version of that first underground level... now it's a water level, randomly.  Also, little Geno-hat-wearing round critters have replaced Buzzy Beetles, and Yen replace the coins

 

 Also, more Muncher Launchers! These ones launch the Munchers that turn around in midair and flash different colors -- I just happened to get a screenshot of one when it was green.

 Ugh.  This level.  Specifically, this part of this level.  This hack doesn't have as much in the way of outright glitchiness as Sumo Fatio  Bros. 2 did, but there are still some really annoying levels which are a pain in the ass to actually get through.  This is one of them.  Getting the can of beans from that block helps a lot, but it's still very hard to get out of that waterfall without falling in a hole, and then there's a moving block that goes off the screen and vanishes before  you can reach it which makes getting to the next part of the level much harder than it needs to be.

And at the end, the "end of level" black area is randomly shorter than normal.  Huh??

 This next level might look completely unfamiliar to some (most?) of you, but it's actually an edited version of a weird ice/water level that was in the code of SMB3 but for some reason was never used in the actual game.

Also, for some odd reason I changed the Munchers (the mini-Piranha-Plant kind) into... the Subcon dudes from Mario 2.  Huh???

 Also, Cheep-Cheeps are now SEALS.

 More Muncher Launchers here.

And... I've made it to the castle at the end, where the king has been turned into a dog.  Apparently the way to turn him back is to... SEVER THE MORONS' MAGIC PEENS AND USE THOSE.  Wow.  On one hand, that does mean that these particular morons won't be making (or more importantly, raising) any little moronlets... but I don't think "moron's penis" is an object with magical powers, generally. XD

 So here's the first airship level.  Bluish Kid Eaters, and turd-launching cannons.  Yep.

 Completely unchanged Larry Koopa here, except that the magic wand now shoots the word "DUH" rather than circles.  Also, different (and glitchy-looking, especially with the bright gold wood pillars in the background) room setup.

 And... that's not good.  While this game isn't as glitchy as Fatio 2 was, it still has its screwy moments.

 Thankfully, I still have that Magic Butt I found earlier on, which means I can skip the airship and go straight to the next level instead!  That's all for now, but I'll continue with more on Fatio sometime in the next day or two.