BDSMW Central
Welcome to BDSMW Central, your primary resource for brutally difficult Super Mario World ROM hacks.
This site has a selection of hacks that have a reputation for being quite hard (and sometimes unfair) in their design while still being quite creative. This makes many of them a unique challenge to beat without assistance from emulator tools.
These games are provided as BPS Patches either as-is or, in the case of some older hacks, with fixes applied to make them usable on modern emulators or consoles. Some Japanese hacks featured here have also been translated to English as well (Thanks to the folks fixing and translating hacks!)
The Hack List
The curated list below is not extensive but each are notable in their own right. It is sorted from oldest to newest hack.
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Luigi's Adventure
2004 – Anikiti
Luigi's Adventure is known for having a very difficult final world and lengthy final castle. This edition is less forgiving than the 'Over Seas Edition' that was translated into English and edited for a North American audience.
Download
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The Master Courses
2006 – Michael Nguyen
The Master Courses features some bizarre design choices that make it a tough challenge on the senses, especially in the later game. Nevertheless it is a unique creation.
Download
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Super Challenge World
2006 – Nigel K.
This game is a lengthy, mostly vanilla hack. Its non-traditional level design ends up making it more challenging that it appears to be, often needing players to use alternate techniques to skip sections to make things more tolerable.
Download
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Hyper Mari World 6
2010 – Haimari
Hyper 6 starts out unassuming but ramps up into being a very hard game. The hack's final world is notoriously difficult only to be outdone by the levels of Special World.
Download
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Kyōdai Mario
2010 – Kado
Another older Japanese hack. Kyodai (Brother) Mario from Kado has a healthy mix of good design and difficulty.
Download
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S Mario
2011 – Final
Another hack from the Japanese scene that is often borderline Kaizo in its design and challenges even the most experienced players.
Download
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SUPER
2012 – Wagokoro
Another hack from the Japanese community with whose later stages will really challenge players' endurance and patience.
Download
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Super ASPE Mario
2015 – Various
A very creative and influential collaboration hack from the Japanese SMW hacking Twitter community. ASPE is full of many unique level ideas and wild custom gimmicks.
Download
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Grey Eminence
2020 – kebabchilla
A more modern hack, started in 2014 but released in 2020, Grey Eminence is not without creativity but it has a steep difficulty curve and some levels include obtuse puzzles can make for a frustrating experience.
Download
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Super Marisa Adventure World
2023 – Shiki_Makiro
An imaginative hack from Shiki_Makiro that has been described as evoking Haimari's Hyper series but in the modern era. The end game and final challenge are known to be quite hard, and it sprinkles in some Kaizo elements.
Download
Kaizo Special Zone
A few Kaizo hacks of note are also hosted here to bring some extra challenge.
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SMW Intrigue
2009 – Maxximkaizo
SMW Intrigue was released only months after Kaizo Mario World 1, it is notable for having a very Kaizo-like design before 'Kaizo' was a style of hacks.
Download
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Kaizo Mario World 3
2012 – Takemotokaizo
The third installment of the Kaizo Mario series, is not only one of the hardest Kaizo hacks, its final boss is (in)famous for having random elements and attack patterns, often taking players as long to beat as all the levels before it.
Download
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Super Responsible World
2015 – ft029kaizo
Created for 'revenge', this really difficult Kaizo hack has a lot of clever but sometimes convoluted level design. It gained such a reputation for difficulty that people challenge themselves with the 1.0 version.
An updated version from 2018 is hosted here.
Download
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ur mom's Mario World
2024 – HmWhyNotkaizo
A very long Kaizo hack from HmWhyNot to play on Mother's Day. Styled after the original Kaizo trilogy, this hack ends up being quite challenging.
Download
Honourable Mentions
These are some hacks that are uniquely questionable creations that are borderline unplayable or very tough to try and play without tool assistance.
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What The Hell
2010 – raocow
raocow's design style is incredibly unique and idiosyncratic, but What The Hell remains one of the hardest hacks that has yet to be beaten without tool assistance because it itself is incredibly unforgiving and lacks checkpoints.
Download
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Horrifying Mario World
2014 – GbreezeSunset
A mostly vanilla tools-assisted Kaizo hack inspired by the original kaizo trilogy. Playing this without savestates is strongly discouraged, but has been done by a few people.
Download
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evil YUMP
2018 – JUMP Team
Why JUMP Team modifed YUMP to be like SMW Highland—a hack where the sprites spawn in randomly with random velocities—remains a mystery but it exists.
Download
Quality of Life
Unless they already include them, some of earlier hacks on the list lack the "quality of life" accommodations a lot of modern players are accustomed to, namely infinite lives, auto-saving your progress, and the retry system.
If you would like to play with some of those applied, you can download the following Asar patch which can be configured to:
- Disable life loss and gain (a.k.a. infinite lives)
- Increase overworld movement speed (convenient for overworld backtracking)
- Enable autosaving on overworld movement (useful for when the hack has no save points)
You are still encouraged to give a hack your best effort without this patch and play the game as-designed. 🙂
View Source
Download
Acknowledgements
This site appreciates the work these creators put into their respective hacks and recognizes that their reputations for being "brutal" are more often than not the result of a mismatch between the expectations and tastes of modern players and the intent and context in which these hacks were originally made, especially the older hacks.
Thanks again to the folks fixing and translating old Japanese hacks, and archiving hacks on SMWDB several of which are featured here.
This site does not claim ownership of any of the hacks featured here; all credit belongs to the original authors.
This site is also not affiliated with SMW Central but you can visit there for more info about hacks, nor is affliated with SMWDB where some of these patches were sourced.