Get your Wii out of the closet: some Mario fanatics put together the best fan-made Mario game in history. We're talking 128 brand new levels you can start playing right now, by yourself or with up to three friends.
If you're a Mario fan, you're going to like this.
The game is called Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii, and it's an aptly-named hack of New Super Mario Bros Wii. There's new worlds, new enemies and even a classic power-up not available in the original game.
Sure, this game can be a little rough around the edges sometimes – it's fan-made, after all. But if you're a Mario fan, and you haven't tried this out, you really should: it's a lot of fun.
Brand New Sidescrolling Goodness
The team put three years into putting this game together, and it shows. The game starts with a look and feel similar to the original title, but play for a while and it won't take long to start seeing completely new artwork. For example: there's a world with autumn-inspired graphics.
Of course, this isn't just an art project: it's a game. And there are some unique aspects here too: the above level, for example, can only be unlocked by finding a secret entrance in another world. Switch Palaces, which fill in blocks in levels throughout the game, make a comeback. And there are brand new bosses at the end of every world.
The levels themselves are, for the most part, great. If you're the sort of player who won't rest until all the star coins are gathered, you'll find a few challenges (but perhaps uniquely among fan-made hacks, nothing seems unfair).
Longtime Mario fans will appreciate the soundtrack, which is entirely new recordings featuring themes from many classic Mario titles. The same goes for level design: some classic concepts are borrowed from games in the past, such as a world where Mario switches between tiny and not.
Other worlds are wholly unique, including one halloween-themed world and another that resembles a Japanese village (complete with purple blooms!).
I won't give away much else here, if you're still reading you're clearly interested. Let's get the game set up.
How To Get Newer Super Mario Bros Wii
There's an easy-to-follow guide for setting this up on the Newer site, but I'll give a quick rundown here. To start you're going to need a few things:
- A Wii or WiiU, jailbroken to run homebrew (we recommend the Letterbomb method) The Wii Mini will not work
- A copy of the original game: New Super Mario Bros Wii
- An SD card or USB drive
- A computer, for writing to the SD or USB drive
Emulation fans: the process is going to be a bit more complex for you, but there are guides out there for patching a ripped ISO of the original game. I recommend an actual Wii.
To get everything working you need to download two things:
- Newer Super Mario Bros, which is the game itself.
- Riivolution, which will patch the original game on-the-fly so you can play the new levels.
Download both packages and unzip. Put the folder named "NewerSMBW" directly on the USB or SD drive (the root folder). Put the folder named "riivolution" into the folder named "apps" (create this if it doesn't exist).
Now you need to plug the drive into your Wii, and open the Homebrew Channel. You'll find "riivolution" here – launch it. If your New Super Mario Bros disk is inserted you should see the option to launch the game. You'll also see an "Install" button, which will let you launch Riivolution directly from the Wii Home Menu.
You should be up and running now. Enjoy the game!
Other Great Hacks?
This isn't the first great hack of a game you can play on your Wii. We showed you how to transform Super Smash Bros. Brawl into a Melee-like game, thanks to Project M.
But we want to know: what other great hacks have you found for classic Wii games? Let's compile them in the comments below, so everyone can find them in one place.
Oh, and if you want more free games for your Wii be sure to check out our list of places to find Wii homebrew apps. There's not a lot of new software out there for the platform, but developers made quite a few things worth looking at over the year.