Fangasm: Wicked Clown Bros. 2

Wicked Clown Bros 2 (Super Mario Bros 2 USA)
Platformer of the Dark Carnival
System: NES
Developer: Njachpmk
Year of Release: 2014
Played: November 18th, 2014
Download here

Oh my god, I cannot believe this day has come. I was browsing the website Romhacking.net as I do from time to time, and in new releases I stumbled upon Wicked Clown Bros. I stuttered an exasperated no as curiosity drove me to click onward. Sure enough, someone out there felt it necessary to paint various ICP references over Super Mario Bros 2 USA for whatever reason. Of course I downloaded it and immediately gave it a shot. I was already planning on doing a series focusing on romhacks of various kinds as they appeal to me on a myriad of levels, but we're starting this off proper with the créme de la créme. Ugh... I was shocked to find they did more than just paint Mario and Luigi up like juggalos.

Note, they didn't do THAT much more. Njachpmk doesn't seem to have edited how the game plays at all, just added a bit of visual flair to the game. As stated before the characters have been swapped for Shaggy 2 Dope as Mario, Violent J as Luigi, a horrible looking Hatchet Man as Toad, and a generic ninja as Peach, I think? Upon choosing a character you begin descending down into a, as the game describes, "fucked up freak show". Initially I was almost impressed, the first two enemy types you encounter were changed to two different looking chickens (a reference to a one of the band's songs). Not only that I'm fairly certain the look of the brick blocks changed too. When you finally reach the bottom you go through the door, which now has this hideous "portal" look to it, and surprisingly the first area looks a little different. You can climb up a utility pole looking thing up to some metal looking roof and... after that the level layout returned to normal.

Well I guess not entirely, the POW block, a useful item which takes out multiple enemies, has been replaced with an ICP block that performs the exact same way. Aside from that though the level plays as it normally does and aside from all the chickens running around the rest of the enemies are the same. If you find a potion, like in the original game, you can use it to visit a weird mirror realm and hope to find a mushroom to gain an extra heart. Of course instead of mushrooms/hearts you're dealing with bottles of faygo (ICP's favorite brand of soda).

There is a semi-amusing glitch when you play as Hatchet Man/Toad, when small and climbing a utility pole (these having replaced the ladders/vines completely) he reverts to his original Toad climbing sprite, adding to the amateur feeling of the hack. After coming to the end of the level where you'd traditionally encounter Birdo, the possibly transgender egg shooting dinosaur, this time you encounter... I honestly don't fucking know. I cannot place who this guy is supposed to be at all. I included a picture here, he's the dude next to the giant bird head. The fight plays out exactly the same as the Birdo fights do and you proceed through the aforementioned bird head. Which sounds strange but that's actually from the original game, I can think of quite a few things they could have turned it into, but if I were to start listing obvious things that got left out we'd be here all day.

After climbing through the beaky maw I was awarded with a chance at the slots. In the mirror world thing you can also find coins which are used to take a turn with this slot machine bonus for extra lives. Instead of the Mario references usually covering the machine they've been replaced with various Joker's Cards. At least this guy put in a bit of effort here. I ended up dying before I could get much further and honestly my drive to play this any further died with my little juggalo avatar. I assume the other bosses have changed as well, but after seeing what happened to Birdo I'm not holding my breath. I was shocked to discover this at all, the concept overall I mean, but I'm not surprised it seems either unfinished or just lazy. Fitting considering the inspiration.

If you don't know anything about what I've been talking about your life is better than mine. ICP, or the Insane Clown Posse, is a rap duo out of Detroit. I have a nostalgic soft spot for them as they helped introduce me back into music as a teen, but they honestly don't have much talent. They released a series of albums that they called Joker's Cards to show us the evil side of humanity. Really they just poorly rapped about murder and theft and sex and the like. And as an angry teen this was great stuff, and sometimes they had some genuinely funny lyrics too. After a while you could tell the spark died and they're nothing short of creatively bankrupt at this point, not that they were brimming with talent before. They continue churning out shit music, getting by on selling massive amounts of merchandise to kids searching for a sense of belonging to a "family". Trust me kids, it's just a marketing scheme. But if nothing else these guys are accidental business genius'.

All in all, this is a great game. Mind you the hack is half-assed but Super Mario Bros 2 USA is a hell of a platformer. I don't know why you'd want to deface that game's data with this hack, even as a fan or someone who knows about the band there's little here. A few minor graphical adjustments, but ultimately you're a clown faced Mario hopping through Subcon with a bit more of a poultry problem. Oh and the doors look worse.

The fact of the matter is a hack like this is fairly pointless, a simple skin change doesn't really alter a game at all. I'm not saying there isn't an audience for that, but the appeal of an ICP themed platformer (a thing which by all rights shouldn't exist, yet the thought is hilarious) loses it luster when so little effort was made to make this ICP themed. Sure the characters change might have been enough, but certain enemies, backgrounds, even the title screen are all also changed. Part of the first level is completely altered even. This indicts to me that maybe this hack originally had higher aspirations that fell short. I couldn't find any other work by Njackpmk, so I assume this was him mostly messing around with romhacking trying to learn how everything worked. This project makes much more sense under that assumption. I still can't say this is worth your time though.