There have been a lot of remarkable Mario fan games over the years, but that never stops us from being amazed at some of the beautiful and creative work that is being done in the community.
Super Mario and the Rainbow Stars is the perfect example of this. Developed by the Mario fan creator Starshi, it is an adventure platformer inspired by Mario & Luigi and Paper Mario and sees Mario exploring a beautiful 3D overworld, before entering a set of gorgeous 2D levels that feature various new gimmicks, bosses, and cutscenes.
The fan game has been in development for several years now, with the pixel artist sharing near-constant updates on its progress via videos and images across social media. From what we've been able to gather, it originally started life as a project made using the SMBX 38A engine but eventually switched over to the SMBX 2 engine at some point in 2023.
A demo of the old version of the game has been available since the beginning of last year, with a new demo of the latest version expected to drop at some point today. According to Starshi, this demo will include the prologue and the entire first chapter and is roughly 2-3 hours long in total.
You can follow Starshi's Twitter account for more updates on the project as they emerge.
[source x.com]
Comments 24
The Nintendo Ninjas are on their way right now.
You fools, you're giving it exposure! It'll be on Nintendo's radar before you know it
Nintendo, this isn’t actually Mario, the character’s name is actually Bario and he’s a carpenter.
'I've never been so turned on in my life.' —xkcdsw
Now make a SNES Super Mario World ROM hack with most of this in it.
1-6 has a couple places where it looks like you can get soft locked. But overall this is really impressive! It's even got a Yoshi's Island type mechanic.
Nintendo will take this down, and the fanboys on NintendoLife will defend them doing so.
"FAn gAme baAaDd. MAke yoor oWn GaMe".
Glad you can still find everything they take down, if you know where to search for them 😁
That looks AMAZING!!!
Wow, this looks incredible! I'll have to check it out later today. Hope they are able to finish it at least before it gets DMCA'd.
I don’t like the art style. It screams generic western indie pixel art slop.
@Bonggon5 All of your comments are so negative.
I think the pixel art is gorgeous. It's got lots of personality
EDIT: I also think the music sounds quite Sonic-like in composition, rather than Mario, which is no bad thing!
@Steel76 Sure, you can find them; the problem is that Nintendo can force developers to stop mid-development, so what you get may not be the intended final product.
This looks nice, I just downloaded the demo, excited to try it out, hopefully it has decent controller support.
@Steel76 While I support Nintendo taking it down because that’s how the law is written, I’m equally disappointed that they do because they could learn a thing or two from the creativity displayed by independent developer remixing their work.
I don't really care for this. It looks like your average modern Mario game processed through a generic western indie pixel artist.
Have never heard of this before, looks great so I really hope Starshi will be able to finish it and I'm looking forward to eventually playing it myself!
Eeh, I don't like the artstyle and gameplay, it's okay for an indie games, but I'll be really disappointed if this is a in-house nintendo mario games 😕
@AJB83
But i have to agree, it has very much this modern western pixel art style :>
Not liking it too much.
But that is just personal taste
edit:
A good comparison is, when westerners try to make Manga/Anime, it can be very good, but you can clearly see that there is something off.
This is really cute and I'd pay good money for this. If that wouldn't get the game shut down...
@Azuris I'm not saying you can't disagree and have an alternative opinion. You can, and that's fine. I usually am not all that into western pixel art myself, I get it. Having now played the demo, this game doesn't adhere to that imo, it's got it's own thing going own.
But calling is 'generic western slop' is a bit mean. Also, the rest of their comments are almost always cutting something down in a poo-pooing fashion. That's what I meant by negative.
@TheBigK What's the point of making a (fan) game if you don't want people to know about it and play it? I can almost guarantee that the devs welcome the exposure.
Will never understand why people put so much effort (this looks very good!) into something that will get shut down by Nintendo if it gets any attention.
@Bonggon5 k
Looks cute.
I hate that Nintendo is going to take it down, and that Nintendo glazers are going to cheer that move.
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