Some time ago I talked briefly about ROM hacks in a blog talking about emulators. ROM hacks are an incredible creative medium for aspiring developers, as well as a content goldmine for players. With a bit of digging you can find anything from satisfying new stories to meatier challenges for experienced players. What about the people that enjoy banging their head against the wall?

It turns out that this niche is filled in the form of Super Mario 64 Chaos Edition. At some point a few years ago the content creator Kaze Emanuar came up with the Chaos Edition hack. The way it works is simple on paper. The base game is unchanged in terms of map design, but a variety of effects are applied at random. This ranges from graphics, to gravity, to controls. The full list of effects can be found here.

What isn’t simple is how this translates to the game. The effects applied can be more than one at a time, the most I have ever been able to count at once is 6. But I would not be surprised if there could be more at once. This could make for a nice fun time with just moon gravity applied. Or you could be a signpost that can’t turn left running around in corrupted texture hell while Mario sings you a jaunty tune and also coins are now exploding ghosts. Either scenario is not an exaggeration either, Super Mario 64 Chaos Edition can go from 0-100 out of nowhere.

Before writing this I took a few minutes to give Chaos Edition another shot and refresh my memory. Once I had the game up and running everything seemed a bit calmer than I remembered. I was able to get all the way into a level with nothing happening.

Never mind.

Chaos Edition’s true colors started to shine through the moment I let my guard down. The game was in full chaos swing out of nowhere and I was just along for the ride. What are you even supposed to do when the entire map is flipping out?

After a few minutes of pain, I moved over to Bob-omb Battlefield. The situation there was a bit more manageable. The only problem at first was some odd gravity and exploding Goombas.

That calm hardly lasted. Most of my time in the level looked more like this.

This was still more manageable than the previous stage I had tried. Even with the camera in another zip code and sideways, I still nearly managed to beat Footrace with Koopa the Quick.

At the end of the race every object in the level came to me all at once. This messed up the spawn of the Power Star and soft-locked the game. At that point my refresher on Super Mario 64 Chaos Edition was over.

Super Mario 64 Chaos Edition can be a thrill to play. This ROM hack can be brutal to try to beat a few challenges casually. However, there are people that have collected all 120 stars in the game. That alone is a feat in itself, but there are people that speedrun Super Mario 64 Chaos Edition! This hack is well worth checking out whether you are a casual player looking for a laugh, or a hardened player looking for a challenge. Everything you need to know about getting this hack can be found on Kaze Emanuar’s YouTube Channel.

While you are at his channel, you can also take a look at some other hacks he has come up with. There are a lot of really good Super Mario 64 hacks that are a lot of fun. If you want more chaos, Emanuar has also done a chaos edition for The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. But that is a blog for another time.

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