New Super Mario World 1: The Twelve Magic Orbs

New Super Mario World 1: The Twelve (12) Magic Orbs (also known as The 12 Magic Orbs or NSMW1) is a long choconilla styled Super Mario World hack released in July 9, 2016 created by G.D., currently known as Pink Gold Peach.

## Story

On an ordinary day in the Mushroom Kingdom, Bowser stole the 12 Magic Orbs (instead of kidnapping Peach like he always does), all of them having different powers, including water, fire, ice, air, darkness, and other powers. Now it's up to Mario to stop Bowser from using all of them for his evil plan to take over the Mushroom Kingdom.

Mario has a great adventure through many different worlds ruled by the Koopalings and Bowser's minions who have kept the orbs in their castles. After going through beaches, cities, deserts, forests, caves, ice mountains and outer space, Mario reaches Bowser's temporary castle where he was hiding the 11th orb but then Bowser appears and uses the 12th orb power to force Mario to give him back all the collected orbs and he took them to his real castle. After finding Bowser's real castle, Mario defeats him and takes the 12 Orbs back to the Mushroom Kingdom..

## Worlds

This hack is known for having more worlds than your usual SMW hack, being one of the very few ones to have more than 10 Worlds. Those worlds include:

**World 1:** This is the most basic and shortest world in the game with easier and shorter levels and smaller use of custom power-ups. All the levels in this world are grass themed, with most levels being grassy fields or hills and the cave and the castle having grass elements. The orb found here is the Grass Orb, obviously.

**World 2:** This is a beach/ocean themed world with 9 levels, making this the second-longest world in the hack. This world introduces water and cheep cheeps as well as having one of the few underwater levels. The Water Orb is obviously found here.

**World 3:** This world starts in an urban area with buildings, sewers and casinos and after 3-5 it enters in an industrial zone with factories and a polluted lake. This world introduces lava/toxic waste and the Hammer Suit and the Boomerang Flower as well as some harder enemies. The Toxic Orb is found here.

**World 4:** This is an Egyptian desert-themed world, introducing quicksand and some puzzle elements in some levels and also has the first haunted level in the hack. This world has two pyramids as well a secret oasis that leads to the castle. Obviously, the Desert Orb is found here.

**World 5:** This is a forest world where every level has a different forest theme, including a swamp, a cherry tree river, a fall forest and a fiery forest. This is the first world to have 2 secret levels and the second to have a ghost house. The castle in this world hides the Fire Orb.

**World 6:** This is an underground world with different cave themes, including crystal, water and lava caves, as well as the last 3 levels being mineshaft-themed. Considering all the levels here are underground, it makes them harder than the previous ones as well as it having more cave enemies like buzzy beetles. The Crystal Orb can be found here in the castle which is a palace entirely made of crystals.

**World 7:** This is a high mountain world where the levels are harder than the previous ones due to most levels being based on moving platforms. This is the first world to have a fortress level in the middle, and it also has a very dark cave and an explosive factory. The Earth Orb is found in this world in a rocky castle that's falling apart.

**World 8:** This is a snow/ice-themed world that obviously introduces ice, with levels based on ice blocks that can be molten by fireballs and floating snow that can be used to cover spikes. It's also even harder, as it uses ice enemies mixed with fire enemies in some levels. As the theme suggests, the Ice Orb is found here in its castle. This world is also slightly shorter than the previous ones, having 7 levels instead of 8.

**World 9:** This is a sky world with difficult levels since there's less ground in these levels. This world has a floating island level, an autoscrolling bridge level and a haunted temple. This is also the first world to have the cape feather and the raccoon leaf, and the only one where the tanooki suit can be found and it has the second and last appearance of the rocket mushroom, in the castle, where the Air Orb can be found.

**World 10:** This is an abstract world with levels featuring weird and usual themes, including one level having reversed controls and another one having fake blocks and doors and other stuff. Most of the levels here are only made of outlines, making it look simpler the other ones, while other levels share similarities to World 9 (10-3 and 10-5). The Darkness Orb can be found here. Like World 8, this world has 7 levels.

**World 11:** This is the outer space world where the levels feature lower gravity and small floating rocks in the space. This is the second world with 2 secret levels and like the previous one, it has 7 levels, making this the second shortest world in the hack. In this world, the Electric Orb can be found in Bowser's temporary castle, located in a floating rock island.

**World 12:** The last and most difficult world, taking place on Bowser's floating planet. This world features lava and volcanic levels. It's also the longest world, having 10 levels, 2 of them being secret airship levels, 2 of them being parts of Bowser's Castle, the first being the entrance and the second being the tower and it has the final post-game level that while it counts as a World 12 level (numbered as 12-S), it is located in World 1 bellow Peach's Castle and it is unlocked by beating Bowser.

**Warp Zone:** It's an area located on the right of the map with 12 pipes leading to all the worlds, there are no levels here. It can only be accessed by pressing L on the map (and the same thing happens like in SMB3's version of the Warp Zone (which has only 7 pipes leading to Worlds 2-8)). Each pipe is unlocked by beating a castle.

## Power-ups

The game features ten power-ups from the canon Super Mario series, along with a unique power-up.

**Super Mushroom:** It turns Small Mario into Super Mario, allowing him to take one more hit before dying and get the other power-ups from blocks. It can obtained in any power-up block if Mario is small but it can also be found in yellow switch blocks and it's the only power-up available in some ghost house levels.

**Fire Flower:** It allows Mario to shoot fireballs that kill enemies turning them into a coin and melt ice blocks. It is mainly found in worlds 1 and 8.

**Ice Flower:** It is similar to the fire flower but instead, it shoots iceballs that freezes the enemies turning them into ice cubes that can be thrown and will break after a while. A very common power-up, being found for the first time in 1-3.

**Blue Shell:** It gives Mario the ability to turn into Shell Mario with the ability to slide like a Koopa Troopa's shell. The power-up only appears in both 1-A and 2-1.

**Bubble Flower:** It allows Mario to shoot bubbles that turn the enemies into coin bubbles that will float and pop after some time. The bubbles will move faster if Mario is running or swimming underwater. It is mainly found in water levels in worlds 2, 5, 6 and 7.

**Hammer Suit:** It allows Mario to shoot hammers in an arc movement to kill enemies behind walls or above him. It's found for the first time in 3-1 and appears more frequently after it.

**Boomerang Flower:** Similar to the Hammer Suit but instead of hammers, Mario shoots boomerangs that go back to him, allowing for Mario to kill enemies from farther away and behind walls.

**Rocket Mushroom:** A blue mushroom that makes Mario fly for a short ammount of time while jumping. It only appears in two levels, 4-2 and 9-Castle, both of them feature wind.

**Cape Feather:** It gives a cape to Mario, allowing him to kill enemies and destroy blocks with the cape and fall slower, as well as being able to fly in the air. It's found for the first time in World 9.

**Super Leaf:** Turns Mario into Raccoon Mario. It acts similar to the feather except Mario can only fly for a short amount of time. It only appears in 9-2 and 10-5.

**Tanooki Suit:** The last power-up found and it is very similar to the leaf but Mario can turn into a statue for some time to not get hurt by enemies and destroy blocks. It only appears twice in World 9.

## Soundtrack

New Super Mario World 1: The Twelve Magic Orbs Soundtrack

## Reception

Since it's release back in the Summer 2016 C3 event, the hack was mostly well received by the SMW Central users and it got a golden trophy for Best Finished Hack in that same event. The hack was submitted to the SMW Central hacks section in July 16th, a few days after its initial release in the event and was accepted a month later in August 29th. Since it was accepted, the hack became the 6th most downloaded hack in the site (2nd if considering that the four most downloaded hacks in the section have botted downloads) with over 50.000 downloads and an average rating of 4.3/5, with 93 votes. Many users praised the hack due to it's aesthetic, length and because it was one of the first hacks to feature new power-ups, however some aspects were criticized like the level design for using sprites like Pitchin' Chucks and Volcano Lotuses way too often and some levels relying on unfair and luck based gimmicks like the falling blocks in 7-Castle as well for not being very well tested which ended up causing some bugs.