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What exactly do most people here think of the abundance of Kaizo hacks these days?

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This is going to sound like something of a hot take, but I personally like them. Now, granted, it might be partially because of a growing hyperfixation on Kaizos, however I also feel like Kaizo creators these days have been making a greater effort at trying to make their hacks more accessible, taking after more popular precision platformers like Celeste than stuff like the original Kaizo hack or Super Mario Frustration which force you to make pixel perfect jumps. Not to mention that even if I'm not good at the games it's still really entertaining to watch other people play them like Grand Poo Bear and others.

Does anyone agree with me, or am I the odd one out here?
I hate it.

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I'm working on a hack! Check it out here. Progress: 64/95 levels.
Frankly I'm curious how kaizo style is taking over the abundance of SMW hacks these days. Do people just really like the stunt-like movements of kaizo?
To me, kaizo is about honing skills more than it is performing tricks: it's in pursuit of becoming a better player, in execution, consistency, and sight-reading. Almost counterintuitively, while kaizo is often precise in its requirements, I view it as a conversation between the creative maker and talented player, a sort of push-and-pull between playstyle and level design style.

I know to a lot of people it's asshole mario, but I really enjoy the continuous process of playing kaizo to learn about design and how the player can interact with it.
Hate Kaizo. Never liked it. I just want normal hacks with nice level design, some puzzles, etc.

Kaizo is anything but fun. Should be removed completely and forbidden imo. It ruins the SMW hacking scene.
Honestly, I don't like em too much myself, but that's mainly cuz when it comes to hacks I mostly just want to play something that's fairly challenging but is still easy enough to pick up and play, which as you might expect with most Kaizo shit is not the case at all lol; maybe if I had the patience to master SMW's janky gameplay to even stand a chance at playing them I would do it, cuz there's a lot of cool Kaizo hacks coming out and I hate that I can't play any of them #smrpg{ohno} (at least they're great to watch tho, especially TASes lmao)
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I'm not interested in Kaizo hacks but I have great respect for Kaizo makers and Kaizo players, as both seem like they'd take great skill, creativity and dedication. I could never do anything like that myself (and don't particularly want to). I don't understand people who say they outright hate them.

What baffles me is how much Kaizo, in just a few years, has become an entirely separate community and culture, and how far removed people from one group are from the other (me included). For years "standard" hacks were all there was, with only a few Kaizo hacks floating around on Youtube, and now there's a whole community of people who think "SMW hack" equals "Kaizo hack". When a couple of Kaizo streamers were playing my hack, I saw a lot of people in the chat ask "wow, this isn't Kaizo?" as if non-Kaizo hacks were something new, which is just so wild to me.

(on the flip side, I'm completely out of touch with all the Kaizo hack names people are throwing around, and all the traditions and terminology around it.)


 
Originally posted by Ice Man
Hate Kaizo. Never liked it. I just want normal hacks with nice level design, some puzzles, etc.

Kaizo is anything but fun. Should be removed completely and forbidden imo. It ruins the SMW hacking scene.


Hard disagree about this statement. (Also, no offense to you at all.)
Same could be said for standards but (subjectively) not memorable enough or samey as others in that case for me.

I'm fine with either sides as it was memorable for any reasons. [Like level design is not that special (Again, subjective) but aesthetics are so beautiful it makes you keep going until the end... etc.]

#tb{:)}
Originally posted by Ice Man
Hate Kaizo. Never liked it. I just want normal hacks with nice level design, some puzzles, etc.

Kaizo is anything but fun. Should be removed completely and forbidden imo. It ruins the SMW hacking scene.


You could argue with how many kaizo hacks exist these days with similarity between all of them, or argue on how many shell based hacks, or anything else we could agree, or at least discuss, but this is like "I don't like cabbage or broccoli because they ruin my meal, they should be removed completely from plates". That is not how an argument works.

Lastly, everyone's work should be treat with respect.
Originally posted by Ice Man
Hate Kaizo. Never liked it. I just want normal hacks with nice level design, some puzzles, etc.

Kaizo is anything but fun. Should be removed completely and forbidden imo. It ruins the SMW hacking scene.

Can you elaborate further?

I'm not trying to shoot you down (after all, people have their own reasons to not like kaizo, mind you), but bringing up the "kaizo ruins the SMW hacking scene" (?) argument isn't exactly doing you much justice. It's just a matter of filtering by difficulties other than kaizo or suggesting ways to improve the kaizo hacking scene. As Alex said, the key word is "respect" in regards to everyone's work.

Also, standards change with time, so it's not like we're this super strict website with super strict rules.
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Me trying out a Kaizō hack be like:
No, I don't think I will.

Personally, I may have an interest in Kaizō hacks 'cause I should learn the basics of Kaizō knowledge, like learning how to use the shell jump technique, advanced cape gliding, etc., etc., etc. And as what Gamma V said:
Originally posted by Gamma V
I will NEVER side with the Kaizocons!
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Whether you like Kaizo or not, there's no denying the massive impact that this japanese magazine has had on SMW hacking. Kaizo began like any other news media outlet: of humble origins. A simple paper delivery boy, making his daily rounds across the countryside, founded what would soon become the most successful japanese magazine of all time. His nameplate was inscribed -

"T. Takemoto".

He worked tirelessly, dodging pesky flying fish and avoiding the bizarre black plants that had mysteriously popped up across the country. As his determination grew, so did sales. Soon, Takemoto and his magazine were a household name. Whether a source of truth, a form of entertainment, or a simple way to pass the hours, readers ate up Takemoto's magazine like a ravenous muncher.

Years passed, and the Kaizo magazine has since gone international. Editors like Morsel (who takes after the shakespeare tradition of writing in 17th century english prose), or Barb (do not steal from him, his editorial patents stretch far and wide) were instrumental in bringing the Japanese magazine to the west.

Soon, the magazine expanded to new topics, as more and more authors came on board. Freakin_Ha became a household name with the inclusion of his "Riffs and Regrabs" classic rock album review column. Cozyduck, a prominent Swiss author and proponent of a new typographical style known as "jank", featured a stupendous section on the plight of the Christmas Island red crab breeding season that had readers hooked (no pun intended). Even still, spin-offs (such as the notorious "Responsible Readers Digest" by local masochist and author ft029) grew the reach and breadth of the magazine to epic proportions. In 2020, the magazine reached a new height (according to many critics) with Wyatt's incredible piece on the Casio watch and calculator, which inspired numerous scientists to attempt his method of collecting Casio watch power via lightning strikes.

Overall, the Kaizo magazine has been a rampant success, and it's all thanks to one dedicated paperboy.
I personally can't play kaizo because I haven't put the effort in learning all the technical tricks and bits and bobs, call me lazy but when discovering a new game I like something that's more straightforward, I've never been one to complain anything that's "too easy".

This said I enjoy watching video plays of Kaizo, to discover unintended use of resources, to hear nice long musics playing along with the retry patch, etc.

Logically I would say the rise of Kaizo has been in players that have lots of time and effort on their hands to commit to. The skill needed to play really is like a wall to me though. I don't like losing at Kaizo.
Rarely have I had much fun with Kaizo hacks, except for the games that started it all, Kaizo Mario World 1 and 2 (I of course know about and have played 3, but I did not like it compared to the prior two). But after that Kaizo has never really done it for me, and I don't like them, much less watching videos or streams of them. Though I guess sometimes they're fine for background noise, in that case.

I definitely think there is an overabundance of Kaizo SMW hacks nowadays, but I suppose as long as you can filter them out in the hacks section, it could be worse. What does upset me is when Kaizo hacks get so much attention from big streamers, events or outlets. Games Done Quick is of course a big example, as they've accepted a few Kaizo hacks into their events. Aside from vanilla SMW (makes sense for speedrun events of course), I would be veeery shocked to ever see a non-Kaizo SMW game make it into an event like that. Now, not the mere fact that these hacks are getting attention at all, but rather that both sides of the coin are not getting equal attention. One side is just getting left out now.

Originally posted by WhiteYoshiEgg
...and now there's a whole community of people who think "SMW hack" equals "Kaizo hack".


This just... makes me feel something. Disappointment? The idea of being foreign to the concept of non-Kaizo SMW hacks is just ridiculous to me. Are we really at the point where I have to ask "is it really THAT weird??"?
Tried getting into Kaizo, never ended up being a hint of fun to me. Would rather see more non-kaizo hacks. No offense to anyone but to be honest kaizo hacks just seem like a waste of time to me.
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It's bewildering to me that a hack style bothers people so much. It's not like you're forced to play or watch. Forbid my ass buddy.

I don't play kaizo very often at all, and I have opinions about the complete staleness of the average kaizo hack nowadays, but it's a cool style. I'm more of a very hard guy though. I doubt I would ever make a full kaizo hack myself, but I'll totally enter contests and stuff.
It's easily the best thing I've done
So why the empty numb?
Originally posted by Ice Man
Should be removed completely and forbidden imo. It ruins the SMW hacking scene.

making me check my calendar to see if we accidentally jumped back to 2012, huh there ice man

edit: i first saw this take and it made me go feral, im now realizing many other people have responded to it as well. hope this doesn't feel like dogpiling.
I pretty much agree with WYE on this, I think it's fine. Kaizo isn't for me but I can really appreciate the effort that goes into good Kaizo and seeing the degree of bleeding over has been pretty cool. Frankly I wouldn't want to make a hack without some form of the quick retry as someone who makes the most bog standard Mario out there, and it's been really cool to see kaizo hacks push into custom graphics and get real pretty over the time I've been paying attention to them.

If you're worried about Standard getting displaced I feel like that has more to do with there being less standard hackers that are good at level design. A lot of us focused more on a polished game experience and I remember the aesthetics vs design being a huge part of old kaizo arguments. The gauntlet style is also still very much just standard Mario despite being kaizo-informed too. If anything it's truer to the word itself than what we've taken it to mean as a category.

If you're worried about the style vanishing then make something in that style, keep it alive.
Originally posted by imamelia
I hate it.


Originally posted by Ice Man
Hate Kaizo. Never liked it. I just want normal hacks with nice level design, some puzzles, etc.

Kaizo is anything but fun. Should be removed completely and forbidden imo. It ruins the SMW hacking scene.


While I sympathize with this view as there is an abundance of Kaizos over regular standard hacks and that their design is grindy I can see that that people would be put off from it. I was like that on Kaizo and I still don't really play them today, but at the same time I do think that there are some really creative and interesting gimmicks seen in Kaizo and Kaizo-adjacent works such as contest levels with a focus on setups... we shouldn't be gatekeeping them out of the community. What I am concerned on is how would a SMW hacker be blending in Kaizo and standard hard/very hard bc that is the endgame for SMW hacking because that would be the final evolution of the push for setup design.

Also I do concurr that the standard hacking crowd should still make hacks in that style to keep it alive, but you should also make sure that the level designs are interesting. Standard dies if no one makes them anymore and no one practices good level design principles.
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idk why people are getting so uptight about hating kaizo. i've never personally had much interest in it, but uh, i don't think it shouldn't exist lol that's ridiculous. if you wanna play normal hacks go play normal hacks, there's always gonna be people like yourself that want to make and play them. if you wanna do kaizo stuff do kaizo stuff. you do your thing and let other's do theirs and we'll all live in peace and harmony.

basically you may as well say "i don't like fighting video games they ruin the video game industry". wanting only mario games to be the only thing in the world.

it's a very dumb point of view and the sooner everyone can learn to respect other people's tastes the better.
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