This month saw the release of one of the, if not the most, highly anticipated releases for the Super Mario World fan-game community. Grand Poo World 3 is the culmination of four years of development and marks the final release by the prominent romhacker and Twitch streamer BarbarousKing (better known as Barb),
Without giving too much away, Grand Poo World 3 features a wide array of favorite fan-made mechanics, brand new ones, new puzzles to solve and even a new mode of overworld transportation (with a radio feature)!
For many, the thrill of discovery comes from playing the game, seeing all the content for the first time and experiencing the highs (and lows) of the product. For many more, it marks a special event where the whole community of streamers and viewers come together to share a moment based around a 30+ year old game.
There is no easy way to describe the feeling of a release like this to an outsider, but I will do my best. One of the (if not THE SINGLE) keystone moments for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was the culmination of a decade of individual heroes, their stories and movies, coming together into a giant event that required all their power and skills to overcome. While it’s arguable that Avengers: Endgame is any good as a standalone film (it really isn’t), it was an event that brought everyone together to see the end of an era.
Similarly, Grand Poo World 3 is an event; many streamers who have since moved on or distanced themselves from Super Mario World fan-games have come back just to play the new Barb hack. In particular , Panga (who himself is a notable creator of ROMhacks) notes that this is his first return to the space after 4 years, with Grand Poo World 2 being his last one since. Heck, even CarlSagan42 and Grand Poo Bear himself (after whom the game is named) have come back to fully commit to the game after being on-and-off for the last few years.
Grand Poo World 3 marks the end of an era in many ways, both for Barb himself but, maybe more importantly, for the Super Mario World community at large. There has been a changing of the guard happening for awhile now, with newer players like Shoujo outshining many of the old crew, and it’s a very likely possibility this could be the last time the whole online community of streamers and viewers come together on one single release.
Personally, I’ve been following the development of the last four years on Barb’s channel; even if I missed it live, anytime I saw “Lunar Magic” (Lunar Magic is the program used to make ROMhacks) in the title I would immediately watch the saved video of the whole stream. I really enjoyed being able to watch the creative process happen over the span of the last four years but getting to also watch some of my old favorites come back and experience it for the first time has been a bittersweet transcendental event that I will remember for a long time to come.
