When we were playing Donkey Kong Country in the early '90s, we never expected there would come a day when we would be able to play the game as Mario.
But now, thanks to a hacker named RainbowSprinklez, it's finally possible to play as the iconic moustachioed plumber (specifically the version of Mario from Super Mario World), to see how he would fare against King K. Rool and his army of Kremlings (thanks CM30 for the spot!).
Interestingly, as is noted on the Romhacking.net page, this isn't just a simple sprite swap but features some impressive behind-the-scenes engineering to get a bunch of Mario-themed mechanics working in the Donkey Kong Country engine.
Coin blocks, for instance, make an appearance, as does Yoshi. And Mario has a bunch of moves that he can perform that pull from his classic repertoire from Super Mario World.
For example, he can ride Yoshi, perform spin jumps, collect fire flowers to shoot fireballs, and even do a stand-in for the shell jump using a barrel. Obviously, Mario's pixel art aesthetic sticks out like a bit of a sore thumb here, but it's genuinely impressive to see how much work RainbowSprinklez has put into the project to make it play more like a traditional Mario sidescroller.
Even the music seems to have been altered, replacing David Wise, Robin Beanland, and Eveline Novakovic's score with Mario, Zelda, and Mega Man tracks.
If you're wondering why RainbowSprinklez set out to do the hack, the reason for this is revealed in a Google Doc that accompanies the hack's release. In this document, RainbowSprinklez wrote that it was "made for no other reason than I like Mario" and that they "hope that someday someone could use what I’ve made and make something truly great."
You can download the hack now from Romhacking.net if you want to give it a go.