"Super Boy 4" review

      Ah, bootlegs. Badly programmed, unoriginal, and illegal. Wonderful, right? Right? Wrong.



          Well, I decided to play Super Boy 4 for my first review on the site. Why? Because I've had a mild curiosity with the game for quite a while now, and I finally got around to downloading the Rom. Why is it called Super Boy 4? Because there are actually three other Super Boy games. The first two are based off of the original Super Mario Bros. and the third is based off of Super Mario World. What's so special about Super Boy 4 in comparison? Well, in the original three, Super Boy is just Mario, but recolored so that whatever system the game was on could handle the awesomeness. In Super Boy 4, Super Boy's appearance is modified off of Mario, but looks a lot more unique. It also has several new enemies and better graphics.

      Super Boy 4, like the third one, is based off of Super Mario World, but, like I said, features new enemies and improved graphics. It does play like Mario, but it has a lot more flaws. From what I've heard, this runs off of the same engine as the previous Piratefest. First of all, not all the enemies behave as they should. Rex is taken out in one hit, basically serving as the Goomba of the game, because there are none. Buzzy Beetles behave like a combination of Rex and Dry Bones, being frozen from the first hit, and killed from the second. If you only hit them once, they'll be back kickin' again. One of my biggest problems with this game is the control. While Mario has tight control, Super Boy 4 feels too tight. You push left in mid-jump, and he'll immediately turn around and fall. And you don't go left at all, you just turn around and fall. Also, there's a small delay when he starts running. First he runs in place for a second, and then he'll start running like he should have in the first place.

 
      On a more positive note, the level design is very well done, and if a Mario 4 was ever made, these levels would fit in perfectly. One of my only gripes is monotony with the order they're placed in. For example, the game starts with 4 grass levels, all with the same tileset, enemies, and eye-hurting blue background. And it's followed by 4/5 castle stages, same deal, then we get different varieties of land levels, except they're all bunched together, which makes it a tad tedious. There are power-ups in this game, as with any Mario-type platformer. Milk Bottles equal Mushrooms, Boxing Gloves equal Fire Flowers, and Normal Gloves equal Starmen. The fireball is thrown in a downwards arch, and probably won't hit anything. And when you get the invincibility glove, you lose your fire power. Not that it matters, anyways, because when you get hit by something in your fireriffic state, you just go back to being small again anyways. Also, when Super Boy gets the Boxing Glove for fire power, he...

...changes race. I better wrap this up. Believe it or not, this game has a final boss. When you try to avoid defeating the guy, and just jump forward, you find this:

 
        So, you backtrack, and find THIS:

 So, you jump on him 3-5 times, and he dies, so you go forward, and find THIS:

  So, naturally, you go forward again. You find another Frog who does the same thing, except he fires projectiles at you. After that, you go to the end of the level. What happens now?

Overall, while Super Boy 4 is fun, if suffers from stiff controls and monotony. I only recommend it if you're running out of Mario games or if you're curious. You can get the Rom at SMS Power. Here are my overall ratings:

Controls: 7/10
Graphics: 8/10
Audio: 6/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Overall: 70/100