Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition

Looking for a feel-good story to wrap up the weekend? You can't get much better than this one: someone calling himself "Mike Mika" (sorry, I'm not sure if that's his real name or not) recently shared on YouTube a video titled "Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition," which features a hacked copy of Donkey Kong: Original Edition--the one that reinstated the previously MIA cement factory level into the NES version of Nintendo's classic quarter-muncher--that has Pauline save Mario rather than vice versa.

What prompted Mike to make "Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition"? Here's the explanation he shared in the video's YouTube description: "My three-year-old daughter and I play a lot of old games together. Her favorite is Donkey Kong. Two days ago, she asked me if she could play as the girl and save Mario. She's played as Peach in Super Mario Bros. 2 and assumed she could do the same in Donkey Kong. I told her we couldn't in that particular Mario game [and] she seemed really bummed out by that."



Flash forward to Mike being "up at midnight, hacking the ROM [and] replacing Mario with Pauline" in order to produce the title seen above.

Although Mike and his daughter are the only gamers playing "Donkey Kong: Pauline Edition" at the moment, last night he promised that he'd "figure out the best way to share a patch for anyone interested in playing the hack."

See also: 'So, you mean I can stop cursing Nintendo of America now?' and 'Donkey Kong: Original Edition ain't all that' and 'How badly do you want to play Donkey Kong: Original Edition?'

It's déjà vu all over again

I swear I've used this headline before (which would be rather appropriate, don't you think?), but I can't be bothered to search the archives at the moment. Anyway, my apologies if that's the case.

As for why I'm using it here: Well, it appears that someone is busy hacking EarthBound (aka Mother 2) in order to remake the first Mother game (EarthBound Zero to us savages in the States). Here's a "walkabout" video of said hack's currently unpopulated world:



Considering the number of similarities between EarthBound Zero and its officially-released-in-the-US sequel (or Mother and Mother 2, if you're a purist), I'm not entirely sure I understand the point of this project.

Still, I'm such a fan of Shigesato Itoi's series that I'll surely keep an eye on it until it sees the light of day. Who knows, I may even decide to play through it. Should I do that, though, I hope I'll make it further than I did when I tried to play through the original.

(Via gonintendo.com)