Blood Whistle Rewrite

People talk a lot about the concept of "hidden gems." Now I know in this day and age that term has been beaten like a dead horse, every single piece of media that has ever existed has been called a "hidden gem" at some point in time regardless of how "hidden" it actually is. Still though, regardless of the word's misuse I think everyone at the very least has one thing they absolutely love that only them and a handful of people know of.

For me, I happened to find my own "hidden gem" yesterday.

It was Good Friday and as classes weren't held that day I decided to make my parents proud by mindlessly browsing my favorite Mario forum in my cramped dorm. The discussion on the forum itself isn't that good to be honest, it's just that the sunk-cost fallacy keeps me there.

Anyway as I refresh the page to see the latest responses on how we have a moral obligation to "assassinate Nintendo employees" a new post ends up catching my eye:

"Hey guys! Check out my Superstar Saga romhack. Feedback is appreciated!"

Attached to the post is a link to download the romhack. The file itself is titled "mlssbw"

Instinctively I click the link and then wait for others to respond to the post to see if it's a virus or not. I wait a minute, then three, then five before manually refreshing the page to see that the site got shut down for maintenance. How convenient.

After a bit of debilitation and recognizing how bored I truly am I realize I can just boot up my Virtual Machine and play the game there instead. Worst case scenario if the romhack does contain a virus it'll get nothing out of me.

I download the game onto it as well as everything else that's needed to start playing. Takes a couple of minutes to do it all but by the time I boot up my emulator I'm greeted to this on the title screen:

"Mario & Luigi: Blood Whistle"

Seeing the title immediately lowered my expectations of what this game would be. I was expecting to see all the textures shittily changed to have red splattered all over the sprites, best case scenario changing the text to use the words "blood" and "hyper-realistic" every other sentence.

Never judge a book by its cover as they say. Turns out that in spite of the game's less-than-stellar title the romhack is genuinely stunning in its quality. Updated sprites, a new storyline with interesting mechanics and engaging gameplay. If it weren't for the whole "Blood Whistle" thing this could have very easily passed off as something made by a major game company.

There is however one issue besides the title, and that's its namesake.

The Blood Whistle is an option thrown in the battle segments starting after the game's tutorial section. Though the title has the words "Blood Whistle" in it the game's story makes no mention of it, combat being the only time you use it.

Out of curiosity the first non-tutorial battle I get into I try to use the Blood Whistle on an enemy.

Mario pulls out the whistle, playing it as the following text shows up:

"BLOOD WHISTLE

HEAR ITS CRY"

Immediately the game plays an ear-blistering noise that causes me to instinctively jump out of my chair and throw my headphones against the wall. In my rush to not be permanently deafened I ended up slamming my head against my room's shelves, causing me to start bleeding. Even as I got away from my computer and went to the other side of my room the noise coming from my headphones was audible.

I spent the next couple of minutes putting pressure against my head as I took in what happened. I don't think this romhack is the work of the Illuminati or anything like that but jeez does the developer of this game have a "unique" perspective on game design. Still, for the little bit of time I've played it so far the game has piqued my interest, and reasoning that the Blood Whistle is just a small portion of the game I decide to continue playing.

As I take a look back at the screen I notice that the stats for both my characters have massively increased. Though using the Blood Whistle wasn't needed due to how easy the battle was anyway I took some solace in knowing that my ears weren't hurt for nothing. From that point on I played the rest of the game as usual, exploring the game's breath-taking setting and unraveling its well-crafted plot line, not using the Blood Whistle as I liked having my ears intact. That was until I got to the game's third boss.

Initially I tried beating it a couple of times the normal way but no matter what I did I couldn't even get him down to half-health. Next attempt I tried using my emulator's built-in cheats to give me an advantage but none of them work. I eventually decided to just use the Blood Whistle during the fight, taking off my headphones and muting my game's audio so that it wouldn't kill my ears again.

Turns out I wasn't cautious enough cause in spite of doing all of that as soon as I used the Blood Whistle my computer unmuted itself and switched my audio output from my headphones to my speakers. I had to repeatedly click on the mute button as fast as possible until the audio was done playing because every half second after I muted the game it would automatically unmute. I hadn't saved in a bit as well so not even for a second was I considering losing an hour's worth of progress in this masterpiece of a game.

After having to fight against my computer for what felt like an eternity the sound stopped playing. Without skipping a beat my door loudly began to bang, shocking me. It was the guy in the dorm next to mine, telling me to stop making so much noise. Given that the only two viable choices I had were to yank my headphones off as soon as the Blood Whistle played or ineffectively attempt to mute it while setting myself up to be kicked out of college, I chose the former.

Though I do think that blocking out my computer's speakers wouldn't do anything as the game would likely find a way around it, even if it wasn't able to, I still wouldn't. In spite of all that I've said about the Blood Whistle the rest of the game's audio is of equal quality to its other aspects, The soundtrack feeling as though it was all professionally put together. The sound cues are as well absolutely essential during combat and amazingly in rhythm with the music. It's crazy how this game no one knows about is so addictive.

After beating the first boss I decided to check back on that Mario forum to see if anybody else was enjoying the game as much as me. Despite maintenance having finished thirty minutes ago I scrawled through all the recent posts and found not a single mention of it. I checked the archives as well and unsurprisingly due to how late the post was made it wasn't archived. Even the link that I used to download the mod wasn't working anymore. Part of this made me feel like I was walking into a trap but the other half of me was actually a little happy about it. I may be the only person in the world who has gotten to play this game so far and honestly that makes me feel special. I know too many people would immediately see the Blood Whistle and stupidly dismiss the rest of the game.

As I pushed through more and more of the game the Blood Whistle slowly went from being an item used as a last resort to one that was used in almost every other fight. Sure, each time I used it I had to pre-emptively hold my headphones so that I could instantaneously take them off as soon as the Blood Whistle started playing but everytime I did so, I heard a little bit more of its song.

Though physically it damaged my ears mentally I started to piece it together. My ears were rejecting it given how much they started to ring but overtime I grasped its purpose and the ingenious concept behind it. Not only was it there for the sake of game design and purpose, a bold and innovative move that I had never seen anyone else done, but the whistle's cry itself had a meaning. Something about it, the way its cry was played, it was speaking to me as its one and only player.

As I got closer to the end of the game I forced myself to listen to the Blood Whistle for as long as I could. Each time I would eventually have to give in and take my headphones off but still, I was getting closer to understanding more and more of the game's intricacies, its subtlety and purpose.

As I beat the game's final boss I sat there, thinking over this perfect game, this hidden gem, that I had just played. I wanted more, I needed more, not just because of how excellent the game was but also because of the Blood Whistle. As I pleaded with the instrument, begging for it to help me, I noticed something pop-up on my screen.

"New content has been unlocked!"

I checked my world map and noticed that there was a new quest, an entire second storyline waiting for me to complete. The Blood Whistle had answered my prayers, my request to continue living in nirvana fulfilled.

Since that moment I've decided to stop being a cheater by taking off my headphones whenever the Blood Whistle plays. I know nobody else would be able to understand game design as well as what the Blood Whistle means but that's not my problem to solve. I need to complete the next expansion and I thank the game's namesake for giving me the opportunity to do that.

I have heard the Blood Whistle's cry, and it is music to my ears.