Mushroom Kingdom Fusion

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Mushroom Kingdom Fusion is a (as yet[when?] unfinished: v0.5) non-profit fan-made platforming video game that is based on Super Mario Bros. It is a Crossover with elements, characters, and settings from a multitude of other video games.

The game consists of mechanics primarily from the SNES and Game Boy Advance renditions of Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros 3, and Super Mario World. Enemy characters include standard Mario-universe enemies, demonic beings, alien creatures, and human soldiers. The music includes the usual Mario series music, along with tracks from the Halo series and other games featured in MKF. The game features items from the Mario series and weaponry originally used by the Covenant races in Halo, in addition to suit items that bestow upon the main playable characters the guise and abilities of certain characters from the Mega Man universe.

Characters featured in MKF include Mario, Luigi, and Wario plus a roster of characters from other video game franchises (such as the Sonic the Hedgehog, The Legend of Zelda, Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man and other popular classic series).

The game design is influenced by franchises such as the Sonic, Doom, and Mega Man series and other Nintendo titles. Other game franchises featured include (but are not limited to) Metal Slug, Castlevania, and Ghosts N Goblins. Some obscure game titles represented are R-Type and E.V.O.: Search for Eden.

JudgeSpear, the game's founding developer, stepped down from the project due to increasingly polarized views of the game's content and the inclusion of many different game elements, far removing the game from the original concept of just Mario visiting other game worlds, plus several disagreements with the other team members. A spinoff fangame project, Super Mario Fusion Revival, was founded to revive that original concept.

Can be found here. Their YouTube channel is here for those who want a free look at what they have accomplished so far.

Tropes used in Mushroom Kingdom Fusion include:
  • Aborted Arc: The SHMUPS Domain (World 6) was axed due to the SHMUP engine being stuck in Development Hell. The completed and planned platforming SHMUP-themed levels were moved to World 9, while World 6 was turned with a fantasy-themed world.
  • Acrofatic: Wario.
  • Action Girl: Samus Aran is in this game. Any questions?
  • Advancing Wall of Doom: Taken to its logical extreme with its "RUN" sections in some levels, where the screen moves as fast as your character's running speed.
  • Ambidextrous Sprite:
    • Halo Suit Mario swinging the Energy Sword.
    • The buster in the Mega Man Suits.
    • Link swinging his weapon.
    • Roll's Buster.
  • Artistic License: Biology: Granted, this is a given for Womb Levels, but why are there villi in the Behemoth's esophagus? (Because Everything Is Trying to Kill You. Everything.)
    • The Loggerhead sea turtle has backward-facing spines in its esophagus to prevent its usual prey (jellyfish) from escaping. They probably could've thought of it that way instead of villi (structures in the small intestine).
  • Ascended Meme: The list so far...
    • When Tails uses the Tanooki Suit, his statue is the Tails Doll.
    • Whenever Wario enters the stage with the Guts Man Suit, he teleports in and immediately stops to pose while the "Gut Man's ass" fanfare plays.
    • Eggman, upon catching Solid Snake in his lair, pulls out the infamous "Snooping as usual, I see!" line.
    • Waluigi's victory pose when clearing a level in his Striker powerup is a crotch chop. He also dons Captain Falcon's suit to perform the Falcon Punch and Falcon Kick.
    • Morshu from The Legend of Zelda CDI Games functions as the shopkeeper.
    • Air Man gets a more difficult boss battle due to his "No One Can Defeat Air Man" song, with an instrumental version of said song playing for the fight.
  • Author Appeal: The now-defunct World 6 idea, SHMUPS Domain, along with the SHMUPS mechanic. JudgeSpear himself said the only reason why a whole world devoted to one genre was planned for the project was because he was a big fan of it.
    • It may also explain why all the general (non level/world-specific) boss themes come from games in said genre.
  • Bait and Switch Boss: After you fight Bomb Man for a while in the Energy Zone, the true boss (Robo-Corpse) comes up and eats Bomb Man.
  • Badass Boast: Every character gets one when confronting the True Final Boss.
  • Big Bad: Legion.
  • Big Fancy Sword: Link's Buster Sword.
  • Biological Mashup: The Lab of the Fusionist level features fusions of enemies from throughout the different realms, such as a Goomba with a Piranha Plant on its head and an Orbinaut with Metal Slug cannons in place of spikes.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: Covenant Elite in general, but especially the two blocking your path at the end of 8-4. You can, however, abuse Mercy Invincibility to get by, making them a sort of Skippable Boss as well. [1]
    • The Berserker. She's incredibly resistant to damage and chases you down when she senses your presence. She also tends to be surrounded by bricks in such a way to make navigating around her difficult, but they don't last long once she starts charging.
  • Boss Rush: Mega Man style...and one at the final stage before the Abomination.
  • Bottomless Pits: Everywhere. Non-Mario characters get to deal with knockback, making them more dangerous than usual. Good times!
  • Bullet Hell: King Watinga's second form.
  • Charged Attack: Roll, Proto Man, Zero . . . and a few other characters with certain power-ups.
  • Classic Video Game "Screw You"s: The developers do their best to avoid Fake Difficulty. That said, the difficulty's part of why the fanbase loves it so much.
    • Instant Death Areas abound. Bottomless Pits and crushers, being familiar building blocks of the Mario series, are the favorites. Some, such as the villi from "Corpse Of The Behemoth", aren't self-evident; warning comes in the form of info blocks, so read them!
    • Fixed scrolling levels. The ever-popular "RUN!" sections often have some sort of instant-kill obstacle following you and taking up a certain amount of space, and the high speed takes away any margin for error.
    • For some characters Continuing Is Painful, as they live by their powerups. Again, you don't have to pick them, but if you're Samus, don't die!
    • Poison Mushroom, in many many forms.
    • It's possible for some characters, especially Sonic and Tails, to be juggled to death. This may or may not be a bug or oversight.
  • Cool Pet: Tango, for Roll. Replaces Mario's Tanooki suit, provides that function, and as a bonus is death on high-HP enemies who aren't bosses.
  • Cosplay Fan Art:
    • The Spartan Suit lets Mario dress up as Master Chief, while Luigi dresses up as Bionic Commando. Also, they dress up as Mega Man and Proto Man for their Mega Man Suits.
    • Roll wears Mega Man, Bass, Tron Bonne, and a Hunter's outfits for her Super Mushroom, Hammer Bro Suit, Mega Man Suit, and Halo Suit powers, respectively.
    • Sonic and Tails wear Quick Man's and Gyro Man's outfits for their Mega Man Suits.
    • Wario is Guts Man in the Mega Man Suit and a Brute in the Halo Suit.
    • Link is Zero in the Mega Man Suit and the Arbiter in the Halo Suit.
    • Mario's "Gunner" suit is Marco Rossi. Luigi's is Guile.
  • Crisis Crossover: Characters from different game franchises join forces to fight the the villains from those same franchises and more.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Part of the learning curve of this game comes from having to relearn how to control favorite characters. Now subverted by Mega Man 10 — Bass' dash jump controls just like this game's abnormal slide jump.
  • Darker and Edgier: Significantly, compared to the original versions of most series. What level of darker and edgier-ness differs depending upon the world.
  • Demoted to Extra: Mega Man, and to a lesser extent Mega Man X, is extremely conspicuous by his absence. This tends to lead to flame wars given the general response to an all-star video game cast...and Roll. The former is, however, a very important NPC.
    • It was explained that Mega Man had far too many weapons to choose from, and that weapon choices would be 1) difficult and 2) easily make him a Game Breaker. As they wanted somebody to represent the World Of 20XX among the playable characters, Roll was chosen instead.
    • If you think about it, that's a pretty silly explanation as weapon choices had to be made for Roll and Protoman. Of course, the real reason was that Mega Man was an integral part of events from back when the story plans were huge and impractical. Once that story event had been cut/changed, the devs had already backed themselves into a corner by making Roll and Protoman.
    • And now, because that problem is out of the way, he's in!
    • This troper thought the reason was that unlike Mega Man, who had been in every crossover fan game under the sun, Roll had had a clean slate for years and was considered the perfect replacement for him.
  • Difficult but Awesome: To a certain extent, Sonic. His bounce attack allows for extremely precise jumps, but he lacks Tails' simple-yet-valuable flight powers and requires strong execution around the many, many Bottomless Pits.
  • Divergent Character Evolution: Nearly retroactive — Luigi's fireballs switch to their Super Smash Bros.. physics, he loses the Raccoon ability for the Bunny powerup, and he gets a Boomerang Bro suit where Mario receives the Hammer Bro suit.
  • Dracula: The Castlevania version, to be more exact.
  • Drop the Hammer: Aside from Mario's traditional Hammer Suit, we have Covenant Brute Wario's weapon and the awaited Sonic Advance Trilogy-style gameplay of Amy Rose.
  • Egopolis: Robotnikland, which is also a Shout-Out to the Sonic Unleashed stage.
  • Eldritch Abomination: A disturbing mesh of all of the major villains' bodies serves as the game's True Final Boss. They didn't name it "The Abomination" for nothing.
  • Eldritch Location: Twisted Reality, judging from its description on the Wiki.
  • Exiled From Continuity: If you're going to make a contribution to MKF, make sure that your ideas for characters, levels, and such aren't from a game made after June 2008. Music's fine, though.
    • This rule became obsolete once the suggestion forums were shut down. Now you'll see such things as Mega Man 10 cameos created within months of the game's release.
  • Fate Worse Than Death: Near the end of the game, Legion's Finest is merged into a fearsome chimera as a punishment for their failures.
  • Fragile Speedster: Roll is quite fast in the newer versions, but the maximum number of hits she can take is 3, excluding special suits.
  • Fungus Humongous: It's a Mario game at heart, so of course these were going to show up.
  • Game Mod: All sprites, music, and backgrounds are external, so anyone who can rename a file and has some skill with sprites can do some noticeable alterations to the game. Character skins and music changes are two of the most popular fan changes.
  • Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Currently, the boss of Tetropolis is the obscure Mario Paint minigame boss, King Watinga. No explanation was given as to why.
  • Glass Cannon: Arthur, Proto Man, and recently with Roll.
  • The Goomba: They're here, along with Metools and Shy Guys.
  • Goomba Stomp: Partly Subverted because there are characters who can't do this, but subverted right back with the addition of Stomp Boots for those characters.
  • Heel Face Turn: Bowser does this at the end of World 1. He captures Peach as a method of protecting her from Legion.
    • At the end of the game, Bowser does a Face Heel Turn and joins the Villain Alliance.
  • Hijacked by Ganon: The Villain Alliance does one to Legion at the end of the game. One of their members is Ganondorf, so Legion should've seen that coming.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Borderline example; the shopkeeper's none other than Morshu.
  • Implausible Fencing Powers: Link's Z-Saber and Buster Sword can erase bullets if swung at the right time.
  • Infinite 1-Ups: The classic Mario tricks with shells or invincibility. Where these are possible, it's generally unintentional on the developers' parts — some enemies don't give escalating scores when struck by shells, after all.
    • The Library has both of these. It's generally considered one of the more difficult stages, but this effectively means you're dealing with Meaningless Lives.
    • Taken away from one Nostalgia Level — the Transitway, World 1-1 of The Lost Levels, had its Starman removed because of the ludicrous 1-up count Sonic or Tails could ring up with their great speed.
  • James Bondage: Mega Man.
  • Joke Character / Legacy Character: Classic Mario.
  • Jump Physics: Many, many different ways...
  • Just a Kid: Dr. Wily dismisses Tails as such. A standout example as he's been warned ahead of time.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Proto Man, being a far less modified Mega Man character, squeezes in here. Nigh unto useless at actual platforming? Check. Blows away the difficulty curve of some levels by shooting through walls? Check. Play him in "Battle For Sera" and see it for yourself on both ends.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Much like in his recent 3D outings, Sonic is tough enough to slam right through The Spiny (while spinning) and deals relatively heavy damage with his Goomba Stomp - and almost entirely lacks ranged attacks. Meta-Knight hits even harder and is more of a Glass Cannon variant. Several enemies qualify as well, especially the Beserker.
  • Loads and Loads of Loading: It's made in Game Maker and took an obscene amount of time to start up (about 15-20 minutes) followed by a lot of slowdown in-game, even on modern computers. Version 0.4 cut the slowdown issues by about 80-90%, with the game now taking about 90 seconds to load. And the Fandom Rejoiced.
  • Made of Explodium: Defeat a boss in this game, it explodes spectacularly. Subverted by Mouser from Super Mario Bros. 2, who just falls off the screen when he is defeated. Triple subverted by King Totomesu, who, in his original appearance in the first Super Mario Land, exploded, while he doesn't explode in MKF.
  • The Mario: Averted; the Mario amounts to the tank with his Super Mario Bros 3 damage progression, reserve items, and lack of knockback. Stats-wise, he's as average as ever.
  • Mega Crossover: There's so many damn games featured, it could be called an Ultra-Crossover. The Crossroads level, in and of itself, is a Mega Crossover.
  • Moe Anthropomorphism / Cute Monster Girl: Covenant Hunter Roll.
  • Mighty Glacier: Wario.
  • Mutually Exclusive Powerups
  • My Hero Zero: Wanna guess who?
  • Mythology Gag: Some of the Self Imposed Challenges in the community are of this variety; for instance, "I wouldn't be caught dead with one of those!", an unarmed run as Sonic through a war zone, is named for a line from Shadow the Hedgehog.
    • Roll's Nightmare stage is a darker version, and possibly a Take That as it's all about Roll and her expies being the eternal sidekick.
  • Nerf: Several old-school Game Breakers return in vastly depowered form. Super Mario World‍'‍s cape and Mega Man 2‍'‍s Metal Blade are the big ones.
  • Nintendo Hard: Kirby-type bosses meet Mario-type levels. No, seriously.
  • Ninja: Ryu Hayabusa.
  • Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot
  • Non-Standard Character Design: Happens quite frequently, especially when the playable characters go into settings not based on their respective series. Due to the crossover nature of the game, this makes sense.
  • Won't Work On Me: See Puzzle Boss, below.
  • Nostalgia Level: Plenty of them...as well as subverted. Most Mario fangames include a remake of World 1-1, but in MKF it's a remake of World 1-1 from The Lost Levels.
  • The Not-Secret: The secret characters, and the major plot points. Amusingly, the creators can't help but broadcast loudly and blatantly what the "secret" characters are, as well as their abilities and powerups — and in several cases, how to unlock them.
  • One Steve Limit: The Big Bad Legion is not from the Castlevania series. So far.
  • Platform Game: Erm...yeah.
  • Poison Mushroom: The Trope Namer, and its Expies from the games it's based on, are here.
  • Power Creep, Power Seep: With interesting implications for characters from the same universe. Since everyone's balanced with Roll and Proto Man, Zero and Vile are awarded a Goomba Stomp (an ability foreign to their original appearances) on top of their firepower, turning them into Infinity Plus One Reploids.
    • It's merely temporary — as soon as the wall kick is coded in, they will lose their stomping ability.
  • Powered Armor: Samus Aran.
  • Power-Up Letdown: Averted in a couple of significant cases — the Blue Shell powerup returns from New Super Mario Bros. and is slowed to a far more manageable pace, while Arthur's golden axe is death on any enemy without a damage cooldown and is less likely (because of the sprite scale) to simply crash into a wall. Skull Man's weapon still sucks.
  • Puzzle Boss: A significant number of bosses are immune to "normal" means of damage.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad: Legion's Finest.
  • Randomly Drops: Getting ahold of the particular weapon you want for either Arthur or Roll.
  • Recurring Bosses: Doc Robot, Mouser, and Robotnik.
  • Remilitarized Zone: The Scandinavian Campaign and Covenant Assault levels. Also the Military War Zone level, which is basically a war-torn city in ruins. Pretty much the majority of the later levels in World 2 (Alternate Earth) will be like this.
  • Robot Girl: Roll.
  • Running Gag: How long will it take for the project to get completed? The fans aren't sure anymore due to the sheer amount of new content announced regularly. People have resorted to making jokes about how long it'll be for MKF to be completed, with estimates ranging from 2012 to 2020 (the project was started in 2008).
    • The current forum banner has "Developed by Fusion Team (2008 - 20XX)" along the bottom.
  • Ryu and Ken: Protoman (for Roll), Classic Luigi (for Classic Mario), and Zero (for Vile).
  • Save the Princess: Played with. Kidnapping Peach is more or less just a way for Bowser to get the attention of Mario and Luigi.
  • Schedule Slip: To the point where it's hard to figure out what's still in the game anymore.
    • For the longest time the devs themselves didn't know, with communication between them being practically non-existent. Once the team got straightened out (with dead and useless developers being demoted), they hold regular meetings. It's a wonder the project didn't collapse beforehand.
  • Schizophrenic Difficulty: Sure, the toughest stages are at least denoted on the world map, but the difficulty level of specific levels doesn't have a ton to do with what world you're in. To be fair, you may easily find yourself jumping back and forth between the worlds on a regular basis.
  • Secret Character: R.O.B., Simon Belmont, Vile, Ryu Hayabusa, Classic Mario. And that's just the ones that have been announced.
  • The Smart Guy: Tails.
  • The Smurfette Principle: More or less a result of using an all-star cast of video game characters. Aside from Samus, some effort has been made to avert the Trope — this was part of the argument in favor of the now-scrapped Original Generation character Agent M, and the inclusion of Roll over Mega Man owes itself in some part to defeating the Trope. The forums tend to get behind female characters for Shotoclone status; Amy appears to have been confirmed, and support for Rachel appears every now and then.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: Calliope the Clown is a whimsical and goofy clown boss that jumps around and punches the living daylights out of you with spring-loaded boxing gloves. His boss music? The serious Gradius V boss music.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": Eggman goes by his old Robotnik moniker throughout, yet is played by the late Deem Bristow. Go figure.
  • The Spiny: The one and only, including the ones that walk on ceilings. Of course, the Spiny itself isn't the only spiky critter...
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills: Yep, there's water levels. Even the characters who can't swim (like Sonic) have Super Not-Drowning Skills in this game.
  • Surprise Creepy: And how!
  • Suspicious Videogame Generosity: The rooms before fighting most bosses include a save gate and three powerups, more or less assuring you'll at least have a decent chance at victory.
  • Sword Beam: Link when wielding the Z-Saber, not to mention the man...er, reploid himself.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Samus and Roll, respectively.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Roll goes from swinging her broom in Mega Man: Powered Up (admittedly, fairly well) and being the eternal joke character of the pre-Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Capcom vs. Whatever games to having some of the most potent high-level powerups of any playable character. You may be in trouble without them, though...
    • Several returning boss fights have been altered to bring them up to Kirby-type boss difficulty. The Tree Zone boss found himself a tough boss room and got a projectile weapon in the process.
  • Trial and Error Gameplay: The popular "Run!" segments are loaded with extra lives for a reason — hazards will sometimes come at you faster than you can respond on a first run. Heaven only knows how bad something called "Speedway Of Screams" will be... It's also tough to tell off the bat what will and won't damage certain bosses, or which attacks do how much damage to a specific boss opponent.
  • True Final Boss: The Abomination.
  • Ultimate Evil: Legion, to the point that even the developers have no idea what he looks like (for obvious reasons). Though, they did come up with a base form for him.
  • Unexpected Shmup Level: All of World 6 was going to be this, before it was changed to Adventurer's Domain.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Castle That Doesn't Make Sense.
  • Villain Team-Up: The Villain Alliance.
  • The Wiki Rule: Huzzah!
  • Womb Level: Corpse Of The Behemoth, Lair Of The Leviathan, and The Castle Of Meat.
  • Word of God: The game designers realized Mario and Luigi feel less "special" when their gimmick of varied powerups are copied by ten or so different characters, and so gave them each several more suits.
  1. (Killing the back one gets you the key to the secret exit, which leads to a goldmine of top-class powerups, so you should try to take them both down.)