Syobon action

Cat Mario
The game's title screen
Genre(s)	Platform

Syobon action しょぼんのアクション (also known as Cat Mario, dongs.exe, and Neko Mario) is a 2D Japanese freeware video game notoriously known on the Internet for its extremely difficult levels. When Playthisthing.com reviewed the game, it had stated, "Syobon Action hates you. You’ll find this out the hard way: every jump, platform, mushroom, pipe... even the cloud in the background is out there to kill you. In time, you will hate Syobon Action."^[1] The game is cited in most reviews to be a gaming parody of the Nintendo classic game Super Mario Bros..

The game's reason of excessive difficulty is that, unlike Super Mario Bros., it contains concealed traps (such as spikes, "falling stars" and mushrooms). They are found commonly on platforms, clouds, pipes and even in the sky, and are activated (and therefore visible) only when the player is about to hit them. The game's obstacles are so tricky that it makes the game extremely difficult to complete.

Syobon Action was ported to SDL and is available on Windows, AmigaOS 4.1 and Linux under the name of Open Syobon Action and can be found on its SourceForge page, here. These ports fix some of the glitches that the original game had on non-Japanese systems.

The music that plays throughout the on-surface levels is taken from the Action 52 game, Cheetahmen, while the music underground level and in the cave death trap in the 3rd level is a midi version of the level music from Spelunker. And finally the castle level uses a midi version of the music from the 1st level of Ghosts 'n Goblins. End credits uses a midi version of the music from the Puyo Puyo game.

Gameplay and solutions

The first level is based on World 1-1 in Super Mario Bros.. However, the mushroom block has an invisible coin block under it, unlike Super Mario Bros.. The hidden 1-up block above the hill instead will provide an infinite amount of poison mushrooms. Invisible coin blocks are scattered mostly in inconvenient places, often to lead the player to death. Lastly, simply hitting the goal post will cause your character to be killed by a ghost. The solution is to jump over the flagpole, activate the ghost, and then go back to the goal.

The second level is based on World 1-2 in Super Mario Bros., but as soon as the player drops in, they will land on a falling block, and if they try to jump when they are on it, there is an invisible block over it. Also, if the player tries to break the roof like in Super Mario Bros., they will be stopped by a wall and fall, only to be killed by an invisible cloud.^[2] In addition, if the player accesses the Warp Zone behind the exit (titled as "Owata Zone" in this game) the 3 warp pipes will kill the player despite indicating that each of them would take the player back to the first level.^[3] The second outside level will start similar to the first level. The player needs to exit the starting pipe quickly to avoid a cat character that looks similar to Pedobear. The visible exit pole is a trap (the one with the blue top), the player must bounce on top of it to reach the real exit pole.

The third level is similar to the first level. A bonus room filled with coins hidden in a pit will drop the player onto a cloud that will result in that player's character being killed, and a special switch hidden in an item block turns all blocks to coins, dropping the player into the infinite abyss below.

The fourth is based on World 1-4 in Super Mario Bros.. Near the end of the level, a cat (replacing Bowser from Super Mario Bros.) will make the floor fall down. Also if the player keeps going, the ceiling will fall down. If the player manages to get past that, they will walk into a chicken, which is impossible to avoid. If they manage to get past the floor, and try to jump over the cat, it will never die, forcing the player to commit suicide. The player must get to the ceiling by jumping on top of a robot enemy that throws items. This leads to a fifth level.

There is also a bonus challenge for player that if the player presses the 0 key then enter they will be taken to a randomized version of level 1, with the traps and important items remaining. If the player manages to beat this level they will go on to a randomized level 2 and so on. Apparently, this is unintentional.^{[citation needed]}

Trick objects

The game has many hidden dangers or objects that act differently than they do in most video games. Many harmless looking objects such as clouds will kill the player, mushrooms will make the player grow and fall through the floor, and springs will launch the player right out of the level.

References

1. ^ http://playthisthing.com/syobon
2. ^ "syobon action gameplay". http://lsg-public.livejournal.com/3010.html. 
3. ^ "Let's Play dongs exe Part 4". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6_00jhKyI4&t=40. 

External links

• Open Syobon Action
• Official website
• A Java version created by the original game's author
• Syobon Action port Wii console by Scognito
• Syobon Action Playstation 3 port
• Syobon Action Windows port
• Syobon Action Mac OS X port
• Syobon Action AmigaOS 4.1 port
• Comedic playthrough of the game with commentary NSFW language
• Let's Play of Syobon Action (called Dongs.exe)
• Let's play by Cauchemar
• a non official page where a translated version can be found