Odd Fan Games: Mario: The Music Box - Pikasprey 

Glad you played our game! I am sorry you weren't able to fully enjoy it's game. I don't even enjoy it myself. There's a lot of room for improvement in this game and hopefully once we create our own original games there will be much more work and thought put into it. Thanks for all the criticism! I do take it to heart and greatly enjoy when people are honest, it's something I rarely get nowadays.

2:23 “We’ve been put into a situation where we can’t leave.” Maybe there’s a single tile in a wall you can fish in to find Magikarp? Or perhaps a tree that gives you one Ice Berry a day you can sell for money!

I would legit play a high-concept sci-fi horror game starring the Care Bears.

There's a section where _Mario_ decides he can't jump over a gap. I'd say the Mario series is represented pretty poorly just for that one fact.

"i don't need this arm anyway" jesus christ luigi

Honestly, I could see Luigi patiently and sadly sawing his own arm off while muttering about how it sucks to be him.

*I don't even have to play to know that Luigi eating his own arms is hilarious*

I wanna say the game would benefit from using more Mario elements and attempting to imitate the Mario asthetic, but it makes me wonder: would that improve the atmosphere and make it more immersive or just make it harder to take seriously. I guess it comes down to the execution.

Implied Darkness is almost always better than actual darkness in games

I was just about to go to bed because it's 1:30 AM but how am I supposed to sleep knowing there's a Pikasprey video I haven't watched yet?!

A concept I actually liked about this game, and wish it was canon, is the fact that Luigi can feel paranormal phenomenon. You would think that after fighting so many ghosts he would have something like that, it doesn't feel out of place. However, I'm afraid I can't, for the life of me, focus while having Mario in a white dress being possesed by a female spirit. That distracted me way too much during the game.

Anyone else want to try that care bear horror game he came up with?

Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion is the absolute best example of cute-suddenly-turned-horror done right. The game starts out with a childish 2d art style and simplistic backgrounds, but when the game reveals its true colors, it keeps the art style. That juxtaposition is part of what really freaked me out when playing it. We get so used to over realistic graphics in horror games that our subconscious reels when the cute visual style remains. Innyume and Dreaming Mary did this as well and I really wish more horror games did.

On the subject of Luigi eating his own arm. I doubt the action itself is scary, if anything it's rather sad. But the context of that scenario is somewhat scary, with Luigi being locked in a room with nothing to eat or drink.

Mario screaming "I'LL KILL YOU" is the weirdest, most out of character thing I've seen in a long time. Haha

If there is ever a scykoh pikaspery crossover episode I will be one happy boy

If you can literally replace your main character(s) with any other character, you've failed the character development for your game.

The game itself definitely would be better with it's own original characters as the protagonists.

If a high concept space horror game about the Care Bears came out, I think it'd outsell most FNAF games

(Mario) The Music Box-ARC expands greatly on the connection between the Mario world characters, and the incedents that happened at the mansion. Something I think you will like about the sequel/expansion is that it doesn't have any keyboard mashing segments so far.

Exactly, my question of "Why are they the Mario. Bros?" Was my biggest issue when coming into this game and the amount of death cutscenes that would make Sierra blush. and I've been on Newgrounds since 10.. I've seen stuff like Super Mario speaking curse words with comically excessive amounts of blood, edgy parodies like that dulls me to that stuff And also Sonic tearing off his friend's clothing off.. including the underwear.. don't look that up

Asprey you aren’t done… There’s a continuation of the story with some (note I said “some” improvements.) improvements and a character that comes out of nowhere and is now plot relevant, and tosses Mario into yet another adventure. Aka arc is out and even has a bonus story.

Who would think killing Mario will be so easily, and bowser trying in the wrong way all these years

I feel like a lot of the problems you brought up were mostly fixed in the Remastered version. Personally, this is my favorite fan game of all time, and I can see why other people don't agree with that, but this game's story feels absolutely incredible and I love it to death. Especially with the sequel. Riba got me right in the feels with that one.

This is my problem with fan works, specially when it's something as big as a game. I feel it's a shame that there's so much work and inspiration put into something and instead of making it something of your own, turn it into a tribute. Which is fine, but it gets you far more freedom later if you build from scratch. And this game felt like it just needed that. Like it started as an alternative, fanmade approach to mario universe but ended up feeling like an original universe where mario and other characters appear for some reason. And if it was a bad game or a shitpost-like game, well, you can even find it worth laughing at, but this game has far enough quality to be above that

It's hard to say just how much ARC fixes your problems. While the spacebar sequences are removed in favor of actual combat and the game gives a reason as to why Mario and Luigi are involved, from what I've seen, some areas still blend in, and about half of the game is still pretty dark.

I enjoyed the game personally. It's your opinion if you don't like it and that's fine. Also, about the sequel, it's out now. Not sure if you would like it, you might. There are no more spacebar parts so your keyboard won't break.

I've never played this game; but something I find really odd with fan made games that use characters we all know is that they either (a) fail to grasp that charcters personality or (b) pick a charcter that has no personality and thus they create one on their own for that character. Either way it begs the question why did you bother using that character when you could've created your own. Mario is awesome and we all love him, but the character has little to no personality and if you're gonna have a story driven game about him you just can't do it because we don't have enough info about how he should act based on his personality and character traits.

The quality of the art and amount of content is all praise-worthy, but it's really held back for me because it's all *mario*. And not like a stylized mario to fit the setting but his modern, cutesy "YAH HAH HOO! HEY NICE-A COMPUTER YOU GOT THERE, CAN I HAVE IT?" adaptation just doesn't fit it at all. You could replace him and luigi and other references to peach with some anime-esque characters and it'd honestly would work better. Seeing this mascot character suffer different dark deaths doesn't unsettle me as much as make me laugh and find it preposterous what I'm supposed to feel otherwise. It feels super try hard and lacking self-awareness. And I feel bad for saying this cause again, there's a lot of effort here, I'm just confused why they went with Mario. My best guess kinda feels like it's that thing you see a lot in horror games or other edgy concepts, where you have cutesy animal characters (freddy fazbear, shadow the hedgehog) engaging in "darker" subjects (dead children, shooting a gun), and that appeals to a certain age range of pre-teens who want something cute and familiar to empathize with, but something darker and edgier that piques their growing interests in more mature concepts. And the juxtaposition of ill-fitting elements or execution doesn't bother them cause they haven't really developed tastes yet, they just know they like mario and they like spooky stuff. In a way I kinda view this stuff as gateway works, stuff that may or may not lead to exploring more serious takes, or at least satisfying one's curiosity.

This video was really good, you covered this game really well and presented your criticisms in a really well-done manner. Enjoyed watching!

“Tap Spacebar!”

May as well say it, Luigi eating his arm really did nothing good for him. The damage he did to his body used up anything he got from eating himself, so really he was just as screwed, but missing a limb now too o_-

Well now I just want to make that care bear space horror

How to make good horror: Step 1: Darkness thang Step 2: In one big room, the lights suddenly turn on

You know, that scenario on the spaceship might not make for a good Care Bears game, but it'd probably make for a great Metroid game.

This game is legit impossible to take seriously because of the fact that it is a Mario fangame. Tone is incredibly important in any kind of horror and seeing Mario's actual, gloved hand hovering over the journal pulls me right out and breaks my sides.

I really hope you'll get around to playing the sequel, Mario the Music Box Arc. It's INFINITELY better and has quite the story. Also, as far as I remember, there are no QTEs and button mashing. I'd really like to know your opinion about it, even if it won't be accompanied by a full playthrough (it has a lot of endings and branching paths as well. Seriously, really cool game).

This game really feels like The Witch's House/Mad Father but.... If they were rushed. Not to mention both of the aforementioned games have better lighting and maps. I haven't played WH in a couple years but I can still remember the layout very well. From your video, it seems like there's a lot of ideas here, but... I think the creator would do better working on these ideas with original characters. Nothing against fangames, but like you said, the addition of Mario characters really breaks the atmosphere of the story. It's like having a catgirl in the middle of your Hamlet performance. Your audience will keep being distracted by the one thing that sticks out. Cohesiveness is an important element when putting any kind of story, from the plot to the aesthetics.

"Luigi's Mansion isn't meant to be really scary." Unless you're a pansy like me… >.>

"I don't need this arm anyways" ...wut.

I’ve heard this on another channel called, “Connor the waffle” a little while back. I was excited to see somebody else talk about the game, especially with how good Connor made it out to be. Watching this video really changed my thoughts on the game, and was interesting to hear some constructive criticism

You came to the exact same conclusion my best friend and I did vis-a-vis Mario and Luigi’s inclusion. We literally said ”You could put Joe Anime in Mario’s place and nothing would change.”

I personally think one great way to make the darkness of a layout like this make sense is to add some kind of ever-shifting map mechanic, where the darkness is partially to hide the map's changing layout, but also making it less limited to the player and more the room, the room you can see very well, but the moment you step out you're putting yourself in harms way due to an ever-changing map that would help keep the eerie and unsettling feeling without the darkness getting convoluted

Imagine smashing the keyboard over and over again

"Sonic: The Music Box"

Never clicked on a video faster.

I was just thinking "I wonder when Pikasprey is gonna upload?" well I got my wish.

8:37 As someone who was obsessed with CareBears as a child, I would spend some good money on this game for sure.

So far, the remaster is improving some flaws. For example, you can skip death cutscenes, and the spacebar shit is replaced. They also added some new deaths and new endings and one example is where you leave at the beginning like a coward. One flaw I have is that the Missing ending picture replaces the newspaper with Mario leaving.

Hahaha I absolutely love your points about this needlessly being about the mario brothers, every time you bring it up it cracks me up

The most thing it annoys me, is: why mario?. why have to make a horror game using charismatic and bright characters?, this is not sonic.exe lol. that concept art looks good, nice and beautiful, i would imagine a better game, if the characters, were original and not mario.

For some reason I could have sworn I recalled watching a playthrough of this game on pikasprey blue, but I've had no luck finding any such thing, and I simply remembering wrong or something?

About to go to sleep, but then I see a Pikasprey episode is up. Must watch

It feels like nowadays people can throw in a famous characters in any sort of media into a random situation. Now sometimes it's not bad if the inclusion is reasonable and explained, but sometimes it can get out of hand. Plus I would play the game staring the Care Bears, would seem like a funny joke.

"Tell me if Luigi having to eat his own arms is scary or hilarious" ... excuse me?

8:24 He just predicted Among Us.

The main problem always boils down to mario and luigi The problem is that both of them are too light hearted by design to put them on serious situations without making it seem incredibly out of place

Putting Mario in that game is just so pointless when even his iconic jumping isnt there

Damn Asprey. You always go above and beyond. Thank you.

Yours is the voice of a proud narrator, of a courageous speaker to the masses

Yeah, I have to agree about the spam-the-spacebar-to-not-die minigame. When you reach the final one, I literally tried over and over again to beat it and was actually exhausted, breathing hard and feeling hopeless because I could not beat it. Luckily, there was a patch that made it doable, but maaaaaan, that part was hard...

my friend showed me this video and my first thought was "wait, this series of his usually covers bad games..." either way, im not gonna white knight you. i personally enjoy this game, and this video got me back into liking the series, as i had practically ditched it for others. there are better games but for a fangame, its good imo. cant wait to see what happens when Team Ari works on original stuff. im hyped.

Imma got to slee- *_NEW VID BY PIKASPREY_*

I can empathize with his keyboard destruction, I saw Pikasprey uploaded and I clicked so fast my mouse exploded.

Great video! The creator sure went the extra mile for this game and it shows they're hard workers.

*welcome to a game almost everyone forget about and only known for it's death count and endings*

My biggest gripe with amateur RPG maker games is that they seem to always make the rooms waaay too big. It kind of compromises the asset distribution, making the rooms feel empty.. And in this game in particular, makes the lighting mechanic works against it. Smaller rooms would make the light reach the corners so it would be much easier to explore, since a quick scoop around the room would be enough to see most of the points of interest.

14:52 - "You go ahead and tell me whether you think Luigi having to eat his own arms is supposed to be terrifying or ridiculously hilarious". Given that I spent about a minute laughing at that concept, I think the answer is clear. That wraps right around from horrifying (ex - losing an arm) to downright silly. I know some of the developers have been visiting this video (see the pinned comment), so let me put down a main comment I had in my head (I watched the entire game through the Let's Play): I think a big point that may be worth considering here is that horror only works when the suspension of disbelief isn't broken. That is, all tensions is lost if it sounds implausible. There are only so many additions you can make to a scene to "one up" the last one before it starts to fall apart because of how over-the-top it has become. I noticed that a developer (Marios-Friend9) also noted that much of the game was improvised and I think this made it abundantly clear. Making games often requires planning out the key scenes to start so that the scene stands out without sounding ridiculous. I think the sequence above feels like a case of rushed shock value or a case of "well, we have to put something here that's crazy..." without considering whether or not it made a strong scene.

7:45 I actually brought this point up to Jessica a long time ago, and I don't quite remember what she said, but I *think* it was supposed to embody childhood innocence being destroyed. And seeing as how this a vent game it makes sense. Love the video though. I wanna try and help the team incorporate some of the critisisms into newer projects so that we can make the atmosphere feel right without going to far; e.g. it being overly dark.

I cant sleep without see your new video, and here in Canarias are 6:30 am

Just woke up and there is new pikasprey video 😃😃😃😃😃

Corpse Party has lengthy and very detailed death scenes, however those were actually pretty tolerable as not ALL the death scenes are lengthy. The fact that they happen to characters made specifically made for said series definitely helps as it doesn't seem out of place like the death scenes in Mario Music Box.

Ahhh I remember when you played this! I'd say wonderful time but I recall you hurting your wrist again with it. :/ Sorry to hear but, either way, happy to see you revisit this on Yellow. Always happy to see your hard work!

That would explain why you had a folder for this game under quick access in the Boss Remix video.

I have work tomorrow morning, I should probably go to slee- Shit.

this is different from the content i expect from you and more like a review shammy, i really like it! and it gives you more personality than a guy who goes to extremes to prove ppl wrong about softlocks!

Love your voice Pikasprey, keep up the good work!

There are another characters in the music box. But they replace Mario and Luigi to Sonic and Tails.

I love your videos dude. Even if I'm not initially interested, my interests always are piqued.

In opinion the arc does fixes most of the issues.

Quantity over quality on this one

Hey! A pikasprey upload :)) keep up the good work man, love your stuff😊

a yellow video is like required watching, no matter how late it is, I always feel like I have to watch it

If Luigi ate his own arms, he would die from bleeding. Does he die like that in the game?

I've been looking for Pikasprey's playthrough of this game, and can't find it anywhere. Did he delete it?

YESSSSSSSSSSS, I remember this from back then. It was a channel with Luigi in the name and it was amazing

I've seen you played game and watched it with my buddy and we talked about it our self here and there. We really enjoyed it, but we really question why they used Mario and Luigi. It's obvious that adding famous characters get a person's attention, but if they where going to go to detail, they could have done it with there own characters. Other than that, it's view in art and all that is pretty neat.

Tfw you're about to go to bed but then a channel you like uploads

Imagine that care bear game, though...imagine it being in first person and then you walk past a mirror and you have to go "wait. What the fuck?" GOD I WANT THAT

I can't believe Mario is fucking dead.

I would absolutely play the care bear game

Like if Luigi eating his arm was hilarious.

Yay ! I was hoping you would play this.

i remeber seeing Mario The Music Box 1 year ago

Honestly the thing I liked the least about the game is how Mario and Luigi get GREATLY "nerfed". Mario fails to jump over a pit that'd he make any other day, and he should 100% have the power to mop the floor with some of the struggle sequences. I feel like this goes with the fact that Mario and Luigi are out of place. I think they're a lot stronger and agile than this game makes them out to be and that's very annoying/disappointing at times.

Awesome piece of content. Keep up the great work! :))

Scykoh is actually another youtuber I enjoy watching before watching you.

Yay more Pikasprey! Riki thinks Spacehamster covered this, so already know quite a bit on it, but you always entertain.

Nice and honest review of this game. I have played it myself and it wasn't all that bad. Really appreciated the art, but I can seriously agree that the immense amount of darkness was very annoying. Add a bit more color and light, with new action sequences per say, press different keys on the keyboard and it should be pretty good. Enjoyed the game, even though I didn't finish it.

Does anybody remember the games of Sonic Final Fantasy? I think Pikasprey should touch on those games, because they are very odd in story alone.