Breaking The Barrier is a rom hack made by and for Marionova64's videos based on the Every Copy Is Personalised meme from the Super Mario 64 Iceberg. While it is intended for the player to get 1 Power Star, it is actually possible to get a total of 4 Power Stars in this hack.
- See also: Breaking The Barrier/Gallery
Unfortunately, there are quite a few invisible walls that are blocking further exploration from being done. Realistically, there's likely nothing past those invisible barriers, but it sure does make you wanna break through 'em.
Areas[]
Main Hall
Main Hall[]
This is the area that the player will be warped to upon entering either on of the trap doors at the Start.
Entry Message: You've entered my secret domain, Mario. Now, you'll suffer the consequences. Bwahaha! Come and find me, Mario!
The door up the carpeted slope leads to the Water Well Courtyard; a dead end. The sign preceding the carpeted slope says the following:
Ahead lies the forbidden door. Enter at your own risk... Infact, maybe you shouldn't enter at all! Yeah! Don't enter it... That means you, Mario! Bwahaha- uh.. I mean.. -Friendly Face"
The double doors at the other end of the hall lead to the Bowser's Basement. Attempting to open any of the Star doors will bring up the following pop-up:
A strange force blocks the door. It cannot open.
Bowser's Basement
Bowser's Basement[]
This area closely resembles the basement in vanilla SM64, but with some key changes. The slope under the 'Pound the Pillars' room is absent, as is its door. The 30 Star doors are now a normal set of double doors with a green carpet at their foot; they lead to the Magic Mirror Room. There is also an extra set of double doors added left of the entrance with blue carpet at their foot; these cannot be entered.
The green tunnels that are normally used to access courses 6, 7, and 8 have undergone a lot of change, and are now much more maze-like. At the first fork, there is a signpost that provides some background information on this area.
At the first fork:
- The door to the right leads to another section of basement that appears to fork. However, the right path is blocked off by an invisible wall; only the left path leads somewhere, and it leads to the Crawl Space.
- The first path on the left that appears to lead up some carpeted steps is unfortunately blocked off with an invisible wall.
Signpost: - - CONSTRUCTION - - Not a good day for us here at the Koopa Construction Krew. We've tried so hard to build the perfect underground lair for King Bowser. Too bad, I guess. First, he yelled at us because the layout was too similar to the castle above us. Fine. It's OK. Little did we know... Upon finishing these cursed halls, Bowser yelled at us AGAIN because the halls are "too confusing...!" Confusing for a big dope like him, I'm sure. We're out, done. Contact sheet on the back of the sign.
At the next fork (behind the signpost):
- The Star door immediately on the right will not open.
- The left path leads to the Library.
- The middle path leads to the floating hotel.
- None of the Star doors in the floating hotel will open. Seriously, I checked em all.
- The double doors at the end of the floating hotel lead to Internal Waterworks.
The Magic Mirror Room
The Magic Mirror Room[]
This room, as its name implies, is home to the Magic Mirror created by the Magikoopa squad. The sign explaining this information in this room will trigger vanilla SM64's boss music to begin playing upon finishing reading it, despite there not being any enemies present in this area. Leaving and reentering this room will reset it back to silence. The sign's boss music is the only music that can be played in this room, as even wearing the invisibility cap will not disturb the eerie silence.
Signpost: -- The Magic Mirror -- View a world unseen with this brand new mirror technology! See the room displayed behind you, but you're nowhere to be found! Truly groundbreaking! Only the latest and greatest from the Magikoopa squad.
If the player has already activated the blue switch, an invisibility cap can be obtained from a secret nook in the wall left of the entrance. This cap can be used to enter the Magic Mirror and explore the other side. The door in the Magic Mirror can be entered- in here, the player will find a painting of Luigi up two large steps. Entering this painting will warp the player back to the main hall's entry warp.
The Koopa Library
The Koopa Library[]
This is where Mario can activate the blue cap switch, which has the following signpost in front of it:
- - WARNING - - This specific cap switch will activate all switches and more. Do NOT activate this switch under any circumstances, as it will help Mario and then some. Step away now. Alert!! All cap switches are now active. Would you like to save? >Yes >No
To the right of the entry door is what appears to be a path through the bookshelves. Unfortunately it is blocked by an invisible wall just past this signpost:
- - CONSTRUCTION - - Koopa Library. Please walk quietly. Sit in not available. Please take out a book, log it, and read it elsewhere. All minions must return books three weeks after sign out. Thanks!
To the left of the entry door is a signpost preceding a set of double doors below a painting of Bowser. These doors lead to the Bowser Room.
The Crawl Space
Crawl Space[]
This area has branches off in three directions with the following signpost in the middle:
Sky course entrances to the left and right. Follow the carpet. Crawl space ahead! enter at your own risk. All unauthorized persons will be captured. All we can say is that Bowser may or may not give the... "London Broil Special".
The left and right branches appear to lead to course entrances matching that of Rainbow Ride and Wing Mario Over the Rainbow from vanilla SM64, but are blocked off by invible walls. The centre branch leads into the crawl space. Past the crawl space, it opens up into a room that contains a warp hole entry (much like the one used to access Bowser In The Sky in vanilla SM64), a set of double doors, and the following signpost:
-- DO NOT ENTER. -- POINT OF NO RETURN.
Unfortunately, the double doors and the warp hole are both inaccessible. The warp hole is blocked off with an invisible wall, and the double doors are blocked by a strange force.
Internal Waterworks
Internal Waterworks[]
In this strange area, there are 2 underwater metal doors, a further 2 sets of underwater double doors, 6 sets of double doors not submerged, and an empty item box. Unfortunately, only two sets of double doors can be entered- the entry doors that connect to the floating hotel in Bowser's Basement, and the double doors opposite at the other end of the area lead to a second room; this has a long hallway with many connecting hallways, all ending in a Star door, as well as another set of double doors opposite the entry doors. None of the single doors, Star doors, nor the second set of double doors will open. I already checked them for you.
A signpost written by the Koopa Construction Krew can also be found in this area:
Signpost: - - CONSTRUCTION - - We really got our shells handed to us a bit ago. On our old construction signs, we made an error! Bowser was so mad, he didn't let us eat for weeks! That's the last time us Koopas will EVER make a mistake. Anyway, this area is still undergoing heavy construction. For now, please enjoy the view. And for the love of Turtles, do NOT go inside of the water.
The Bowser Room[]
The Bowser Room
This room is based on an infamous facet of the SM64 iceberg, called the Bowser Room. In this hack, Bowser can be found here standing still and shaking his head. He will not attack or acknowledge Mario until his tail is grabbed. He appears to be Staring at a screen depicting a grayscale version of Peach's Castle. There are two bombs here, one on either side of the central screen, and three warp pipes. Two of the warp pipes are in front of the bombs, and the third is in front of Bowser. All three of these pipes lead into the right pipe. The only thing to do in the room is ruin Bowser's day by grabbing his tail and tossing him into one of the bombs. If he does not land on a bomb, then he will begin his usual fighting behaviour and attack Mario.
Grrr! I was a bit careless. This is not as I had planned...but I still hold the power of the Stars, and I still have Peach. Bwa ha ha! You'll get no more Stars from me! I'm not finished with you yet, but I'll let you go for now. You'll pay for this... later!
Upon being defeated, Bowser drops the key presumably used to unlock the basement in Peach's Castle. However, collecting it will simply award Mario with a Power Star instead. Upon collecting the key/Star, Mario will be warped to the painting exit for Bob-omb Battlefield, although this painting appears to be missing with only a black square in its place. During the save menu, it is shown that this Star is registered as being "Go on a Ghost Hunt" from Course 5, which would be Big Boo's Haunt in vanilla SM64.
Accidental Areas (?)[]
Broken Basement
Broken Basement[]
This area has no music, no warps, and appears very incomplete- it is probably not supposed to be accessible in the hack version that is in circulation. There are no doors in this area, and its layout more closely resembles the basement in vanilla SM64.
- Pressing the pause menu button will usually only make a noise when exiting the pause menu. Pausing the game is often silent in this area.
- As there is no way to die in this area, it is not known where Mario would be warped to upon dying here.
- The fire isn't real- they're just textures that cannot harm Mario.
Main Lobby[]
After defeating Bowser and being warped to the painting exit for Bob-omb Battlefield, it is possible to further explore the rest of the main lobby for Peach's castle and obtain a few more Stars. The dialogue for Toad and the signs are still the same as they are in vanilla SM64. The texture used for the courtyard doors has been replaced; it uses the same texture as the door leading to the Water Well Courtyard. The Castle Grounds are still accessible and is largely unchanged, except for the warp pipe Mario would normally travel by still being present. Jumping into this pipe will drop the player back into the Bowser In The Dark World corridor. Dying in the Castle Grounds will warp Mario back to the bridge in front of the entrance. The three 1-UPs on the roof are still present, as is an unusable wing cap box, but Yoshi is nowhere to be seen.
| Warp | New Destination | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Whomp's Fortress | Bowser In The Dark World Corridor | This room is unchanged, but the painting will warp you to Bowser's Corridor. |
| Cool Cool Mountain | Broken Basement | All 3 paintings in this room have drastically changed. the left and right paintings are now Luigi paintings, and the centre warp painting is now black. Entering this warp will briefly show the player moving quickly and entering a distant Luigi painting before being warped to the Broken Basement. |
| Jolly Roger Bay | N/A | Jumping into this painting will cause the game to crash. |
| Bob-omb Battlefield | Main Hall | Entering this painting will show the player briefly very quickly travelling to a different unique painting, which appears to be a bluer version of the skybox from Wet Dry World set in a blue frame. |
| Princess's Secret Slide | Princess's Secret Slide | The warp for this secret course is still completely intact. Both Stars for this course can be obtained. |
| Secret Aquarium Warp Hole | Secret Aquarium | Like the Princess's Secret Slide, the warp for the Secret Aquarium is still intact. The Star here is completely obtainable. |
| 8 Star Door | N/A | As it is not possible to obtain 8 Stars, this door will not open. |
| Doors to Upstairs | N/A | A strange force blocks the door. It cannot open. |
| Courtyard Door | Courtyard | The Courtyard is still accessible, but does not contain any Boo's. |
| Basement Doors | N/A | A strange force blocks the door. It cannot open. |
Characters[]
Bowser[]
TBA
Koopa Krew[]
TBA
Trivia[]
- Breaking The Barrier went on to influence many of the areas and design choices in B3313. Here are a few examples of how it did that:
- The floating hotel area in Bowser's Basement heavily inspired an area in B3313 called the Floating Hotel.
- The Internal Garden was heavily influenced by Breaking The Barrier, as was the Clockway Internals, the Outer Strip, an area called Breaking the Barrier, and likely more.
- The music predominantly used in this hack is a variation of Inside the Castle from SM64's OST and was made by NicoSwitch. This music would later be used in some of B3313's most prominent locations, including the Plexal Lobby.
- Bowser's final words in this hack, "You'll pay for this... later!" are in many of B3313's Bowser encounters.
- The videos this hack was created for can be viewed here.
- On the file select screen, the number of Stars collected on a save file is indicated by a coin sprite, instead of a Power Star sprite.
- Even though the signpost in front of the blue cap switch claims to be activating all of the cap switches, it actually still only activates the vanish cap. This is proven by parkouring onto the roof in the Castle Grounds and seeing that the wing cap box is not solid.
- In the second area of the Internal Waterworks, a texturing error can be observed by manipulating the camera to view the innaccesible spaces behing either of the single doors.
- By manipulating the camera outside of the sky course entrances, we can see that there does indeed appear to be a warp hole leading into a cloud painting, much like in vanilla SM64.
- Based on the Koopa Krew's messages, it can be inferred that Bowser's Domain exists directly under Peach's Castle.
- Despite being called a crawl space, Mario does not need to crawl through the Crawl Space in order to reach the room behind. This is because despite being much smaller while crawling, the Mario still cannot enter smaller areas, so the crawl space must have a ceiling high enough to accommodate Mario standing upright.
- We can probably assume that the windows in the Bowser Room are screens based on the fact that they are all showing the same view of Peach's Castle (not possible to do with three windows facing different directions), and because they are monochrome.