Ihsoy

So it was August 18th, 2012, which was the day before New Super Mario Bros. 2 was released for the 3DS, as well as the year the WiiU would be released, along with many other games, such as New Super Mario Bros. U, ZombiU, Luigi’s Mansion 2: Dark Moon, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, and many other great games. This story is about my creepy encounter with one of these games, New Super Mario Bros. 2.

(Side note: This is written in a future perspective, in which it is supposedly being written 8 years after the events occurred, which obviously isn’t true, since it’s still October 2012 as I’m writing this.)

Less than a year prior to New Super Mario Bros. 2’s release was Super Mario 3D Land’s release, and, considering I’d loved the cape in Super Mario World and the Tanooki Suit in Super Mario Bros. 3, I purchased both games. There was only so much to do in Super Mario 3D Land, and I 100% completed it in less than a week (granted, I did spend almost half of my week playing it, and another quarter playing Mario Kart 7 and messing around with the features of my newly acquired 3DS), leaving me waiting for the next Mario game to come out, eager for something else to do. This explains why I was so eager to get NSMB2 that I got it on the release date, which was August 19th for those who didn’t know. Well, August 19th in America. I’m not quite sure when it was released in Japan.

I looked at the downloadable version’s price, and then I went to my GameStop to see if someone had purchased it, decided they didn’t like it, and brought it to GameStop, and, sure enough, some people did. In fact, they had 1 returned copy left, but there was no picture on the front, rather a really crappy label that read ‘new mario 2’ in sloppy cursive handwriting.

At the time, this didn’t bother me much, and I bought it anyways. It was a dollar cheaper than the downloadable version, which was $39.99 if my memory serves me correctly, and I’m one for saving money, even if it’s only a dollar. When I went to the counter to purchase it, the cashier didn’t freak out about how I should just take it for free or anything, he just told me that I was 38 dollars and 99 cents in the hole, so I paid for the game, gave the cashier a three-dollar-tip, and left the store.

As soon as I got home, I registered the game on Club Nintendo’s website, then instantly took the game out of its case and snapped it into my 3DS. As I turned on my 3DS, I noticed the home menu was no longer there, but replaced with 4 options:

The game, New Super Mario Bros. 2, of which the logo wasn’t what it should be, but instead it was a picture of Yoshi, but his eyes were bloodshot and the whites of his eyes weren’t really that white, they were more of a disturbingly noticeably different shade of red, yet the difference was barely noticeable at the same time. There was blood dripping from his chin.

This freaked the crap out of me, and I instantly shut off the system. The other three options, before I continue with the story, were DS download play, Pictochat, and gameboy advanced cartridge play, although both pictochat and gba cartridge play were crossed out since the 3DS didn’t have these features. The original DS and the DS Lite, however, did. That’s the other reason I freaked out.

I now owned 2 DS Lites, or so I thought; later I’d taken the cartridge out and found that everything that was on my 3DS prior to this incident was perfectly intact.

After turning the system on and off again several more times, thinking it was a glitch, I realized nothing would change and decided to select the game. When I did, however, the console shut off again, making a loud popping noise as it did. It turned back on 1 or 2 seconds later. When the console restarted, I started on the main menu of the game, looking as I had seen it on GameXplain and various other videos I’d seen on YouTube. When I selected the first option, however, there was 1 used file, the third one, but Mario's face wasn't on the file, rather the picture of the extremely demonic Yoshi from the logo.

There was 1 available file, the first one. The second one was simply grayed out with the words ‘Not enough memory space to proceed!’ written over it. I simply ignored this and decided to check out what progress the third file had on it.

To my surprise, the guy had already 100% completed the game, and he’d collected several million coins, something I’d somehow missed at the Main Menu. One thing I did wonder was ‘How in the WORLD could he have collected 4 and a half million coins in just a few hours?’ The game couldn’t possibly have given the player THAT many coins, and the game couldn’t possibly be that easy to 100%. He’d either used GameShark or Live Action Replay or something, or he was just an extremely hardcore Mario fan, most likely the first.

He was in the Star World. I touched the World 1 icon on the touch screen, but found myself being teleported to the New Super Mario Bros. Wii world map. This really didn’t bother me that much except for the fact that the fortress looked like the New Super Mario Bros. Wii one as opposed to the New Super Mario Bros. one and the one I’d seen in the Star World. I entered the first level and played through it.

It played through just as it had in the various videos of it I’d seen on YouTube, but with different graphics. The question marks on the ? blocks were written in blood, as it appeared, and whenever I stomped on a goomba or burned a koopa, there would be a small blood stain on the screen where that enemy was. I beat the level with 2 star coins, 666 coins, and 333 seconds remaining. (By the way, 2 divided into 666 is 333)

Right then, a message box popped up and read ‘You should have stopped sooner. It is too late now.’

This next part is where I decided this was either a hacked copy or a haunted copy.

I reentered level 1-1 to find the third star coin, but all I found was the fact that the level was just an ocean of blood now. When I reached the midway point, the picture of the abused Yoshi showed up on screen. I had 3D on, so I was scared half to death.

I’d used to be a huge fan of Yoshi, but starting then, I wasn’t quite so much anymore.

When the picture disappeared from the screen, my player was gone, and in his place was the Yoshi, pleased, as though he had just finished eating Mario. And my proof that he did? I lost a life.

I appeared on the world map, but now I wasn’t just Mario anymore. Now, I was a neglected version of Mario, just like Yoshi- Mario’s eyeballs were bloodshot, and blood was dripping from his chin.

I concluded here that the demon passed from person to person as the demonic person murdered another, so Yoshi was presumably perfectly fine now. I proceeded through the level, although it wasn’t me that was controlling it, Mario was controlling himself. Rather, Oiram (oh-ee-ram) was controlling himself.

I called him Oiram since Oiram was Mario backwards, and since he wasn’t really Mario anymore, really just a backwards, twisted version of himself. Therefore, the demonic Yoshi was really Ihsoy (ih-soi).

When Oiram reached the end of the level, he grabbed the top of the flagpole, but, rather than gaining a life, he lost one. Princess Peach was behind the flagpole, and she was overjoyed to see Mario as she was stranded there. She didn’t know it was really Oiram. A picture of Oiram appeared on the screen for the same amount of time as the picture of Ihsoy did. When it was gone, Princess Peach was lying on the ground, dead, and over her was the demon, ripping her apart bit by bit.

I looked away for roughly 2 minutes here, so there are no details here, but I’m sure you wouldn’t want to hear them anyways.

Oiram was standing perfectly still, content with himself. He suddenly collapsed and dissolved into the air. The demon crawled into Princess Peach. Her final words were, “Mario… How could you?” She finally was taken over by the demon, and was now Hcaep Ssecnirp (Hu-cay-ep sec-nerp).

This was the first point I considered giving up on the game, but curiosity killed the cat, didn’t it? Or, in this case, curiosity killed everyone. Curiosity is a dangerous, dangerous thing...

At this point, I gave up on the first level and decided to move on to the second.

In World 1-2, Mario was back to normal. Mario was Mario, not Oiram.

I started to move. After moving about 8 tiles, Hcaep Ssecnirp appeared at the start of the level, where Mario had been just milliseconds before. Hcaep Ssecnirp started chasing Mario, but she was running at an extremely fast pace, and it all happened so fast that I barely had any time to react.

By the time I reacted about half a second later, she was already only 3 tiles behind Mario. Mario started to run at full speed, but Hcaep Ssecnirp was running a bit faster. Mario came out the pipe, and Hcaep had entered it. Mario ran past the first group of bricks, and Hcaep had been under the last one. This stressful chase went on throughout the first half of the level until Hcaep had caught up with Mario.

Mario was knocked down as Hcaep dug into Mario’s stomach. Naturally, I looked away for about 3 minutes. I then looked through my fingers to see if it was over, and it was.

Oiram was back, but he lay on the ground, fainted. There was no sign of Mario or Hcaep Ssecnirp, but Princess Peach was there, looking over the knocked out Oiram. She started to reach out to try to help Oiram, but she thought twice and backed away. She quickly turned around and broke into a sprint until she found help. Yoshi was underneath the group of bricks toward the beginning of the level, and Yoshi was running to the right, as if he was chasing Hcaep Ssecnirp and Mario, trying to see what was happening.

Princess Peach told Yoshi what was going on and that Yoshi needed to take them back above ground to where shelter was. Yoshi agreed to help Peach and allowed Peach to ride him to safety. Yoshi flutter-jumped up to the pipe that entered the level and they entered it.

Being above ground was no better though, as everything there was now flooded with a sea of blood as well as the first level.

I’d like to insert here that, although I considered at least 20 times in this minute of the game to simply rip out the game cartridge, throw it to the ground, and stomp on it for at least 3 and a half hours, I didn’t, because I knew I needed to finish this game if I wasn’t going to have nightmares for a week until I committed suicide. So I kept playing.

Yoshi simply flutter-jumped over the entire level, as if it was no problem. At the end, Yoshi and Peach grabbed onto the flagpole, as you would expect, and slid down, pulling the Bowser flag down, and pulling up another flag in its place. However, this flag didn’t have a Mario Symbol, a Luigi Symbol, or a Princess Peach symbol. This flag bore the symbol of the demon who had been taking control of everyone’s bodies.

At the end of the level complete animation, Princess Peach and Yoshi were struck to the ground by none other than Oiram. Oiram started ripping Yoshi and Peach apart again, and my mind told me to look away again, but for some reason I couldn’t do it. I don’t know why at all, because I could control my eyes to look around the screen, but it was almost as if there was some invisible barrier preventing my eyes from looking beyond it. I just couldn’t bring myself to look away. Either way, I’m not telling you what it looked like, because it looked absolutely disturbing and disgusting.

After Oiram ripped Yoshi and Princess Peach apart, Oiram dissolved into the air and Princess Peach and Yoshi were mutating into Hcaep Ssecnirp and Ihsoy. I hadn’t noticed that they’d mutated into the demonic versions before, only that they had been replaced by them.

After this level, the world map switched back from the New Super Mario Bros. Wii world 1 map to the regular New Super Mario Bros. 2 world 1 map displayed in the YouTube videos. This is where the game got somewhat normal for a little while. Throughout the rest of World 1 and all of Worlds 2 and 3, the demonic people weren’t murdering each other, although I would occasionally get a text box saying that Ihsoy and Hcaep Ssecnirp were coming for Mario (the text box didn’t actually call them Ihsoy and Hcaep Ssecnirp, but it did say something along the lines of them coming after Mario).

Once I arrived in World 4-1, however, it was worse than the first two levels. The level was exactly like the Cheese Bridge Area from Super Mario World, other than the graphics, which were normal to New Super Mario Bros. 2. At the time, I had no clue as to whether or not it was supposed to be like this since I hadn’t seen any videos about World 4-1 yet.

The creepiest part about it was that the bridge had a few blood stains on it here and there. As I progressed through the level, the blood stains grew more and more common, until I reached the end of the level. By that point, the bridge tiles were entirely red with blood, and I found there Ihsoy and Hcaep Ssecnirp, ripping apart Mario’s own brother, Luigi.

They finished Luigi off and looked up to see Mario. They started chasing him. Mario starting running backwards through the level, as Luigi mutated in Igiul (Eej-ih-wol). Igiul, Ihsoy, and Hcaep Ssecnirp chased Mario backwards through the level until Mario got to a good place to attempt to jump over the three of the demon characters. Unfortunately, by the time Mario started to jump, Igiul, Ihsoy, and Hcaep Ssecnirp had struck Mario down and started to tear him apart.

This is where this game got really weird. Apparently, Bowser had heard about what was going on and decided no one was allowed to ‘defeat’ Mario (like Bowser did anyways) except for him (yeah, like that’s gonna happen) and decided to come whoop the demonic characters. Bowser fought off Igiul, Ihsoy, and Hcaep Ssecnirp until they just left for a while. Bowser helped Mario up and kicked him past the next few levels.

The level was exited and I was taken to the world map as Mario flew past a few levels to World 4-5.

In World 4-5, my character started on top of a rather high cliff. I jumped off of it to find the rest of the level below the screen. To the right, there was the entrance to an underground tunnel. I tried continuing to the right above ground, but the screen would scroll any further, so i decided to enter it.

Once in the tunnel, I ran further to the right for almost ten minutes. Eventually, Mario ran into Igiul, sitting there, ripping out Bowser's insides, so I, of course, covered my eyes.

I took my hands away from my eyes when it was over, and saw that Igiul was gone, and Bowser was replaced with Reswob (Rez-wob). At this point, I thought to myself, Wow, 'Reswob' has striking resemblance to 'Reznor.'

By this point, I thought I had put all of the pieces together, and I now believed that the return of Reznor to the Mario series had caused all of this. I did a speedrun through all of the levels up to the next level with a Reznor boss fight in it and prepared for the worst.

Once I arrived at the boss fight, I was Fire Mario and had a leaf in my reserve. Reznor made his regular roaring sound, but this time, a message box popped up that read, 'You have been foolish to try to defeat me, Matthew. I am sorry to do this, but your life must end. It's a shame that one such as yourself will perish soon after you. And another, and another, and another.'

"How do you know my name?" I muttered, "And what makes you think you have the autority or the ability to end my life?"

I'd think back now and feel foolish for talking to a video game, but it actually responded.

"How do I know your name, you ask? The answer to that is simple. You've muttered your name in your sleep many times, Matthew.

"It doesn't matter if I have the authority to kill you, Matthew, and I don't have to have the ability to kill my enemy, I only have to have a weak enemy."

"Yeah," I responded, "and it's too bad that you're about to get owned. Once and for all!"

The text boxes stopped popping up, and the boss fight began. The platforms the Reznors were on were spinning quite a bit faster than they were in the other Reznor battles and the Reznors were throwing fireballs an awful lot faster than before, but I still managed to defeat them all one by one.

I hit the block underneath the first Reznor, and Mario lost his Fire Flower. I defeated the second Reznor, and he shrunk down to small Mario. I pulled out my leaf for the next two Reznors. As I did so, a picture of Ihsoy and Hcaep Ssecnirp lying on the ground as the demons possessing them started to get weaker. The demons were controlled by the Reznors.

Every time I defeated a Reznor, Mario lost a power-up, so after defeating two more, Mario had no more power-ups left, and he couldn't continue with the boss fight.

A message box popped up.

"I'm afraid it has to end, Matthew. Give up to the devil and accept your fate. You cannot argue with your destiny, Matthew."

"Yeah, I can't, which is why I'm glad this isn't it!"

The message box disappeared and a picture popped up. The demons possessing Peach and Yoshi had died. Yoshi and Peach were now starting to get up. As they did, they started to cheer Mario on. Peach then said, "Don't worry, Mario! We can do it if we work together!"

Princess Peach and Yoshi suddennly ran onto the screen. Princess Peach gave Mario another leaf, and I continued to fight the Reznors. Yoshi hopped up onto the platforms and stuck his tongue out and ate two of the Reznors. Mario hit the block under another one, and there was one left.

"I see how it is," the last Reznor said. "You think you have beaten me, but you haven't. This isn't the end."

"No, it isn't," I replied, "Not for me. I'm sorry to do this, but your life must end," I said, cleverly repeating what he'd said just moments earlier.

I hit the B button and Mario jumped, defeating Reznor once and for all, and killing the demons possessing Luigi and Bowser.

"This isn't the end..." Reznor whispered as he faded away.

The level ended, and I said, "Yes, it is."

After this, the game played perfectly normally, and World 4-1 was no longer Cheese Bridge Area from Super Mario World. I never saw Yoshi again in the game, so I assumed that he wasn't supposed to be in the game to begin with.

---

After all these years, I was looking through my closet for things to sell at a garage sell to get some extra money, when I came across the cartridge for this. I decided to see what I'd done on it, as I couldn't really remember what my progress was on it. I popped it into my 3DS, and i clicked on the third file.

I noticed that only the progress I'd made was still there, as I remembered that I had been playing on the previous owner's file, which was 100%. I went through all of the worlds to check which star coins were missing, only to find that I was only missing one star coin: the third star coin in World 1-1.

I went back into World 1-1 a few times until I found the third star coin. I finally collected it, and my console suddenly shut off. I tried rebooting it a few times, but it never turned on. I tried plugging it into the charger, but it still refused. I tried a few different things until I finally decided that my 3DS was broken.

The game's been much fun to play, but since my 3DS recently broke, my game has been rendered useless. Because of this, I've decided to sell it as well as many other things in the garage sale.

The reason I am typing this is so the next person to play this knows about the creepy things of this game and knows not to go back through to see what the third file has completed on it.

This is where I conclude this tale, as I have nothing left to tell. If you want more, I'm sorry, but I no longer own that copy of the game, and I have no records of who bought it. Never forget to beware of Reznor. Never forget...