Some Genius Hacked The Beatles Into 'Super Mario Bros. 2'

The world of video game mods and hacks allows fans to finally get answers to age-old questions like "What if Mario was a perverted KKK member?" or "What if you could commit even more hate crimes in GTA?" or ... Okay, so a lot of these are trash. But, every once in a while, you come across a mod that makes not just this hobby but possibly even this entire unclean world feel like it's worth it. Like The Beatles Adventures in Pepperland. 

A frighteningly talented hacker known as Nesdraug, with invaluable help from music programmer Shauing, grabbed Super Mario Bros. 2, the ignored middle child of the Mario franchise, and turned it into the NES adaptation of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine cartoon movie that we never knew we desperately needed. Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Peach have been turned into George, Paul, Ringo, and John, all of them in their stylish Sgt. Pepper-era garb (which already made them look like wacky video game characters in 1967). 

The levels have been completely redesigned to resemble the trippy locations from the movie, and the enemies and items have been Beatle-fied as well -- for instance, the POW blocks that clear all enemies on screen now say LOVE, which means you can finally kill English Bobbies with kindness. John would be proud. 

The bosses have been replaced, too. Here's the Vacuum Monster from the movie taking Birdo's place, which works great because they're probably the same species. 

But, as cool as the graphics are, the game wouldn't work as well as it does if the music hadn't been completely replaced with 8-bit renditions of Beatles tunes, from "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" to "Eleanor Rigby" to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)," which is used as the invincibility theme (even though the song isn't in the movie, but we're not complaining because it rules). 

The choice of Super Mario Bros. 2 as the base game for this hack is particularly inspired, not just because it has four playable characters (whose abilities have been slightly tweaked to prevent players from just floating through the game as John/Peach), but because SMB2 itself is a "mod" -- as every nerd knows, it started as a different game made for a Japanese festival that Nintendo crammed some Mario characters into when the original Super Mario Bros. sequel proved too brutal for America. So, really, the hackers here are only continuing a tradition started by Nintendo itself.  

Watch Maxwell Yezpitelok inexpertly fumble his way through this game with some assistance from its creators here. 

Top image: Nesdraug