I'm not a massive fan of the modern games, myself, I actually prefer the classics. However, one game I always enjoyed was Super Mario Galaxy. That was a relatively modern game, and had an epic ending. One part I personally love was when Bowser was whacked across the face so hard that he flew straight into the massive ball of lava. That was brilliant. I played it over and over again, like, every time I had spare time it was replaying that single cutscene. Most Bowser defeats are very typical, cliché, boring and are all the same thing - Mario jumps over or under him, hits a massive button or axe and Bowser falls into the lava; this was unique. A few years back, Super Mario Galaxy 2 was released, and I desperately wanted to play it. I had seen trailers, walkthroughs, done research, everything. The last thing on the agenda was to play the game myself. Unfortunately, my Wii had broken, so I got a Wii U instead! I knew through all my research that most Wii Games were compatible with the Wii U, and I totally freaked out that I finally had a console to play the game on. Yes, I could have used an emulator, but it's not the same.

-Starting up the game-

As predicted, the game was fairly glitch, but who's to blame? Me, probably. I must have got the disc dusty. However, I always like seeing what crazy things that games are capable of doing, so I continued playing. After a long loading screen, which seemed totally normal at the time, I came to the title screen. It looked absolutely gorgeous. Just as the title screen loaded, I could already tell how beautiful the game was going to me. I have that kind of gift with games. I can tell that they're going to be good at the moment they get booted up.

EXCEPT.

There was one strange thing. In the corner of the screen, where normally there would be a 'NINTENDO' logo or something, I don't remember, there were plain words. I didn't just understand it. Just in a plain white font, on two separate lines, were the words, "You Killed Him." and "ARE YOU PROUD?"

I didn't understand this, but ideas soon came to mind when I entered the file select screen. Instead of the usual dark planetary bodies that serve as unused files, there were massive balls of fire! They had craters in them too. Strangely enough, this looked exactly the same as the ball of fire from SMG1 in which Bowser dies...

I tried to shake off this bad feeling and opened a new file. Again, something weird happened. There were no notifications, confirmation options, Mii selections or anything, it just started the file...

-Confronting the Second Introductionary Course-

As soon as I started the file I already knew something was wrong, as the game faded to black before re-opening, I caught a glimpse of a flashing image of Bowser's face in Anime! It was all beat up and burnt and... looked very dark...

Mario, why are you playing games with me?

It only lasted for a single frame, so I couldn't even take a picture. When the game started, there should have been an interesting opening cutscene and then a little bit of gameplay introduction in a peaceful environment just outside of the Mushroom Castle Grounds, however, this time, I appeared straight in the castle grounds, and there was no music, or sound effects, or any effects, or ANYTHING at all there that should have been. Mario played normally though. I moved him around and he did make his usual noises, but they sounded a little more as if he were grunting.

As I ran longer and longer, until it felt like I had been running forever, I started to notice the terrible damage inflicted on the walls behind me. Finally, I came to the area in which a cutscene would normally play and Bowser would make his first talking appearance in the game. Yet, as I came to the entrance, all I could hear was Mario's footsteps, still strangely different, but irrelevant nonetheless.

Another thing I noticed was that the sky was darker, and was getting more and more so as I got closer to the entrance. The last thing I noticed was that there was no Bowser, no Peach, no Lumas, but the Toads...

They all lay dead on the ground, completely limp and rotting as if they had been dead for a thousand decades. As I turned Mario to the camera, I saw something different in his eyes. There was no longer a twinkle of determination, but a pale, diluted, black spot patched onto each bloodshot eyeball. When I turned back to face the destruction before me I noticed something even weirder. Just in front of the castle was a massive launch star.

"That wasn't there before!" I thought nervously. Anyway, I ran past the toads, feeling guilty about leaving them to rot.

Or is that what already happened?

Words then flashed onto the screen as I closed in on the launch star. It completely obscured my vision of the actual game, but luckily the words were a little translucent. They kept moving so I had to watch carefully if I wanted to know what the hell was going on.

They said things like, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" or "WHY DO YOU HATE US?" or even "YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR DASTARDLY DEEDS!"

I ignored them easily.

BUT.

When one massive line appeared in central-screen, I had to pay attention.

It read, "REMEMBER THIS?" and a quick image of Bowser falling into the lava was shown. It had somehow been perfectly captured in the split second in which Bowser crashes into the lava.

It was only then that the jigsaw pieces began falling into place.

"Oh no," I muttered.

-Galaxy 1, Star 1-

After I had entered the launch star, I waited for the game to load. As it did, I began pondering over everything I had just witnessed. Bowser, the balls of fire, the words 'I killed him', and then the destruction.

Could it be? No, absolutely not. Mario is a children's game, they wouldn't promote such dark imagery in a game's storyline, would they?

Actually, if I remember correctly, according to my research, Mario was originally designed for adults! Kids just became more interested and the games became more and more light-hearted!

HOW COULD YOU NINTENDO?!

Back to the game, where I would normally enter the star select screen and be forced to select the first star, the game simply froze, and then loaded a silent level. Again, all I could hear was Mario, and everything else had mysteriously disappeared or frozen. There were no enemies, or power-ups, or even moving obstacles! They were all gone (a few were just frozen)! The only other NPC objects I could find that Mario was still fully compatible with were the launch stars and sling stars.

I explored the stage nonetheless, and it took me about an hour to finally accept that I had to complete it. When I came to the final planet, I noticed that the only other thing on the planet was half of a cracked egg, and a seemingly dead Peewee Piranha lying partially inside the egg. As I moved closer, he revealed the star that you are supposed to collect as he explodes, yet all that happens is that I see the words on-screen that read, "JUST TAKE IT AND GO AWAY!"

So, following those orders, I ran up to the star, but the game annoyingly froze just in the split second that I was about to collect the star. I turned off the Wii U and got very pissed off. What was going on?! I needed to know, right there, right then.

But I also needed to calm down, so I took a break, got ready for bed, and as soon as my head touched my pillow I drifted off into a deep sleep.

-My First Night-Terror-

I've never had a night-terror before, but it sounds absolutely petrifying.

It's also known in certain places as a 'screaming nightmare'.

I was lucky enough to have never had one before, but tonight was different. I had a very scary dream, which progressed as the following:

As soon as the dream began, I realised I was in a peaceful environment, that was a bit helpful. I strolled around a bit, exploring the enormous terrain surrounding me. The only weird thing was that every time I turned to face north, I could have sworn I heard a vanishing sound in the south. I began walking forward, unconscious of what I was doing, until I found myself staring down at the biggest cliff I could possibly imagine.

That didn't make me happy, it made me anxious.

As I turned away from the cliff, to distract myself, I heard whispering noises, completely irrelevant to everything that had previously happened, but it felt strange. As if the whispering was not just getting louder and clearer, but closer. I looked around me, and then...

I saw it.

There, standing right before me, was a completely blurred shadow of a somewhat familiar figure.

"M-M-M-M-Mario?!" I stuttered. It was at that point that I began hearing some of the whispering, it repeatedly spat strange lines like, "YOU FREAK!" and "You should have burnt too that day..."

I don't think I liked that dream anymore after that.

And then the mysterious figure came right up in my face and laughed demonically.

"Keep playing with me, I enjoy our little games..." it murmured, before pushing me right off the cliff.

And I screamed.