Super Mario 74

Super Mario 74 is a ROM hack made by Lugmillord. It was released in June 2011 and contains 151 stars. The difficulty is amped up, but not so much to the point of ruining the fun. It starts very easy, and has a good difficulty curve. It doesn't get too hard until the very end, and even more so in the final two "sphere" levels.

More over, the creator made an even harder version called Super Mario 74 Extreme Edition reusing levels from this game (replacing Champion's Challenge with Triarc-Bridge), but for the purpose of making them devilishly difficult.

The graphics are still the same as the original game, but there are few changes like the music, though most of the tracks still stay the same. The overworlds mostly contain pipes and instant warp zones hidden inside the "paintings" in order to transport between the levels.

This hack also has a very silly tone and is most likely meant to be a parody. The NPCs are there mostly for a quick laugh or joke, and getting a specific amount of stars usually results in a message taunting the player, saying that they're going too slow. Even some of the star names are taunting the player, such as any of the ones that are simply called "Secret..." or "Can You Find Me?". There are also some times that the game mentions the original Super Mario 64 by name/game and breaks the fourth wall.

Currently, this hack is being redone by the Project 74 team.

Plot
The main plot of this game is explained by a Toad close to where you spawn when you enter the Valley of the Toads. As usual, Princess Peach gets kidnapped by Bowser. However, there are more than the usual 120 stars, implying that is a direct sequel to Super Mario 64. The extra 30 stars happened to be hidden in the toilet. In-game, these 30 stars are placed throughout the overworlds and in the secret stages. Also, once you get to the final two levels, Mario learns of the Kubus(es), which are cubes that control certain aspects of every video game in existence. Though there are four in total, two are introduced in the original. The Kubus of Light provides energy for sunlight in every video game, and the Kubus of Darkness produces all of the darkness in every video game.