10 Hilariously Bad Super Mario Rip-Offs
2. Somari
If you're going to rip off one game, why not do it to two? That's likely what went through the developers' heads when they came up with Somari. The game is an unlicensed recreation of Sonic the Hedgehog, but instead of using Sonic, the main character is Mario... for some reason.
The game's title is a portmanteau of both "Sonic" and "Mario," and the game is essentially the same as Sonic the Hedgehog, but made to work on the Famicom. It was primarily sold in Asia, parts of Russia, and other places where pirated NES carts could be found.
Pretty much every part of Somari is taken from the source code of Sonic the Hedgehog, and there aren't many differences between the two. The game follows Somari as he goes up against Doctor Eggman, an evil scientist intent on turning all the animals of South Island into evil robots — sound familiar?
What made this game even remotely good was that it made it possible for people who owned a Nintendo to play Sonic the Hedgehog. Before this homebrew was made, Sonic could only be played on the Sega Genesis, making this particular backport popular even if it did suffer from poor controls and bad physics.