3
Super Mario World
Platform: SNES
Wow, my first Super Nintendo game ever. It was packaged with the Super Nintendo so I think it unfairly gets the distinctive title of being one of the most popular games of all time. Do I think it deserves to be one of the most talked about and popular games of all time? Yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have it as my #3 game of all time. Anyone who has played a Super Nintendo before has more than likely played this game, so does it really need a long drawn out blurb? Yes, yes it does.
Ever since I first played this I thought it was actually a direct sequel to Super Mario 3. See things were radically different from Super Mario 1 to Super Mario 2, yeah I know the second one wasn’t really a Mario game. Same thing goes for Super Mario World to Yoshi’s Island. But Super Mario World feels almost identical to Super Mario 3. They both use the over-world map, they both feature power ups you don’t have to use right away and finally you don’t have to exit every level in a conventional way. Although those were the similarities, there were numerous things that made the game radically different. The introduction of Yoshi was the most noticeable but we must not forget some of the subtle yet gameplay changing changes. First and foremost, the game is huge in comparison to all Mario’s before it. The game featured seven different worlds such as Donut Plains, Vanilla Dome, Chocolate Plains and Valley of Bowser. The game also featured Star World and Bonus World which needed to be found via secret exits. Each stage in the game was color coded. Red mean there is a secret exit that will take you to a different part of the map while yellow have a definitive exit and no frills or things to look for. It took me a year or two to figure it out but as soon as I did I would go to every single red level to look for hidden exits. Switch palaces were also added to the game. They were invisible blocks before you hit the switch located somewhere in the game world. They contained Mushrooms, Feathers or Flowers dependent on their color. You can go the whole game without ever hitting a switch palace but unfortunately the game will be harder and you will miss out on a lot of secrets. Hell if you can find the right warp pipes you can finish the game in under an hour. But like I mentioned before Yoshi was the absolute biggest change to this game aside from the cape and feather of course but I need to mention Yoshi. Yoshi can swallow enemies and take a hit for Mario if you like. Also different colored shells for Koopa Troopas do different things. Red make Yoshi spit fire, green come back out as shells, yellow make Yoshi stomp the ground and finally the blue five Mario flight for a temporary moment. The flight was especially useful with reaching secret areas. In the star world there are colored Yoshis that no matter what shell they swallow they will do one action. The blue Yoshi will fly; yellow will stomp and so forth and so on. Unfortunately Yoshi can not enter castles or ghost houses so you are on your own. I never understood why he stayed back. Many of the mainstays of the franchise returned such as the 1up mushroom, coins, mushrooms and flowers. Most all of the power ups from Mario 3 were taken away but what power up we got new was simply amazing. The feather that gives Mario a cape was the finest addition to the game other than Yoshi of course. The flight worked so much better than Mario 3. The ability to catch wind and gain more altitude was a nice touch. Sometimes I’d cheat my ass off and just fly through the entire stage. After you first get to use the cape in the second world, you won’t go back to the fire flower. Yeah, it was that good. The enemies in the game were also mainstays of the franchise but we did get a lot of new ones. Chargin’ Chucks, Rex and Dino-Rhinos were some of the new enemies. Instead of rehashing old ones, Nintendo really came up with some quality characters to stand in your way. The underwater levels were finally fun and the enemy AI was easy to figure out but still frustrating when you make rookie mistakes. This game had solid gameplay from controls to just about everything else. A true rarity in gaming.
It’s hard to really to review a story for a game like this. I mean there isn’t much cinematics other than when you beat a castle. But the story goes as such, Mario and Princess Toadstool go on vacation to Dinosaur Land via hot air balloon. While Mario and Luigi are dicking around the island, Bowser and the Koopa kids kidnap Princess Toadstool and trap the Yoshis in eggs. So Mario sets off on a journey to rescue her and free the Yoshi. Like I said earlier, there are seven worlds to explore that are very diverse. Each area looks radically different and each has one of the Kooplings to battle at the end. After you successfully beat each Koopling you will get to watch Mario destroy the castle. Sometimes he blows it up or other times he stomps on it. Some are even comedic. I’ve told you guys close to 100 times that I’m a big story game but Mario doesn’t really have to have a story. You know you have to complete all levels before you can finally have your final standoff against Bowser. Bowser’s castle in this game is just as difficult as it is in all of the previous Mario games. I mean it’s not that complex of a story like most of the newer Mario games but it’s still a lot of damn fun to take down Bowser and his kids.
For a game that came out in 1991, Super Mario World looks pretty god damn good. When I first played this I was taken back. I was so used to the simple 8 bit graphics of the NES that when I doubled that on the SNES I didn’t know what to think. Mario never looked better and the stages were so vibrant and full of color, it was really a great upgrade compared to the drab we got previously. What I would include in the jump in graphics is how much we had on one screen at once. That might sound really dumb at first but when you enter a Boo house and see all the boos flying around you realize how cool that really is. The best part about all of that is the fact that there is absolutely no slow down while playing. Everyone from Mario to Bowser and even the Goombas got a nice face lift but fortunately they all kept to their classic image. I dunno what it was about looking at this game but it just felt like no matter where you were in the game it looked inviting and pleasing to the eye. Now no Mario game would be complete without an excellent soundtrack. Super Mario World greatly improved upon the excellent sound in Mario 3. The classic Mario theme returned plus numerous new ones that are just as catchy. There’s probably only one other game on the Super Nintendo that I would say sounded better but you either know what it is or you’ll find out.
Super Mario World is one of the few games I play once a year just to remember old times. It’s saying something when I still play a game over 20 years old. This game pretty much started a new Era of gaming. It’s a staple of my gaming library and a game I’ll never forget as long as I’m still gaming. Watch the video below.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXvHHwOYTFg"]Super Mario World - SNES Gameplay - YouTube[/ame]
Super Mario World
Platform: SNES
Wow, my first Super Nintendo game ever. It was packaged with the Super Nintendo so I think it unfairly gets the distinctive title of being one of the most popular games of all time. Do I think it deserves to be one of the most talked about and popular games of all time? Yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have it as my #3 game of all time. Anyone who has played a Super Nintendo before has more than likely played this game, so does it really need a long drawn out blurb? Yes, yes it does.
Ever since I first played this I thought it was actually a direct sequel to Super Mario 3. See things were radically different from Super Mario 1 to Super Mario 2, yeah I know the second one wasn’t really a Mario game. Same thing goes for Super Mario World to Yoshi’s Island. But Super Mario World feels almost identical to Super Mario 3. They both use the over-world map, they both feature power ups you don’t have to use right away and finally you don’t have to exit every level in a conventional way. Although those were the similarities, there were numerous things that made the game radically different. The introduction of Yoshi was the most noticeable but we must not forget some of the subtle yet gameplay changing changes. First and foremost, the game is huge in comparison to all Mario’s before it. The game featured seven different worlds such as Donut Plains, Vanilla Dome, Chocolate Plains and Valley of Bowser. The game also featured Star World and Bonus World which needed to be found via secret exits. Each stage in the game was color coded. Red mean there is a secret exit that will take you to a different part of the map while yellow have a definitive exit and no frills or things to look for. It took me a year or two to figure it out but as soon as I did I would go to every single red level to look for hidden exits. Switch palaces were also added to the game. They were invisible blocks before you hit the switch located somewhere in the game world. They contained Mushrooms, Feathers or Flowers dependent on their color. You can go the whole game without ever hitting a switch palace but unfortunately the game will be harder and you will miss out on a lot of secrets. Hell if you can find the right warp pipes you can finish the game in under an hour. But like I mentioned before Yoshi was the absolute biggest change to this game aside from the cape and feather of course but I need to mention Yoshi. Yoshi can swallow enemies and take a hit for Mario if you like. Also different colored shells for Koopa Troopas do different things. Red make Yoshi spit fire, green come back out as shells, yellow make Yoshi stomp the ground and finally the blue five Mario flight for a temporary moment. The flight was especially useful with reaching secret areas. In the star world there are colored Yoshis that no matter what shell they swallow they will do one action. The blue Yoshi will fly; yellow will stomp and so forth and so on. Unfortunately Yoshi can not enter castles or ghost houses so you are on your own. I never understood why he stayed back. Many of the mainstays of the franchise returned such as the 1up mushroom, coins, mushrooms and flowers. Most all of the power ups from Mario 3 were taken away but what power up we got new was simply amazing. The feather that gives Mario a cape was the finest addition to the game other than Yoshi of course. The flight worked so much better than Mario 3. The ability to catch wind and gain more altitude was a nice touch. Sometimes I’d cheat my ass off and just fly through the entire stage. After you first get to use the cape in the second world, you won’t go back to the fire flower. Yeah, it was that good. The enemies in the game were also mainstays of the franchise but we did get a lot of new ones. Chargin’ Chucks, Rex and Dino-Rhinos were some of the new enemies. Instead of rehashing old ones, Nintendo really came up with some quality characters to stand in your way. The underwater levels were finally fun and the enemy AI was easy to figure out but still frustrating when you make rookie mistakes. This game had solid gameplay from controls to just about everything else. A true rarity in gaming.
It’s hard to really to review a story for a game like this. I mean there isn’t much cinematics other than when you beat a castle. But the story goes as such, Mario and Princess Toadstool go on vacation to Dinosaur Land via hot air balloon. While Mario and Luigi are dicking around the island, Bowser and the Koopa kids kidnap Princess Toadstool and trap the Yoshis in eggs. So Mario sets off on a journey to rescue her and free the Yoshi. Like I said earlier, there are seven worlds to explore that are very diverse. Each area looks radically different and each has one of the Kooplings to battle at the end. After you successfully beat each Koopling you will get to watch Mario destroy the castle. Sometimes he blows it up or other times he stomps on it. Some are even comedic. I’ve told you guys close to 100 times that I’m a big story game but Mario doesn’t really have to have a story. You know you have to complete all levels before you can finally have your final standoff against Bowser. Bowser’s castle in this game is just as difficult as it is in all of the previous Mario games. I mean it’s not that complex of a story like most of the newer Mario games but it’s still a lot of damn fun to take down Bowser and his kids.
For a game that came out in 1991, Super Mario World looks pretty god damn good. When I first played this I was taken back. I was so used to the simple 8 bit graphics of the NES that when I doubled that on the SNES I didn’t know what to think. Mario never looked better and the stages were so vibrant and full of color, it was really a great upgrade compared to the drab we got previously. What I would include in the jump in graphics is how much we had on one screen at once. That might sound really dumb at first but when you enter a Boo house and see all the boos flying around you realize how cool that really is. The best part about all of that is the fact that there is absolutely no slow down while playing. Everyone from Mario to Bowser and even the Goombas got a nice face lift but fortunately they all kept to their classic image. I dunno what it was about looking at this game but it just felt like no matter where you were in the game it looked inviting and pleasing to the eye. Now no Mario game would be complete without an excellent soundtrack. Super Mario World greatly improved upon the excellent sound in Mario 3. The classic Mario theme returned plus numerous new ones that are just as catchy. There’s probably only one other game on the Super Nintendo that I would say sounded better but you either know what it is or you’ll find out.
Super Mario World is one of the few games I play once a year just to remember old times. It’s saying something when I still play a game over 20 years old. This game pretty much started a new Era of gaming. It’s a staple of my gaming library and a game I’ll never forget as long as I’m still gaming. Watch the video below.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXvHHwOYTFg"]Super Mario World - SNES Gameplay - YouTube[/ame]
