Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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 (Best. Ally. Ever.)
[i]CLASSIC GAMING[/i]
Super Mario World
Developer - Nintendo
Publisher - Nintendo
Genre - Platformer
Year - 1990
System - SNES/Gameboy Advance
Because Europe's been a lil late in receiving that bundle of joy called Super Mario Galaxy 2 from the Nintendo stork, and the Americans have been in absolute rapture of their wonderful little new game, I decided to might as well go and review the game that is one of its biggest inspirations as a magnificent predecessor and above all else, a wonderful game.
Story - Super Mario World, like all Super Mario platformers, has a very very basic story. See if you heard this before. Bowser kidnaps Princess. Mario (and Luigi) go to rescue Princess. That's what we've known about him all the time. But there's a new twist. This is not the Mushroom Kingdom, but now Dinosaur World, a prehistoric landscape Bowser has decided to make his new kingdom within, aided by his seven children to conquer different parts of the new old world.
One of Mario's newest allies in this world becomes his closest friend other than Luigi. Yoshi the dinosaur, who is also on a quest to save his people who have been kidnapped by Bowser.
 (For more information on Yoshi, see above and below)
Graphics - This is literally one of the first games representing the 16-bit generation, and for a starting game it looks stirringly full of colour and life. The world map looks filled with activity yet is in no way confusing, the levels themselves are a variety of backgrounds from green triangle hills to rocky caverns to haunted houses to tall cliff areas.
Mario looks even fresher and updated than before with smoother rounder features, a bushier-looking moustache, a solid-looking sturdy comfortable-looking cap and a variety of new power-ups to use. And then there's Yoshi.
Dear Yoshi, perhaps the greatest ally any videogame character could ever ask for with a choice of a rainbow of colours to find and ride across the Dinosaur World. Water and lava effects shaped up excellently so in this era to look more like liquid, at least for water enough to be swimming in it and feel like it back then.
Despite being one of the few Mario platformer games not set in the Mushroom Kingdom, you barely feel out of place in this strange new world with a variety of vivid habitats to explore from top to bottom.
 (Trapped between a rock and a hard place, literally, for once)
Gameplay - The defining feature of Mario has always been this. Simple controls. Difficult levels. With a small array of tricks, you can be able to overcome any obstacle and whenever you fail, it is only because of your own skills needing to be sharpened, and should never be the fault of the game. While this is a rule all videogames try to maintain, Mario has maintained this the most solidly, in general.
First off, the controls are exactly the same as in the previous Mario games, with one button to hold down for running, and one for jumping, with the extra addition of a few new ideas, mainly the powerups. Mario has however gained a neat spin jump attack that allows him to be temporarily immune to certain dangerous obstacles, so long as he's spinning.
 (All we need now is some kind of Yoshi/Dolphin crossbreed, which would be an abomination unto God like those Yoshi/Coin crossbreeds)
On the powerups, we naturally have the mushroom, fire flower and star, but then comes along the feather. The feather gives you a magical yellow cape that can not only be lethal to enemies when spinning towards them, but also it can be used to reach great heights and glide across great distances by slowing your descent to the ground by half the speed, working control-wise like the Super Leaf in Super Mario Bros 3.
When you're running, jump and you're off in the air, whereby you must control your hovering skills as you race across the sky at an insane speed, literally flying across half the goddamn level if you can or want to.
And then there's Yoshi. More than a power-up, he's an ally of fortuitous loyalty. Not only does he act essentially as an extra hit to you, where afterwards he will run off until you catch him or he falls down a pit, but he also has better jumping power than Mario does, even though his legendary Flutter Jump would not come until Super Mario World 2.
 ("Just three more ghosts guys, and we can piss off Vincent Price with Scooby Doo!")
Yoshi does have a few powers of his own, namely the ability to swallow a crapton of enemies and items to either just eliminate them or even gain his own powerups. Examples include swallowing a red turtle shell to spit out fireballs, or the very rare Wings which allow Yoshi to fly up to the sky. Yoshi can also carry items such as keys around the place.
And lastly on powerups, you can keep a backup item automatically on pickup which will stay in a box above Mario's head always at the top of the screen, and if you ever need it, pressing Select will deposit the item down on top of you.
Now to move onto the differences in the worlds of Super Mario World, which are largely the secrets. There are MANY secrets in this game, including an entire secret world of eight gloriously brutal levels of difficulty that will test your skills as a Mario player.
Mostly these secrets are either by finding the Hidden Switch palaces around the world which will activate corresponding blocks of a particular colour in levels throughout the land, allowing you access to other secret areas.
 (HEY SPANWOLF GUESS WHAT I FOUND, DID YOU KNOW THERE WAS A SECRET WORLD IN SUPER MARIO WORLD NO OKAY COOL KTHXBAI HAVE FUN AT GAMESPY)
There are also the Keys. In each part of the Dinosaur World, there is one level with a key and a keyhole hidden apart. Finding them allows you to reach other areas that either access places across the map, or even bring you to the beautiful Star Road, which, if fully completed, bring you to the Secret World.
Music/Sound - The music itself, while memorable, is memorable for being usually rather short. Little of it is actually truly wonderful but they keep the mood in a jaunty way and above all, are enough of an earworm for you to remember forever. It does its duty, even if none of the music is emotional at all, until you have 100 seconds on the clock and OH CRAP I GOT STUCK BETWEEN BLOCKS ON A SCROLLING CAVE AREA FUUUUUUUCK.
Sound effects however are classic and always will be, from the weird....thingy of the feather to the sounds of Yoshi before he gained his voice years later in Yoshi's Story. Little can be said that has not already been said in good favour about them, in a nostalgic whimsical fashion.
 (The most epic boss fight of 1990)
One thing can be said for Mario's platformers. Most of the time they always improve on the same basic formula, which has always worked well and has always remained popular. Most of them have become groundbreakers in some way, usually introducing in a new era of videogames until lately.
That does not detract from their value at all as quality videogames of technical excellence. For many, Super Mario World was the very first 16-bit game ever made. And the first time they saw those colours in a glorious smoothness which at the time was mostly unheard of....people were enchanted.
And that is the magic of Mario. Hell this game is in such a state of perfection for its time that to this day people have made many MANY hacks of it to either make it a whole new experience or to see if they can truly create the Dante's Inferno of Platform Hell.
Heaven or hell, it's Mario time.
Fun and Innovation - 5
Replayability - 5
Gameplay - 5
Presentation - 4"Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto  Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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Number 3 is my favorite, though this is a very close second. Unfortunately I never owned either, myself, so didn't play them as much as I would have liked. =/
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Isnt this the one where you can eat mushrooms to power up? You wanna take this to Fuck Town?
Oh gadzooks, yes!
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Business wrote:Isnt this the one where you can eat mushrooms to power up? no no no this is the one where you save the princess from a fire-breathing turtle. Bah Weep Granah Weep Ninny Bong
This is the Narwhal.
Denne er narkval
Hvor er narkval?
Where is the narwhal?
Lykkkelig liten narkval!
Happy Little narwal!
This has been Conversational Norwegian with Freakazoid.
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Blahooligan wrote:no no no this is the one where you save the princess from a fire-breathing turtle. Oh? It's that one? No way, that sounds vaguely familiar...  Quote:Razor: As hard as one might try no one will ever be able to pull one over on Super Penguin. Backpack of Win
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Rank: Fecal Impaction For the Win!
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I honestly can't stand this one. Probably has something to do with the fact that my roommate would never let me play. But now Lost Levels... now that's one helluva game. silverwasp wrote:Be careful what you wish for... I have 10 younger siblings and I am only 20....
Yes.... Same parents WarMachine wrote:meh...maybe if he hadn't been handed a burning house he could have done great things, but right now he has won the Prize for what? Damage Control?
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Rank: Penguin Editor in Chief
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HolyJaw wrote:I honestly can't stand this one. Probably has something to do with the fact that my roommate would never let me play. But now Lost Levels... now that's one helluva game. "Welcome to Super Mario Bros NIGHTMARE MODE!" "Videogames are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n' roll." - Shigeru Miyamoto Hail Slither, The Eternal Champion!
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