Super Mario World
Yet another launch title from Nintendo’s past hits the Virtual Console
Tags: Wii Virtual Console Categories: Reviews, Wii Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Mar 3rd, 2007
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Wii Virtual Console (title page) | |||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| No | |||
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When Nintendo needed a “killer app” for the Super NES, the choice was clear – Super Mario Bros. 3 had just become the most successful game ever made, and the one game people were sure to want more than anything else was Super Mario Bros. 4. And when Sega started turning heads with a spunky blue hedgehog, Nintendo undoubtedly put development of Mario’s first 16-bit game into high gear in hopes of doing some damage control before Nintendo lost too much of the market to this new upstart competitor seeking to take control of the console market away from them.
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The results were probably inevitable. Super Mario World would essentially be a lot like Super Mario Bros. 3, but bigger and more ambitious. Meanwhile, Sonic would get more and more people entranced with its sheer speed and attitude (arguably glossing over a lack of depth), and that same experience that blew them away in Super Mario 3 suddenly now seemed slow and plodding. While many would claim Super Mario World was a better game, Sega’s new mascot stole much of Mario’s thunder.
Taking a step back to look at Super Mario World, it’s hard to be too critical with the game. What it lacks in originality it more than makes up for is sheer scope, depth, and quality. As the last traditional 2D platformer to star Mario (Yoshi’s Island wasn’t really Mario’s gig and New Super Mario Bros. is too much of a throwback to count), Super Mario World represents the most evolved and refined form of the classic Mario gameplay, and is arguably even better than its ultra-popular predecessor.
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Mario has dropped the raccoon tail from SMB3 in favor of the more versatile cape, and has traded in the nifty suits for a new mount in the form of the frog-tongued dinosaur Yoshi, who comes in all sorts of nifty colors with abilities including flight, fire breathing and powerful ground stomps (granted the right shell is handy to gobble up). In addition to this, Mario can snag the quirky P-Balloon, can power-up a regular Yoshi to a blue one with wings, and has all sorts of new abilities, including a spin jump, the ability to run straight up some walls, climb fences, boost-jump off a Yoshi, hold a spare power-up, hold an item while swimming, throw things upwards, blast out of some pipes like a cannon, and carry springboards and P-blocks to the place where you want to use them.
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New types of areas included the now-traditional ghost houses, the secret star road acting as the new warp zone, the nifty ! areas that can get you some easy bonus lives and spread helpful multicolored blocks throughout the game, and the super-secret Special zone designed expressly for the best Mario players. The game was also laid out in an all-encompassing overworld map instead of the limited world maps of Super Mario Bros. 3.
For the time, Super Mario World was huge, and it’s still pretty sizeable today, granted you want to explore and uncover all the game’s secrets and hidden areas and not just shoot straight to the end. And even though it’s pretty big, there’s still a lot of variety, and there’s always plenty of interesting stuff to do.
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And while Super Mario World’s graphics and sound aren’t exactly impressive today, they’re still bright and colorful and not at all unpleasant to look at, particularly with the Wii’s sharper image and higher resolution. It should be noted, though, that this game is just a tad awkward with a GameCube controller, so if you get it you may want to use a Classic Controller.
In the end, it’s simple – if you enjoy Mario-style platformers, you should own this game. If you don’t already have it on the SNES or GBA, the Virtual Console version is just as good (and arguably ever so slightly better), and this game deserves a spot in your library.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ Classic platforming at its best + Still holds up well today |
8.6 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- Not very original - Not as fast as Sonic (if that’s important to you) |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| If you like Mario-style platformers and don’t have it already on another platform, this one should be a no-brainer. | |
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Tags: Wii Virtual Console
Posted by Jake McNeill on Mar 3rd, 2007 and is filed under Reviews, Wii Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
