Mario World Writeup

Given its immense depth, breadth and degree of technological advancement for its time it would be impossible to quantify Super Mario World in one blog post. But by golly we're gonna try, I mean if Hollywood managed to make a coherent (not really) film out of Southland Tales then how bad can I possibly fail?

Super Mario World is my second favorite game of all time, it came with my original Super Nintendo (together with Mario Kart) and the fact that I chose the console over going Disneyland only makes it that much more special. I spent countless hours, years even, finding every little secret in the game and 13 years later I'm not sure I've actually accomplished it.

The unfortunate (or fortunate) part of the whole thing is that after I bought it I managed to get to the exact same point I was all those years ago in only a couple of days, this didn't ruin the game for me, it merely proved how awesome I am.

From Star Road to the Special world to the alternate universe in which the Koopas wear pumpkin Mario masks I've achieved it and it feels great, but enough tooting my own horn, lets move on to the actual gameplay.

Even though Super Mario 3 is a great game this one completely revolutionized the franchise for the better. It took advantage of the superior engine, color pallette and graphics of the SNES instantly making any NES game graphically obsolete. The map in which Mario navigates is rich with color and small details as are the stages, the baddies, the bosses and even Mario himself.

Mario's arsenal in this installment consists of a feather that serves the same function as the raccoon leaf and the always powerful fireflower. I have a crush on the fireflower, its so useful that everything pales in comparison. Even though we lose Frogman Mario the fact that we now have Yoshi more than makes up for it. Its a fucking dinosaur that can fly, shoot fire and stomp the ground, thats pretty impressive and it gives Mario a huge advantage: from access to various secrets stages and portals to the ability to completely skip a stage by flying through it and then some.

The baddies are revised versions of those that appear in previous games. Perhaps most noteworthy are the goombas which now have a distinct tomato shape (as seen above). The bosses are still the Koopa kids and this game features the triumphant debut of Big Boo.

To describe the game would be impossible simply because its so well known, beloved and the gameplay is the same as any 2-D Mario game. That is to say: its simple, its easy to just pick it up and play and even though there are a select number of templates for stages (ghost house, climb, castle, timed) they are varied enough to keep it entertaining. All the different worlds are interconnected and make one pretty map, every other Mario game had a meta map in which our hero advances but none were interconnected, here there is a real sense of being able to travel back and forth as much as one desires.

The objective of the game escapes me, something about rescuing the Princess while also saving some infant Yoshi's all of which have been kidnapped by Bowser and his kids. Sounds like all the other Mario games but that makes it no less fun. There are no negatives in this game, aside from the desperation that can set in when one is unable to get through the forest of desperation.

Thats it. A series of random thoughts that will have to do as a Super Mario World review. We ddint even get to the football players! or the 17 life trick! but fuck it, maybe some other time. For now I'm just glad I have this game, its been too long since that faithful day when that asshat that was supposed to fix my SNES ended up keeping my copy never to return it.

Coming Soon: the long promised Koopa Kids post!