Super Mario World
Reviewed by Dogg
When the Game Boy Advance was released in stores in
June 2001 Nintendo started the new handheld with a
launch title based on the old Mario titles. Now 2
classic Mario games were packaged onto one cart and
that cart was then called Super Mario Advance.
However, no big named Mario titles were featured in
that cart, but now Nintendo is hoping to change that
with Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2. This
cart features if not one of the best Mario titles of
all time: Super Mario World. The cart also contains
an upgrade if you may call it to Mario Bros., which
in my opinion was never really a good title. However,
the fact remains- Super Mario World is the main game
in this cart and is just as fun as it was back when
it launched on the Super Nintendo well over 10 years ago.
Super Mario World is the 4th game in the Super Mario
Bros. Series (while all the other titles were
available for the NES and were simply called Super
Mario Bros.). The game like many Mario titles has a
simple, yet intuitive story. Bowser and his clan have
kidnapped Princess Peach (or Toadstool if you like),
while the Princess was having some fun with Mario and
Luigi back in Dinosaur Island. Bowser has also done
away and has stolen all of the eggs from a group of
dinosaurs called Yoshi. Now Mario or Luigi must pass
through all of Bowser's levels and through all of his
henchmen to recover Princess Peach (or Toadstool) and
must also return all of the dinosaur eggs to their
responsive owner.
Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 shows just
how good the conversion between GBA and SNES games
can be. Super Mario in every way acts, looks, and
plays like its Super Nintendo counterpart. It's nice
to see that this type of side-scrolling game play is
still very lively in games today, even if the
original game was released well over 10 years ago.
Super Mario World features well over 100 levels and
this by itself is an incredible feat. Just the
thought of pure gold areas with that old Mario feel
is just so good. The level design in this game
is superb and well done and the levels are themselves
both intuitive and innovative. Levels are also well
created making you perform all of Mario's abilities
in a simple, but well thought out way. Some of the
abilities are the Super Mushroom, which gives Mario
the growth spurt of his life. Some other abilities
are the flying feather that gives Mario a cape that
lets him soar through the air and the Fire Flower,
which makes Mario shoot small fireballs at his
enemies. Levels don't stray too far from the classic
Mario formula- mainly jump, run, swim, dodge, wait,
and then go through a castle. But it's what the game
designers do in these areas that makes the game so
clever and so fun to play. In every level there is
both a checkpoint and an end mark. Once you hit the
checkpoint you will be granted access to that part of
the area once you die and the end mark appears at the
end of every level. Here you must hit the mark so you
can get some points which can give you some coins and
perhaps an extra life.
The biggest addition in Super Mario World is the use
of Yoshi the dinosaur during the time you are
playing. Once you hatch its egg you can go on Yoshi
and then you will have permanent access to this
dinosaur. Yoshi can stomp on enemies or he can just
simply take out his tongue and suck the enemies up.
Once Yoshi gets hit he will take cover and start
running away, in order to ride him again you must go
on top of him again. Another new addition to the game
play comes with the use of Luigi in the game play.
Now when people are in the world map they can choose
either Mario or Luigi to go through a level. While
Mario is in every ways better than Luigi, Luigi is
still pretty useful. The Luigi character in this game
is actually a complete copy from the one featured in
Super Mario Advance and Luigi's only advantage over
Mario is that he can jump really high.
Like the first Super Mario Advance, Super Mario
Advance 2 has link cable play. And just like the
first Advance, SMW: SMA2 both have the classic game
Mario Bros. With this you can understand that the
multiplayer features are in every way identical to
that of the first edition and while Nintendo did seem
to get creative by adding 4 player play to this cart,
it still isn't anything new. And because of this
reason Super Mario Advance 2 falls. Many who have
also recently played Super Mario World will also not
notice anything new worth recommending and this hurts
the game a lot.
The graphics in Super Mario World and Super Mario
Bros. Are both well done and look very similar to
their original counterparts. Each of them equally
balances the game's cartoony look and makes into a
theme worth reconsidering. The intro is well done,
but the game hasn't changed much in graphics when
compared with the SNES original. Good, but with the
power of the Game Boy Advance it could have been
better. The music in this game is also a complete cut
from the soundtrack featured in the Super Nintendo
original. However, at times the music does seem to
tint and stop for a while, but this barely happens
and doesn't affect the game play at all. The small
parts of voice acting featured in this game however,
are a bit annoying and it can all get pretty
repetitive at times.
Overall Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 is
still indeed a great port of one of the greatest
games ever made. While the Mario Bros. Game that
comes with the game isn't that good and while
multiplayer is still a cop-out, Super Mario Advance 2
surely makes up for it with the 100 levels of pure
Mario game play featured in the Super Mario World
part of the game. While there is not much of anything
new, Super Mario Advance 2 is indeed a spastic
tribute to Nintendo's favorite plumber and it also
shows you that things change, but great things last
and will never go away.
Pros-
+ Super Mario World is still one of the greatest games of all time
+ Features over 100 levels of pure Mario Game Play
+ New Additions like the use of Luigi can actually lead to some
differences in game play
+ Great Graphics
+ Smooth Soundtrack
Cons-
- Nothing Fresh
- Mario Bros. Isn't really that good
- Multiplayer features nothing new
- Voice Acting gets boring and repetitive after a while
Overall: 8 out of 10