Super Mario World
Video Description
Summary: While Mario & Luigi were vacationing on Dinosaur Land, Princess Toadstool has disappeared, captured by Bowser. The two brothers, along with their new friend, Yoshi, must travel Dinosaur Land to find the princess.
This game was originally released for the SNES, but I never owned that system, but I did play this game on the Game Boy Advance. It’s basically the same game, but the graphics and sound are a bit different, including the camera being zoomed in a lot. Overall the original SNES version is superior.
This game was played using the SNES emulator, bsnes-hd in RetroArch. I also applied the widescreen patch to be able to play in widescreen, with the raw output to avoid pixel stretching, creating an (almost) 16:9 widescreen image.
Story
After saving the Mushroom Kingdom from Bowser in Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario and Luigi need time to recuperate, so they head for Dinosaur Land. As usual, Princess Toadstool / Peach gets kidnapped by Bowser. So, Mario and Luigi have to interrupt their vacation to rescue her.
They find a gigantic egg, which hatches a green dinosaur named Yoshi. He tells Mario about how his friends were also sealed in eggs by Bowser and his crew. Now Mario has a double mission, to rescue Peach and free the dinos trapped in the eggs.
After rescuing all the eggs and taking down all of Bowser’s henchmen, he faces off against Bowser and saves Princess Peach.
Gameplay
This is a platform game where you control Mario venturing though Dinosaur Land. There is an overworld where you can select the level, and by completing a level you unlock the next one. Some levels have secret exits to lead to hidden areas, such as levels, or an entirely different world. There are a total of nine worlds in the game (which includes the two secret ones). The secret world, Star World, can be accessed via getting secret exists in some prior levels that lead to the Star Road. Mario is transported to Star World and can actually transport around the map. Getting the secret exit on the final Star World level will lead Mario to the Special Zone, which contain the hardest levels in the game. Completing this world will change the appearance of the map and change some of the enemies.
Some worlds have a colored switch. Upon activating the switch, the blocks in various levels will be filled in with that color, allowing for secrets to be found. Almost every world has a ghost house which has ghosts named Boos and Yoshi is forbidden from entering. The levels are often puzzle based and it’s not as simple as getting to the end. And at the end of each world is a castle to take down one of Bowser’s minions. Upon doing so, you can move onto the next world.
Each level often follows the same theme: You start the level on the left side, making your way to the goal on the right. You’ll encounter tricky platforms, enemies, and other obstacles to prevent you from reaching the end. There is often a checkpoint in the level, and by activating it, you’ll be able to respawn from there when you die. You can collect coins, and 100 gives you an extra life, and get five Yoshi (Dragon) coins which also grant you an extra life. In the Game Boy Advance version of the game, it keeps track of the coins you’ve collected, but the SNES version does not.
There are various power-ups that can be found in the level, all of which can be stored in a reserve to have later if you lost a power-up. There is a standard mushroom which makes small Mario grow big, a fire flower to shoot fireballs, a cape to fly and glide, and a starman to be invincible for a brief period of time. There are other mechanics as well, such as P-switches which will turn coins into blocks for a limited time, and a P-balloon which will allow Mario to float for a brief period of time.
Additionally, Yoshi can be obtained on various levels and he can eat enemies and can be used for extra height if Mario jumps off him. Yoshi can even gain some abilities from enemies, such as eating a red Koopa allows him to shoot out fire breath, and eating a blue Koopa will allow him to fly for a brief period of time. There are also various baby Yoshis that can be found and when they are fed five enemies, they grow into an adult. Red Yoshis can spit out fireballs from a Koopa shell in its mouth, blue can fly, and yellow can create sand cloud when landing on the ground with a shell in its mouth, killing enemies in the radius.
The end goal has a line that goes up and down it. The higher up the goal you get the line, the higher number of goal stars you get (50 being the max per gate). When you collect a total of 100 goal stars, you do a bonus game to get extra lives.
Graphics
I love the color pallet the game uses, as well as the sharp cartoony look it has. Prior Mario games for the NES had more muted colors, but this one is nice and bright and I really like it.
Since I’m playing the widescreen version, it’s great to see additional detail on the sides of the screen that wouldn’t normally be visible.
Sound / Music
The music is memorable and catchy. You can make jingles from the tunes for the levels. Just listening to a track will bring back memories of the exact level it played in. Such sharp, clean, nice sounding music that fits well with the game.
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