Super Mario World

Nintendo definitely made sure to start the SNES/Super Famicom with a bang and I can definitely say they delivered. Super Mario World is a pretty nice fun Super Mario [スーパーマリオ] game all things considered. The control scheme is pretty fun, with a new spin jump mechanic, the ability to store powerups, and Yoshi to keep things very fresh. It's aesthetically wonderful which is wild considering it's a very early 16-bit console game. It has a great soundtrack as is the Super Mario [スーパーマリオ] standard. It has a great and arguably very iconic world map with some fun bonus areas and ghost houses, a new type of level. However, I think the greatest thing that this game has is its theme of exploration. There are secret exits pretty much everywhere in the game and these secret exits can be used to reach hidden levels, secret paths that lead to an early visit of a later area, or the fun bonus area of the Star World. The exploration theme is tied to the level design as well, with each level introducing a new idea. My favorite example is a very late level of the game which puts you in different sections depending on how exactly you handle each section based on coins and time spent. I'm shocked that they had a level to communicate this idea and I was super happy to see that. This theme also culminates into the Special World which is a special set of quite challenging levels that test what you've learned throughout the game... and there's also Tubular (which I think is honestly really fun but we really never used the P-Balloon much prior to it). I really love all the great things that this game has to offer.

However, I don't think this is a perfect game. There are a few things about it that are not as well executed or contain some pretty crucial oversights. For starters, while a lot of the level design is pretty good, I hated going through the water levels. They're just really slow and somewhat aggravating to navigate through particularly if there's Torpedo Teds in the way. Another thing is the cape powerup. I do love me some flying powerups but they went way too far with this one, making it one of the most overpowered powerups in the entire series. Honestly when I get it, I usually avoid trying to actually fly with it unless the level design has that in mind because it can completely trivialize a lot of levels and remove their challenge entirely. And speaking of difficulty, there is a way to pretty much remove it entirely. Once you complete levels, you have the option to re-enter it and exit out of it at any point. When you exit out of it, you also keep everything you have earned in that level, including any 1-ups or powerups. It's a pretty bad oversight that I wish was not in the game and it's a good thing future Super Mario [スーパーマリオ] games do not allow this.

That being said though, the negatives do little to deter the amount of enjoyment I get playing this game. I don't think it's Super Mario Bros. 3 [スーパーマリオブラザーズ3] levels of good but it holds on its own very well and deserves to be considered a classic.

A classic - perhaps the best old-school mario. Brings me back to old times and still plays amazingly. Not much more to say