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It's funny to mention this now, but for a while I just wasn't a really big Mario fan. I always appreciated the little Italian plumber's role in the industry; he is our Mickey Mouse after all. And as such, his games have touched us all in a very important way, making us feel like adventurous children all over again. They're also some of the most technically polished offerings on the market.
And yet, to me Mario was just "that dude" for a long time. I tried a little of 64 on the N64; it was neat, but nothing compelled me to complete it. Again w/ Sunshine on GC; fun, maybe a little finicky, but in the end it just didn't hold me over. Not even offerings like Smash Bros. Melee or Mario Kart made me want to REALLY venture out to play the main games. I blame part of this on my age at the time of those games; being either a child or teenager then, my interests gaming-wise did not lie in what I perceived subconsciously as 'child-like' fare. I was either too busy catching up on older consoles like the Genesis or making up stories and drawing, and then of course there was school to deal w/ as well.
However, recently over the past year and so, I have slowly been getting into Mario's groove, opening myself up to his main adventures-old and new-and finding for myself why everyone holds them dear to their hearts. Good, unadulterated slightly nonsensical fun. My time w/ Mario has now culminated w/ a somewhat feverish playthrough of Super Mario World, the first Mario game I might actually play through to completion. Right now, I'd like to share a bit of both the awesomeness I find in it, and some of the more naggling features that persistently bug me. It is a classic, yes, but that doesn't mean it's perfect.
--WHAT I LIKE--
As the first Mario game on the SFC/SNES-and coming right off SMB3-SMW had a lot to live up to. Thankfully it manages to meet the challenge, and I think most of that is attributable to what it gets right. The game doesn't visually look much better than B3, but what's there is very clean, crisp, festive and vibrant. The colors are energetic, the enemy designs are on-point and creative, Mario's own sprite has a good deal more detail, and the backgrounds really help pull and hold these vast visual elements together quite well.
The music, although not as diverse as B3, is damn catchy and downright hypnotizing at moments. Variations are done well and come just in time, and at default doesn't drown the sound effects or voices out. Speaking of which, I really like the implementation of whimsical sounds here; that's been a Mario staple sure, but in World I think they finally got hardware powerful enough to pull them off strongly and marry them w/ visuals that resonated just right. Everything in World sounds full of life and splendor.
The level design, on the whole, is actually very impressive. If it sounds like I'm trying to be shocking for the sake of shocking, that's not true. It's just that the first couple of opening levels in World didn't have the same punch in their design as the same opening set in Bros.3, so it was starting on a lower mark. But the twists some of the levels make are pretty inventive, sometimes ingenious, and most of the set-pieces work w/ aplomb. Also, there are a few really neat moments in some of the stages-such as Ludwig Castle 4 (probably my favorite level in the game so far)-that made me very giddy. I can see why Shigeru Miyamoto considers this to be his favorite Mario game, and for all I know it could be mines as well (but let's wait until AFTER we play the others fully-ed.note ;)
I like the introduction of Yoshi and how he helps to bring a very slight Kirby-esque feel to the game (tho he's never as good as the Kirbster). This being Yoshi's first appearance, he's introduced in a pretty logical fashion and he makes some sections quite more manageable.
I also have to mention Mario's control as a whole: despite some frustration (motl), I'd say he controls about the same as he did in Bros.3, which until it's time was the pinnacle of control in a 2D Mario game. His jump has a real sense of weight to it, he builds up running momentum reasonably, and his button inputs are pretty much dead-on responsive.
On that subject, his range of attacks is also relatively plenty for this being a Mario game. I still really miss moves like the buttstomp and triple-jump from the 3D games (and I have played a fanmade 2D flash Mario game that's extremely well-made and proves those techniques would work well in an official game), but everything he has here, from the spin jump to the dash to slide to the shuffle (yes you read that right; it's Mario's little dance and it rocks. Just sway him back and forth rapidly and there you go; look at 'em little feet dance their toes off xD!), functions to serve a direct purpose and looks pretty good doing it.
--WHAT I DON'T LIKE--
For everything Super Mario World has going for it, there are a few things that do pester me about it. I will get the biggest one out of the way first: controls. Yes, I know I said the controls are fairly rock-solid...and they're certainly not to a level where even a quarter of deaths could be attributable to them being slightly shoddy. But-and this isn't even really a control issue as it is a physics/inertia one-for me, Mario seems to get too much forward momentum coming off average-height jumps into landings. For landing and STICKING on very small foundations, this can be an issue. The problem doesn't seem to exist when it's Yoshi, just Mario, suggesting he either packed on too many spaghetti and meatball meals prior to heading out, or decided to take jumping lessons from Luigi.
Honestly, if I could describe the physics and jump inertia model of Mario in world, it would probably be " .75Bros. 3 Mario + . 15Bros. 3 Luigi + .10 Bros.2 (U.S ver) Peach"...if that makes any sense. Not that there's anything wrong w/ that, but I would've preferred a Mario who was that much closer to his Bros.3 incarnation, b/c of the 2D Marios I've played, that is his best in terms of jump interia and weight, which directly impacts the controls.
Another issue I have w/ World is the length. I don't really profuse to disliking a game simply b/c it's short. I like many arcade games and plenty of them are quite short once you know what to do w/ them. But in the case of World it's different. It's actually decently lengthy for a platformer of its time, clocking in at seven worlds (of which I'm currently on World 6). However, the reason I don't have an issue w/ arcade games being short is b/c either that's the expectation or you eventually learn them inside-and-out to cut down the time, and the process of that learning is through fair difficulty. W/ World, there's no expectation of it to be short, so it actually isn't so. What actually makes me consider it shorter than it is, is that the moments where progress stalls is where I found myself dying more to Mario's delay in inertia and stopping; if it wasn't for those moments I would have been quite further along. Granted, in those same moments the levels themselves were often genuinely more challenging (and I can't claim to be a saint in patience), but the point stands.
Yet another, much more miniscule but still annoying thing, is that the collision detection on the sloping platforms seems to be a bit "off". Take World 6-2 for instance, once you go past the green pipe. You have to make a series of jumps on sloped platforms. This isn't really a big deal, but whenever I landed on one of the slopes at their very edge w/ Yoshi, I would pass right through them. I naturally assumed those areas would still be solid, but apparently the game doesn't like that idea, and so it was life after life after life. Little things like that kind of infuriate me b/c the rest of the game's collision detection is more or less spot-on when it comes to platforms...so why not these platforms? *Sigh*...
Moving away from more technical stuff, I do have to say that the power-up system in World is kinda weak in comparison to Bros.3. Bros.3 has a megaton of other really neat power-ups-namely the Tanooki, Frog, Hammer and P-Wing suits-that are omitted from World for reasons I'm not clear on. I might be premature in that assumption-as the cape in this game actually combines several power-ups into one and there's a balloon power-up that functions mostly like the P-Wing from 3-but in the case of the former it doesn't pop up enough times and in the latter's case, it's only appeared ONCE across all of the 5 worlds I've cleared. For the most part, it is mainly the regular super mushroom or fireflower suit to be had, which actually shifts the focus closer to SMB1 than 3, and maybe that's not all bad but still, a little more variety wouldn't hurt.
(P.S: I should mention that, thinking on it some more, the power-up system in World might actually be fine as-is. I say this b/c if you take into consideration there IS Yoshi there, having both Yoshi and all the Bros.3 powerups would've made the game too easy. Yoshi appears frequently enough and w/ some enemies he can absorb a power from them. So really, the usual power-ups are probably gimped to balance out the presence of Yoshi and increased capabilities of the cape power-up).
(P.S.S: On this note, I could've also mentioned my dislike for the lack of the spade card and power-up panel houses from 3, but for the most part that also seems to work out in the end. 3 is actually pretty generous w/ power-ups if you play it smart, and w/ World you would need to venture back to older stages to get extra lives or certain other power-ups useful for other future stages (like needing the cape for stage 6-1, even tho there is no cape power-up anywhere on that stage). I think it actually adds an extra layer of strategy and tactics to Mario that, while annoying at first, I'm getting used to, and wished Bros.3 employed and hope some of the later Mario games DO feature., backtracking syndrome notwithstanding).
--CONCLUSION--
In the end, despite some of my personal issues w/ World up to now, I would have to say it's a damn fine platformer, and earns its reputation for a reason. It's slightly inferior to Bros.3 but that shouldn't take away from its charm, and it has a LOT of charm. World is packed w/ tight level design, great physics and jumping control, endearing visuals, ear-massaging music and sound, and some inventive enemy designs. It's also a fairly moderate challenge, tho it takes until about Donut Plains Level 2 to begin showing it ;). Makes me pine for the Special and Star World levels that much more xD.
Below I'll share some of my favorite moments from my time w/ the game so far: good and bad, all comical in their own way. But for anyone else on the fence of playing a classic gem like this one, hopefully I have convinced you it's worth the time. If not, all I can do is dance the Mario Shuffle and hope it fills you with the highest levels of envy x3.
Thanks to everyone taking the time to read this; hope you've enjoyed it. I'll be back this weekend w/ some art and hopefully big progress on that front, so look forward to then. Until next time, be awesome and see 'ya l8r :)
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BONUS!!!
The following's just a jaunt through some of the more memorable aspects of the game I've experienced up till now. Both downright neat stuff, and frustratingly ambysal moments, all wrapped in one quick list of blurbs. Yeah!
>The prairie dogs: Hate them. Hate them w/ a blood-soaked passion. Way more of a hassle for me than the Zeus-wannabe Koopas in their respective level. I almost hate them as much as..
>The baby dinosaurs: Don't know what they are; look like triceratops, but less dinosaur-y. They're more random than the dogs and that's where my increased hatred for them comes from xD.
>Bubbles are NOT my friend. I think it's Forest of Illusion 3 or 4...definitely one of those two stages, but anyhow...I just couldn't believe how many times I died from having a jump cut off by colliding w/ a bubble. I guess Mario's a bit more lightweight than I give him credit for :S.
>The pipe Lakitus: bastards! One of them PERFECTLY spawned a spiked koopa shell to kill me just the very moment my feet were saying 'hi' to his bald head. Could not have timed that any better if he tried. Needless to say I would love to use spiked boots on them.
>The double chain hallway bit in Ludwig Castle 4; ingenious. I still think that might be the single hardest section in the game for me as of this writing, and also one of the most fun. It's just a little section...near the end of the hallway you get a big mushroom and yadda yadda yatta. Still, the level of precision needed to get through them w/o dying, and the build-up to getting to that point, really enticed me.
>Ludwig Castle 4, in the sequence right after the hallway. A very pressure-heavy area, my favorite part is after you hit the switch and need to run your ass like MAD after clearing the fireballs as the ceiling's coming down. Only the second time in the game where the dash feature is mandatory, and just as fun as the first time (but w/o invincibility to aid you). There should've been more moments like that..hopefully there will be in these last two worlds.
>"The Jump". You know, the one where you're in that stage w/ all the triceratops-looking dinos for the first time, and you get Yoshi, warping into the silver pipe to launch out into that giant open space w/ the flying koopa. I was actually pretty pissed w/ this part b/c it seemed no matter what I did, I just could NOT clear this section. No amount of timing or momentum out of the pipe would work..unless you had the cape feather. Since I did not have that power-up, it meant backtracking to the nearest stage w/ one (Forest of Illusion 1 I believe) and not fucking up. Backtracking,...in a Mario game?!? Yes, but it wasn't that much really and I liked having to do that, 'cuz it forced a better playthrough on that particular stage. I was also accustomed to the level-back trick earlier to get extra lives for Ludwig Castle 2, and that one was much more time-consuming.
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