Super Mario World

What is it?
Considered by the staff here at Hot Blooded Gaming to be the quintessential Mario game, Super Mario World was the first pack-in for the SNES and went on to become one of the most beloved platformers in gaming history.

How can I play it?
Super Mario World (SNES)
Super Mario Advance 2 – Super Mario World (GBA)
Super Mario World (Wii Virtual Console)

John’s take:
We don’t plan on doing many Flashback Fridays for bad games, but this game is head and shoulders above most of the rest. Even today, Super Mario World stands as a symbol of close-to-perfection in platforming elements, with simple, unique powerups, beautiful colorful graphics and one of the most annoying levels ever. (Man, that seemed way harder when I was a kid.)

I was obsessed with this game when I got my SNES, and I was dumbfounded by the amazing level of color, the detail on the characters, and all the awesome secrets. You thought the Warp Whistles in Super Mario Bros. 3 was cool? Wait til you see the Star Road. Complete with an Halloween-style overhaul once you beat the special super-hard Star Road levels, it’s very fitting for today’s Flashback Friday.

I reminisce fondly even about jumping around in the very first “level”, Yoshi’s House, jumping around at first just to see if there was anything hidden around, and then coming back with Yoshi to eat all the fruits hanging at the top of the level.  I remember playing Yoshi’s Island 2 over and over just to kick the turtle shell into all the Koopa Troopers and get a 1up, to jumping as high as possible at the end of the level to try and get the most points, playing the bonus game at the end of each level and how exciting it was to pull off making every single block of the bonus level a star. I even remember feeling so cool when I unlocked the Top Secret Area! and figured out that, hey, if you jump up near your powerup when you have a fire flower and a feather, you can hit Select over and over again and get effectively unlimited points! This game was a magical thing for a young child.

As if the game weren’t cool enough for just being Mario in 16-bit, Super Mario World throws another curveball at you when you go through the Yoshi’s Island 2 stage, jumping up, hitting some ? blocks to get some coins and suddenly a freaking EGG comes out and HATCHES into a KILLER RAPTOR (pictured). Yoshi immediately became a fan favorite, especially considering that you could take a hit while on him and just hop back on, over and over and over! No skill required, perfect for a 5-year-old.

The game introduced a whole host of new features for the Mario series: the branching paths that you could take to make the game as short or long as you want (you could beat the game in 12 minutes,) the new awesome graphical effects in the haunted houses, the multiple exits to each level outside of a warp zone, the differentiation of the Koopa Kids rather than being variations on the same type of boss, and who could forget King Koopa’s smiley face hover ship?

The original Super Mario Bros. is often held up to be the iconic platforming game– usually by those too young to have actually played it in its heyday. People like myself, who grew up with these games, playing and loving them with all their heart, tend to find that Super Mario World is a pure evolution of the genre, moving that much closer to perfection. Let’s hope New Super Mario Bros. Wii can pull that off.