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For the GBA enhanced remake, see Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2. (commonly abbreviated SMW) is a platforming video game developed by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It was one of the launch games for the system, along with Pilotwings and F-Zero. It was released on November 21 1990 in Japan, August 13 1991 in North America and then April 11 1992 in Europe.
Story Mario, Luigi and Princess Toadstool set out on a vacation on Dinosaur Land. However, during their vacation, Princess Toadstool gets kidnapped (again). However, not only is the Princess gone, but a spell was put on the innocent inhabitants of Dinosaur Land. Accidentally stumbling upon Yoshi, a dinosaur, Mario and Luigi hear that it is indeed Bowser's doing. He wants to take control of Dinosaur Land for its natural resources, and he cast a powerful spell on the Yoshis since they tried to stop him earlier. They are all trapped in magical eggs waiting for someone to liberate them. Mario and Luigi must go through seven distant castles and defeat the Koopalings in order to reach Bowser to save the Princess and stop his latest scheme. Gameplay The gameplay action is sidescrolling as in previous Mario games, and it takes advantage of the Super Nintendo's 16-bit graphics and stereo audio. The game consists of a journey through levels in seven worlds: Yoshi's Island, Donut Plains, Vanilla Dome, Twin Bridges Area (including the Cheese & Butter Bridges and Soda Lake), Forest of Illusion, Chocolate Island, and the Valley of Bowser. There are also two secret worlds - Star Road and Special Zone (accessed via the Star World) - which can be found by completing secondary goals in specific levels. Super Mario World contains a "world map" screen, which provides a passive overview of all the game's levels; each level is accessed individually from the world map. The concept was previously seen in Super Mario Bros. 3, and Worlds execution is similar but more elaborate. The game features 72 courses laid out across the seven worlds, and 96 exits (some levels have more than one exit). Secret exits open up new routes on the overworld map, often leading to secret levels. When a player reaches the completion of the 96 "goals" the beginning screen will display a star next to the number "96" beside the file the goals were completed on. Something to consider, however, is the fact that the game cover states that it contains "96 levels," implying that the amount of stages and exits are equal when in reality there are only 72 true levels. The Yoshis appear in four different colors (green, yellow, red, and blue), each with slightly different abilities. There are also Baby Yoshis in the Star World levels which can be picked up by Mario. After eating five enemies or three berries or any power-up, they will become a fully grown Yoshi of the same color. Changes Besides the obvious upgrades in graphics, design, and sound, there are some critical changes in gameplay from the NES Mario games. For example, Super Mario can no longer break certain blocks by jumping into them or hitting them with a Koopa shell. In Super Mario World, this will make a block spin on its axis, rendering it temporarily passable, but they revert to their solid state after a few seconds. To destroy blocks permanently, Mario must Spin Jump on top of them. The ones that need to be passed like this are yellow, except for the eyes. Also, enemies hit by fireballs from Fire Mario will turn into Coins which can be collected, rather than just dying --- the same goes if Yoshi spits a red-shell Koopa Troopa. Koopa shells which are jumped on can be picked up and thrown at other enemies like Goombas . Items can also be thrown upward, or set down gently instead of just being thrown or kicked forward or backward. Paratroopas become regular Koopa Troopas if stomped on. Koopa Troopas jump out of their shells after being stomped on. Stomping on the shelless koopa will completely defeat it. Once they are completely defeated, they will not reappear if you return to that area. Star World and Special Zone The secret exits in some levels lead to one of five portals to Star Road, an otherwise secret realm. Each portal gives the player access to a level in the Star World. The levels here all have a baby Yoshi of a particular color (blue, red and yellow) which must be fed five enemies or coins for Mario to be able to ride. Feeding a colored Yoshi a powerup results in them growing up immediately. The colored Yoshis also have special abilities when they have a Koopa shell in their mouths. Blue can fly when holding a shell, red spits fire when eating any shell (as opposed to the regular Yoshi, who only spits fire after eating a Red shell), and yellow can stomp making dust clouds that can defeat enemies. Each level in Star World has two exits. The normal exit simply counts toward the total number of exits found; to properly complete it, however, the player must find the key and the keyhole (i.e. the secret exit) in each level to complete the circuit around the Star World and advance to Special Zone by finding the secret exit in Star World 5. In Special Zone, there are eight additional levels of particular difficulty. In the American translation the levels are named with an expression from surfer lingo (in the following order: Gnarly, Tubular, Way Cool, Awesome, Groovy, Mondo, Outrageous, Funky) whereas the Japanese original had other names (each two levels would refer to itself as the same course). Completing the Special Zone results in major graphical changes, reversible only by erasing the file on which it was completed. However, it does not affect any other files. Piranha Plants become pumpkins, Koopa Troopas now wear Mario masks and their colors have been switched so rarer shells are now more common, and Bullet Bills become Pidgits, and the entire world takes on a different color scheme, using more of an Autumn palette. In the English SNES version, the redone enemies have new names, but in the Japanese version and Super Mario Advance 2, the enemies share the same name since they are basically the same enemy. In Super Mario Advance 2, two additional enemies receive a facelift: Pokey and Goomba (the latter of which is thought to have been considered for it in the SNES version since it has two identical copies in the game data, one of which is used after Dinosaur Land changes).• Waiting around on the Special Zone map screen for a number of minutes causes the map music to change to an updated version of the original Super Mario Brothers main theme. This resets to the original Special Zone music upon entering and exiting a level. Using Star Road also allows more experienced players to complete the game in only 11 stages. However, the stages are more difficult as the switch palaces have been skipped. Development The game was produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, the music was composed by Koji Kondo, and the graphics were designed by Shigefumi Hino. Music Koji Kondo composed the music used in Super Mario World. The majority of the music used in the game, with the exception of the Title Screen Theme, the Overworld Map Themes, Ghost House theme, and Bowser's Theme, is a variation on the same melody. The music is played normally on the overworld levels. It is then slowed down and made to echo in caverns, moves in a slow, wave-like fashion (in 3/4 or waltz time) in Underwater levels, and in the athletic theme it is played fast and lively to suit the level taking place in the air. When riding on Yoshi, the soundtrack is accompanied by bongo drums. The Castle Theme and Ghost House theme have remnants of the basic SMW theme, but are also joined with a minor harmony making the melody somewhat different. The original Super Mario Brothers theme makes a cameo appearance on the Special Zone map screen, but only if the player remains on that screen for a number of minutes. Impact The game has often been compared to Super Mario Bros., in the sense that both games "set the bar" for all subsequent sidescrollers released on their respective systems. Super Mario World introduced many now common concepts to action gaming, such as giving the player the ability to revisit levels to find overlooked secrets. It was one of the first games to reward the player for "getting one-hundred percent" (finding all the secret exits in the levels, many of which lead to secret levels), an idea that has since become very popular. Super Mario World is still considered by many to be one of the greatest games ever because of its simple yet creative and addictive gameplay. In addition, with the augmented capabilities of the SNES, Super Mario World was a step forward for the graphics in Mario games. All of the objects and characters in the game moved from the flat sprites in the NES to a more three dimensional look. Super Mario World also used the SNES's multiple background layers for parallax scrolling and other background effects such as sparkling stars, as well as occasional sprite scaling and rotation effects. However, parallax scrolling was not used to the extent of subsequent Mario games. A copy of Super Mario World came with each Super Nintendo upon the system's release in Europe and America. Though this package deal was later dropped, it helped Super Mario World on its path to becoming one of the best-selling video games of all time internationally. A sequel was made in 1995 entititled Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island featuring Yoshi as the main protagonist. The sequel bears little resemblance to its predecessor due to Miyamoto's change in art style. Related products The game was packaged in a special version of Super Mario All-Stars called Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World, which was released in 1994 as the pack-in game for the Super NES "Super Mario Set" bundle. This version included four save files (instead of three) and a different sprite set for Luigi. It has also been released for Game Boy Advance as Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2. It was marketed heavily and became the best-selling Game Boy Advance game of all time so far (if discounting the combined sales of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire). An unofficial hack of the first four worlds to NES was created by an unknown developer in 1995. * * Less than a month after the game's American release, DiC produced an animated TV show based on the game, although some of the game's elements and names were renamed or changed. Super Mario World was one of the first games to be announced for Wii's Virtual Console service with a cost of 800 Wii Points, and was originally intended to be ready at launch. However, Nintendo took the game out of their list of Virtual Console games up until December *. This may mean that the game will be released on Wii in 2007. See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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