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Full Review for Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World by Mask-o-Sheik

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Introduction

I don't get it. The Super Nintendo era was filled with classics ranging from the original Final Fantasies and Chrono Trigger to some of the very best 2-d platformers ever made. And when looking back on those times, everybody seems to remember Super Mario World to be one of those great classics. While I admit it's a decent game, I don't think it deserves half the credit it gets. In light of such other masterpieces are Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario Kart and Yoshi's Island, it bothers me that everybody lists this game as one of their top favorites.

 

Graphics

There's nothing wrong with the graphics - they fit the game just fine. Mario plays in a bright and colorful world that seems to give a bit of personality to the levels he's in, which is refreshing. The designers could have gone further with the graphics than they did (and you can see in various SNES titles like Yoshi's Island the very epitome of graphics as art, not technological power), but they work well with the game, so I'm not complaining. I like the clouds around the Ghost Houses, and the Valley of Bowser and Vanilla Dome in particular create very nice settings.

 

Sound

Pretty nice. The music isn't annoying, but it isn't very memorable either. I like the music to Special Road and Castles though, and the game score in general fits the situation very well. There are some pretty nice sound effects in Super Mario World (in particular the unforgettable Yoshi noises, which have unfortunately been tossed for the Yoshi's Story utterances in recent games). It's not like a 2-d platformer is the very best possible way to showcase a great score, but there are titles like the Donkey Kong Country series whose tracks simply blow me away - that never happens in Mario World, but it's still fairly solid.

 

Gameplay

Trite. The inclusion of Mario's cape and Yoshi make the game far too easy, even at the harder levels. Without those powerups, the game still lacks a really compelling challenge until Special Road, which is easily the best part of the game, with deadly challenges like Mondo and Tubular. It's a shame more of the game was not like this, or it may well have been the best platformer even, in my eyes. For some reason, Nintendo decided to make Mario World *even easier* in the GBA remake (which would be ridiculous on unprecendented levels had they not done this to the even easier Mario 2 not too long before). It's possible to beat the game after only beating a small amount of levels, but this requires knowledge of the secret exits of the game. These secrets, unfortunately, aren't nearly as well hidden as the secrets in Yoshi's Island, Super Mario 64 or Donkey Kong Country 2 are, and it's conceivable that you could beat the game in the eleven levels necessary on your first playthrough.

 

Lastability

Fortunately, there are enough levels and enough exits that you'll be playing for a while to unlock them all. Too bad this, in general, is just as easy as beating the levels in the first place - most of the secret exits are predictably placed and even the cleverer ones I was able to find on my own when I was five years old, except for two secret exits in the Valley of Bowser. At least it's enough of a challenge to keep someone occupied for a while. I don't remember getting bored very quickly with SMW, but I was never very interested by the game either.

 

Overall

Most of this review (in the categories that matter) has been somewhat negative. I don't want to give the impression that SMW is a *bad* game. It has many of the same elements of design that make Mario 3 the masterpiece it is. It just lacks the depth and the challenge to be anything more than "a little above average," hence the 6/10. I just don't understand those who find this game to be a classic on par with Mario 3, which I think is silly. Mario 3 was vast, creative and challenging; Mario World is simply not. This game has nostalgic value for me, because it's the first game I ever played. I started playing when I was four. It doesn't help, though, that the second game I ever played was Super Mario Kart, my all-time favorite game. I always play Mario Kart a lot more than I played Mario World.


Final Score: 60%

Review by: Mask-o-Sheik

 

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