(Originally posted on September, 2015)
(1990, Super Famicom)
I caught my first glimpse of Super Mario World in Nintendo Power, back when the game was still in beta form, featuring a completely different world map and looking far more like a direct sequel to Super Mario Brothers 3. On that same page, there was even a picture of a mysterious new console that I had no idea what to make of (a Super Famicom prototype with all red buttons). Months later, the finished game got its own blow-out issue. Mario and Yoshi were right in the middle of a tie dye-colored cover depicting Dinosaur Land, Mario’s brand new flying cape now having replaced the power leaf. Among all the pages of pictures and information, I found out that the SUPER Nintendo was coming! This was hugely exciting. What’s more, just this mere news would soon be topped by the real thing: a demo unit suddenly showing up in a nearby Target.
Every day after school, kids would gather there to play the brand new system with its brand new Mario. They asked who the green dinosaur was. Relying on my Nintendo Power knowledge, I told them Yoshi. They wouldn’t believe me, citing Yoshi was Splinter’s human name in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (No one else in the world could possibly have the name Yoshi!) Even though the demo unit would auto-reset every 5 minutes, this was as good as going to the arcade for Street Fighter II. I can still remember wondering what exactly was beyond Yoshi’s Island while listening to the store’s constantly repeating, maddeningly cheesy rendition of The Nutcracker: March and glancing back at the then hi-tech word processor machines across from the video game case; those scenes imprinted by the astonishment that a new Mario and far more powerful Nintendo system were here.
Beginning a new game for about the thousandth time, nearly 25 years later, the entire experience still feels as magical as when first powering up my freshly unboxed Super Nintendo during the Christmas of ‘91. Everything from the opening attract sequence to the intro retains the feel that you’re getting your first peek into the new possibilities of a more powerful system. I actually prefer the more straightforward Super Mario Brothers 3 quite a bit, but there’s no denying this is an incredible experience as well. You have possibly the most easily graspable physics in the series. Such an attractive, believably huge and cohesive world map to explore, you wish were really in there. Being able to choose even the very first level, it’s clear there’s a greater stress placed on exploration, more cleverly implemented secrets and puzzle solving made possible by a gradual introduction to more complex levels than those seen on the NES.
What always left the biggest impression was the sense of intimacy with Dinosaur Land and how it’s one broad challenge to carve out and pioneer through. The idea of progression evolves beyond the linearity of clearing through each world in Mario 3, however great they were, only able to return once a new game has been started. You must now master an entire land, interconnected by pipes and magical warp stars. Getting through a tough castle and toppling a boss is often rewarded by directly altering the path and layout of the world. Discovering a hidden exit requires paying attention to every inch of the screen and some outside of the box thinking, but rarely is a puzzle obtuse enough that you have to give up and cheat. The levels might initially appear somewhat barren, less challenging and polished than those of 3, but that’s only because the game has been set up for player to act as the co-creator. The levels in Super Mario World are truly completed once your own ideas and curiosity are added. Each of Super Mario Brothers 3’s briefer levels were filled with a generous amount of genius ideas and challenge, but you were somewhat passively going through them with little room for improvisation. Another way of puting it is, the level designs of Super Mario World are more memorable because of what you dealt to them rather than what they dealt to you. Who doesn’t get a huge kick out of finding the hidden keys and alternate exits. Then, after not touching the game in perhaps years, realizing you can still remember many of the game’s secrets…who’s better than you?
Enough strange dinosaurs and new enemies are present to remind you that you’re in a distant land, but Bowser’s brought enough of his army so that you never feel too far from the Mushroom Kingdom. Boss fights were never a particularly strong point of the Super Mario series, but this brought the best effort so far with the Koopa kids mixing up their tactics and various mini-bosses guarding the forts and ghost houses, such as a then mind-blowing giant Boo and the oddly stationary Reznors, content to spit fireballs from a Ferris wheel rather than charge Mario with their sturdy triceratope-ness.
Even from when I first played the game, the colorful but conservative style of Super Mario World’s graphics never impressed me, yet still brought plenty of little touches to let you know this wasn’t quite possible elsewhere. The giant bullet bill being fired right near the start of the game would have reduced the NES to a stutter, but this was just the beginning of what the SNES could do! The polygonal, shaded appearance to some of the land formations in the distant backgrounds had me convinced the SNES was doing some sort of 3D trickery long before the Super FX Chip came along. The sense of vastness in Vanilla Dome-4, Butter Bridge and the underwater stages go beyond anything I ever felt in SMB3. Beating the game shortly before writing this, I still squirmed away when Bowser comes “through” the screen, just for old time’s sake.
One of the better soundtracks in the whole series, the music as a whole has far more complexity than on the NES yet is still just as catchy. The Ghost House has an interesting fading effect. “Underworld” feels isolated but never loses the playfulness of the rest of the soundtrack, especially when some percussion is added after boarding Yoshi. “Athletic” is probably the most fun track in the entire series, which can be interpreted as extremely tense, if it wasn’t so hard not to be enveloped by it’s light-heartedness. I particularly like the building tension of the castle theme to abruptly end, resetting itself to something more hypnotic as if to relax you just in time for a sneaky trap. “Underwater” brings the sense of lulling, sleepy relaxation that Super Mario Bros 3 attempted but couldn’t quite pull off, working with such abrasive sounds. “Vanilla Dome” is just creative and a ton of fun to listen to. A powerful ending theme is the perfect finale to the game, before going after the second quest.
Completely in love with the game from day one, the only thing that really bothered me was that Super Mario World lacked the more experimental ‘punch’ to its presentation, broader, often strange and dark atmospheres and sense of distinction between worlds seen in Super Mario Brothers 3. Miyamoto even admitted the game was rushed to make the Super Famicom launch. Perhaps those were the points that had to be sacrificed. But certainly, none of the gameplay itself disappoints, even if the more open ended style isn’t your cup of tea can of Yoshi Apple soda. Whether Super Mario World is #1 or #10 within your favorite Mario games, it’s essential playing all the same.
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