Classic Game Recommendation: Super Mario World

I'm writing this on my phone as I'm waiting for my next class to start so please excuse any embarrassing autocorrects :P

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System. For some of you I'm sure it was the source of many an hour spent rotting your brain as a kid. Seeing as how I just dug mine out and got it hooked up I thought it would be cool to go through and make a classic game recommendation from my SNES game library.

The choice today is, of course, Super Mario World. As far as SNES games go I would go as far to say this game is what solidified the console in many homes across the US. At some point this game was actually sold with the console (I think it always was at first anyways) and so this game was the first experience many takers had on their shiny new SNES.

And what a great experience it was and continues to be. As far as platformers go this is, in my opinion, THE platformer to rule them all. The one platformer created that completely outshined anything that had been released so far. Super Mario Bros? Sure, it was fun, but Super Mario World? It's like upgrading the Wooden Sword, skipping the White, and going straight to Magic, baby! And believe me, this game shouldn't ever be a secret to anybody.

The gameplay is simple with few actual actions you can take but its that simplicity that makes the experience so much fun. Easy controls, a few powerups, and graduated difficulty on levels was a recipe for success back then.

There were a couple of other features that stood out as well. Up until this point most platformers weren't expansive enough to need a save feature. You got close to it I guess with the grid-passwords in Megaman but that was it. SMW was so huge it actually had a save feature so you could get through it without devoting several hours spent drooling in front of your tv. This could even be observed as one of the first time the rpg and platformer worlds started to mesh into what we have today.

Another feature that really stands out is the excellent boss design. As you can tell from my last post, bosses are important parts of games to me. Sure, the bosses in, for example, Megaman were "different" but all you really had there were a bunch of robot bosses that moved in a particular way and then the final boss that was actually different from all the others. In SMW most of the bosses are all unique, as are there respective castles, and it went a long way towards making the game more interesting. A lot more interesting than yet another bridge fight and yet another princess-in-another-castle bit.

All in all this is a great game that no one should miss. If you haven't had the chance to play this I suggest you do so as soon as you get the chance. The game is available in its original form on the SNES as well as a Game Boy Advance remake. They might also have it on the Wii shop channel as well.

Thanks for reading, and until next time....

For Great Justice