Late To The Party: Super Mario World

Until about a month ago, I had never played Super Mario World. It’s one of my biggest gaming shames – right up there with never completing a Half-Life game without God Mode turned on and failing to understand the appeal of the Resident Evil series.

I don’t know why it took me so long. Never owning a SNES is a reasonably valid excuse, but I could (and perhaps should) have picked it up on the Game Boy Advance. Worse still, it has been sitting on my Wii menu since it was first released on Virtual Console – I downloaded it straight away but never brought myself to boot it up.

It wasn’t that I completely dismissed Super Mario World as a worthwhile use of my gaming time, but there was something inside me, some pessimistic voice that questioned if it really was that special. After all, having played many of the Mario titles that had come before and since World, was I really missing much? Surely to an avid fan of the more modern New Super Mario Bros and its Wii sequel, Super Mario World is just like any other Mario game, right?

Perhaps Super Mario Worlds selling point, Yoshi

Well, yes, Super Mario World is ‘just like any other Mario game’ but that is by no means a criticism. To today’s gamer, the game still delivers that indescribable Nintendo charm in any number of ways: the cartoony sprites, the playful tunes, the chirpy sound effects. They all create this light-hearted atmosphere of unbridled optimism that it is impossible to play World with anything but a self-satisfied smile on your face.

And it all feels so polished, more comparable to the NSMB titles that World’s NES predecessors, which today feel increasingly dated and clunky. You can just tell that World’s developers poured time, effort and love into every pixel, and were extremely proud of the finished product once it was released – a pride I’m sure they still bear today.

For me, the thing that truly helps World stand up today is the level design. Stages on Super Mario Bros 1, 2 and to a much lesser extent 3 feel like methodical A to B journeys with enemies and other obstacles thrown in. World’s lands often have much more of a puzzler-esque feel to them; obstacles aren’t just barriers that must be jumped over and left behind, they’re problems that must be solved.

This is most obvious in the Boo Houses and Castle stages. They’re simply ingenious. Moving walls, flippable cages and doors that change their destination from time to time all keep you thinking on your feet. There is no turning back, no taking a run up – you need to solve each puzzle there and then if you want to escape these halls.

Even in the more traditional overground levels, you can’t (or more accurately, shouldn’t) just make a bolt for the finish line. You have to take in everything you come across, looking out for those quirky little sections that offer something that passers-by will assuredly miss, whether it’s the much-lauded secret exits (of which I have yet to find any) or a carefully designed set piece that allows you to take out hordes of Troopas with a single shell.

In fact, the set pieces and subtleties of World’s level design introduced a new level to platforming. While new players like myself should take each step cautiously, it’s hard not to see that the stages have been crafted to cater for those who know them by heart.

That really is a Super Mario

The rigid placement of enemies and items isn’t just because of technical limitations, it enables players to discover perfect racing lines and speed run routes in their quest for replayability. As Mario rebounds off Paratroopas, Goombas and the like to propel himself to the next platform, or narrowly jumps through the closing gap between Thwomp and floor, it’s easy to picture SNES owners zipping through levels without even a scratch – and hard not to aspire to such skill.

That said, some punishing mechanics of a bygone era can remind you how skilled players had to be and, depending on your level of patience, taint your experience. First and foremost is the save system. Even with the ability to pause the VC version and pick it up exactly where you left off, progress is still slow for the unskilled.

Lose all your lives and you are returned to the last checkpoint on the world map, generally the last castle or land you completed. Any individual stages you completed between that and your next checkpoint must then be replayed and completed once again, even though you have already done so several times before. Should you get stuck on a particularly trying Boo Mansion, you’ll find yourself retreading old ground again and again, which can’t help but deter you from pushing on further.

I ain't 'fraid of no ghost

It doesn’t help that the controls feel a little unresponsive to those who never played SNES platformers. While veteran gamers argue that characters in New Super Mario Bros feels too floaty, I would argue that the 16-bit Mario feels too sluggish. There’s a sense of weight about the plumber that results in less margin for error when it comes to those tougher instance of chasm-jumping. It also makes it easier to accidentally bump into enemies, which becomes even more of a regular occurrence thanks to the empty space around each sprite that still counts as damage under the game’s collision detection.

The addition of a second jump also confuses things. Anyone used to a one-button jump system will find themselves accidentally spin-jumping off Yoshi and into a nearby Goomba. The only way to avoid this confusion, or any other niggles in the control system, is to play on a SNES pad – something that may not be available to many people. Anyone playing on a GameCube pad or Classic Controller is likely to struggle.

And yet none of this is enough to stop me from playing it. Any flaws I found were either echoes of the limited technology of the time or my own ineptitude, borne from years of playing newer and arguably easier games. Going back to Super Mario World doesn’t make you glad they don’t make games like this anymore, it want them to do so again. Any difficulty you face is in the challenge, not frustration, and that makes it far more enjoyable than some of the many, heavily flawed Xbox 360 games around at the moment.

It's tougher than it looks

It also puts one of my favourite Wii and DS games into context. While playing the New Super Mario Bros titles, I always assumed they drew their inspiration heavily from SMB3, but my experiences with World have shown me how much Mario’s latest platformers have in common with his SNES debut. If it weren’t for decade or so between them, the NSMB games could have proudly born the ‘World’ suffix.

But perhaps it’s best that World stands alone. Yes, there is Yoshi’s Island, the baby-ferrying sequel, but given that that game grew to become its own franchise and a different beast, I choose to view Super Mario World as a standalone experience. It was proof long before Super Mario 64 that Nintendo didn’t need to make more than one Mario platformer per system – when the first is anything like World, one is all you need.

The bottom line is that Super Mario World is a platformer that stands up commendably well against today’s titles. Despite the few rusty joints that are an occupation hazard of being a 20-year-old title, it’s a game that can still be played and enjoyed by anyone – and more importantly, it should be. Finally playing Super Mario World does not rid me of my shame; it only makes me feel even guiltier that I didn’t play it sooner.