I LOVE how secret levels/exists work in Super Mario World

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Poll of the Day » I LOVE how secret levels/exists work in Super Mario World
To me this alone makes SMW a better game than SMB3

They are secret without being too difficult to figure out. And the game points out their existence to you too so you will never be lost. Wonderful game design
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Damn_Underscore posted...
To me this alone makes SMW a better game than SMB3

They are secret without being too difficult to figure out. And the game points out their existence to you too so you will never be lost. Wonderful game design

100%

They can all be found without a guide, but they encourage you to explore, replay and play levels differently to find them. SMW is without a doubt THE best Mario, or even platformer ever.
?huh?........ it's just a box.
It's definitely my favorite mainline Mario game. I also like how all the music tracks are variants of the same theme.
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The whole game design compliments the fact that they included a battery save for the first time. In the first 3 games, secrets tended to reward you with ways to skip content, whether it be Warp Zones, or the Warp Whistles in SMB3 so players that have mastered the game can beat it faster if they want. While SMW did have skips, often the reward for secrets was MORE game. It blew my mind getting through the Star World and the reward for that was the Secret World.
I liked the graphics style of SMB3 better, as well as most of the power ups, but the interconnected world of SMW was amazing.
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I have a strong connection to SMB3 because I grew up with it. I also really love the way you can just rip through a lot of levels. It feels kinda like the 'fastest' SMB game but you have far more dexterity, the ability to stop on a dime and perform long fast jump combos.

That being said, I definitely agree with all the reasons why people love SMW - that was the huge amount of magic that it held as a kid, and it contributed to it feeling like a long and deep adventure. I spent a looottt of time as a preteen playing it to death on GBA. It was a game that I had played pretty much to completion on SNES at friend's homes, but I never got to do the straight 96 exits myself until I got it on GBA. The GBA version tracked the Yoshi coins too, and transformed them into "Peach" coins once you collected 5 Yoshi coins in every level. I collected all of them too, but it didn't track them.

SMW was always so magical looking at from the outside, since my family only had an NES. I remember a TV in the entry area of the video rental store that had a SNES with SMW hooked up at all times to demo. That first Banzai Bill scared the crap out of you as a kid.
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Mario 3 really put a lot into its core theme; horizontal and vertical together. The levels can be super short if you just sprint it, but there's also a lot of secrets ... and secrets IN secrets.

Example, one of the fortresses has a (IIRC) P Block secret door that goes through like 5 rooms and the exit is a pipe that, if you skipped the secret, would be just half a screen over.
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The main problem with the Star World levels in SMW is that, once you know they're there, you can use them to shortcut to the end of the game and bypass most of the rest of the game.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...
The main problem with the Star World levels in SMW is that, once you know they're there, you can use them to shortcut to the end of the game and bypass most of the rest of the game.
Why is that a problem?

You're not going to know about them on your first playthrough (especially if you were playing it when it first came out) and when you do find out about them, the option to do a speedrun of the game is an enhancement, not a drawback.
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darkknight109 posted...
Why is that a problem?

Because I have impulse control issues and can't stop myself from using them.

I'm not actually sure I've ever seen all the worlds in the game. I've definitely played way more times skipping 90% of the game than I have actually playing the whole thing.

I do know the last time I played it (back in the 2000s), I did a run through the Star World and beat the game in about an hour or so. Not explicitly trying to speedrun per se, just sort of casually shortcutting.



darkknight109 posted...
You're not going to know about them on your first playthrough

I mean, they're not that hard to find. I can easily believe I might have found them on my first playthrough.

You definitely didn't need a walkthrough or guide online to tell you how to find them. But even if you did, it's not like Nintendo Power wasn't a thing at the time. And I definitely had this issue:

https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_Power_volumes?file=NP028.png
"Wall of Text'D!" --- oldskoolplayr76
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I feel the opposite
ParanoidObsessive posted...
Because I have impulse control issues and can't stop myself from using them.

I'm not actually sure I've ever seen all the worlds in the game. I've definitely played way more times skipping 90% of the game than I have actually playing the whole thing.

I do know the last time I played it (back in the 2000s), I did a run through the Star World and beat the game in about an hour or so. Not explicitly trying to speedrun per se, just sort of casually shortcutting.

On the flip side, that means that whenever you replay the game, you only end up playing the levels you actually want to play. Sure, you could just as easily replay the levels you want from a 100% file, but I'd still say that having the flexibility to customize your playthrough to align with what you want is a good thing.
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SMW = GOAT Mario game. It was so revolutionary, fun, and replayable. I'd play it right now if I had it.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...
Because I have impulse control issues and can't stop myself from using them.

I'm not actually sure I've ever seen all the worlds in the game. I've definitely played way more times skipping 90% of the game than I have actually playing the whole thing.

I do know the last time I played it (back in the 2000s), I did a run through the Star World and beat the game in about an hour or so. Not explicitly trying to speedrun per se, just sort of casually shortcutting.

I mean, they're not that hard to find. I can easily believe I might have found them on my first playthrough.

You definitely didn't need a walkthrough or guide online to tell you how to find them. But even if you did, it's not like Nintendo Power wasn't a thing at the time. And I definitely had this issue:

https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_Power_volumes?file=NP028.png
I like that there are options. But I agree that the first couple of entrances to the star world are pretty easy to happen across.
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Astro bot handles secret exits in a similar way
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ParanoidObsessive posted...
Because I have impulse control issues and can't stop myself from using them.

I'm not actually sure I've ever seen all the worlds in the game. I've definitely played way more times skipping 90% of the game than I have actually playing the whole thing.

I do know the last time I played it (back in the 2000s), I did a run through the Star World and beat the game in about an hour or so. Not explicitly trying to speedrun per se, just sort of casually shortcutting.

I mean, they're not that hard to find. I can easily believe I might have found them on my first playthrough.

You definitely didn't need a walkthrough or guide online to tell you how to find them. But even if you did, it's not like Nintendo Power wasn't a thing at the time. And I definitely had this issue:

https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_Power_volumes?file=NP028.png

Honestly I thought the Star World locations were some of the better hidden ones:

Donut Plains: You need to find a secret exit to take you to a secret Ghost House, THEN find a secret block for a vine that takes you to a secret boss, for example.
I love SMW and DDCecil's Super Mario World is my favorite ROMhack of all time.

I don't think I would have found the exit where you fly under the gate, but it was so widely promoted in Nintendo Power it was hard to miss it. Most of the other secret exits are discoverable, but that one used a weird game mechanic that was not super intuitive.
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bruplex posted...
I love SMW and DDCecil's Super Mario World is my favorite ROMhack of all time.

I don't think I would have found the exit where you fly under the gate, but it was so widely promoted in Nintendo Power it was hard to miss it. Most of the other secret exits are discoverable, but that one used a weird game mechanic that was not super intuitive.
That was definitely the only one that took a fair bit of an afternoon to figure out as an 8 year old. I'm thinking of the Chocolate Island 3 secret exit.

Unless you're talking about the Cheese Bridge secret exit. That one took quite a while longer. Although the arrow signs after the finish is the tip-off. The Choco Island 3 one feels a bit more obvious with the much larger amount of space under the normal exit.
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I know games don't have "levels" anymore, but I really miss secret levels like this. Stuff that isn't just little cubbies tucked away in a corner of an open world as an easter egg for you to chuckle at and move on. Actually being rewarded with more content, and if you're lucky, unique power ups or equipment from those secret levels are even better.
I remember having my mind blown seeing the entire game change after finishing all the special levels.
ParanoidObsessive posted...
Because I have impulse control issues and can't stop myself from using them.
That sounds like a you-problem rather than a game-problem then.
Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!
dj1200 posted...
SMW = GOAT Mario game. It was so revolutionary, fun, and replayable. I'd play it right now if I had it.
You can literally play it on your browser online
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an0nym0usrex posted...
I remember having my mind blown seeing the entire game change after finishing all the special levels.

I thought my TV messed up lol
keyblader1985 posted...
I also like how all the music tracks are variants of the same theme.
O_O I can hear every song clearly in my mind, yet I have never realized this.
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Poll of the Day » I LOVE how secret levels/exists work in Super Mario World