LogFAQs > #897084775

14. Super Mario World (kateee)


As should be made clear by the fact that I have three Mario games in the top 15 and in the highest tier, I'm a big fan of this series. Mario is basically the series of my childhood because I spent untold hours playing the first four games over and over again, not to mention all the spinoffs. There have been many debates over the last 25 years over which 2-D Mario game is the best between Mario 3 and Mario World, but it's always been pretty clear cut to me. That's not a knock on this game, but we'll get more into comparisons when the other one shows up later on. Mario World is still an amazing game with some awesome level designs and a great aesthetic sense. It's a very colorful and vivid game, and it's got dinosaurs galore, most notably Yoshi, who trivializes the difficulty in this game in a lot of ways, which is probably why they banned him from Ghost Houses, fortresses, and castles. Yoshi is basically an infinite free hit as long as you can keep catching him. His long tongue gives you a lot of leeway with enemies since you have a drastic reach advantage over them as long as they can't shoot projectiles. You can sacrifice Yoshi to give you an extra boost on your jump or to make up for your mistake if you mess up. The Blue Yoshi in particular is broken, since he can fly with any Koopa Troopa in his mouth, shoot out flames when he spits them out, and creates a ground pound tremor any time he lands from flight or a jump. Now I've made it clear that I don't value difficulty that highly, so I don't care how easy Yoshi makes the game because he's super fun to use.

Now I'll go on the record and say I'm not a fan of the cape. It exists to help you reach otherwise inaccessible areas, but it can also be used to allow you to skip over large chunks of levels without having to do any of the platforming. I generally avoided using it for that purpose, but I usually wasn't very good at controlling flight in Mario World anyway. It is good for slowing your descent to make it easier to make precise landings, which is helpful, too. I just thought it was weird that this game scaled back on the power-ups big time after how many Mario 3 had. I guess you don't really need anything here other than the cape and Yoshi. They're more than enough to let you breeze through the game.

As much as I said I enjoyed using Yoshi before, many of my favorite levels are the ones where you can't use him. I love the Ghost Houses, fortresses, and castles. The music for them is really cool and adds to the tension, and there are platforming elements and enemies you only encounter here. When you want a challenge in Super Mario World, this is where you go, along with the Star Road and Special Road, which I also loved. They are really cool bonus areas, and it was fun trying to find all the secret routes to get there. They don't mess around either. They're all constantly trying to confuse you, crush you, and drop you into bottomless pits. One of the most fun things in Mario World in general is the fact that they have so many secret rooms and exits to find, and locating them all feels like a big accomplishment. The game's design philosophy revolves around its secrets moreso than on pure platforming (the layout of the level, enemy placement, etc.).

Overall, my favorite areas were the Forest of Illusion and Choco Valley. My favorite Koopaling fight was Ludwig von Koopa, since he was the only one who didn't have another boss fight that was exactly the same. I'm also a huge fan of the final boss fight here. It has great presentation and atmosphere, with the progressing phases of the Koopa Klown Kar, Toadstool throwing out items to help Mario between those phases, and just the craziness of trying to land that final hit as he bounces all over the place. It was a great way to end the game and one of my favorite final bosses in a series that has a bunch of great ones.

Bonus Question: What is your favorite Mario game?
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