AuthenticM
Member
I'm honestly baffled by this happening. For the longest time, I thought Super Mario World was the better game between it and 3. I also, just in general, had a much higher opinion of the game. My parents bought it for me close to its release along with the SNES, and I played the game a lot over the years. Especially as I was a child. I also played the game every once in a while in my teenage and adult life. The last time I played the game was in the summer of 2011 (I believe). But as I finished the game yesterday, and as I woke up this morning, I just kept thinking about it, and I had to admit to myself: the game actually isn't all that.
-The levels aren't as inventive or well-designed as they should be. First, you know how Mario games are known for having levels that each have their own little quirks? Most levels in Mario World aren't that. They're just composed of terrain, pits and enemies sprinkled here and there with no "signature" whatsoever. Second, even without a signature, most of these not-distinct levels aren't that elaborate. Just one exemple: in Vanilla Secret 1, all you have to do is avoid some koopas that are here and there, while climbing ropes and using one spring to get up to a pipe. And then the exit is there. I finished this level and thought to myself "what the fuck is this? What?". Then as I played the rest of the game, I was stunned by how many stale and uninspired levels there were. Most of the great levels are the SPECIAL ones, the castles and fortresses. Apart from these, the levels in the last world are also of the better quality. But most of the rest? Man, even some of the Star World levels are boring. Think of the levels in SMB3: the pipe levels in World 7, World 4 with the big enemies and that one level that lets you switch between big and small world, or World 5 that starts pretty normally but then you climb this fuckin' pyramid and you end up in the clouds.
-The art design, or theme, for each world isn't unique. You know how Super Mario Bros. 3 has a theme for each world? World 2: desert; world 3: water; etc; and how the levels (at least most of them) in each of these worlds feel like they belong there? For the most part, that is very much not the case in World. You can take almost any level, put it in another world, and it would fit. There's nothing that distinguishes Yoshi's Island (World 1) from Donut Plain or the outside of Vanilla Dome. Similarly, the inside of Vanilla Dome has levels that are artistically the same as those from the last world, Bowser's Valley. The only two worlds that look unique are Forest of Illusion and the next world, Chocolate something. But even then, Chocolate something only switches the color palette for its terrain from yellowish brown to dark brown. You could even have taken the Butter Bridge levels and put them back in Donut Plain and it wouldn't have been off. Like... how the hell isn't there a Snow World in this game? Christ the devs even made some ice and snow tiles that are used in two levels only: one in a cave (Donut Secret), and one outside (in SPECIAL). Or a Desert world? You know, staples of the sidescrolling Mario games that started back in SMB2! Or they could have at least taken some of the water levels and put them in their own water world and called it "Soda Oasis" (to keep with the food theme) with its own Fortress and Castle. This actually leads me to my next point:
-The game doesn't have as many levels as the other Mario games. World has 70 levels (not counting the four palace Switches or the Bonus powerful level). SMB3 has a whooping 90 levels, all put in eight worlds that look (and even play) different. New Super Mario Bros. U has 82 levels, again, all with their own theme. So on top of levels that are often similarly-designed to each other and look like each other: the game has fewer levels than it should. I guess you could say it was a blessing in a way...
-The world map is stale. As in, nothing happens on it. In SMB3, there would be hammer bros. that would block your way, card games that would appear, the super-secret floating money ship, the levels in world 8 where a hand would grab you to force you to play it. World has an interconnected map, and that's great, but it doesn't compensate.
-The potential of Yoshis with different abilities is squandered. They bother putting in Yoshis of different colors, but only the blue one is really that useful. Both the yellow and red yoshis serve nothing of value. Seriously, who here replayed those Star World levels to get a yellow or red yoshi? The devs could have given each different-colored yoshi some meaningful ability, and design some levels around these abilities, but no. Let's go further: how about levels in which different paths open up depending on the color/ability of your Yoshi? Why couldn't we have that?
-The enemies are either boring or bad:
- The game doesn't even have goombas. It has some other faux-goomba that lets you wonder "why couldn't they just put in a regular-ass goomba in the game?"
- The dinosaurs are bad. They walk toward you at a slow pace and are a non-threat. I guess the little ones spew fire, but it takes them a while for the AI to decide to do that, and by then, you've either jumped on them or run past them.
- Where are the hammer bros.? Both were in the original game and 3. There's some variant of the hammer bros that appears exclusively on some floating platform that goes back and forth, but it doesn't feel like the same enemy. That enemy is also kind of boring, and appears in maybe five or six levels only.
- Those footballer guys. What is even this design? Why would there be footballers in a dinosaur world? It doesn't even fit it with the rest of the (uninteresting) art style. Though they are more of a threat than most of the other enemies. They almost feel like the true replacement to the hammer bros. But then you're force to ask yourself: why couldn't they just put in hammer bros? Or at the very least, redesign the enemy to look like a Koopa in sports gear or something. Not an actual dude who plays football.
- Where is Big Bertha? They couldn't have made one water level with that big-ass fish trying to swallow you? They made those dolphins that jump super-high to serve as platforms for you to jump on. They could have made a Big Bertha that also jumps that high to try to swallow you. That would have made for a pretty cool subversion of expectations, as in SMB3, it didn't jump high at all. It would have also added some much-needed unique design, the lack of which I complained about earlier.
-The Ghost Houses are lesser versions of the Fortresses from SMB3. That Fortress in SMB3 where you turn the whole room into coins, or the other one with lots of doors with the lava, or the one in world 3 with the water and the doors. Only the fortresses of the first two worlds are run-of-the-mill. The other ones are fantastic, and more moody and spooky than the actual Ghost Houses of World.
They developed this game for three years! That's a long-ass time for a game that started development in the eighties. Games back then took much shorter to develop. What happened? What were they doing? Why is this game so short? Why does it have such an unvaried artstyle? Why are most of the levels cookie-cutters?
I'm truly baffled by this sudden epiphany. I feel like I'm having this moment of clarity for the first time since I played this game.
In relative terms: World is worse than other Mario games. In absolute terms: World is still a good game. But I'm not sure I would even call it a great one.
I gave so much shit over the years to the people who said that some of the New Super Mario Bros. games were better than World (especially U, which I played for the first time earlier this year, and it's fantastic). I sincerely apologize to all of you. You were right.
