Super Mario World
System: SNES

Graphics:
Gameplay:
Sound & Music:
Overall Rating:

10
10
10
10

What a milestone for Mario! With the advent of the Super Nintendo came this mega successful video game hit. Getting away from the sequel numbering method, Nintendo did not call this one Super Mario Bros. 4 - obviously they had long term plans of multiple Mario & Co. adventures being released with all new themes, gameplay and goals. (One example is the Gameboy-only Mario game Super Mario Land that was released shortly before the SNES.) In this game Nintendo shows off their new graphics processor with giant, colorful images and baddies, all zipping around hyper fast and rotating and stretching on the fly (as opposed to all movement being pre-designed "frames" for each sprite to utilize.) This was processor intensive at the time, but Nintendo managed to give a show and tell performance all while still holding true to the fantastic Mario series gameplay, music, and levels.

The amount of hidden items NOT mandatory to beat the game was insane - and to this day my highest "rating" on this game is 94 (which I assume is out of 99 or 100) - in some 10 years! Being able to hop on newly introduced character Yoshi was also a new concept. How cool was it that the background music would change ever so slightly when you jumped on Yoshi, and switched back seamlessly when you jumped off? :) A brilliant way to show the world the power of the SNES and also one hell of a fun romp.

NINO