4 in 1? Is that possible? (Super Mario All-Stars (N64))

Member Name: Bharat Sahota

Product:	Super Mario All-Stars (N64)
Date:	22/04/01 (287 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great classic games.

Disadvantages: Save feature perhaps makes things much more easy than they were in the old days?

Introduction

This is one of the greatest video game cartridges ever! Most video gamers must have played the Super Mario Brothers games before. This is a good opportunity to own 4 classic games on 1 cartridge. I remember playing these games on the original NES. Super Mario Brothers 3 was the first game that we had for that system and probably my favourite from the bunch. I think it’s great that Nintendo re-released these games for the SNES, as anyone that hasn’t played them before can get to experience all the classic moments from these good games. The graphics are vastly improved from the NES versions. Well, here’s a little about each game…

Super Mario Brothers

This is the game that kicked it off in the beginning. Apparently, the game’s creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, decided to make the (eventually famous) main character have a cap and a moustache, because of the graphical limits he had with the NES. I remember playing this game on the NES a while back, and it was fun to play it on the SNES when we got hold of this cartridge.

The idea here is simple. This is a typical ‘rescue-the-princess-trapped-in-a-castleR 17; story. You control a character named Mario. Generally, you run to the right of each level to get to a flagpole. Grab the flagpole and the level is completed. You go onto the next. There are 8 worlds in this game, with 4 levels in each. To make things more difficult there are enemies walking about in each level, like turtles and things. In later levels, you’ll have to face nastier enemies like the Hammer Brothers! To destroy most enemies, jump on their heads. Touch them the wrong way and you’ll lose a life! Lose all your lives and you’ll lose the game. You can also lose a life if you fall into gaps, lava, or if the timer for the level runs out. This is the basic and classic gaming stuff.

To help you fight enemies, you can jump and hit the underside of bricks to g
et power ups. A green mushroom gives you an extra life. A red mushroom makes Mario larger, capable of destroying bricks. A Fire Flower (wow) lets you throw fireballs at enemies. Also, coins are floating in mid air. Get 100 for an extra life. In the last stage of each world, instead of a flagpole, you need to hit a drawbridge lever being guarded by Bowser, a fire-breathing creature. Do that and he’ll fall into the lava, and you’re free to rescue the kidnapped mushroom creature in the castle! Sounds insane, eh? Maybe, but this was highly addictive.

I remember the horrible jumps near the end of the game that sometimes had to be pixel perfect! Also the length of levels in the World 8 meant that you had to move fast, or you’d run out of time! Well, it was justified, being World 8! Also there were the ‘secret’ rooms to be found by ducking into pipes, there were underwater stages, beanstalks, levers, the unconnected 2-player mode and of course, the infamous warp zones. Yes, this will seem basic now, but if you’ve not played this before, this is an opportunity to see a creation that encouraged classic elements in many platform games that you see today.

Super Mario Brothers: The Lost Levels

These ‘lost levels’ were available in Japan, but before this cartridge was released, this game never was available in the UK. Here there are 8 worlds again each with 4 stages each. The principle is similar, except this game is so much more difficult! The levels are different. Here, you even encounter ‘wind’ in some later levels, which tends to push your character in a certain direction. In some moments, you’ll need to go against the ‘wind’ or use it to help you jump over very big gaps. Plus, it can change direction, so beware! Another thing here is the ‘evil’ mushroom! If you hit a block and see this come out, don’t touch it! I remember the ‘trick’ to get
many lives in an early stage and I’d lose loads of these lives trying to complete some later levels. Ah! I managed to get to World 8, Level 4, but by then, the game would be getting so unbelievably difficult! I never managed to complete it. I’d have another try at it, but my brother part exchanged this cartridge! What a shame. This is a good game for testing the skill of those that love platform games.

Super Mario Brothers 2

This game was a drastic departure. I played this on the NES a while back, and completed it again on the SNES. I heard that even the original NES version was actually taken from another ‘non-Mario’ game, called Doki Doki Panic or something like that. Anyway, this is still a fairly good game. Here, jumping on the heads of enemies won’t destroy them. To destroy them, you can throw vegetables at them! The bricks are gone. Instead, you’ll find vegetables and power ups in grass patches throughout the levels. No Fire Flowers though (aw, what a shame)! You can still get lives and the Star power up, but now there are also bombs, cherries, stopwatches (to temporarily freeze enemies), magic carpets and even potion! Throw this onto the floor in an area with many grass patches and enter the door to pull up coins! These can be used in a slot machine after each level, to get more lives!

Levels can scroll in many directions this time, and now there’s the opportunity to backtrack through them too. Before each level, you can choose 1 out of 4 different characters. Mario is the all rounder. Luigi is the highest jumper. Princess can float! Toad? Toad’s fast! You can also jump higher by holding DOWN beforehand and your character will start flashing! Ooh! Things that made this different were quicksand and the introduction of many bosses (aw, how nice to travel on a flying egg, ha-ha)! This was quite a drastic departure from the traditional way of things, but fun nonetheless.

Super Mar
io Brothers 3

In my opinion, this game alone is perhaps good enough to even rival the superb Super Mario World on the SNES. Aw, I remember the amount of fun my brother and I had playing Super Mario Brothers 3 on the NES, as well as the amount of swearing and abuse we both hurled at the TV screen! The story is another ‘rescue-the-princess’ thing, with 7 of Bowser’s kids stealing magic wands to add to the chaos. This sees a return to the traditional style of play that was established with the first game, except there’s much more you can do here! There are themes for each of the 8 ‘lands’, like grass, desert, sky, pipe, dark and giant (fun)! There’s even a map screen, like in Super Mario World. You can sometimes decide which stages to do and you don’t need to complete them all to complete each ‘land’.

The fun thing is the 2-player game. There is a sense of cooperation, as both players try to complete each world. If one completes a stage, it’s up to the other to try the next one and so forth. Also, you can challenge your buddy if you feel particularly nasty, to steal the card power ups from them! Yep, at the end of each stage, you get a card power up. It’s pretty random, but I found that by running full speed and jumping into it at the right time, I’d often get a star. And what do 3 star cards make? 5 lives! As for power ups, there are many. Mushrooms are here, and the Fire Flower is back! Plus, the racoon feather gives your character racoon ears and a tail to whack blocks (like on the cover of the NES version). You can even fly with this! There are so many more items too, like certain suits that give you special powers and items to help you out on the map screen too. Warping is still possible, with the aid of a warp whistle.

Memorable moments? There are many. I remember using a P wing to go through a particularly annoying level. I ended up at the end of the level wi
th the black screen and changing card and my brother suggested that I backtrack to see what kind of stuff was in the level. Well, I did so and saw a cute white plant. I thought it was like the rest of the white plants and approached it only to see it spit an arc of fireballs at me! Damn. There’s a bunch of neat touches with this game, like in one stage, there’s a green shoe that you can take from an enemy. You can then get inside and go through the level in it! Also, there’s the airship full of coins that’ll only appear under certain conditions. Plus, I remember once, my brother was going through a particularly tough level, jumping from moving cloud to moving cloud. He missed a cloud by a few pixels and fell to his doom. At this, he shouted out “Oh my ******* GOD,” much to the distaste of my father in the next room! Aw, happy days.

Although many would think I’m mad for saying this, I have to admit I preferred the NES version of Super Mario Brothers 3, compared to the SNES version. Yes, you can save the game in the SNES version which is obviously better, but I had many fond memories of spending the best part of the day going through levels in the NES version, with simple graphics and a little jingle that seemed to mock me whenever I died, increasing the amount of swearing that I’d throw at the screen! It’s like the game was saying to me “I’m so basic looking, why can’t you beat me? Ha-ha, you’re so rubbish!” Despite looks, the third game is certainly not as basic as the others. It’s a pretty huge and I recommend you don’t use the warp whistles, but enjoy travelling through each level.

Verdict

I had so much fun playing these games. They might seem basic on the outside, but there are classic moments here. For anyone that hasn’t played these games before, this is a good opportunity to see what all the fuss was about back then, if you have a SN
ES. As with almost all SNES games now, it’ll be difficult to find this. Perhaps these games should be re-released on Nintendo’s next video game system, along with some other Mario games on a super duper cartridge.

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