Here comes Yoshi (Super Mario World (N64))

Member Name: defiler

Product:	Super Mario World (N64)
Date:	06/06/01 (672 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Classic platform game, Mario, Yoshi

Disadvantages: Dated graphics, On a system that most people won't own now (although emulation is obviously an option), As with any other game it costs money (unless you take the emulation option)

I haven't done a games opinion in a while so I felt I should do one. This was one of the first games I got for my SNES and remained a favourite for a while, however in many ways I felt it almost a step back from Mario 3 on the NES, although one with a few nice new features.

--Background--
It came out at the same time as the SNES was launched and was one of the selling points of the console, with impressive graphics (for the time) and the continuation of one of Ninetendos most popular characters people expected a lot from the game and for the most part they weren't disappointed. Released in 1991 and published (and developed) by Nintendo this was a game that just about everyone buying a SNES at the time had.

--Storyline--
The storyline in a game like this never really matters, it could have been in Japanese for all I cared as I found the fun of playing this game simply came from playing rather than having an interesting story.

I couldn't even remember the storyline other than that it had to do with saving the Princess from Bowser or something along these lines, good enough to give you a reason for what you are doing but not something you should really think too much about as there isn't a lot to the storyline other than kill the enemies to progress through the stages until you get to the end, kill Bowser and rescue the Princess (sorry, I gave the very unpredictable end away a bit there).

Yoshi becomes involved in the journey through Bowser trapping him in an egg and stealing many of his friends/family (correct me if I'm wrong with this, my memory is very bad on the subject :) and decides to help Mario on his quest.

--Gameplay--
The gameplay is mario at his best before overrated 3D was introduced, I'm not saying anything against the N64 game as it's certainly fun, it's just not as fun to play as this and relies too much on impressive graphics (or rather did as the graphics don
9;t look as impressive as they once did). The main new feature of this game was the introduction of Yoshi, a character who has since gone on to be quite popular in the Mario universe and featured in a number of other games.

Unfortunatly although Yoshi was introduced many of the power-ups that could have been collected in Mario 3 are gone, gone are the fun ones such as the frog suit and gone are many of the others, you can no longer collect as many items as you used to be able to, being limited to collecting just 1 now (although rather than only being usable at the start of a level it can be used anywhere).

The gameplay is a simple platform format, simply get to the end of the level, there are a number of variations to this such as secret ways of completing a level and bosses that must be defeated at the end of a level but the basic idea is the same.

Like with mario 3 you navigate levels through the help of an overhead map, while you have to do certain levels to gain access to others you can do any accessed level in any order and replay levels you have already completed, many levels have secret ways of doing them which can often lead to the revealing of secret levels, in some cases these can be quite large and trying to find all the secrets in this game is one of the main bits of fun in playing, especially if you have already completed it and are just trying to find the last hidden exit to a level.

--Enemies--
Enemies contain many old favourites such as Koopas, Troombas, Goombas (seeing a similarity in the names yet?) and Spiny(s) (wow, a different type of name) alone with some new variations too such as enemies I am unable to remember the name of. With enemies such as Goomba's to stomp on, some nicely thought out bosses (including of course Bowser) and a variety of different enemies to avoid and kill throughout the levels there really was no complaints here (except for one enemy which got on my nerves and I can't
even remember the name of now :).

--Powerups--
Unlike in mario 3 there are not that many variations of powerup however there are certainly enough to allow the game to be fun to play, especially with the introduction of Yoshi. You get the normal mushroom that allows you to grow, a flower to shoot fireballs and a cape to allow you to float and to some extent fly. The cape was usually the most intersting powerup and one that was often needed to get to hidden levels and discover secrets on levels, the flower powerup was useful in various situations (very useful against certain bosses for example) but in general could be lived without.

You can store one powerup at all times which can be accessed whenever you want, the stored powerup will be the second-most recently picked up so if you had a cape and picked up a flower you would be using the flower powerup and have the cape one stored ready to use when you wanted.

--Yoshi--
One of the main features introduced to this game and one of the most fun parts of it too, Yoshi is a creature found at various points of the game and something you will rarely want to be without. He is unable to be killed (unless you do something stupid like have him run off a cliff) and if you are hit he will just tend to get scared and run away. He has the ability to fling out his tongue and eat creatures, a few creatures (mainly turtles) are unable to be consumed unless you keep them in your mouth long enough and can instead be fired out and used as a weapon against other creatures.

Special Yoshi's exist at various stages of the game, these are harder to aquire than a normal (green) Yoshi and tend to come as a baby which has to be fed creatures to start with to allow it to grow. These special yoshi's tend to have different abilities when they consume a turtle, rather than just spitting out the shell again they will do something different, blue ones can fly for example and red ones shoot fl
ame. Most of these Yoshi's had to be gained through secret levels in one of the main hidden parts of the game.

--Graphics--
For the time the graphics were reasonably impressive and one of the selling points of the game although there were a few people who felt they were disappointing for a first SNES game, in my opinion they are still good now and provided you don't mind them looking slightly dated are certainly easy to live with. My only real complaint with the graphics would be the background, these could often be fairly bland after you ran through a few levels and though they weren't bad as such they could have been slightly better. To me the graphics however aren't the major point of platform (or in fact very few) games, while they can improve an already good game they cannot make up for a poor game, luckily this game doesn't need to be made up for and the graphics help to create and maintain the atmosphere of the game. The game is often aimed at children and due to this no enemy really looks that scary and more often than not ends up looking cute instead, the cuteness is certainly evident in things such as yoshi and at various other parts of the game, something some adult gamers have been known to complain about.

--Sound/Music--
Like most of its predecessors the music in the game is fun and catchy and really adds to the atmosphere of the game, much of the music is however a remix of the same song however the change allows levels to feel different the the song that it is a remix of is a good and catchy one.

--Control--
For a platform game the control is good and you have no real delay in having your character to respond to what you want them to do, powerups are easy enough to use too with only the cape taking a little bit of getting used to (not bad control though, just requires a bit of effort to get used to it). Overall no complaints here and I don't see how it could be improved.

--2
Players--
As with the other Mario games you can play this in 2 player mode which allows 2 players to play (obviously :), although alternatively rather than at the same time. Player 1 plays Mario and player 2 players the identical-in-every-way-except-looks Luigi, a good enough game mode if you are going to have 2 players in the room but this is primarily a 1 player game and much better 2 player games exist for the SNES.

--Difficulty--
I found the difficult perfect for this type of game, most levels were challenging without being possible and the number of ways of completing certain levels often took a while to spot and made the game interesting to return to even once you had completed it. Many levels took a few replays before you could finish them but in general the game wasn't impossible to complete after a few attempts.

--Puzzles--
A number of small puzzles can be found throughout the game, often these are only required to be solved if you want to get to a hidden way of completing the level but they are certainly fun and add to the game, however with this being a platform game they are never too challenging to figure out after a bit of thought.

--Life--
The game has a reasonable life with over 75 stages, although probably not quite as long as many games. Once completed you will probably still be interested in replaying the game to try and find as many of the secrets as possible and completing the game can take a number of hours to do. However if you manage to complete the game and find all the secrets there are there probably isn't a huge amount to continually draw you back to the game and you will probably find yourself returning to it far less often. Having said that though for a platform game the life is quite long and more than is found in many similar games, not too short but it won't last forever.

---Conclusion---
This was a great game, one I really enjoyed playing and would be glad
to play again. Recent news has suggested a remake of this game may be made for the Game Boy Advance next year and I certainly hope this is true as I was fairly disappointed that the launch Mario game for the console was based on Mario 2, my least favourite of the Mario games. If you haven't played this it's certainly worth playing although many people will probably be unable to accept the age of the game, if you can however and like platform games and have never played this (very unlikely anyone like this will actually read this opinion :) you should give this game a go.

Summary: