Super Mario World retrospective: A new generation of platforming | Super NES Works

And that about wraps it up for Super Mario World. Thanks and good night, everyone. I promise I won't do another multi-parter ever, ever again. Well, campaign promise. Which is to say: Expect a multi-parter for Final Fantasy II in a few months.
(Check out parts one and two before watching this video - it'll make a lot more sense that way: • Super Mario World retr... and • Super Mario World retr... )

[@berniepodwyer]

I don't think I ever knew about that moon in Yoshi's Island 1. Geez. Another killer video. Thanks Jeremy.

[@jhd7147]

I've been playing this game ever since I was a kid, and this is the first time I heard of that 3up moon on the first level.

[@controlpadblues]

One of my favorite little quirks about Super Mario World's design was tiny, indeed - if you ate a mole as he was burrowing through the dirt but *before* he emerged, you could prevent any more moles from coming out of that particular spot. It added a bit of urgency to eat them as fast as possible, otherwise, they could be a thorn in your side (as temporary as it would be). Anyhow, as usual, great video. :)

[@EWOODJ]

2:33 And by using those purple bricks.

[@willmatheson]

The Star Road can only really "warp" you to areas where you've already uncovered their Star Road, with the exception of Valley of Bowser (where you can get into the "Front Door" of Bowser's castle, but that's all) and the Special World. It doesn't really do the general thing of bumping you ahead to any advanced stage - for example, you can't access Star Road in Donut Plains and then work your way around and then play into the Forest of Illusion or whatever /from/ the Star Road there (you can only make the Star Road appear, you can't move off of it until the Forest Fortress is cleared after coming out of the actual forest), though it makes getting around between parts of the world already cleared quicker.

[@WellFedGames]

Loved this 3-part series. Regarding the Wii re-release of All-Stars (mentioned at 11:30), unfortunately it was the Mario World-less version. I'm still wondering what prompted that decision. Nintendo, you are a mystery.

[@JeremyParish]

Aw, heck, you're right.

[@lonecom685]

I think it was because Nintendo wanted to make every game playable with the Wii remote turned on its side. The wanted to emulate an NES controller or something

[@jlc992]

Also another kind of subtle touch is that if you go to the right first the first group of blocks has the "!" block. And if you tackle it first you only see an outline. Meaning that at some point you will do something to fill it in. I tend to play it every few years and each time I fall in love all over again. Great video.

[@JeremyParish]

Yes, good call.

[@Moshugaani]

God, I love the sound design of SMW!

[@JeremyParish]

Yeah, that's why I went with SMW sounds for the title of this series. They're so iconic. So SNES.

[@TroyBlackford]

They really let you know on Day One of opening your SNES that you were dealing with something new.

[@mbe102]

I cannot get enough of these! So well done man, thanks again for all your hard work and effort.

[@JeremyParish]

Thanks!

[@2001mark]

Still my fav 'system showcase' launch title ever. Tremendous replay value for starting from scratch to achieve the 96 finish. I've always loved how Mario games keep showing us newness & freshness, without holding our hands for too long while we adventure.

[@nonewmsgs]

Tubular is by far hardest stage of game

[@ActuallySanFrancisco]

i alway just threw the purple blocks up at the question bricks in that first level secret area - never thought to just jump off of yoshi's back. at any rate, there's more than one way to get 'em (;

[@swankidelic]

This SMW series started to feel a lot like one of your Anatomy Of A Game entries. But you make a solid, important point here about how Mario (and imo all of their flagship IPs) have lost that creative edge that SMW embodied. Great series. I've forgotten about Blizzard game updates and Tuesdays mean another great JP video for me. Thank you =)

[@MaxOakland]

This deep dive was awesome. Now I want to see 3 episodes about Yoshi's Island

[@JeremyParish]

Ah, sorry... after this and the FFII episodes, I decided never to do multiple episodes on a single game again. Too much to cover, too little time.

[@BoneyGaf]

I can't wait to hear Jeremy's take on the last Pilotwings mission

[@JeremyParish]

You assume I'll be able to get to the last Pilotwings mission.

[@eareboucas]

Thank you so much for these. Unlike most YT content, they don't feel like mere time fillers. So informative!

[@MissAshley42]

I didn't know about the hidden song in the Special map! :o I also didn't know (until recently) the special palette was called "autumn." I'd always referred to it as "Halloween World."

[@IgoSplashman]

And as for the age old SMB3 vs SMW debate, I fully blame NoE that some of us prefer SMW. After an extreme 3 year delay, we had exactly 8 months to savor the brilliance of SMB3 in Europe. In that time, you were lucky to even find an SMB3 demo kiosk in the stores. Then, the SNES rolled out with SMW, and the NES became old hat. So in a sense, SMW stole 3's thunder.

[@MAMoreno]

I'm firmly in the SMB3 camp, but I'll admit that A) the game did come out too late in the States, and B) it didn't feature a much-needed save feature until the All-Stars release. I stubbornly hold that the SNES version of SMB3 blows any version of SMW out of the water, though.

[@IgoSplashman]

Agreed, Allstars SMB3 is actually how I learned to appreciate that game.

[@ray_1111]

I am on Castle 3 in SMW, so far I am loving it!

[@JoshuaJacobs83]

I was today years old when I found out a three up Moon is a thing

[@DeathCrustPunk]

nice sprite clipping (i think that is what you call it) while you had the balloon power up

[@JeremyParish]

I really shoulda been dead with that one volcano plant.

[@swankidelic]

Yeah, balloon Mario's hitbox is apparently really small

[@pantra]

Keep it up, Love your videos big time! One little thing though: You might want to correct the color space of your video captures. Your capture card probably incorrectly treats your RGB-source as Rec. 709 instead of Rec. 601 (especially visible in those overly bright greens, for example on the world map at 0:58). I've had the same behavior with my XCAPTURE-1, but it's an easy fix that can be applied while re-encoding after capture. Just put a simple Avisynth-script or Virtualdub-filter in the chain, that explicitly changes the color space to Rec. 601 and everything should look perfect again.

[@RodrigoDavy]

A neat curiosity, you don't actually need the P-Balloon to finish Tubular if you have Yoshi. The reasoning is that every level that Yoshi can enter was theorically designed so that you can finish it with Yoshi. This is why there's a hidden blue turtle in the Gnarly stage for example, since Yoshi can't climb vines, it's the only way you can beat the level without leaving him I have a friend that's really good at SMW and we tried finishing Tubular with Yoshi, it's painfully difficult and we used the cape and blue Yoshi, yet still didn't manage to beat with Yoshi, but my friend did finish the level without the P-Balloon by using Yoshi most of the stage. Unfortunately he always died near the end :')

[@Treyworld]

There are at least 2 levels in the game where you're forced to ditch Yoshi so you can climb a vine. It especially sucks when you have a colored Yoshi and have to leave it and then take your slow-moving plumber ass on the map back to Star World to get another one. Pretty sloppy design in my opinion.

[@willmatheson]

7:47 Tell us you couldn't beat the special world yourself without telling us you couldn't beat the special world yourself!

[@JeremyParish]

Homie, I 96-exited all 3 save slots on my cart back in 1992. I’ve got nothing to prove to you

[@willmatheson]

I just found it curious that you seemingly didn't get the opportunity for a direct capture when you were making the video. But you did beat Tubular!

[@DominiqueGendronLanglois]

Awesome job dude. I love your style.

[@darkIkarus]

When I think about the SNES, I think of my favorite game of all time: Terranigma! Unfortunately ignored by most of the retrospectives since it never came out in the U.S.

[@jimsteele8946]

Nice video - but you forgot to mention that it is Miyamoto's favourite Mario game and that he said the game was kinda rushed and some content was lost to finish on time for the SNES launch.

[@shannonwilliams7249]

Another beautiful, vivacious, philosophical inquiry into gaming itself, cheesy as that may sound 🎃. Great writing, man. Maybe there are other people doing what you’re doing, but I can’t find any. Not at your level. Post graduate lecturer Jeremy Parrish’s exegesis of Nintendo. All of it.

[@deadsharkisart]

whatever I think about Hyperzone all the time! 😂

[@cxgamer9680]

2:35 You said the question blocks can only be obtained by leaping off yoshi's back. I would like to point out that you don't need yoshi, as the blue blocks there can be thrown upwards towards them as well.

[@JeremyParish]

See comment thread below.

[@kevinbowyer7205]

sweet lunchtime jeremy

[@fireflocs]

Man, Reznor is just begging for a Paper interpretation.

[@quibquiberton4184]

Maybe it's because I grew up with Mario World, but I found the special stages pretty damn easy compared to the harder stages in Mario 3.

[@akxmedia0]

...and to think Miyamoto felt the game was rushed and incomplete. It's pretty good as is...but wonder what could've been added

[@michaelmulligan8527]

My guess was always Yoshi's incorporation into levels. There's nothing you really NEED Yoshi for, with a few exceptions, and yet he makes the game much easier to navigate. You've always got an extra hit and an extra jump which can help you get thru some otherwise tough places. Imagine more levels designed around having the extra hit, the extra jump, etc. Or an entire game designed around it. The Koopa shells and Yoshi colors could also be expanded on tremendously. Perhaps a part of a stage where you need the fire balls to get past an obstacle, or the Yellow stomp, or even all three power ups from one of the flashing Koopa shells. I think he played the finished game and realize how much more he could have done... yet no direct sequel to this game ever came about, so maybe none of the ideas were really that great. Yes, Yoshi's island is a sequel, but really in name only. A full fledged continuation of this game's physics, level design and power ups could have been something special.

[@dmon007]

I love SMW, but SMB3 is better in my opinion. Two things SMW did better tho: Yoshi (duh) and the secret areas.

[@rootbeer_666]

Agreed, though I think we’re in the minority. I do think SMW’s physics are better than those of its predecessor, though that could be because future games felt more like it than they did SMB3, so I have to reacclimate to SMB3 physics when revisiting it. But I just prefer 3 overall.

[@Nintentional]

*E S O T E R I C*

[@jamesmoss3424]

Super Mario world is still the best. 😀👍🎮

[@dislikebutton1799]

6:56 game genie

[@JeremyParish]

Nope, I do use a Game Genie for some footage, but so far I've only used cheats for NES games since I don't have a GG for Super NES. This was just some kind of collision error with a normal cart on real hardware.

[@HeroOfLegend115]

Hi I hate Tubular. Good series, thank you for your content.

[@Devimon4000]

I'm not really sure I see SMW as anymore complex than SMB3 or the NSMB series. As you seem to agree the platforming is not just easier then some other games, but fewer distinct gameplay ideas are used. Levels in SMB3 sometimes have you do set ups, where you need to double back to get a secret area or just stash of coins, like in 6-10 where you have to free some munchers from ice then head back and up to a p-switch to turn them into coins to get into a pipe that holds a hammer suit. I'm also curious why you feel NSMB games are less exploratory then SMW. They still have secret exits, and if you want to access the hardest levels in Star World you need to find all Star Coins which require fully exploring all the levels. None of this is meant to suggest SMW is bad, or anything less then one of the best pure platformers ever, though that can be said for basicly every mainline Mario.

[@michaelmulligan8527]

It's hard to definitively state that any Mario game is better or worse than another. Like you said (a year ago I realized, but it's new to me!) every Mario game offers pure platforming and is given the Nintendo polish and pizzazz that few other companies are really known for. As a result, many Top 50 or even 25 games of all time lists end up packed with Mario games. I believe what it comes down to is personal preference and the one game you really grew up with, the one that hit you the hardest at that defining moment of your life. For me, it's Mario World. I had SMB and SMB3 on NES (and later 2, but that was years and years after it had been released) but World came about when I was finally good enough to play these games thru to the end. World is the 1st game I ever beat. Is it better than Mario 3 or NSMB? That's hard to say. Is it my favorite? Yes. Do I still love 3? Yes. Do I love NSMB? Not... really, but I'd still love to play them again if they get re-released on the Switch.

[@Treyworld]

I still think Super Mario World is definitely one of the easier Mario games to beat. The Special Worlds are challenging (if you haven't mastered the cape or Blue Yoshi) but they're completely optional. The main game is a breeze for the most part. Capes, coins and lives are plentiful so you shouldn't have too much trouble.

[@buggs9950]

Having grown up with a NES, then a SNES and so on I was dead excited to play the "New" Mario games.. What a loada dumbed down, arcadey crap they all were!

[@rootbeer_666]

I wasn’t a fan either. I mean, I enjoyed the first one enough when I got it, but after I finished it, I just didn’t feel like going back to it, it just felt like a hollow experience. And then there were few enhancements with each subsequent game in the series. Look at the gulf between the first Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros 3, both in visual terms and in terms of gameplay. I didn’t feel like that really happen between New Super Mario Bros. and New Super Mario Bros. U. Just meh all around.

[@buggs9950]

@@rootbeer_666 Meh. Yep that pretty much sums them up for me. I think Nintendo were trying to make a quick buck off of nostalgia.

[@Dilios_of_Sparta]

You said SMW had a number of innovations that went on to become mainstays of the series--such as the reserve item box. But doesn't the reserve item box really have its origins in Super Mario Bros. 3, not SMW, with the elongated, multi-page item box (accessible on the map screen), where the players could store a multitude of power-ups? Granted, the player could only power-up with these items on the map screen before entering a level (not in it), but is this not the first instance for this particular innovation in the Mario series? Sure, in SMW it's there to give the player a second wind in level, and in SMB3 it is nonexistent (map screen only). But it's kind of the same. A little.

[@kidv2]

Tubular is such a torture to watch

[@oledevo]

Why did you have to say "25 years later"? Couldn't you have said "5 years later"?

[@JeremyParish]

But then you wouldn't feel a sense of helpless despair about life.

[@GordAllott]

I'm not sure I agree with the perfect balance claimed here, I played SMW as an adult not a kid, with less time and patience on my hand. whilst most of the game is excellent and entertaining, things like its woods and ghost houses were nothing but infuriating

[@rsmith02]

Why infuriating? I'm enjoying finding the ghost house exits.