GameZone's David Sanchez discusses exactly why Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World stand tall among the platformer genre.
If all the world is a stage, then Mario is adept at playing all the roles – something Miyamoto was very keen to tell us.
3 had a good balance of difficulty before crybabies stepped in and cried about the difficulty of SMW, which is why the game was made easier before release. Would also explain why most other games have been easier except for special worlds etc.. or ones you unlock after you beat the main game.
Isn't the reason we got a Doki Doki Panic sprite swap because Lost Levels was originally deemed too difficult?
This is a lot of revisionist history. All games back then had to be difficult or else they would be over in less than an hour. Super Mario 3 was actually super approachable because you could use the map and warp whistles to go right to the boss. And as with Super Mario World, you could farm stages for more lives. The beautify of Super Mario 3 was the abundance of secret areas and tools like Hammer Bros. suits. You didn’t really want to rush it. The lost levels were a different beast. They were never marketed as a mainline Mario game.
I watched an interview with a developer (I think it was for Disney's Aladdin) from years ago and he said they were required to raise the difficulty because so many games were rented back then. They didn't want the game finished quickly so you had to rent it longer. it was the home-rental equivalent of pumping more quarters into an arcade machine.
The cry babies? It was Nintendo’s perception that yanks didnt like difficult games hence the easing of the difficulty.
This is an odd statement considering the history of Japanese games that had you press X on your way to victory. Seriously, games like Ninja Gaiden in the 00s was born of the developer’s belief that Japanese gamers had grown too soft.
Let’s discuss what made Super Mario World so good. This Nintendo classic is one of the best 2D games of its generation.
It was imaginative, great controls and fun. Definition of a great game. What else is there to say?
The end.
I love this game. Got the SNES bundle of Christmas of 1992 I think. I wanted the Genesis with Sonic 2 but this was just as good at the time. This was a huge jump from the nes Mario's and I didn't think it could get batter than Mario 3. The addition to Different Yoshi's added amazing gameplay.
It was magical. Coming from Super Mario 3, this game felt glorious with its graphics, colors and music. A masterpiece.
Jessica Mullane for SUPERJUMP: "a style of gameplay that is intentionally meant to be frustratingly difficult. Don't expect to master anything in a day or even a month"
Personally Mario World is the better game. Probably the best in the series.
Super Mario World will always be my favorite Mario game; more so than even the Galaxy games. It was just so fresh for its time and the feather/cape and multiple types of Yoshi's were a blast to use.
It's really hard to say what's better but I would really like a Super Mario Bros 3-II because I played that the most when I was a wee lad. These "New" Super Mario Bros games while good can't compete with the old school Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario World is my favourite game of all time. It's as close to perfect as it is possible for a game to be (Tubular can go to hell though) and I would pop it in and play it any time. It holds up, like SMB3, because the control and level design are amazing, they can still challenge even when they make it easy for new players to get started.
They hold up better than 99 percent of the releases this year