Patrick Elliot
Shaun InguanzoSuper Mario All Stars (Review)
December 13th 2006 11:25
Players: 1-2
Genre: Platform
Developer: Nintendo
Platform: SNES
Year: 1993 (USA), 1993 (PAL)
Well, there's something interesting when I was checking up on release dates for this review. Wikipedia includes the Australia release date for SMAS, which happens to be 3 months after it released in Europe. I suppose this would explain why I swear I didn't see some of these SNES games in Australia even though they had PAL dates. Man do we suck for releases...
Super Mario All Stars is a compilation of four different Mario games: Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, 3 and The Lost Levels (a new set of harder levels, based on the first game).
Story: Story? Uh... Save the princess. Defeat Bowser. Something else very basic.
Battle System: SMB 1, 3 and the Lost Levels follow the traditional platform format. You can jump on enemies to defeat them, and touching enemies causes damage (up to a maximum of 3 before it's Game Over). Items such as mushrooms can grow your character, while items such as the flower or leaf can enable abilities such as fireball throwing and flying. Items and enemies vary between the versions.
SMB 2 is a bit different from the other SMB games in that the way of tackling stages. Jumping on enemies does not defeat them. Rather, jumping on them allows you to ride an enemy, or, if you choose, to pick them up and raise them over your head. Depending on the character you choose, you get special abilities to use in-game. My personal favourite to use was Princess Peach, seeing how she has the ability to float in the air for a while and slow descent -- making it much easier to manoeuvre landings.
Innovation: About the same as the original games (since it's just a compilation apart from The Lost Levels).
Graphics: What'd you'd expect from the 2D Mario days. They don't really differ much between each other, though they did touch up the graphics a bit for the SNES version.
Sound: Mostly similar musical tracks too.
Replayability: Pretty high for SMB1, 3, and The Lost Levels since it allows multi-player and a simple enough format where you can have guests over and play with them. When I was younger, I used to just play the Battle versus mode in SMB3 with some other kids that came over when their parents visited for dinner. It was that fun multiplayer. Better than the actual game at times for us.
Overall: Great choice of game for a platformer if you don't have the original SMB1-3 games. If you already have them, it's not really worth it for The Lost Levels unless you're just after the challenge of a harder Mario game. There's only one big negative to the compilation: The lack of saving or the awkwardness of saving attempts. You pretty much need to start a game all over again, or start that world again (in the case of SMB3) if you need to come back another day.
Score: 7/10 (I'd rate the individual titles higher, but I'm rating the quality of the compilation.)
Super Mario Bros 2
Doki Doki Panic
Trivia: The Lost Levels is actually the original Japanese SMB2. It's speculated that the reason it wasn't released in English is because it was considered too hard for American audiences, as well as the similarities to SMB1.
The English SMB2 is an altered version of Doki Doki Panic to contain Mario characters and then released in the USA and other English-speaking countries. This title was then released in Japan under the title, Super Mario USA.
| 140 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
Comment by Jessicca
Learning Something Everyday
Malaysia Found
The next game I could get hooked on is Street Fighter. I remembered I was playing for hours for the first time and when my cousin (who's quite a gamer) stopped by to play with me the first time I could beat her off straight and quick. Ah... those were the days. LOL..
Comment by Sword Serenity
A Female Gamer
Comment by Jessicca
Learning Something Everyday
Malaysia Found
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Erm... number 2 was a bit annoying though
Comment by Nina
Comment by Sword Serenity
A Female Gamer
Comment by Nina
Comment by Jessicca
Learning Something Everyday
Malaysia Found