Super Mario World Vs Newer Super Mario World U

Channel:

MrThunderwing

Subscribers:

22,800

Published on November 23, 2014 7:33:14 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO4d3USQJdE

Game:

Super Mario World (1990)

Duration: 14:45

2,293,636 views

10,563

A comparison of Super Mario World and Newer Super Mario World U - a fan made hack that recreates Super Mario World using the New Super Mario Bros Wii game engine and textures. Newer Super Mario World U is running on PC.

I used my Gameboy Advance copy of Super Mario World for the video capture, played on GBA player on my GameCube, because I don't actually own a SNES. I could've used a SNES emulator, but if I'd done that, I would've then had to re-unlock all the levels I wanted to use for comparison all over again, when I already had them ready to go on my GBA cart. Some purists will argue that the GBA version is a graphically and audibly downgraded version of the game, but honestly, I think the difference is negligible.

The downside to using GBA player though is that I found it really hard to play the game with a Gamecube joypad. The D-pad is really oddly positioned and small for something like this and trying to play a game meant for digital controls with an analog stick never feels right to me, so the L stick wasn't really an option. Regardless of the pad, the fact is as well that I'm a 40+ year old bloke who doesn't exactly play a lot of Mario games anymore, so if you think I suck at playing this you're probably right. But this comparison's just meant to be a look at the two games side-by-side for fun, not a speed run or any kind of demonstration of gaming skill. I'm pretty rusty at the games and I freely acknowledge that I'm taking my time going through the levels, specifically because I'm trying not to die and get the games out of sync.

I used to be a hardcore Sega fanboy during my teens and early twenties and owned a Sega Megadrive during the 16 bit years. I didn't own a copy of Super Mario World myself until it came out on the Gameboy Advance many years later. I did get a chance to play the game a fair bit though on a friend's SNES back in the day (we played it through to completion over one weekend staying up until about 4 am two nights in a row - it was that addictive) and absolutely loved it. Inspite of my Sega fanboy-ism back in the day, if you asked me to list my favourite games of all time Super Mario World would definitely be right up there in my top 5, if not my top 3. It's about as close to a perfect game as you get in my humble opinion.

Unfortunately, as enjoyable as they are, I don't think the New Super Mario Games have ever quite managed to replicate the winning formula. I think part of the issue for me is they seem to have less of an emphasis on finding secrets exits in the levels combined with very linear level maps. Finding all 96 levels in the original Super Mario World was one of the things that kept drawing me back to it - some of those secret exits were down right fiendish to find (like the Cheese Bridge secret area). Whilst you do get secret exits in the new SMB games, they just seem to take you to warp cannons and toad houses and the like, but in SMW they'd take you on alternative branching routes through the levels. No longer having the cape and also no longer being able to kick shells or blocks upwards were also steps backwards for the series I reckon, because both of these things played crucial roles in discovering a lot of the secret exits.

Still, this hacked version seems to be doing a great job of replicating the secret exits so far from what I've seen and really capturing the feel on SMW. Unfortunately the hack doesn't feature the awesome Super Mario World overworld theme from the SNES and GBA...

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