Also felt the same way. Of course when I got a SNES, I still played through it like crazy, but the game did not have the mind-blowing hype that SMB3 had back then.
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So uh, Mario World must've blown's everybody's mind huh?
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
Also felt the same way. Of course when I got a SNES, I still played through it like crazy, but the game did not have the mind-blowing hype that SMB3 had back then.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Yup. My first impression (and lasting impression) of SMW was "this has been done better before."
Visually and aurally, Green Hill Zone blew away anything Dinosaur Land had to offer, too.
You got that right. I used to pay by the hour to play a Japanese version my local game store imported. Hadn't seen anything like it truly mind blowing.
It seriously should not be hard to understand. The market grew with the SNES, SMW was more intricately linked with that console than 3 was with the NES, and it is widely considered one of the best games ever.
In the same way, it is not difficult for me to understand that it didn't click in a particularly spectacular way for some people. But now that "manufactured hype" is a term in circulation, I think this would be a good time to add the term "manufactured disbelief."
skatebored
Member
Mode 7, sprite layers and transparency blew my mind as a kid.
AuthenticM
Member
Yes it did.
Yes it did.
Yes it did.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Maybe if I hadn't already played Green Hill Zone in Sonic 1 to death
now Super Mario 64 on the other hand...that was pretty wild in '96
now Super Mario 64 on the other hand...that was pretty wild in '96
When I got to play Sonic after all that hype my mind was blown... downwards. This slow game is supposed to be about speed? My young mind was trained on LCD games which simply sped up until you could not follow anymore. And I was FAST. I timed out the stuff in my head because the visual info at one point was simply not enough anymore.
And then Sonic came and didn't test my reflexes to the breaking point. I was disappointed. Too slow, too easy.
I remember being introduced to SMB3 while I was still in NES mode that it had me floored, and I dropped life when I saw Mario 64 just because 3D was a completely new concept for me at the time. I don't remember how I felt when I played World, so I guess the non memory speaks for itself. Don't get me wrong I played the crap out of it and loved it. Ask me today and I'd say it's not an impressive 2D Mario, I can play through it but feels meh.
I used to beg my mom to take me to toys R us till she just gave up and bought me a N64 with SM64
yep. my thoughts exactly.
Damn, does Act Raiser not deserve some more credit. What a game!
And yeah, SNES had tons of great games
Playing Super Mario World is legitimately one of my first memories as a kid.
Correctomundo
Member
Nope. By the time that hit I had been playing 3D games for a good while. It's still my least favorite Mario. But then, I'm not a huge Mario fan.
The SNES sold less than the NES.
I dunno, I grew up religiously on NES Mario, and I'd describe playing Mario World as mind blowing at the time, mostly for the interconnected world and all the secrets. I still think 3's the better game, in fact it's my favorite game of all time, but Mario World left quite an impression on me in a way few other games did. Stumbling on to a secret exit for the first time, making it to star road, running up walls, struggling to learn how to use the cape effectively; these are some of my most vivid and cherished gaming memories. It obviously wasn't the revolution 1, 3 or 64 were, but I really appreciate it's subtle evolutions.
RoyaleDuke
Banned
SMRPG<SM3<SMS<SM64<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<SMW
That's how it goes for me personally, I remember being quite bored with SMW.
As for the newest batch, Super Mario 3D Land was fucking mindblowing.
Love that game, and I haven't loved Mario much since the games listed above.
That's how it goes for me personally, I remember being quite bored with SMW.
As for the newest batch, Super Mario 3D Land was fucking mindblowing.
Love that game, and I haven't loved Mario much since the games listed above.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
I think every Mario platformer on the DS, 3DS, Wii, and Wii U is superior to SMW.
Dr. Black Jack
Member
Second post and people are already bitching.
Lumpy Onion
Member
I thought it was incredible. So incredible that I snuck into my parents closet and took the snes and game cart out weeks before christmas to play through early. I replaced it with a brick or something. I felt kinda shitty doing something that sneaky and never attempted anything of the sort again, but it was one of the best Mario memories I have.
Mike Works
Member
This was not what it was like.
Yeah, I loved SMW when the SNES launched but it was nowhere near as unbelievable as SM64 was when it came out.
I'm not lying when I say that the water in Labyrinth Zone straight up blew my mind when I was younger. I swear to god I remember bringing my dad into the room to see the level. Something about the palette just floored me. I remember staring at the screen wondering "how the hell did they do that????" It looked like real water to me. Most games, the water was just this unrealistic bright blue stuff, but the water in Sonic? The way everything tinted correctly? It was honestly one of the times I remember being most impressed by a single effect.
I didn't even know the Genesis couldn't do transparencies at the time, either. That probably would have made it even more mindblowing.
EDIT: Probably goes a long way in why Labyrinth Zone is my favorite Sonic 1 zone.
I didn't even know the Genesis couldn't do transparencies at the time, either. That probably would have made it even more mindblowing.
EDIT: Probably goes a long way in why Labyrinth Zone is my favorite Sonic 1 zone.
I was a Sega kid growing up. Sonic 2 absolutely blew my mind, especially the special stages that came out of the checkpoint so long as you had 50 rings, with 2 player coop. Im still waiting for Sega to do something as good as it and get sucked in every time. Sonic Boom is the first time Im not buying it.
But as others have already said when N64 came out and we got goldeneye, Mario64 and OOT that was just incredible.
But as others have already said when N64 came out and we got goldeneye, Mario64 and OOT that was just incredible.
WTF?!?!? The DS games are terrible.
One of the first games I ever saw was the original Super Mario Bros. My cousins had a NES and whenever we went to their house, I was floored by that game. I couldn't play it. however - my cousins saw to that. It was their console, their game and their house. So I just had to look, with mouth agape, anxiously waiting for a chance that I knew it'll never arrive.
Back home, my dad had an Atari with some games. Wasn't his (I think it was the property of one of my uncles) but we still had it and it still ran fine. Another of my earliest gaming memories was playing Montezuma's Revenge with my dad - something special because, after that, my dad never played with me on a game console again. I don't think he ever "got" it. Plus, he was too busy most of the time so I don't blame him.
Anyway, I must've been 3 or 4 years old when my parents got me a special gift for... Christmas, I guess. Or my birthday. They're both in December so I can't actually remember the exact date.
That gift was... a SNES with Super Mario World. Man, I had a SNES. With SMW. For me. My own console. I was finally able to play something on my own without having to beg and wait for my cousins to actually lend me the controller for a short while. No, this was mine and I was going to enjoy it.
And I did. Super Mario World blew my mind back then. I love it, despite that SMB3 might be a better game, or SM64 (which I also adore) is more revolutionary - I love it because it meant so much to me back then. It opened wide the floodgates. I never looked back.
Back home, my dad had an Atari with some games. Wasn't his (I think it was the property of one of my uncles) but we still had it and it still ran fine. Another of my earliest gaming memories was playing Montezuma's Revenge with my dad - something special because, after that, my dad never played with me on a game console again. I don't think he ever "got" it. Plus, he was too busy most of the time so I don't blame him.
Anyway, I must've been 3 or 4 years old when my parents got me a special gift for... Christmas, I guess. Or my birthday. They're both in December so I can't actually remember the exact date.
That gift was... a SNES with Super Mario World. Man, I had a SNES. With SMW. For me. My own console. I was finally able to play something on my own without having to beg and wait for my cousins to actually lend me the controller for a short while. No, this was mine and I was going to enjoy it.
And I did. Super Mario World blew my mind back then. I love it, despite that SMB3 might be a better game, or SM64 (which I also adore) is more revolutionary - I love it because it meant so much to me back then. It opened wide the floodgates. I never looked back.
I was about to co-sign this until I realized the original New Super Mario Bros came under this category. You're fucking insane. I love the NSMB games... but the original one is hands down the worst mainline Mario title ever.
Sixfortyfive
He who pursues two rabbits gets two rabbits.
Probably the biggest aesthetic thing about SMW that struck me was that there was no more themed worlds.
SMB3 had Desert Hill, Ocean Side, Big Island, The Sky, Ice Land, Pipe Maze.... very distinct worlds with very distinct feels.
Everything in SMW looked the same.
And Mario's 16-bit sprite was pretty dull and lifeless compared to Sonic's. That foot-tapping idle animation was a small but important touch.
But I still liked NSMB more than SMW. It was more of what I expected out of a Super Mario game.
SMB3 had Desert Hill, Ocean Side, Big Island, The Sky, Ice Land, Pipe Maze.... very distinct worlds with very distinct feels.
Everything in SMW looked the same.
And Mario's 16-bit sprite was pretty dull and lifeless compared to Sonic's. That foot-tapping idle animation was a small but important touch.
I don't blame anyone for having that opinion, either, and I'd recommend SMW over NSMB to other players simply because it's different enough to be worthwhile. The original NSMB is a very obsolete game at this point; there's no reason to seek it out when literally all of its successors just do what it did, but better.
But I still liked NSMB more than SMW. It was more of what I expected out of a Super Mario game.
SMW is an empty, nearly hazard-less game with the most exploitable power up in the series.
crazyrabbits
Banned
Indeed. There were a number of elements that weren't used before (and haven't been used since, IIRC), including off the top of my head:
- levels where the end goal and final section were very different based on at what time you entered a certain pipe (Chocolate Island)
- at least one instance where you either had to fly below the level to get under and onto the other side of the end goal, and/or sacrifice Yoshi via springboarding off of it to land safety (Cheese Bridge)
- the "Yoshi eats mushrooms to get more time" in the final level of the Special World, and the glitch with the super-fast athletic theme
I don't agree with the fact that it's "nearly hazardless", but the cape wasn't the only broken element in the game. The Wiggler "infinite lives" trick, the Top Secret Area, numerous places to farm 1-ups early in the game, the massive extra lives trick in the first Vanilla Secret stage, etc, etc.
PaulBizkit
Member
Super Mario World was actually the very first console game i have ever played. I was 3 years old, my father gave me an SNES as a present (birthday i guess) and it came bundled with SMW.
So I was amazed by that game but not because it was THE REVOLUTION OF GAMING but because I controlled the little guy in the screen.
So I was amazed by that game but not because it was THE REVOLUTION OF GAMING but because I controlled the little guy in the screen.
Poimandres
Member
Manufactured disbelief... I like that term, but it's not applicable here!
Firstly, the market did NOT grow with the SNES: http://au.ign.com/articles/2014/01/29/these-are-nintendos-lifetime-hardware-and-software-numbers
Lifetime NES hardware sales: 61.91 million
Lifetime SNES hardware sales: 49.1 million
Secondly, I can definitely accept that the game would be "mindblowing" if it was your first game or your first Mario game etc. But the OP reads like someone looking back at the game, not from someone who was there at the time. So if he's looking back at SMW from a historical context, I have to question why the OP would see this game as more "mind blowing" than other games in the Mario series that I mentioned?
Thirdly, the premise of the thread isn't just that it blew some minds, but that it blew everybodys mind. I can undertstand it blowing some minds, but it clearly didn't blow everyboys mind! For some people it wasn't a huge jump from SMB3, and it didn't really have the best audio visual presentation for its time either (Sonic, arcade games etc).
You would have a pretty clear cut case of blowing everybodys mind with SMB1 or SM64... but SMW? Not so much.
All that said, I still think it's a great game.
Actually, the game was very underwhelming after Mario 3. The levels were bigger but there was less variety in level types. World went back to SMB1 tropes: plains, caves, cliffs, mushrooms, underwater, bridges, and castles. Very little cohesion amongst world levels unlike 3. SMB3 was also a lot more challenging and platforming-focused; SMW is possibly the easiest Mario game. The levels may have been a bit smaller but 3 felt like a beefier game.
The DS games have the most boring level design and terrible 3D graphics. Yeah, you could exploit flying and only the late levels had any challenge. But even then you had nice layout and tons of variance and gimmicks. Star Road was super fun too.
Disaster Nebraska
Banned
At the time, World was acceptable but everyone was still waiting for a game with the scope and creativity of Super Mario Bros 3. Not that the game was bad, but people didn't necessarily hold it to a high standard because it was a launch title. We were all waiting for the real successor to SMB3.
And instead we got Yoshi's Island.
What's funny is Miyamoto was genuinely surprised that a lot of SMB3 and SMW fans didn't enjoy Yoshi's Island. It's like....c'mon. People were expecting to be blown away again.
And instead we got Yoshi's Island.
What's funny is Miyamoto was genuinely surprised that a lot of SMB3 and SMW fans didn't enjoy Yoshi's Island. It's like....c'mon. People were expecting to be blown away again.
The point is not that the SNES sold more than the NES. It's that a significant number of people were formally introduced to the genre that generation.
Mario has never been overshadowed by Sonic.
MrCunningham
Member
It was an understated good looking game with great use of the SNES colour palette showing a wide range of colours that could not be done on the Genesis and some nice mode 7 effects. The sprite art looked a little goofy though.
But to be honest, the game wasn't that mind blowing to look at, especially when Sonic the Hedgehog 1 was released the same year and actually looked a little more impressive in some ways.
The music in Super Mario World was really amazing for its day.
But as far as US launch games go, F-Zero, Pilot Wings and Sim City were much more impressive looking.
But to be honest, the game wasn't that mind blowing to look at, especially when Sonic the Hedgehog 1 was released the same year and actually looked a little more impressive in some ways.
The music in Super Mario World was really amazing for its day.
But as far as US launch games go, F-Zero, Pilot Wings and Sim City were much more impressive looking.
friskykillface
Banned
This. Still remember my cousin playing it at his party with all my relatives and adults watching
Minds were blown just by the Mario face stretching
Super Mario Bros definitely outsold World. Not sure about 3. Also not sure at all how you came to that conclusion when the SNES' platformer library is dwarfed by the NES'.