The very first time I played Super Mario World was on September 1st, 1992. It was the day that I got my Super Nintendo on my birthday. I was so excited because we have been playing Super Mario Bros. 3, which we loved so much but I didn’t think that I would get the new game and console. I saw Super Mario World in the video game magazines and I thought it looked so cool. I didn’t expect to get it on my birthday especially since I never asked for it, now thinking back it was probably my brother that put it in my dads ear.
my first thoughts playing super mario world
When first playing the stages, everything looked so cool to me. The koopas, goombas, boo’s, the bosses and graphics overall. Getting to the castles and fighting the bosses was awesome. On the first day, we beat the first castle. We didn’t play it all day because it was my birthday and I had a party with friends over. I also had gotten Street Fighter 2, but I’m going leave that for another blog.
Getting through the game was challenging but it did have some cool new features. Some stages had 2 different ways of beating it to unlock another path and I thought that was interesting. The map was a decent size, and it was a nice touch because you could go to Star World.
the special zone was highly difficult
After getting through star world, you could go to the special zone. It was not an easy zone though, I remember we struggled on the 2nd stage: Tubular. It took a few years for me to actually beat that one stage because you had to get the power balloon, and you had to float and avoid all of the bad guys hitting you.
Once your balloon starts running out, you had to go and hit one of the boxes to get the other balloon before it runs out on you. It was super hard for a kid, but I eventually did it. Getting all the way to Bowser’s castle was pretty cool too because how everything elevated from the water. It was this big cave like bowser head. You go in there after going through the sunken ship from part 3. And then finally getting to Bowser’s castle after beating all of the stages in that level.
But when you finally get to his castle, there’s two entrances. One is the front door, and the other is the back door. In the front door, you have to go through those different doors to select which one you want to go through. If you go through the back door, you skip all of that, and go through this one section like a mini stage with few bad guys. Then you finally fight Bowser.
My first gaming accomplishment!
When I first beat it, I was probably about 9 years old. I finally beat it on and it felt great! Like I was actually good at gaming. I’ve seen my brothers beat it and thought that only big kids can do it. Up until that point that was the first game that I beat. It felt like it took forever to beat that game. I knew how to 100% the game because we had a magazine that was showing us the secrets.
You know, that was also back during the times when you would call the Nintendo hotline. I believe for Super Mario World, my brothers called the Nintendo Hotline a lot. They got into so much trouble, like every kid in America did because that phone bill was sky high.
star world… is out of this world
Star World was interesting because you get to ride on all of the different colored yoshi’s. Also once you get to star world and beat all those stages, you will get a shortcut to go to Bowser’s Castle. Another cool thing about Star World is you get to transport to different lands throughout the map, and that definitely beats walking around all over the place. One of my favorite things in the game was Yoshi. It was so cool that you get a sidekick dinosaur that eats the bad guys. But unfortunately, when you get hit, he runs away like a little coward. And then you get different power ups depending on what shell you eat.
the yoshi varieties
The blue Yoshi gets wings after eating any Koopa. The red one spits fire and the yellow one stomps. If any Yoshi eats a golden shell they will fly, stomp and spit fire. I always liked blue Yoshi, he came in handy many times.
the power ups!
The power ups in Super Mario World that you get have the traditional fire flower, mushroom, and star. But the new ones were the feather, which gives you the cape and the power balloon. With the feather you can run and fly, then do a parachute-like thing to keep you floating in the air a little bit. Or, you could just deep dive until you slam on the ground, it sounds like a big bomb. But the cool thing is, whenever you get a power up, and if you’re already using a power, it saves it in this little square up above in the center of the screen.
That was great because whenever you get hit, that power up would come down, or you could always press select, and it would come down. So you can alternate between power ups. Just don’t miss it, because if you don’t get it when it falls you lose it.
final thoughts
Still till this day I play it. It’s a fun great game filled with many of my childhood memories, from playing with my neighbor and my brothers. We all helped each other beat it since my neighbor had it too.
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