Super Mario World
~SNES
Original Completion Date: October 14th, 2008
Super Mario World, yet another SNES classic. Once again, Nintendo nails every aspect of a great game: smooth game play, awesome replay value, catchy music, and even some innovative features, such as the switch palaces. Switch palaces enhance certain levels, allowing players to reach new heights (for all you completionists out there like me). Another great aspect of this game is that it was fairly long for a platformer. To finish the game with every secret takes about 3 hours!
Also new to the Mario series is our dinosaur pal Yoshi, who is introduced in Super Mario World. Yoshi allows you to blow through levels faster, take an extra hit without losing your own powers, or even dive off last minute for the ultimate betrayal in friendship: leaving your best friend to die while you dive off to safety. As an added little bonus, a sweet drum beat plays with the level music while you ride him.
Super Mario Bros. 3
~SNES (Via Super Mario All-Stars)
Original Completion Date: October 23rd, 2008
Super Mario Bros. 3 - what a perfect game. It is widely known as one of the top selling video games of all time, having sold over 18 million copies on the original console. It also managed to sell another million copies 20 years after it's original release, after coming out on the Wii's Virtual Console for download - and not without reason. After two decades, the game play is a definite rival for current classics. Divinely smooth with an array of level themes and music to match each scene, the difficulty level is fairly well rounded as well; the bosses are ridiculously easy (three consecutive jumps timed right will leave him totally stunned until you finish him off), and yet the secrets are hard to find as a first time player. You can also collect flutes to skip worlds whenever you feel like it, but make sure you don't skip past World 5-3, for the game's only appearance of Kuribo's Shoe, more commonly known as that awesome boot thing you can ride in!
Super Mario Bros. 2
~SNES (Via Super Mario All-Stars)
Original Completion Date: October 23rd, 2008
Another sweet Super Mario Bros. game. For those of you who don't know, Super Mario Bros. 2 is actually not an original Mario game, but rather a port with a slight redesign of the Japanese Famicom game Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic. And while the original SMB2 game was released in Japan, it was deemed to difficult for North Americans (Ouch! That hurts Nintendo), and so this is what they came up with. Even so, SMB2 turned out to have some difficult parts of its own, especially when using the wrong characters for each level. I tend to use Peach most because she can float for hours with her dress (talk about a cheap win), but I do like to change up the difficulty now and then by, say, using Luigi. Just look at those legs, how is anybody supposed to control THAT? I remember imitating that jump as a kid on trampolines, but just try killing a giant frog-thing spewing bubbles at you with that kind of instability! Classic.
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels
~SNES (Via Super Mario All-Stars)
Original Completion Date: October 16th, 2008
Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. It's hard. It's classic Mario. Everybody knows the iconic music and style of these games. Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is a direct sequel to the original Super Mario Bros. game, and once again Bowser has kidnapped the princess, so it is up to you, my fat plumber friend, to trudge through another eight worlds of hell - only this time, hell is on steroids. So let's get Goomba squashing and Koopa stomping; only a few hours of torture and running into that stupid Toad telling you "Our princess is in another castle!" will bring you to destination Princess-cheek-kiss! (What a cop-out).
