When Christmas of 1990 arrived, I had just turned six, and I got a Super Nintendo system from Santa. Oh, the joy–and oh, the hours of trying to play through the first levels of Super Mario World, which, as accurately as I remember, came with the game system itself.
I was admittedly terrible at it, often killing Mario by jumping just a wee bit too far or a wee bit too short, or by getting agitated and sending him straight into the path of an enemy. But I made my slow and careful way around the Super Mario World map–I even made it to the Tubular secret level, by some act of God.
This is the Tubular level, also known as “Where Bad Marios Go when They Die.” xD
Read on for reminiscing about Super Mario World, one of the games I (and many other gamers of our generation) grew up on…
The boss battle with Iggy Koopa, seen above, was very difficult for me as a six-year-old–I kept jumping around thinking I just had to get off the platform onto something invisible on the sides. Needless to say, poor Mario died in the flames quite a lot because of my stupidity. LOL
I remember hating the Roy section of the map because I couldn’t find the way to get to Roy’s castle. This Youtube video would have saved me hours of ROAR and frustration, back in the day.
Wendy Koopa’s boss battle (at the end of this video) was the reason I broke my first SNES controller–those stupid flame ghosts kept getting me, and if by some miracle I managed to avoid them, then the Koopas got me. At least I had the good sense to disconnect the controller from the system before chucking it full-force at the wall…
This is the Donut Ghost House, which allows you to get to both the next official level in the game, as well as a top secret area. I never found this top-secret area, to my knowledge, unless I blundered into it somewhere.
(Random childhood memory: I was playing a Ghost House level near Halloween, while Mom and Dad were watching some kind of scary movie upstairs. Right as I was fighting King Boo, a horrible scream rang out from the TV upstairs–and I just dropped the controller and ran. LOL! Poor Mario, abandoned to die in the Ghost House because I was too chicken to stay in the room. xD)
My favorite levels were the Star Road levels (seen in the video above)–not because they were easier, but because they were pretty. 😀 I also liked how they interconnected with each other, and had lots of secrets to explore. (Not that I ever found any of the secrets without help…or without accidentally stumbling on them. xD)
The Castle Theme track (available through this video) freaked me out as a little kid. *shiver* Still gives me the willies listening to this track!
 Image source |
Oh, how I hated the football-player guys that randomly throw baseballs. They always managed to tag me out, or jump up and catch me (like this one is doing in the pic) as I tried to avoid them. Fail. |
The Cape Feather was AWESOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 😀 Even if I was a terrible flier, it was so COOL to be able to fly! (What I wouldn’t have done for this tutorial back in the day–it took hours of practice before I could get Mario to hold onto his cape like a parachute… LOL)
…And flying with Yoshi (as you might have seen already in the Donut Ghost House video) is pretty awesome, too. 😀 Start this video at around 0:55, and you’ll see!
For More Information
If all this reminiscing has made you want to play Super Mario World again, or perhaps play for the first time, you can play the game through the Wii’s Virtual Console system, as well as playing the slightly edited version made for the GameBoy Advance system. Or, if you still have access to an old SNES that still works, you can probably find a cartridge for this game floating around for cheap, and enjoy it as many gamers have done over the years!