One of the best two dimensional games, ever.

User Rating: 10 | Super Mario World: Super Mario Bros. 4 SNES
When I got my Super Nintendo in the mid nineties, I got it with this masterpiece of a game. I picked this game from hype and from the enjoyment of playing Super Mario Land on my game boy. Little did I know that Super Mario Land offered only the smallest taste of what I had in store when playing SMW.

The best aspect of this game is, by far, the genius game play. The cape is still my favorite item of the entire Mario series, as it works like a limitless version of the raccoon tail in SMB3. While there are fewer Items offered in this game than in SMB3, you still end up with a large number of abilities, because of my personal favorite addition to the Mario series: Yoshi. His ability to eat koopa shells and use them for different purposes. my personal favorite was the red shell, even though it had far less potential than the flying ability from the purple shell, it just looked cooler. Speaking of shells, I felt that the addition of the ability to kick a shell straight up was a really nifty addition, considering how many new puzzles could be used with it.

What set this game apart from earlier Mario experiences for me was the new idea that levels could be replayed, and that there was an option to save the game by beating any of the ghost houses. No more was completing the game straight necessary - while I love doing that, I never have the time to do that for the NES games. This small aspect made this game my favorite two dimensional Mario game, as I felt that the game was more or less an equal to SMB3 in every other aspect.

One way it was much better than SMB3 was fairly obvious. While SMB3 was one of the prettiest games on the NES, it just could not compare with the sprite beauty that this game presented. Everything looked great - from the backgrounds to Mario, nothing looked underdone, and it was so easy on the eyes that I felt I played the game better than the NES games.

While the sound wasn't the most memorable quality of SMW, it was still great. The quality of the music was on a much higher level than any NES game, and the sound effects worked perfectly well.

Overall, this game is one of the best games made in two dimensions. All aspects make this game perfect, and it holds up extremely well - just look at the game boy advance version. Besides a few new voice additions and the change of Luigi's appearance, the game is a straight port - nothing was needed. If you have not played this game, just play it and you'll fall in love, just as I did when I was a wide eyed kid just entering the world of gaming.