Mario is great. He’s amazing. There is however one thing that’s better. More Mario. That’s precisely what Nintendo was offering with Super Mario All-Stars on the Super Nintendo. This was a compilation for the Super Nintendo of all the mainline Mario titles released for the NES. What’s more is the fact that Nintendo painstakingly remade all of them and included brand new graphics as well as a save feature for each. This even includes the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 which had, up to that point, not been released in the US. Today we’re going to take a look. Here’s Super Mario All-Stars on the Super Nintendo!
For the purposes of reviewing this package we’re going to take a look at each game included here. Bear in mind this is the base Super Mario All-Stars, and not the package which included Super Mario World in it. We’ll be measuring them on the merits of both the changes as well as how fun they are.
Super Mario Bros.
This game was an absolute monster on the NES. It single handedly sold the console to the masses, was one of the driving factors in re-vitalizing the market after it crashed, and it also modernized the side scrolling platformer. By the time Super Mario All-Stars released we had seen a flurry of sequels as well as copycats. Despite this Super Mario Bros can best be considered chicken soup for the soul. It’s simple, fun, and the mechanics are mildly challenging. The game never throws any gameplay scenarios at you that are too crazy, and gradually builds up to it’s biggest challenges. Even in this collection it’s a masterful game that’s still fun to play.
As far as gameplay is concerned not a lot has changed here. The physics are a bit more floaty. Ever so slightly, but longtime players of the original NES version will notice. In some ways it’s better, in other ways worse. Honestly I’m kind of mixed on the topic. The graphics however look a lot better. Mario (and by extension, Luigi) feature several more frames of animation, and this version of the game makes decent use of the SNES’ expanded color palette. The only complaint I have is that the original’s memorable art style is lost in this upgrade. I really don’t like the new character models. Still there’s nothing crazy here. This could pass for a Turbografx game to be honest. When all is said and done I slightly prefer the original SMB, but that’s just for nostalgia sake.
Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels
Okay this is the one mixed bag in this package. I will admit that the first few times I played Super Mario All-Stars I didn’t like this game. It’s because it’s basically an expansion of the first Super Mario Bros. At the time I didn’t realize this is the true sequel to the original game. It adds very little in the way of new features, and instead the developers focused on tightening the level design. Unfortunately they tuned the difficulty way up past what gamers were expecting in a Super Mario Bros game at the time.
This game offers very little in the way of advancements. The level designs use the same hazards and general concepts. The only real addition is the poison mushroom which damages you instead of powering Mario up. Honestly it’s unremarkable. This is basically the original Super Mario Bros but much more difficult. I’m all for hard games but the Lost Levels pushes things too hard in my opinion. There are too many jumps that require nothing short of telecopic accuracy. It’s tough but barely interesting.
Much like the original Super Mario Bros the Lost Levels has a decent graphics upgrade. There’s actually very little in the realm of changes from that. Mario and Luigi have more frames of animation than in the Famicom version yes, but the game hardly pushes the limits of the Super Nintendo hardware. I do really like the expanded color palette, and things like the poisonous mushroom look much better in this version of the game. The physics changes are in place here too. Jumps are a bit different, but I find it to be an advantage in this case.
Super Mario Bros. 2
By now we all know that this game wasn’t originally intended to be a Super Mario Bros title. It was released in Japan as Doki Doki Panic, and Mario characters were shoehorned in for North American audiences. That’s why the gameplay here is so different from your typical Mario title. You can ride atop enemies, perform a charged jump by holding down, and encounter monsters like shyguys instead of goombas. It was crazy, and still is here. There are even light puzzle elements such as finding keys to unlock doors. Super Mario Bros. 2 does not play like a typical Mario title and therefore is the outlier in this package. In my opinion that’s a good thing because it brings some much needed variety into this compilation.
This is also the first game where we see significant upgrades in terms of graphics. Each of the four playable characters has many more frames of animation, and look absolutely amazing by 16-bit standards. The backgrounds and color palette see significant upgrades here. It’s absolutely amazing the level of attention Nintendo paid into a mere compilation. In my opinion this title looks much better than even Super Mario World which was designed from the ground up for the hardware. The enemies are entirely original from the main series and they all look great. This version of SMB2 was used as the groundwork for the later released Super Mario Advance, and it’s easy to see why. It’s beautiful. If you’re a fan of SMB2 this is the best way to play even now.
Super Mario Bros. 3
This, in my opinion, is the single greatest game in the franchise. Even today. I still have the original NES cartridge and consider it among my most prized possessions. I have played through that one countless times so much that even the label is faded. With that said I’m going to hold any newer version to crazy high standards. This is after all the game that all Mario titles are held up to the standards of. It introduced so many new mechanics to the franchise. This game featured some of the absolute best level designs of any platformer of all time. Who can forget the tanooki suit, or frog, or even the basic raccoon tail that let Mario fly for the first time? Super Mario Bros. 3 is absolutely legendary.
I’m happy to report that this remake was done with intensive care. The levels here are re-created with heavy attention to detail, and even the physics are spot on as far as I can tell. Super Mario Bros 3 could have been released on the Super Nintendo with very few enhancements and still be sold at top price. The fact that Nintendo took this level of care Seriously, this is Nintendo at it’s best. The game is challenging but never cheap. The level design is absolutely on point and the power-ups are not only inventive but also very useful in specific circumstances. The fact that you can save your progress, along with the graphical enhancements make this the definitive way to play Super Mario Bros. 3.
