Super Mario World was the first video game that I ever owned. I consider it to be one of the best games ever, though I'm sure that has a lot to with it being the first game I ever played much. I actually hurt my thumb and couldn't play SNES for a day because of how much I played this game when I first got it.

Like other Mario games, Super Mario World has 8 castles with a boss koopa defending each. Each castle has its own "world", where the levels are of similar types. There are 5 types of boss koopas in the game (all of which are fairly simple to beat), with 2 bosses having each of the 3 types, 1 unique normal boss, and the final boss, Bowser.

One unique (though not necessarily good) feature of Super Mario World is that it allows you to skip almost the entire game and go to the Bowser, the final boss, after beating just a few levels by traveling through the secret Star Road. It was designed to make traveling across the entire world faster, but it also makes the game very simple to beat. I beat the game like that the first time, and did not go back and beat it the normal way for several years. There is also an interesting secret about Star Road.

Besides having better graphics than its predecessors, Super Mario World added Yoshi to Mario games. You first find Yoshi in an egg near the beginning of the game, and you can ride him. Yoshi can jump on many bad guys that Mario can not, and he can also swallow bad guys by grabbing them with his very long tongue. Also, Yoshi can temporarily gain special abilities by holding koopa shells of different colors in his mouth: blue makes him grow wings and fly, red lets him shoot 3 fireballs out of his mouth, and yellow makes him hit bad guys that he lands next to when he jumps. There are also blue, yellow, and red Yoshi's that treat all shells as if they were the color of the Yoshi.

Ghost houses are also a fun part of this game. Ghosts are impossible to kill, but can be bounced on by using the spin jump. The most common type of ghost will slowly move towards Mario when he isn't facing the ghost, and will stop moving when Mario looks at it. This actually looks really funny for some reason. Most of the hardest and most confusing levels in the game are ghost houses.

Though Super Mario World may not have been very original or graphically amazing, I had much more fun playing it and other old console games than all the new 3D stuff which is almost all crap that's just designed to look good.

Super Mario World was the flagship game for the Super Nintendo. It was quite easy to beat, and did a lot to showcase the effects of its time (mode 7 scaling, multiple layers, the music of the SNES, etc). It did what it had to do: give people a moderate challenge, and advertise the system with a familiar face (Mario). Many people feel that Super Mario World was inferior to Super Mario Brothers 3 in game play. This perception is due to SMW coming out at the infancy of a console, before the games matured, while SMB3 squeezed every ounce of performance out of the NES.

The sequel to Super Mario World, (Super Mario World 2:) Yoshi's Island, is one of the best 2-D platform games of all time. It is difficult, cute, non-violent, and is all in all a great family game, that I still can't beat.

Super Mario World introduced us to a few new characters that we now take for granted: Yoshi (who did not make it into Mario 64), for instance, and a few new monster types that have persisted. Ghost Houses found their way into Mario 64, as I recall, so I can only postulate that this new tradition will continue.

A few secrets about Super Mario World:

• Original theme music: If you leave the game sitting in the Special World (off of Star Road) for several minutes, the original theme mixes in and begins to play. It's not as nice as the very well arranged type in Mario All Stars, but it is still good.
• Mario masked troopas: If you beat all the stages in Special World, the Koopa troopas get Mario Masks, and their names change in the ending sequence.

Super Mario World appeared in at least two different SKUs, one of which was the standalone that came with the unit, and another was with Super Mario All-Stars (it was a selectable game on the main screen).

Characters in Dinosaur Land
information from the SNES Super Mario World instruction booklet

Koopa
The same old Koopas are back again. Everything seems bleak when these characters appear! If you jump on a Koopa in this game, it pops out of its shell. And what's worse is that an unshelled Koopa will eventually find its empty shell and climb back in to start all over again. BEWARE! If a Koopa climbs into a yellow shell, he'll become invincible!

Super Koopa
A Koopa that can fly once it has put on the magic cape. It looks like this guy might give Caped Mario some tough aerial combat. But look at the bright side ... if you jump on one that's wearing a flashing cape, you'll get a Cape Feather.

Jumpin' Piranha Plant
These are a tropical plant version of the Volcano Plant! Be careful; they come madly whirling out of the pipes and can be very tough.

Goomba
Jump on it to make it roll. You can also hold it or throw it.

Monty Mole
This is a mole that bursts out of the ground. There's even bigger ones underground.

Boo Buddies and The Big Boo
You may remember the Boo Buddies from Super Mario Bros. 3. This time there's a whole horde of them! And amongst them there's a huge spook call The Big Boo. But don't worry, if you look at them, they act shy and turn away. Cute, aren't they? But watch it ... they're dangerous!

Eeries
This is a dinosaur spook that roams the haunted house. It comes after you with its pale face and ohhhh, what a ghastly spook it is!

Rip Van Fish
This little fellow is always taking a nap, but when Mario comes along, he wakes up, and sets off in hot pursuit. Whatever you do, don't let Rip touch Mario.

Urchin
This is a giant urchin drifting in the sea. It doesn't move very fast, so if you swim by carefully, there should be no problem. However, it's probably really painful if you get stung.

Dolphin
Don't worry, these guys aren't enemies; they help Mario cross water. A useful shoal of dolphin look alikes!

Rex
As one would expect, you could only meet this kind of enemy in dinosaur land, and there are lots of them too. You have to stomp on a Rex twice to defeat him. Rex has wings, but I don't think he can fly.

Mini-Rhino and Dino Rhino
These are dragons from Chocolate Island. Jump on Dino-Rhino and it becomes Mini-Rhino. Watch out, they breath fire.

Bob-omb
These explode and scatter stars after a set time. Some of the Bob-ombs use parachutes to drop from the sky. These little guys are a real blast.

Thwomp
A nasty stone ghost that guards the castles and fortresses for the Koopas. If Mario comes close, Thwomp will try to crush him. The trouble is, if you don't pass it, you can't go on.

Wiggler
A caterpillar that lives in the forest. Normally Wiggler is very quiet, but once jumped on, Wiggler turns red and gets extremely angry. If possible, treat Wiggler with respect.

Magikoopa
This is one of the tortoise sorcerers. The strange flashes of light that shoot from the wand are able to change blocks into enemies. On top of this, Magikoopa can appear and disappear in an instant. A touch customer to deal with!

Sumo Brother
When this strange little fellow stamps its foot, lightning strikes, and turns whatever it hits into a sea of flames. BEWARE! Sumo Brother will even attack you with a karate chop!

Chargin' Chuck
These All-Stars always seem to bar Mario's way just when he's within sight of the goal. They use a variety of bull-headed attacks, so you'll have a tough time checking Chargin' Chuck.

Bosses

Iggy Koopa
Boss of Yoshi's Island

Morton Koopa Jr.
Boss of Donut Plains

Lemmy Koopa
Boss of Vanilla Dome

Ludwig Von Koopa
Boss of Cookie Mountain

Roy Koopa
Boss of Forest of Illusion

Wendy O. Koopa
Boss of Chocolate Island

Larry Koopa
Boss of Valley of Bowser

Mario unofficially crossed over to the Sega Genesis in a pirate game that's made up of elements of the Super Mario All-Stars-style Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, and the Rescue Rangers, of all things. In this game Mario and Luigi cannot stomp on enemies or break bricks, but instead they can lift and hurl crates at the baddies. With the aid of the green glove each can fling a single fireball. Furthermore, our heros collect gems instead of coins. Each has a life meter that can take up to six hits, while collecting a medkit refills the meter. To control your plumber use the Control Pad to move (down to duck), A to fling a fireball (if available), B to pick up and hurl a crate, and C to jump.

Each world is divded into three levels. The first two worlds consist of elements of Super Mario Brothers that are ripped right from the Super Mario All-Stars game pak, while beginning in World 3 graphics and elements from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island appear. A giant Bowser is the boss of the first two worlds, while a flying pig with a hose is the boss of World 3. It is at this point the game gives up all attempt at being a Mario game and returns to the levels and enemies of the original cartridge. Mario is still our hero, yes, but the familiar settings of the Mushroom Kingdom and its enemies are gone. World 4 is some kind of canyon/lavapit level with the boss being a large ostrich on a motorized cycle. World 5 is a cave with the boss being an alligator on a tank, and so on. The sounds are repetitive with the music probably belonging to the source cartridge and the sound effects totally inappropriate for a Mario game (Mario makes a chipmunk squeek when he's injured, for example).

I do not know anything about this game's history. Chances are the game was available on the black market and eventually someone dumped it to a ROM file and let is loose on the Internet (which, coincidentially, is the best place to find it). It's not a good game, but it is one of the better Mario hacks out there and is worth playing as a curiosity, but nothing more.

See Also: Super Mario 4

"Even the best need a break..." It seems after years and years of playing such a simple game, one would understand how to dodge these tiny little jumping, crawling, flying koopas, but you can't. So, lets use the koopas against themselves.

All of the levels have one of two colors, red, and yellow. The first level in the vanilla dome world is colored red, so you must try to find the "secret" way to win. After finding the secret paths, they will lead you to the warping pipe in the upper left corner of the map. That pipe will take you to the very next level called the vannila secret 2. You must enter that level and make you're way past the first two jumping koopas, after that, you will find a box. If you hit the box, a yoshi will apear but my suggestion is to leave him there until you are ready to leave the level. The only problem with yoshi is that using him will not allow you to get the desired effect, yoshi will kill the koopas in one blow, although most things he lands on are crushed. By jumping on 10 koopas heads with mario in a row, you get 1 life back, and every koopa you land on after that is a 1-up. As long as you can keep yourself afloat by bouncing off the koopas, you can get as many lives as you need. If you only jump on the koopa once, it will stop jumping and start walking, if jump on the walking koopa, it will be forced out of its shell and will begain looking for a new home to reside in. If you leave the koopa out of its shell and go on with the next koopas, it will reappear when you come back to the same spot. If you use the cape to float down on top of their heads, it is a lot easier to keep your health.

Also on this level, there are some plain yellow boxes near a bunch of spinies, one of the boxes has a silver p-swicth in it, jump on it and collect the silver coins that were the spinies. Another easy way to get extra lives is to find the secret area and enter it to get a yoshi, then exit the level and reenter it to get a 1-up in yoshi's place.

With all of these lives, you can take more risks if your the hardcore player, and if your the new gamer, you need an up date on life, and you can get past world one now. Good luck, and have fun!!!