Not even two years after Super Mario Bros 3, which had set the bar pretty high for platform games, Nintendo raised it even more with Mario’s first grand adventure on the Super Nintendo: Super Mario World. The end result was quite spectacular for the time.

Graphics: 9/10

It’s absolutely incredible how going to a system with more memory can do to graphics.

They are incredibly beautiful for such an early SNES game (1991) and are such an improvement from Mario 3. For starters, Mario himself is better-drawn even in his small form (Mario 3 looked pixelated). His movements are much more fluid and his colors are gayer (as in brighter) – small issue: Luigi is a carbon copy rather than being taller and slimmer. When he swirls with his cape on, his front and back sides are finely drawn; you can even see his back pockets and the buttons from his suspenders! Yoshi is also nicely drawn and come in four different colors: green (the default one; should you hit a block while riding him, you get a one-up!), blue (that flies by swallowing any shells), red (that spews fire with whichever shell, transforming enemies into coins) and yellow (that creates dust clouds knocking enemies over). You usually need to feed the babies 5 enemies or a power-up in order to ride them.

Speaking of swirling, you can do more than one turn, unlike Raccoon Mario. The cape follows your movement and moves quicker when you run. Speaking of which, the acceleration to fly seems shorter than in Mario 3 and is also more durable. As long as you do the proper moves, you can basically fly for the whole level.

Levels are also much bigger than Mario 3. The background now boasts very fine drawings that reflect the level: Underground levels have shiny cave rocks, levels in the Forest of Illusions are full of trees and leaves, underwater levels have “fish houses” with smoking chimneys (!), aerial levels (like in the Twin Bridges area) have clouds and castles have eerie lights. The front of the levels is also nicely done, with “platforms” having more details on them (sometimes even grass on top) – they are sometimes inclined too – and accessories that can make you walk on walls! Special mention to Chocolate Island, whose fortress has boiling chocolate that is as hot as lava and where everything IS made out of chocolate. And should you be able to finish the Special World, EVERYTHING gets changed; find out what it is . Other note: there is only one level with snow and it’s realistically slippery.

Furthermore, the enemies you face are also much better-drawn AND diversified. Turtles walk on their hind legs and come in many different colors (all affecting how Yoshi reacted when he swallows them). They are very-well drawn; they sometimes come without their shells and actually fly towards you! And when you jump on them, they come out of the shell and simply start walking back towards it.

Some levels have HUGE cannon balls that have a very evil grim on them. There are also several football players, each with different abilities to make your life miserable. They may dig dirt or thrown footballs at you, run towards you or jump very high by clapping their hands. Ghosts come in more diversified expressions (and slower flight speeds) than Mario 3; there’s even a Big Boo who will be hard to avoid because of his sheer size.

Finally, the bosses are also well-drawn and diversified. Although their attacks only come in four different forms, it’s still an improvement from Mario 3. They are much bigger and they don’t necessarily die from jumping on their heads. However, the rhinos from the (usually) optional fortresses are 100 percent the same and they seem to be of similar difficulty – the floor doesn’t seem to recede quicker in Bowser Valley than in the Twin Bridges area.

Music: 8/10

Although I preferred the Mario 3 music, Mario World still has a very decent soundtrack.

There is a wider variety of tracks than Mario 3 (although fortresses and castles (and also the boss music) sound the same) – there are even distinctive tracks for bonuses in levels and Switch Palaces. The variety increases if you consider the “Yoshi drum” as being a new track in itself – there is a drum beat added to any tracks where you ride Yoshi (the underground drum is the best one). There are also five tracks for the various parts of the world you explore, although the “overworld” one is dominant overall.

Sound effects are a great improvement from Mario 3. His jumping sounds less annoying, his swirling sounds even better and his bouncing sounds very realistic. Among other good sounds effects, let’s mention a neat distinction regular and Yoshi coins (the latter giving you a life if you find all five of them in each level), Yoshi’s sounds (swallow and spit) are well-done (and his flying sound REALLY sounds like he’s flapping his small wings) and the “wrong” sound (when you can’t get a single life in a bonus round) sounds like a biiiiig mistake. Finally, underground sound effects have a nice echo to them.

Addictiveness: 9/10

Even though I’m not a fan of platform games, Mario World was one of the most addictive ones I’ve played.

First of all, the difficulty level is very reasonable (see below). Unlike Mario 3 and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, completing all 96 levels is very doable.

Second, the music/graph combination is always a big plus for me. The regular level theme sounds very joyful (the underwater theme is a relaxing remix of it) and the “aerial” theme sounds racier than the one in Mario 3. The Ghost Houses really sound haunted and the castles sounds dramatic.

Finally, there is so much to explore in each level that I always wanted to come back to get all the Yoshi coins or try going down the pipe I forgot about (there are more secrets than Mario 3).

Depth: 9/10

This game is HUGE. Just getting through the regular route to get to Bowser Valley will keep you quite busy. Many of them have secret passages/bonus rounds where you can get coins, power ups or lives.

But many of those levels can lead to other levels (the red dot is the best indicator of a level with more than one exit). These in turn lead to other levels that often have shortcuts – you could actually go straight to Bowser’s Castle by completing only 12 levels! But hey, gamers like you would prefer a larger challenge, right?

Along with regular secret levels bringing you shortcuts or easier levels thanks to the Switch Palaces (the newly created blocks covers gaps and can sometimes isolate enemies; yellow ones give you mushrooms and green ones give you feathers), there is also the Star Road, the increasingly difficult secret world where you will need to use your brain to get through – you must find the secret passage for ALL of them (except Star World 5) in order to move to the next bonus. And if you’re patient enough, you will also gain access to the Special World, a very challenging series of zones that come with a special surprise at the end.

Difficulty: 5/10

For a platform game, I thought it was rather easy. When you ride Yoshi, you are nearly invincible to enemy contact except when you hit spikes or foes under water. His swallowing abilities can definitely makes your journey easier especially when he can fly. However he can’t swallow turtle shells for a while, which makes it a good weapon, be it the shell itself or fireballs is the shell is red (it turns most enemies to coins).

In addition, you can have a “reserve object”. For example, once you eat your mushroom, getting another one will put it in a box above your head. Should you be hit by an enemy it will drop so you can grow again. You can also have a reserve feather/flower if ever you have one of those powerups. Once you find the “top secret area” (somewhere on the Donut Plain), it’s of no problem.

Even the bosses aren’t that hard. Once you figure out their strategy, you can easily dispose of them. And in the last of his three stages Bowser is relatively easy if you can avoid his, er, flying machine.

There are challenges, however. The Ghost Houses only have one path that leads you to the exit and it’s usually not an obvious one. You will have to use your brain in order to get through and avoid enemies (those “soap bubbles” in Vanilla Ghost House can be a pain). Some even have secret exits, as if finding the regular one wasn’t challenging enough.

The Special World can also look like an impossible challenge. I remember me and my cousins trying to desperately trying to get over the second level of the world. I finally came up with a solution but it took months to come up with it! Fortunately, you can save your quest after every second level.

Finally, some individual levels will surely frustrate you like the auto-scrolling ones (like Donut Plain 2), where getting caught by the screen or hit by a shell that bounces back at you will kill you. Or Soda Lake, with its endless supply of torpedoes barely giving you any room to swim.

In short, Super Mario World is a must-try classic for everyone. Its graphic and colorful and beautiful, the music is addicting and the difficulty level is very reasonable. There is so much to look for that you will spend several hours just making your way through the regular path. So when you factor in the secret passages, getting through the 96 levels will easily take you weeks.