Super Mario All Stars Snes Review

For the other three games, the gameplay, story, and characters' abilities are exactly the same as in the now-familiar orignals with only the addition of (as I mentioned) improved graphics and sound. To be honest, however, I wish there HAD been more changes in the games. When this game came out, Super Mario World had already been released and the purpose of All-Stars was, presumably, to allow fans of these previous games to experience them on the (then) new SNES system and to provide a somewhat more consistent Super Mario Brothers experience.

The challenge of "updating" the games seems to have been handled in a particularly uninspired way, however. Aside from making the graphics look more "bubbly" and the music more appealing, there's no real difference from the originals. The appearance of all the characters and settings remain inconsistent from game to game as well as vastly inconsistent with the (then) newly released Super Mario World. Why not update all the characters, buildings, and backdrops (and perhaps some of the character abilities) to how they appear in Super Mario World? Although there certainly isn't any real problem with simply making things prettier (aside from leaving somewhat vast, unexplained gaps in the Mario Brothers story), wouldn't it have been cool to REALLY see how the gameplay would have changed had those original games been CREATED for the SNES?

At any rate, Super Mario All-Stars is STILL a great game, even if only for its aesthetic enhancements to these already-entertaining games, the addition of those challenging "lost levels" and the fact that you won't have to haul out your old NES system to play them.