Super Mario World, was the first videogame I ever played

It must be ten years ago now, and I still load it up if im real bored to this day! I'd describe this game as the reason most people bought a SNES, Having completed the game probably more than a hundred times, and discovered every secret there is to find I've decided it's time to review it :)

Gameplay: 1,500 (out of 10)

This is another in the mario series of side scrolling platformers, featuring the following very different, and mostly very original worlds: Yoshi's Island, Donut Plains, Vanilla Dome, The bridges (Cheese/Butter bridge), the Forest of Illusion, Chocolate Island, Bowsers own underground keep, and even a sunken ghost ship which acts as the portal to bowsers underground world. The new ability to fly continually throughout a level and the new moves are just great, for instance if you slam down to the ground out of the air it kills all the enemies on the ground in that current screen.

This is most definitely not the hardest of the mario games in my opinion its quite easy, this may or may not be because of my ten years of practice though. It has 96 levels in all, and is packed with secret areas throughout the game. There is one secret area in Donut plains, behind the upper ghost house, that just has five question blocks in and is a single screen level to get capes, fireflowers and Yoshi from... All these little secrets along with the amazing amount of variance in the levels and enemies which you'll face make this game the KING of all Mario platformers.

Sound and music: 10 (out of 10)

Well as annoying as the sounds and music may be for the first few minutes of seeing the game, they grow on you a lot. When you turn the snes off, you wonder where your themetune has gone and why theres no noise when you jump, these are the sounds of classic gaming.

Graphics: 10 (out of 10)

Not that it really mattered with the gameplay being as good as it is, but the graphics in this were an enormous improvement on all of the previous Mario Games at the time, the squared edges were no more, and a great deal more anti-aliasing was involved. The scenery such as bushes etc was even edible by Yoshi in some cases, now thats interactive ;)

Story: 9 (out of 10)

Not that most people bought Mario games for the story at the time, but I'll add this section anyway... :) Another classic tale of Bowser kidnapping princess peach and it being up to mario and luigi (and there newfound dinosaur friend, Yoshi) to get her back to safety... Not very original, but enough of a story to make the game a great deal of fun to play,

Also the ending is very good as SNES games go, mario, the princess and the Yoshi's first parade home, then they all stand outside Yoshi's House and celebrate there victory, quite cool :) Not exactly a Super Mario RPG storyline but a good enough one for me.