{"id":5491,"date":"2010-12-13T05:23:25","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T11:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamesanityblog.com\/?p=5491"},"modified":"2010-12-13T05:23:25","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T11:23:25","slug":"whats-inside-the-super-mario-all-stars-limited-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/13\/whats-inside-the-super-mario-all-stars-limited-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Inside the Super Mario All-Stars Limited Edition?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s the 25th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros., and to celebrate, Nintendo just released a special edition game on the Wii. It includes Super Mario All-Stars, which was originally on the SNES and had graphically updated versions of the main Mario games on the NES. And it also has a CD soundtrack and history booklet. But is it worth owning if you\u2019re a Mario fan? Let\u2019s take a look and see what\u2019s all in here.<\/p>\n

Super Mario All-Stars<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, let\u2019s take a look at the game. This is just a straight up port of the SNES game on the Wii. No enhancements or added features or anything. At least you can use the Classic Controller and GameCube controllers, though. While it would\u2019ve certainly been easier and cheaper to put it on Virtual Console, I actually kind of like having it on a disc for a change. Even though it means Nintendo is basically making more money off of us this way.<\/p>\n

Super Mario All-Stars was a very fine SNES game, though, so I\u2019ll forgive them a little bit. Even though Nintendo still refuses to make a collection of their arcade games, I still think they are one of the forerunners of classic game collections. When All-Stars first came out, there weren\u2019t very many classic game compilations at all. I think the quality of All-Stars may have encouraged others to follow suit later on. Anyway, let\u2019s take a look at each game on here.<\/p>\n

Super Mario Bros.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What impressed me about the All-Stars version was that even though it had enhanced graphics and sound, it still controlled and had the \u2018feel\u2019 of the original. A lot of people have special memories about the original Super Mario Bros. and cite it as one of their favorites. But not me. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I loved Super Mario Bros. and thought it was a great game and all, but it wasn\u2019t the game that made me want a NES (that honor belongs to Zelda). So yeah, I\u2019m not the biggest fan of the original Super Mario Bros., I guess.<\/p>\n

Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was actually the REAL Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan. I know many may disagree with me, but I\u2019m actually GLAD we didn\u2019t get this version in the US on the NES. It\u2019s just the same game as SMB, except way too hard and frustrating. I think that if we got this one instead, a lot of kids would\u2019ve sworn off gaming for good! Even so, I\u2019m glad they did include it on Super Mario All-Stars so we could finally get a chance to see what it was like.<\/p>\n

Super Mario Bros. 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

By now I think we all know the history of this game, how it wasn\u2019t originally a Mario game and all, so I won\u2019t go into that here. But even though it\u2019s not a \u2018true\u2019 Mario game, I have to say that Mario 2 is one of my favorites in the series. I know I may catch a lot of flak for saying that. I guess I just loved how different it was, and it really helped flesh out the cast and personality of the Mario universe. And characters like Bob-Ombs, Shy Guys, and Birdo became Mario staples. Plus, Toad was awesome.<\/p>\n

In the All-Stars collection, I actually felt Mario 2 had the most graphical improvements. You know what\u2019s strange is that while I love Mario 2, I actually didn\u2019t like the GBA Super Mario Advance as much. The Super Mario Advance games were based on the All-Stars versions, except to show off the GBA capabilities, they added larger enemies and voice samples (WAY too many voice samples) to Mario 2. And it really didn\u2019t enhance the gameplay at all.<\/p>\n

Super Mario Bros. 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most folks will say SMB3 is the best on this collection. And again, don\u2019t get me wrong, I think SMB3 is a great game with creative power-ups and whatnot. But I still like Mario 2 better. Mario 3\u2019s levels were way too short and\/or too hard, plus the play control was too slippy-slidey for my tastes. The All-Stars version feels like it has the least improvements, but that\u2019s only because NES Mario 3 hadn\u2019t been out that long anyway, and people were still playing it. A great game is a great game, after all, no matter when it came out. One cool thing they added to the All-Stars version was they put the two player Mario Bros. mini-game on here as a separate option to play, which was later used (and overused) in the GBA Super Mario Advance games.<\/p>\n

Even though Mario 3 is one of my least favorites, I actually LOVED the GBA Super Mario Advance version of it. Mainly because it had E-Reader support, which let you download extra levels and power-ups. I thought that was a GREAT idea, and I was sad when Nintendo abandoned it. I think it would be cool if they revisited that idea with like a WiFi download service or something.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s all the games on here. What I think would\u2019ve been cool is if they added Super Mario World on here. Late in the SNES lifecycle, they did add Mario World to the All-Stars collection and used it as a pack-in game. You know what would\u2019ve been even better is if they added Super Mario World AND Yoshi\u2019s Island to the Limited Edition game. Then it would\u2019ve had ALL my favorite 2-D Mario titles on it!<\/p>\n

Other Goodies<\/strong><\/p>\n

The other game case in the Limited Edition holds a history booklet and CD soundtrack. Both of which are slightly disappointing, but I can understand why they are so limited and restricted. I love the game case that houses the goodies, though. It has an old-school picture of the NES as a promo picture, complete with 80\u2019s TV with knobs!<\/p>\n

The booklet has a brief history of the main games in the Super Mario Bros. series. But that\u2019s it. No mention of Mario\u2019s arcade roots or spin-off games, which is kind of disappointing. But in a way, I can understand why they did that because if they included EVERYTHING, the book would\u2019ve been several volumes long!<\/p>\n

Anyone remember when Nintendo Power was published by Nintendo themselves and they made their own strategy guides, too? Some of these guides were fantastic, like the FF6 and Chrono Trigger guides. Well, the guide for Super Mario World was also great, and it also included a history of Mario up to that point, and the guide was simply called \u201cMario Mania.\u201d Even though it was probably easier to make a history of Mario montage back then, the way it was presented and written was fantastic, and I kind of wish the history booklet on the Limited Edition was modeled after that. Anyone here who remembers the Mario Mania book would probably agree with me.<\/p>\n

The CD soundtrack is a little disappointing, too, as it only contains one song apiece from each main game in the Super Mario series. But maybe they just wanted to show the progression of the music, from simple familiar NES ditties all the way to the sweeping orchestrated strands of the Galaxy games. However, the included sound effects on the CD are totally useless and a waste of space.<\/p>\n

Conclusions<\/strong><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s all I feel like talking about the Super Mario-All Stars Limited Edition. Even though some may say it\u2019s bad that Nintendo is just repackaging the same stuff, it\u2019s only 30 bucks so that\u2019s not too bad. It\u2019s still all quality stuff and the box it comes in is nice, and even has a Velcro flap to show off what\u2019s inside. If you\u2019re a big Mario fan, you\u2019ll probably want to pick this one up soon if you haven\u2019t already. And it\u2019s great to show your kids how Mario has evolved over the years, and they can see how newer games in the series have made reference and homage to these older classics.<\/p>\n

In the comments section, let me know what YOUR favorite Mario games are! Mine are Mario 2, Mario World, Yoshi\u2019s Island, and Mario 64. I think my favorite spin-off Mario game is the original SNES Super Mario Kart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the 25th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros., and to celebrate, Nintendo just released a special edition game on the Wii. It includes Super Mario All-Stars, which was originally on the SNES and had graphically updated versions of the main Mario games on the NES. And it also has a CD soundtrack and history booklet. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5491\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}