Super Mario All-Stars: 25th Anniversary Edition

If you ask any fan of platformers what the greatest compilation of games is, they'll most likely name Super Mario All-Stars. Originally released for the Super Nintendo in 1993, All-Stars contained Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario Bros. 3.  With Super Mario recently turning 25, Nintendo has rereleased Super Mario All-Stars for the Wii in a 25th anniversary edition.

Included in this version is a Super Mario history booklet and a CD soundtrack.  It's hard to imagine paying 30 dollars for something that you could find in a yard sale for 10 bucks, but if you're a collector, the bonus items help soften the blow.  The major problem with these items is that they feel like afterthoughts.  The booklet doesn't contain very much information at all, only sharing a few quips by the developers and some rare photographs of concept drawings.  The CD contains 20 tracks, but only half are theme songs from past games.  The latter 10 tracks are all sound effects from the first Super Mario Bros.

If you never owned the game before, or actually never played any of these older Super Mario games, then it's worth owning just to relive them or experience what Mario was like more than 20 years ago.  Here's a small breakdown of the games included:

Super Mario Bros. -  The classic 1984 title that put Nintendo on the map.  Packed in with every NES, Super Mario Bros. instantly became one of the best selling games of all time.  You took on the roll of Mario, and a second player could assume control of his brother Luigi.  Together,  you traversed through eight worlds of four levels each, nimbly jumping from ledge to ledge and dodging obstacles to try to rescue the princess from Bowser.

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels -  This was the true successor to the first game in Japan.  It was never released stateside due to the extreme difficulty of the new levels.  Yes, The Lost Levels is excruciatingly hard.  The new obstacles were a taxing challenge on even the most adept Mario expert.  The Lost Levels also rewarded the player with several more bonus levels at the end of the game.

Super Mario Bros. 2 - This sequel didn't start out as a Mario game at all.  Rather, a Japanese game called Dream Factory: Doki Doki Panic was altered with Super Mario characters and then released in the US as the Super Mario Bros. 2 we know today.  This is why everything about the game isn't typical of the Mario Franchise.  There was no time limit, enemies were picked up and thrown into each  other instead of stomped.  Grabbing keys and dodging possessed masks, throwing beakers of formula to create doors to shadow dimensions, and battling bosses with vegetables were all gameplay elements that made Super Mario Bros. 2 the most unique Mario of all.

Super Mario Bros. 3 - Arguably the greatest Super Mario Bros. game created, SMB3 gave Mario fans so many great platforming experiences.  New suits like the Frog, Tanooki and Hammer Bros. let Mario do things he was never able to before.  It also presented all this to the gamer with the franchise's very first overworld.  You traveled around a map and played levels as they appeared on it, or you could find items and shortcuts that let bypass certain levels.  Super Mario Bros. 3 also introduced the Bowser Kids that challenged Mario at the end of every world.  

The games themselves are emulated perfectly.  Every hidden block and warp zone you remember are in here.  For those that don't know, the original 8-bit versions' graphics were touched up in Super Mario All-Stars.  It is rather disappointing, though, that there is no option to play their older versions.  What's also odd is why Nintendo didn't bother to improve the graphics even more this time around.  The box art images in the game select screen are rather blurry and could have benefited with some cleaning up.  It would have been nice to play the games in widescreen as well, but Nintendo has chosen to remain aesthetically authentic.  The music and sound effects have also been emulated very well.  Hearing all the old sound effects and listening to the terrific music is a great way to take a trip down memory lane.

The initial version of Super Mario All-Stars contained a save feature that saved your accumulated lives, but would return  you to the beginning of the current world you were at in Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2.  In Super Mario Bros. 3, any castles you destroyed and shortcuts you unlocked were saved, but any levels you finished reappeared when you resumed your game.  The Lost Levels is the only game in All-Stars that actually saves your progress down to the exact level, and it's ridiculous that that feature wasn't implemented into the other games.  It's just another instance where Super Mario All-Stars feels more antiquated than it should.  

It doesn't feel like you're getting much value with Super Mario All-Stars that you should be getting from a 25th anniversary edition.  The biggest problem is that the four games of this package are very old, and have been released countless times before, even appearing on the Game Boys.  Nintendo's very own Virtual Console sells each game for 500 points (aside from The Lost Levels, which sells for 600) while the retail version sells for 30.  Yes, you are getting a couple of goodies, but there simply isn't enough to them to warrant paying nine dollars more for a rerelease that is exactly how it was in 1993.  Nintendo has put very little thought into the extras and zero effort into the actual games, making Super Mario's 25th anniversary feel like an office party that only a few co-workers bothered to show rather than a star-studded bash that Mario truly deserves.

Lucas Stephens, Noobfeed