Mario Monday - Super Mario All Stars

Today Mario Monday sort of takes a moment to reflect in essence as the featured game is Super Mario All Stars for the Super Nintendo.

When Super Mario All Stars is a compilation cartridge of the original Super Mario games on the NES. Each classic had been given a face lift for their 16-bit debut but the basic game play was faithfully restored. All of the game physics, characters and abilities, enemies and secrets were the same, but the enhanced visuals and sound track gave the games a fresh feel.

The games included are:

• Super Mario Brothers
• Super Mario Brothers 2
• Super Mario Brothers 3
• Super Mario Brothers: The Lost Levels
  

Why else would somebody who had mastered Super Mario Brothers 3 want to pick up and play All Stars? For North America the answer was easy; to get their hands on the real Super Mario Brothers 2.

Until the release of Super Mario All Stars gamers in North America had only read about the controversy behind Super Mario Brothers 2, and only a small handful of images from the game had been shown on this side of the Pacific Ocean. Finally though Nintendo fans could dive into the one player Super Mario Brothers: The Lost Levels, given that name on the All Stars pack.

But even without the Lost Levels many Mario experts would have picked up this game. While the games were essentially the same the SNES upgrades also featured a battery back up, allowing gamers to save their progress in the middle of a game. This came in handy when playing such a large game like Super Mario Brothers 3. If you were like me you would typically leave the NES on while you had to go eat dinner, or you had to go run errands with your parents, and would pick up where you left off when you returned home. Not anymore! With the battery saving technique you could save your progress at any time, including your saved warp whistles and hammer brothers suits, turn the system off and avoid fire hazards and increased electricity bills. You could say Super Mario All Stars was an investment for the bill payer!

Let's take a look at the comparison between the original NES versions of the games and their SNES upgrades.

Super Mario Brothers

Super Mario Brothers 2




Super Mario Brothers 3



While most of the general game play in these games was true to its original games, many glitches were removed. Most notable among the bug fixes was the removal of the Minus level in the original Super Mario Brothers.

If you are looking for this game on the Wii's Virtual Console, you can likely forget about it. Nintendo has no plans to release this game as each game, in its original form, is already available for download on the service.