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I originally wrote about this game on this page from late 2019, and the following review is an updated version of it.
I've been acquainted with Super Mario World for a very long time—it was one of the games at the pediatric dentist's office (even after the SNES was discarded for a Nintendo 64 later on, the square of the Item Reserve Box from SMW was still burned into the television screen), and I still pick it up every few years for a 100% run (it's not hard). While definitely one of the best Mario games and introduced a whole lot more stuff than even compared to Super Mario Bros. 3 (a jump that 2D Mario games have never seen since...indeed, in Japan the game is Super Mario World: Super Mario Bros. 4), it's an old hat to someone that has played it numerous times, so I can't rave over it like I could. But it's a comfortable old hat.
The world map graphics take a page from SMB 3, but are better done.
Apart from various Virtual Console releases, it's only been officially ported once. In 2002, the Game Boy Advance game Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 was released. Like Super Mario Advance (the port of Super Mario Bros. 2), it adds Mario Bros....but the Game Boy Advance version of SMW isn't all that great. There are a number of changes that make the game even easier than what it is (it is not a hard game), but botches too many things, some inherent, some not so much. The screen resolution is worse, the music was butchered (including some songs being the outright wrong key, compare the real Vanilla Dome music to the butchered version. It also adds a "collect-a-thon" aspect to get all the Dragon Coins in every single level, including ones that didn't have them to begin with.
The cape takes some getting used to but it's better than SMB3's leaf.
If I were to quibble about some of the smaller things that are part of the game, part of it is the theming is inconsistent. Some are named after foods (though no foods to be found), with "Donut Plains", "Vanilla Dome", or "Cheese Bridge Area", some aren't. There's the idea that it's an exotic new land, so all the enemies (besides Koopas) are redesigned or new, and that unfortunately affects the classic Goomba, too, not showing up until the fourth world and shaped like balls that don't go "squish" when you hop on them.
FINAL RATING: 