Super Mario World vs SMW2: Yoshi's Island

[iup=3600475]SquintyMcSquint[/iup] wrote:
[iup=3600454]DML[/iup] wrote:I prefer SMB3 out if all three because I like the power ups the best, and I also love the clever ways it uses the World Map. It's an absolute timeless classic, it's astonishing how well it still holds up.

SMB3 > Yoshi's Island > SMW

Yoshi's Island for me... but only just.

I have better memories of Yoshi's Island; and I admire so much its lovingly envisioned artistry, effortless flair, and raw, wild imagination. I can't help but think it's the closest thing on the SNES to a textbook classic. I think I long accepted, whether due to its critical acclaim or my own assessment on these values, that it was a better game than its predecessor. I would never have dreamed of challenging that.

And yet...and yet...I find I don't like it as much as Super Mario World.

I find the game-play fiddly: aiming eggs works, but I believe that the mechanism feels neither as natural as casting a fire-ball in SMW; nor as elegant as using the feather, where the player's trance-like momentum develops instinctively into taking Mario to the sky. Instead, angling the trajectory of an egg projectile by nudging Yoshi to achieve the right perspective comes across as slightly clumsy, considering the island's uneven geometry and its intricate interactions with Yoshi's sensitive footwork.

Moreover--and uncommonly for my preferences--I do not like those levels in which you have many doors and have to go off to locate a key to get through the locked one. In a game where progression is demarcated on the map screen in a staunchly linear, left-to-right fashion, I find this set-up bothersome for seeming incongruity--incongruity with the implications set by the relatively linear attitude of the game at the outset. Perhaps it's the interruption I condemn--and that's mostly for its presence in a game which amuses most of all for its continuous deluge of interesting gimmicks or visual touches, things that I feel unfold best when unravelled rapidly. That excursions within levels hiccup the pace is exacerbated by the penalties incurred from lazy play that prolong the hiccups (to wit, Baby Mario's crying and Yoshi immobilising briefly when hit during the panic of trying to get him back).

So I go back to SMW more often, where it's possibly a less cerebral and calculated affair and something altogether a little less demanding--something that lets me unwind. But maybe it's telling that I nary have a memory of it at all--because I'm not mentally engaged. SMW--a relatively easy-going outing--leaves no impression on me; I submit to my unconscious side when playing, letting my impulses play the game. Yoshi's Island irritates, but those little irritations wake me up--they make me sit up and take in the totality of the inspiring visual and sonic expertise of the whole thing. The trade off for a little aggravation--for having to think to remember what doors I went through or to get Yoshi's footing right--might have been awareness of what I was doing. This awareness let me actually observe the game's design--the overwhelming good with the couple of bads--and awareness gives me warm memories of those good things, marred almost insignificantly by possibly unquantifiable irritations like pacing.

SMW's secret exits were properly amazing, on top of some pixel perfect platform action.

The Cheese Bridge secret exit blew my mind as a kid:

I love the 3-up at the end of Cheese Bridge secret exit, given that you've probably spent a lot of lives perfecting that trick.

Both games :wub:

I definitely prefer Yoshis Island, but I certainly think mario world is the better of the two.

[iup=3600724]Winckle[/iup] wrote:I love the 3-up at the end of Cheese Bridge secret exit, given that you've probably spent a lot of lives perfecting that trick.

Great little nod to one of the very first secrets in a Mario game level, too.

Super Mario World is to this day my favourite game of all time. I'll be honest I don't really like Yoshi's Island :shifty:

[iup=3600816]suzzopher[/iup] wrote:Super Mario World is to this day my favourite game of all time. I'll be honest I don't really like Yoshi's Island

A thousand hours of jaguar CD gaming upon thee.

[iup=3600821]Ad7[/iup] wrote:
[iup=3600816]suzzopher[/iup] wrote:Super Mario World is to this day my favourite game of all time. I'll be honest I don't really like Yoshi's Island

A thousand hours of jaguar CD gaming upon thee.

Don't get me wrong it's a million times better than say Donkey Kong Country or Sonic, but it just didn't grab me the way SMW did. Maybe I should try and give it another go, it has been nearly 20 years since I played the SNES version.....that GBA version :dread:

DKC is great. Is Suzz broken? Can we get him help? Or should we put him down?

[iup=3600825]Pedz[/iup] wrote:DKC's music is great. Is Suzz broken? Can we get him help? Or should we put him down?

FTFY.

I first played Yoshis island via snes9x and ended up playing it start to finish, really wasn't expecting it to be that good. :wub:

Nah, DKC is a great series, difficult, but fun. The new ones are great too(well DKCR, haven't played TF yet.)

[iup=3600828]Ad7[/iup] wrote:I first played Yoshis island via snes9x and ended up playing it start to finish, really wasn't expecting it to be that good.

I paid £89 for an American copy in 1995 (I know it came out here the same week, but I needed the proper speed version).

What is up with the GBA version? I have it through the Ambassador Programme and really should play it.

I first played SMW on the GBA and didn't see any problems with it. In fact, when I downloaded the SNES version on the Wii U, I just seem to die a lot more.

[iup=3600830]suzzopher[/iup] wrote:
[iup=3600828]Ad7[/iup] wrote:I first played Yoshis island via snes9x and ended up playing it start to finish, really wasn't expecting it to be that good.

I paid £89 for an American copy in 1995 (I know it came out here the same week, but I needed the proper speed version).

That's £154.51 in todays money. :shock:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bill ... -1900.html

[iup=3600840]Parksey[/iup] wrote:What is up with the GBA version? I have it through the Ambassador Programme and really should play it.

I first played SMW on the GBA and didn't see any problems with it. In fact, when I downloaded the SNES version on the Wii U, I just seem to die a lot more.

Yoshi's Island not SMW.

YouTube · Last edited by Jazzem on Tue Oct 28, 2014 11:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

Both games are tremendous and rank as two of the best platformers ever made...but I'd probably give SMW the edge, even though YI has a lot going though it (namely much better bosses). SMW is a game I can play over and over, whereas Yoshi's Island is something I'd want to space out my playthroughs on a bit.

Super Mario World vs SMW2: Yoshi's Island

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