Super Mario All-Stars

North American box art.

Super Mario All-Stars is a compilation video game which includes remastered versions of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. The game was developed and published by Nintendo and released on 1993-07-14. In Japan, since the The Lost Levels was actually their Super Mario Bros. 2, the US version of Super Mario Bros. 2 was titled, Super Mario USA. The game engines and their controls are effectively the same, but each game features enhanced graphics and music.

Personal

I bought this game shortly after it was released, as I was a huge fan of the first three Mario games. I really enjoyed seeing the updated graphics and sound, and this gave me access to Super Mario Bros. 2, which I didn't own, and The Lost Levels, which were entirely unknown to me at the time. However, since I had already played the majority of what the compilation had to offer, I quickly became bored. I'm not sure what happened to my cartridge, but I no longer own it.

Status

I used to own this game, but no longer do. I can beat games 1, 2, and 3, but I've never made a serious attempt to beat The Lost Levels.

Review

Good

• The upgrades to the graphics and sound are pretty great.
• The new character animations (like the toads in the castles) and added tunes by Koji Kondo really add quality to the games.
• The programmers did a great job of maintaining the controls and physics from the original games.
• The ability to save between levels for each game is a helpful addition.

Bad

• Some of the new background graphics are a bit too intrusive.
• I think Koji Kondo relies a bit too much on steel drums in his remixes.
• Mario's new ducking animation looks silly in SMB1.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

Box Art

• 

  The Japanese box is modeled after the Japanese Super Mario World box with the same ill-fitting orange and yellow backdrop. The layout shows excerpts from the Japanese cover of the four games above a tuxedo-clad golden Mario statue. It does a decent job of getting the point across.

• 

  The US box has Mario as a magician causing all of the boxes of the games to appear in a big puff of smoke. Cartoons from the various manuals are present, and Bowser lingers ominously in the background. I prefer this art.

Documentation

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  US manual.

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  Nintendo Player's Guide.

Videos

Longplay - All games, no warps.

Links