Topic: 2010/12: Super Mario All-Stars (Super NES) - Zeric

[JonLeung]

Super Mario All-Stars

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Zeric's Super Mario All-Stars (Super NES) maps.

Super Mario All-Stars takes the NES Super Mario Bros. games, adds upgraded graphics and music, the ability to save your progress, and crams them all in a single Super NES cartridge.  There are the iconic Super Mario Bros., both versions of Super Mario Bros. 2, and the best-selling Super Mario Bros. 3, for a total of four Mario games!  Later on in the Super NES's life, it was even bundled with the console itself (and with a fifth game, Super Mario World)!  And if you missed them even on the NES and Super NES, you could play them yet again on the GBC/GBA, and then the Wii Virtual Console, not to mention the limited edition being released for the Wii this month, in honour of the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. earlier this year.  Clearly Nintendo won't deny anyone the opportunity to replay these classic games!

The sixth time recognized as Mapmaker Of The Month, Zeric truly deserves the honour here, and it's surprising that compilation hasn't been featured as Maps Of The Month before!  After all, we're talking about mapping four games all by himself!  And not just any four games, but the collection of the most iconic Nintendo video games of all time!

So to recognize the effort put into making these all-star maps, Zeric's Super Mario All-Stars will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for December 2010.

[Will]

Above all four games in the collection, Super Mario Bros 2. is my favourite, because you can also play with Princess Peach and the Toad in addition to Mario and Luigi. I have a preference to playing games which don't have straightforward layouts like the first two games (the lost levels after the first game). Also I find that game has more puzzles than the others with the shadow side of the level to locate the HP+ mushrooms. I don't find Wart the frog a better final boss than Bowser himself. Probably because of Bowser's absence, Peach became a playable character. It is a bit funny that'd you'd have to fight Birdo many times because she seems disposed to take so much damage. The voices in the GBA are quite good especially the satisfying quote of the crab Clawgrip: "You make a tasty treat". Trying saying that back at him, since crabs themselves make delicious delicacies.

 I've tried the NES, SNES, GBC and GBA versions of the games. I haven't yet had the opportunity to try the Wii version and the NDS remake.

[alucard]

Finally this game gets map of the month, much well deserved and good idea for the same month that it is being re-released on the Wii.