"A promising sequel that alienates itself into mediocrity"

Super Mario World 2 was a game that stood apart in a world of sequels. Boasting true innovation and a unique playing style, it revitalized the platforming genre just as it was beginning to grow stale. I wish to stress before we begin that all ratings are in comparison to SMW2, not to platform gaming in general.

Story: ~/10
Story was never the focal point of SMW2 and neither is it here. Hence I have not issued any mark here. This game DOES introduce some cut scenes and such, but the plot is still an excuse for the game at best.

Graphics: 8/10

Very clean and crisp. Nintendo as always has produced a game that looks pretty. Gamers looking for that retro style will be disappointed however, as all of the graphics have been redone and nothing has been recycled.

Controls: 7/10

Mostly a standard fair. Mario handles as well as he ever did and most of the other babies don't have any problems. Nothing groundbreaking though, as they just copied the SNES controls over directly. The touch screen functionality is nonexistent in the game proper.

Gameplay: 4/10

Here's where things start to fall apart. Mario is the same Mario he's ever been, with an extra ability to hit certain blocks (an ability that comes into play some five times tops). The other babies however have major issues. Chief among them is the fact that yoshi cannot RUN while they are on his back, slowing progress to a frustrating jog. For Peach and Donkey Kong you also cannot bounce eggs off the walls at all. For all these trade offs you only get one or two different abilities that are under utilized. For the other two babies things aren't quite so bad, but they will both only join the group for 8 stages in the game, leaving you frustrated as to why they were even there in the first place.

The stages themselves are rather bland with few innovations over the original. What's downright insane though is that many of the innovations of the previous game barely come into play at all. Transformations will occur, but only once or twice over the course of ALL stages. Poochy seems to have died as he is nowhere to be found and forget about touching fuzzies to get dizzy.

Lastly the number of stages as a whole has been castrated. The original game contained eight worlds, each with eight stages along with one more secret one that bordered on impossible difficulty. This game however only has five worlds, each with eight normal and two secret. The damage in total is that the old game had 72 levels, whereas this one only has 50. SMW2 was an extremely viable engine for stage creation, and the fact that this game ran out of ideas at 50 is sad to say the least.

Sound: 3/10

For many people, buying this game will be based on how they loved SMW2. There's something to be said for Mario games here: No matter the game when Mario hit a coin block, the game rang out with that instantly recognizable *ding!* that brought on happy memories of games past. The dings and boings of sequels are a big way of reminding us of the past.

Yoshi's Island 2 has left this concept to die by the side of the road. There are no sounds from SMW2, not a single. No death chime, no level start bongos, no egg launching *bwow!*, no islandic shy guy chanting, no stage music has been spared. It's all gone and replaced by other foriegn noises that no one really has any feelings attached to.

The music that IS there has unfortunately taken the advice of Yoshi's questionable N64 outing and is composed near entirely of one melody with a few themes taken on it. All of which are reused into the ground throughout the game.

Replayability: 8/10
You've got your flowers and your red coins and the new baby coins too. There isn't a lack of things to pick up when the game ends, but it's nothing ground breaking.

Overall: 6/10
The game in it of itself is not bad. But anyone who buys the game thinking they're in store for what SMW2 gave us so many years ago will be sorely disappointed.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/10/07