(Part 5 of 5)
Nowadays, you see game collections being released for platforms everywhere all the time, and it is no secret as to why that is. Not only is it a great of preserving games for future generations so that they don’t eventually end up becoming lost media, but it is also an incredibly easy way for any company to make a quick profit. I mean, hell, you can just take a certain franchise, choose a good selection of titles from said franchise that are generally considered some of its greatest highlights, put them all together, and release it for modern platforms, resulting in it selling pretty well most of the time, either profiting off the nostalgia people have for the property, or garnering curiosity from those who are unfamiliar with the IP and wanna see what it is all about. That is usually how it goes, but then there are those times where collections are… more than that. There are several collections out there that not only take these classic games are rerelease them for the current console generation at the time, but they also manage to try to update the games to make them better and more accessible to the general public as well. One of the best examples of a collection like this would be with one of the earliest ones to ever be made, Super Mario All-Stars.
At the time, there was quite a wide gap in between the release of Super Mario Kart and Yoshi’s Island, and Nintendo didn’t want that long of a gap when it came to major Mario titles, so they opted to take the original three Mario titles for the NES, along with The Lost Levels because why not, and bring them to the SNES for those who weren’t fortunate enough to play those games. Not only that, but they would also completely update them in the process, making them look better, sound better, play better, just everything about the games would’ve been made better. Of course, taste is subjective, so some may not like the updated look, sound, and feel of these remakes in comparison to the original, but as for me, I do agree that these are great improvements on already great games, and this collection pack in general still holds up extremely well 30 years later. Sure, it doesn’t include any new content for any of the games, and some of the updates aren’t as major as others, but what is here is greatly appreciated, and it makes playing these games much easier than ever before in many different ways.
Fundamentally, all of the games present in this collection remain the exact same as their original versions. They are all still 2D platformers where you jump from left to right, get coins, kill baddies, and save something at the end of it all, so if you were quite familiar with the original games and how they functioned, then you should be able to jump into this title with no problem whatsoever. Not only that, but each title has been given quality of life updates, such as saving, to make playing them more comfortable and accessible, which is something that I greatly appreciate as a whole. One of my biggest problems with the original games, especially with Mario 3, was the lack of a save feature present, meaning you’d have to blast through the whole thing in one sitting, so I am grateful that these remakes manage to fix that.
Of course, when it comes to these remakes, certain games are going to get more attention than others when it comes to sprucing them up, and out of the four present here, the original game and The Lost Levels were the one to get the most attention. Without a doubt in my mind, these two games are the best versions of the original games to play, as they look so much better, they sound better, they play better, and they are overall just a much better experience as a whole. Sure, some elements about these remakes may not resonate as well as they did in the original, with the music, in my opinion, not sounding as good as the original tracks, but even then, they are still great updates that I am sure anyone can get behind.
Most importantly with these two remakes though is that they fixed my biggest issues with both of them, that being the live and save system. Like I mentioned before, you can save whenever, so you don’t need to worry about losing progress at any point, and in the case of the original game, whenever you do get a game over, you are only sent back to the beginning of the world you are on, which does kinda suck, but you can definitely blaze through the levels quick enough to where it isn’t a big deal whatsoever. The Lost Levels, without a doubt, received the most updates out of the original two, and because of these updates, they make the game actually tolerable as a result! Not only was the game made easier, but whenever you get a game over, you are kept on the same level that you died on, and thank god for that, honestly. In addition, you no longer have to beat the game eight times to access the bonus worlds, but instead you only beat it once, so now if you actually wanna put yourself through those worlds, now you can do so without killing yourself on eight separate occasions.
While they didn’t receive as many updates as the other two, Mario 2 and 3 also got plenty of upgrades themselves, making these the best versions of the games to play at this point. As you would expect, they look better, sound better, play better, and give the player a much better experience overall when compared to the originals due to the aspect of saving. Mario 2 got some pretty significant upgrades, such as with character redesigns , updated sprites and more, but in terms of Mario 3, this one barely got updated at all. Of course, it does look nicer and sound nicer, but you can definitely tell with this one that it is just painted over rather than completely reworked. That’s not to say that that is a bad thing at all, because Mario 3 was already pretty damn great as it is, but still, kinda sucks if you were expecting a lot more out of this remake. But that is my only real complaint about the package as a whole.
Overall, despite a lack of change given to Mario 3 and, y’know, Lost Levels still being a blight on humanity, this is still a fantastic collection pack for the earliest adventures of the red plumber, and in many ways is still some of the best ways that many can experience these classic games after all this time. I would definitely recommend it for both Mario fans and fans of the original versions of these games, because I guarantee that there will be something for you to love and appreciate out of this collection pack. And hey, before we end this off, if you are still reading this, I just wanna say thanks. Whether you have been around since near the beginning or you just found these reviews recently, thanks for sticking around for 400 of these things, cause I have had a lot of fun making them over the past, what, 8 months or so? Good lord, it has been a while. But either way, I’m not gonna be stopping these anytime soon. Here’s to another 400.
Collection #1
Nowadays, you see game collections being released for platforms everywhere all the time, and it is no secret as to why that is. Not only is it a great of preserving games for future generations so that they don’t eventually end up becoming lost media, but it is also an incredibly easy way for any company to make a quick profit. I mean, hell, you can just take a certain franchise, choose a good selection of titles from said franchise that are generally considered some of its greatest highlights, put them all together, and release it for modern platforms, resulting in it selling pretty well most of the time, either profiting off the nostalgia people have for the property, or garnering curiosity from those who are unfamiliar with the IP and wanna see what it is all about. That is usually how it goes, but then there are those times where collections are… more than that. There are several collections out there that not only take these classic games are rerelease them for the current console generation at the time, but they also manage to try to update the games to make them better and more accessible to the general public as well. One of the best examples of a collection like this would be with one of the earliest ones to ever be made, Super Mario All-Stars.
At the time, there was quite a wide gap in between the release of Super Mario Kart and Yoshi’s Island, and Nintendo didn’t want that long of a gap when it came to major Mario titles, so they opted to take the original three Mario titles for the NES, along with The Lost Levels because why not, and bring them to the SNES for those who weren’t fortunate enough to play those games. Not only that, but they would also completely update them in the process, making them look better, sound better, play better, just everything about the games would’ve been made better. Of course, taste is subjective, so some may not like the updated look, sound, and feel of these remakes in comparison to the original, but as for me, I do agree that these are great improvements on already great games, and this collection pack in general still holds up extremely well 30 years later. Sure, it doesn’t include any new content for any of the games, and some of the updates aren’t as major as others, but what is here is greatly appreciated, and it makes playing these games much easier than ever before in many different ways.
Fundamentally, all of the games present in this collection remain the exact same as their original versions. They are all still 2D platformers where you jump from left to right, get coins, kill baddies, and save something at the end of it all, so if you were quite familiar with the original games and how they functioned, then you should be able to jump into this title with no problem whatsoever. Not only that, but each title has been given quality of life updates, such as saving, to make playing them more comfortable and accessible, which is something that I greatly appreciate as a whole. One of my biggest problems with the original games, especially with Mario 3, was the lack of a save feature present, meaning you’d have to blast through the whole thing in one sitting, so I am grateful that these remakes manage to fix that.
Of course, when it comes to these remakes, certain games are going to get more attention than others when it comes to sprucing them up, and out of the four present here, the original game and The Lost Levels were the one to get the most attention. Without a doubt in my mind, these two games are the best versions of the original games to play, as they look so much better, they sound better, they play better, and they are overall just a much better experience as a whole. Sure, some elements about these remakes may not resonate as well as they did in the original, with the music, in my opinion, not sounding as good as the original tracks, but even then, they are still great updates that I am sure anyone can get behind.
Most importantly with these two remakes though is that they fixed my biggest issues with both of them, that being the live and save system. Like I mentioned before, you can save whenever, so you don’t need to worry about losing progress at any point, and in the case of the original game, whenever you do get a game over, you are only sent back to the beginning of the world you are on, which does kinda suck, but you can definitely blaze through the levels quick enough to where it isn’t a big deal whatsoever. The Lost Levels, without a doubt, received the most updates out of the original two, and because of these updates, they make the game actually tolerable as a result! Not only was the game made easier, but whenever you get a game over, you are kept on the same level that you died on, and thank god for that, honestly. In addition, you no longer have to beat the game eight times to access the bonus worlds, but instead you only beat it once, so now if you actually wanna put yourself through those worlds, now you can do so without killing yourself on eight separate occasions.
While they didn’t receive as many updates as the other two, Mario 2 and 3 also got plenty of upgrades themselves, making these the best versions of the games to play at this point. As you would expect, they look better, sound better, play better, and give the player a much better experience overall when compared to the originals due to the aspect of saving. Mario 2 got some pretty significant upgrades, such as with character redesigns , updated sprites and more, but in terms of Mario 3, this one barely got updated at all. Of course, it does look nicer and sound nicer, but you can definitely tell with this one that it is just painted over rather than completely reworked. That’s not to say that that is a bad thing at all, because Mario 3 was already pretty damn great as it is, but still, kinda sucks if you were expecting a lot more out of this remake. But that is my only real complaint about the package as a whole.
Overall, despite a lack of change given to Mario 3 and, y’know, Lost Levels still being a blight on humanity, this is still a fantastic collection pack for the earliest adventures of the red plumber, and in many ways is still some of the best ways that many can experience these classic games after all this time. I would definitely recommend it for both Mario fans and fans of the original versions of these games, because I guarantee that there will be something for you to love and appreciate out of this collection pack. And hey, before we end this off, if you are still reading this, I just wanna say thanks. Whether you have been around since near the beginning or you just found these reviews recently, thanks for sticking around for 400 of these things, cause I have had a lot of fun making them over the past, what, 8 months or so? Good lord, it has been a while. But either way, I’m not gonna be stopping these anytime soon. Here’s to another 400.
Collection #1