Super Mario World
1990 · Platform · SNES
Overview
Super Mario World launched alongside the Super Famicom in Japan in 1990 and the SNES in North America in 1991, bundled with the system. The game introduced Yoshi — a rideable dinosaur who could eat enemies — and expanded Mario's moveset with the Cape Feather. 96 exits across 72 levels made it the largest Mario game to date.
Deep Dive
Super Mario World was the last Mario game produced primarily under Shigeru Miyamoto's direct design control. The game's overworld map — a branching network of paths through Dinosaur Land — allowed players to choose their route and skip levels through the Star World shortcuts. Yoshi's design emerged from a concept Miyamoto had wanted to include since the original Donkey Kong; the NES hardware hadn't been capable of supporting the sprite. The SNES version sold 20 million copies, making it one of the best-selling SNES games and one of the best-selling games ever made.
Developer Story
Super Mario World was developed by Nintendo EAD under Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka as the SNES launch title. Development was compressed to approximately 1.5 years to ship alongside the console hardware in 1990. Miyamoto has described the game as the fullest realisation of the design ideas established in Super Mario Bros. 3.
Did You Know?
- Super Mario World was the first Mario game to allow players to save their progress — previous games started over completely each session.
- Yoshi was a concept Miyamoto had wanted to include since the original Donkey Kong in 1981; the NES hardware couldn't support the additional sprite complexity.
- The game contains 96 exits, far more than any previous Mario title — finding all of them requires discovering multiple secret routes and hidden levels.
- The soundtrack was composed by Koji Kondo in a single week, making heavy use of the SNES SPC700 sound chip's sample playback capability.
