Super Mario World is a platform game created and released by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It was first released in Japan in 1990, in North America in 1991, and in other regions in 1992. In the game, players control Mario as he tries to rescue Princess Peach and save Dinosaur Land from Bowser and the Koopalings. The gameplay is similar to earlier Super Mario games, where players guide Mario through levels to reach the goalpost at the end. Super Mario World introduces Yoshi, a dinosaur that players can ride. Yoshi can eat enemies and throw them as weapons.
The game was developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development, with Takashi Tezuka as the director and Shigeru Miyamoto, the series creator, as the producer. It was the first Mario game for the SNES and was designed to use the console’s advanced technology. The development team had more freedom compared to earlier Mario games on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Yoshi was first thought of during the development of NES games but could not be used until Super Mario World because of the console’s limitations.
Super Mario World is often regarded as one of the best games in the series and one of the greatest video games ever made. It sold more than twenty million copies worldwide, making it the most successful SNES game. The game inspired an animated television series and a 1995 prequel called Yoshi's Island. It has been re-released multiple times: it was included in the 1994 SNES compilation Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World, released for the Game Boy Advance as Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 in 2001, and made available on the Virtual Console for the Wii, Wii U, and New Nintendo 3DS. It was also part of the Super NES Classic Edition. The SNES and Game Boy Advance versions were later released again for the Nintendo Switch as part of the Nintendo Classics service.
Gameplay
Super Mario World is a game where you move side to side on the screen. You control Mario or Luigi. The game is similar to earlier Super Mario games but has new features. You can run, jump, and use special moves like the Spin Jump, which lets you crush enemies, bounce off ones that are hard to hurt, or break certain blocks if you have a power-up. You can also fly or float using the Cape Feather or P-Balloon. There are 96 level exits in total.
The game has two screens: one shows a map of the world, and the other shows a side-scrolling level (some levels move automatically). The map shows the world above you and has paths leading to a castle. These paths connect to places like action panels, fortresses, ghost houses, and castles. Moving your character to these spots lets you access those areas. Most of the game takes place in levels where you run, jump, and avoid or fight enemies. You start with a certain number of lives, which you lose if Mario touches an enemy while small, falls off the screen, gets crushed, touches lava, or runs out of time. The game ends when you run out of lives, but you can restart from the last completed area by choosing "Continue." Each world has a final level with a boss. Seven worlds each have a fortress controlled by a Koopaling, and the last world has a battle with Bowser in his castle. The game also lets two players take turns: one controls Mario, and the other controls Luigi.
In addition to power-ups like the Super Mushroom and Fire Flower, Super Mario World adds the Cape Feather, which lets Mario fly, glide, and use his cape as a sail. The game also lets you store an extra power-up in a box at the top of the screen. For example, if you get a Fire Flower or Cape Feather, a Super Mushroom appears in the box. Collecting a star makes Mario temporarily unable to be hurt by small dangers, but it does not protect you from lava, falling off the screen, or running out of time. If Mario is hit by an enemy, the stored power-up drops automatically, or you can use it at any time.
Super Mario World introduces Yoshi, a dinosaur that Mario can ride. Yoshi can eat most enemies. If he eats a Koopa or its shell, he can spit it out and throw it at enemies. If he doesn’t spit it out quickly, he swallows it and it becomes useless. Holding a Koopa shell gives Yoshi special abilities based on the shell’s color: blue lets him fly, yellow makes him create dust clouds to defeat enemies, and red lets him shoot fireballs. Flashing shells give all three abilities, while green shells give none. The default Yoshi is green, but you can find other colored Yoshis in Star World areas by feeding a baby Yoshi five enemies, a Super Mushroom, Fire Flower, Cape Feather, or Starman to make it grow up.
The main goal is to complete seven worlds to finish the game, but you can finish faster by using secret Star Road routes. To unlock a hidden world, you must find keys in levels and bring them to keyholes to open new levels or Star Road. Exploring these areas can lead to the Special World. Completing the Special Zone changes how some enemies look and changes the map’s colors.
Plot
The story of Super Mario World is explained in the game's instruction booklet. After helping save Mushroom World in Super Mario Bros. 3, Mario and Luigi decide to take a vacation with Princess Toadstool to a place called Dinosaur Land, a world that looks like the time of the dinosaurs and is filled with many enemies. While resting on the beach, Princess Toadstool is captured by Bowser. When Mario and Luigi wake up, they search for her and later find a giant egg in the forest. The egg hatches, and a young dinosaur named Yoshi appears. He tells Mario and Luigi that his dinosaur friends have also been trapped in eggs by Bowser's children, the Koopalings. Mario and Luigi realize that Bowser's forces must have also captured Princess Toadstool. Together, Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi travel through Dinosaur Land to rescue the princess and Yoshi's friends. Yoshi gives Mario a cape to help him during their journey.
Bowser learns that Mario and Luigi are coming and sends his Koopalings to stop them. After defeating the Koopalings and rescuing Yoshi's friends, Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi reach Bowser's Castle. They fight Bowser in a final battle, send him flying into the sky, and save Princess Toadstool. This action restores peace to Dinosaur Land.
Development
Super Mario World was directed by Takashi Tezuka. Shigeru Miyamoto, who created both Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda, was the producer. Shigefumi Hino was the graphics designer. Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development handled the game’s development with a team of fifteen people, including three main programmers and a character designer. Most of the team had worked on earlier Super Mario games. In a later interview, the main team said Miyamoto had the most influence during development.
In an interview with TOUCH Magazine, then-Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi noted that Famicom sales were slowly decreasing since their peak two years earlier. He warned that continuing to support the Famicom could lead players to lose interest and move to better-quality games, which would be a problem for Nintendo. Super Mario World was the first Mario game made for the new Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). The team expected challenges working with the SNES’s more advanced hardware. Tezuka said the software tools were not yet ready, so the team had to start from scratch. Miyamoto noted that the team no longer had limits on features like scrolling or the number of colors they could use. As a test, the team adapted Super Mario Bros. 3 for the SNES, but it felt similar to the original game despite improved visuals. After this, Miyamoto realized the team needed to use the SNES’s new abilities to create something completely new. Development of the fourth Super Mario game began in October 1988, shortly after Super Mario Bros. 3 was released. A month later, the team started testing ideas that were not possible on earlier games due to hardware limits.
Miyamoto had wanted Mario to have a dinosaur companion since Super Mario Bros., but the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) could not support such a character. The idea for Yoshi came from a green dragon Miyamoto designed for the 1984 game Devil World, which had similarities to Yoshi. During development of Super Mario Bros. 3, Miyamoto had sketches of Mario riding a horse on his desk. As Super Mario World developed, the team chose a “dinosaur land” setting. Tezuka asked Hino to draw a reptile-like creature based on Miyamoto’s sketches. Hino’s first design was too reptilian and did not fit the Mario world, so Tezuka encouraged him to create a cuter character. Tezuka believed Miyamoto’s interest in horseback riding and country-western themes influenced Yoshi’s design.
Composer Koji Kondo reused the same musical themes from Super Mario Bros. 3 for Super Mario World, but rearranged them. He believed players would recognize the melodies while enjoying new variations. Since Super Mario World was the first SNES game, Kondo was excited to use eight sounds at once. To highlight the SNES’s new technology, he used many different instruments in the title song, playing them one after another. As development continued, Kondo worried people might not like his unusual instrument combinations. He noticed that traditional square and triangle waves had become popular with players, so he used musical instruments instead of square waves for sound effects to show the game used traditional and new technology together. Kondo spent about one and a half years creating all the music.
Super Mario World was first shown at the first Shoshinkai event on July 28, 1989, during a press release. While the technology was impressive, the game was still similar to earlier Super Mario games in gameplay and graphics. Nintendo delayed the release to late 1990 because the team struggled with the SNES’s new hardware and underdeveloped software tools. They also needed to refine their ideas to make controls easier for players and because a global chip shortage slowed production of the Super Famicom. The game was shown again at the second Shoshinkai event on August 28–29, 1990, where it received positive feedback from the public.
Super Mario World was made during the console wars, a competition between Nintendo’s SNES and Sega’s Mega Drive, which had been on the market for two years and sold more units. This was the first time since December 1985 that Nintendo was not the market leader, though it eventually overtook Sega. Sega’s mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, was seen by many as a faster and more modern alternative to Mario.
Release
Super Mario World was first released in Japan on November 21, 1990, and was called Super Mario World: Super Mario Bros. 4. It was one of two games included with the SNES when it launched in Japan, along with F-Zero. The game was later released in North America on August 23, 1991. Nintendo also made an arcade version so players could try the game before purchasing it.
In December 1994, Super Mario World was re-released as part of a special collection called Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World. This collection included improved versions of the first four Super Mario games for the NES: Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Unlike the other games in the collection, Super Mario World remained mostly the same as the original version. However, Luigi’s character design was updated to make him look different from Mario instead of just using different colors.
Super Mario World was later released for the Game Boy Advance as Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 between 2001 and 2002. This version had the same number of levels as the original. Luigi became a playable character in single-player mode, appearing as he did in Super Mario Bros. 2. The game supported up to four players using a Game Link Cable in the Mario Bros. Classic mode. Players could save their progress at any time, not just after completing certain parts of the game. The difficulty was easier because players no longer lost all their power-ups when hit by enemies. A different map and enemy designs, usually unlocked after completing a special world, were now unlocked by finding all exits in each level. Critics praised the game for its new features and for keeping the original SNES version’s style. GameSpot named it the best video game of February 2002.
The SNES version of Super Mario World was later released on the Wii’s Virtual Console in Japan on December 2, 2006, in the United States on February 5, 2007, and in Europe on February 9, 2007. It was also released for the Wii U in North America and Japan on April 26, 2013, and in Europe on April 27, 2013, when the Wii U Virtual Console launched. On March 3, 2016, the game was released on the New Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console. Super Mario World was also included in the Super NES Classic Edition, which launched in September 2017. On September 5, 2019, Nintendo released the SNES version of Super Mario World as a launch title on their Nintendo Classics service. The Game Boy Advance version, Super Mario Advance 2, was released on May 25, 2023.
Reception
Super Mario World has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling game for the SNES. In the United States, Super Mario Advance 2 for the Game Boy Advance sold 2.5 million copies and earned $74 million in revenue by August 2006. Between January 2000 and August 2006, it became the second highest-selling portable game in the United States.
Super Mario World received high praise from critics. In December 2019, GameRankings, a website that collects game reviews, ranked Super Mario World as the 78th highest-rated game of all time, with an average score of 94% based on nine reviews.
The game’s visuals and presentation were widely praised. After its release, Rob Swan of Computer and Video Games said the graphics showed what the SNES could do. Paul Glancey of the same publication called the visuals stunning and noted the game was included free with the console. Four reviewers from Electronic Gaming Monthly agreed the visuals were strong but said the game did not fully use the SNES’s capabilities compared to other games on the system. Later reviews confirmed the visuals remained high quality. Karn Bianco of Cubed3 liked the simple, relaxed style and praised Nintendo for creating a game suitable for children. Lucas Thomas of IGN said the visuals improved over older games but felt they were similar to its predecessor, Super Mario Bros. 3. In contrast, Frédéric Goyon of Jeuxvideo.com believed the game showed the SNES’s potential, though less than Donkey Kong Country. Nadia Oxford of USGamer said the game was less rigid than its predecessor. Skyler Miller of AllGame and Alex Navarro of GameSpot both praised the characters, colors, and animation. Morgan Sleeper of Nintendo Life called the visuals the "graphical holy grail" of retro-style games and said the design still holds up today.
Critics praised the game’s replay value and unique gameplay. Four reviewers from Electronic Gaming Monthly appreciated the many secrets and variety of levels, noting that Nintendo did not reuse assets from Super Mario Bros. 3. Rob Swan and Paul Glancey enjoyed the addictive gameplay and large number of levels, while Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer said the game moved away from simple, linear platforming and was a major step forward for gaming. Frédéric Goyon liked the option to complete the game through different paths. Karn Bianco called it "one of the smoothest platformers ever made," and Lucas Thomas said its level design was "masterful" and improved the experience. Alex Navarro said the game had some of the best and most challenging levels in the series. Skyler Miller highlighted the game’s length as its strongest point, while Nadia Oxford said the gameplay was both simple and complex due to its many secrets. Morgan Sleeper later said the game’s greatest achievement was its level design, calling it an "unrivalled master class" with a constant sense of movement.
The game’s audio was also well received. Rob Swan said the SNES’s special sound chip was used to its fullest potential, and both he and Paul Glancey called the sound effects "mindblowing." Lucas Thomas said the soundtrack was another classic by Koji Kondo but later felt it was not as memorable as his earlier work. Frédéric Goyon praised the originality of the music and said the SNES’s technology allowed for a "globally magnificent" composition. Jason Schreier of Kotaku and Goyon both said the rhythmic sound effects helped create the game’s atmosphere. Skyler Miller liked the upbeat music and the echoing effects when Mario was underground, a sentiment shared by other reviewers. Morgan Sleeper and Alex Navarro said the game had the best music in the Super Mario series, with Sleeper calling Kondo’s soundtrack "timeless."
Super Mario World won Game of the Year awards in 1991 from Nintendo Power and Power Play. Many later reviews called it one of the greatest video games ever made. In 2009, Empire magazine voted it "the greatest game of all time." In 2009, Official Nintendo Magazine ranked it the seventh-best Nintendo game. In its final issue in 2014, the magazine listed it as the third-greatest Nintendo game, behind The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) and Super Mario Galaxy (2007). Nintendo Power named it the eighth-greatest game in 2006 and the fifth-greatest in 2012. Publications such as Electronic Gaming Monthly, Game Informer, Retro Gamer, and GameSpot have called it one of the greatest games ever made. In 2007, Retro Gamer named it the best platform game, and USgamer listed it as the best Super Mario platform game in 2015. In 1996, GamesMaster ranked it third on their "SNES Top 10" list. In 1995, Total! named it the 11th-best SNES game and said it was "a contender for the best game ever."
Legacy
As a pack-in game for the SNES, Super Mario World helped make the console more popular and became the best-selling game of its generation. Shigeru Miyamoto, the game's creator, has said that Super Mario World is his favorite Mario game. In December 2025, IGN named Super Mario World the best Mario game.
Yoshi became one of the most important characters in the Mario franchise, appearing in later Super Mario games and in nearly all Mario sports and spin-off games. Yoshi is the main playable character in Super Mario World's 1995 prequel, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, which led to many video games featuring the character. A Super Mario World clone called Super Mario's Wacky Worlds was being developed for the Philips CD-i device by NovaLogic from 1992 to 1993 but was canceled because the console did not sell well. In a 2008 poll, Yoshi was voted the third most popular video game character in Japan, with Cloud Strife and Mario receiving second and first place, respectively.
DIC Entertainment created an animated series with the same name, which had thirteen episodes and aired on NBC from September to December 1991. Super Mario World has a large ROM hacking community, where fans use tools like Lunar Magic to create new levels, add graphics, music, and mechanics. Kaizo Mario World is known for appearing in many Let's Play videos and popularizing the term "Kaizo" to describe extremely difficult hacks. Similarly, Super Mario World is one of four games whose assets are available in Super Mario Maker, a level-creation tool released for the Wii U in 2015, its 2016 Nintendo 3DS version, and its 2019 sequel. The sequel added new snow and nighttime themes for Super Mario World levels, along with new music composed by Kondo.
A microgame containing three levels from Super Mario World later appeared in WarioWare: Get It Together! as a boss microgame in the Nintendo Classics stage.