Month: September 2013

The Anatomy of Super Mario: XXXIII. Please hammer don’t hurt ’em

And here you earn your doctorate. World 8-3 is pretty straightforward, both in its design and its intentions: It simply hates you and wants you to be dead. You fight Hammer Bros. here. Not a couple, nor a couple of pair of them; Hammer Bros. comprise the vast majority of enemies in this stage. Backing them […]

The Anatomy of Super Mario: XXXII. Home to roost

World 8-1 While not a difficult course in terms of level design (outside of a few tough jumps), World 8-1 does its best to unnerve you into playing sloppily by giving you entirely too little time in which to complete the stage at a reasonable pace. Compared to some of the more recent World x-1s, […]

The Anatomy of Super Mario: XXXI. The in-fish-ity gauntlet

World 7-3 Case in point for my previous claim: World 7-3 sends you into a reprise of World 2-3, but one that’s far, far more difficult than what you dealt with the first time around. Once again, you have a bridge stage following an underwater level, but the gauntlet of flying Cheap-Cheaps is several orders […]

The Anatomy of Super Mario: XXX. Sweating bullets

World 7-1 Well, here you go. There can be no doubt at this point that Super Mario Bros. wants you dead. World 7-1 consists of a pure gauntlet of devastatingly placed foes, specifically Bullet Bills and Hammer Bros. There are a few other enemies that appear here and there, most notably a hilariously ineffective Buzzy […]

The Anatomy of Super Mario: XXIX. Ashen victor

World 6-3 I remember being confused a long time ago when someone referred to the “ice level” in Super Mario Bros. “Super Mario Bros. doesn’t have an ice level,” I said, puzzled. Later, I realized they were referring to World 6-3, which features a monochromatic color scheme. But I never parsed it as ice, personally. […]

The Anatomy of Super Mario: XXVIII. Reeducation camp

World 6-1 World 6-1 sees the return of Lakitu. This is Super Mario Bros.‘s way of congratulating you for surviving a brutal gauntlet: By following it up with something even worse. Actually, this stage isn’t too difficult if you have fireballs, since Lakitu’s Spinies go down like suckers when you flash-fry them. Of course, that’s […]

The Anatomy of Super Mario: XXVII. Pleading the fifth

World 5-3 Bullet Bill puts in yet another appearance to create the most interesting twist on the World x-3 “mushroom platform” (though, in this case, it looks like we’re back to trees) stages to date. The fundamental design aesthetic dials things back a bit to resemble earlier x-3 levels, largely dropping the moving platforms and […]

The Anatomy of Super Mario: XXVI. Bullet the blue sky

World 5-1            The second half of Super Mario Bros. kicks off with a devastating tease: A level where three different enemy groups appear to almost, but not quite, allow you to earn a 1UP by kicking Koopa shells. The last group even demands a touch of finesse to not-quite-acquire the precious prize of a […]

The Anatomy of Super Mario: XXV. The battle of mid-way

World 4-4 marks the halfway point of Mario’s adventure, and as such introduces one of the most devious tricks to date: Split paths. While the level design appears at first glance to be no different from previous castle stages — only only enemy appears besides Bowser, leaving the bulk of the active threats to take […]

The Anatomy of Super Mario: XXIV. Shroomin’

In keeping with the overall “back to World 1” theme of World 4, World 4-3 reprises many of the elements of World 1-3: Tall mushrooms poke into the sky, patrolled by turtles and connected by dropping lift platforms. And as always, the brevity and overall design of the stage precludes the presence of traditional secrets […]

The Anatomy of Super Mario: XXIII. Double blind

I made a terrible factual error in the previous entry. It has been amended. World 4-2 takes Mario back into the underground in a level that calls back to World 1-2 in obvious ways, but does so primarily to throw you off-guard and hoodwink you. In fact, the general layout of World 4-2 strongly resembles […]