Posted on November 7, 2011
Adventures in the Magic Kingdom (NES)
This one may seem a bit childish on the surface, and it does somewhat come out of left field compared to the other games I’ve written about.
1990 - NES (Capcom)
Capcom had the rights to create Disney games for quite a while in the late 80’s to mid-90’s, and they took that license and ran with it. So many memorable games came out of it – DuckTales, Chip n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers, Aladdin for the Super NES, just to name a few. Adventures in the Magic Kingdom is another one of those games, but playing the game now doesn’t have quite the same effect it did when I was little.
I never had that “urge” to go to Disney Land when I was a kid (or Disney World, I never remember which one is where). I didn’t really like Disney movies or cartoons all that much… I was a Bugs Bunny and Road Runner junkie, more than Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Still, games like Mickey Mousecapade and this one held my attention quite a bit.
As with many of my gaming memories, this one goes back to Baie Sainte-Anne, playing on that old television in my grandmother’s room.
Something like this one, but not quite.
Remember the buttons *other* than the dials to change the channel? There were sometimes three, sometimes more, and their function was usually to adjust the brightness or contrast of the image on the screen. I never touched them, usually, but playing with one of those buttons during a Magic Kingdom playing session changed the whole gaming experience.
The “Tint” button… oh yeah. Turning it different ways turned colors on the screen all out of whack; water turned red instead of blue, fire turned green instead of red, and everything you knew about the game just changed. What color would Bowser be once you got to him? You just didn’t know!
Pirates of the Caribbean!
It was actually at this exact point in the game where I paused it, and then started messing with the Tint button. If my skills with Photoshop were any good, I’d try to recreate the messed up colors I ended up getting. As it is, I’d have to take a painfully long time in MS Paint to do it, so we’ll just have to end up using our imagination. The fire was blue, the main character’s hat and shirt were red, and the captive woman’s dress was purple. To me, it was like playing a new game entirely!
From there, I did the same thing with other games, and it added that extra layer of fun when playing games at my grandmother’s.
Like I said above, I didn’t know enough about Disney movies and characters to complete one of the tasks in this game. There are six silver keys to collect in order to get into the castle, and the first one dealt with talking to NPC’s who would quiz you on your Disney knowledge. This was a question of trial and error for me, and even in this video, I had to take a wild guess on one of the questions.
The racing game is somewhat weird; instead of having a gas and brake button, you have to hit up or down on your d-pad to speed up or slow down. There’s even one part in the course where you have to come to a complete stop! If you didn’t know from failing that part of the level before, you had to start from the beginning… and even then, you had other cars bumping you out of the way most of the race, and that was annoying as well.
There are two platforming levels, one based on the Pirates of the Caribbean, and another on a haunted house type of stage. A Space Mountain-themed level and a Wild West train course round out the key search, and then… that’s it.
I had never been able to beat this game, but when I did so yesterday, I was kind of disappointed that there was no final showdown in the Castle itself… the game just ends. Then again, this is a Disney game. Not sure what else to expect.
Posted on November 4, 2011
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (Super NES)
I haven’t been good at regularly posting updates, but I’ll get back on track eventually.
1992 - Super NES (Konami)
Let me start off by saying this game has the best music on the Super NES. It’s a close one, but Turtles in Time barely beats out Contra III (in my opinion) simply by having so many original tunes that feel like they honestly belong in the TMNT universe.
I have a few memories about this game, but two in particular stand out. The first, is that this is the first game I ever actually purchased myself! Technically… sort of… well, I brokered the deal, anyway.
A friend of mine owned the game when it first came out, but when Grade 8 rolled around, I got a hankerin’ for some older Super NES titles. Sure, the Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation were cool, but I wanted that nostalgia factor! I called this friend up, asked him what it would take to buy the game from him, and he said he’d have to talk to his little brother about it. A few minutes later, he called back and said his price was $20. Perfect! I’ll take it!
Now, how does a guy without a job get his hands on $20? Well, he sneaks into his mother’s wallet and takes it. That’s how. It’s not one of my proudest moments, but I would go into her wallet every morning for $5 in lunch money, money she was aware that I was taking. For about two weeks, I pretty much just took $2 instead of my normal $5. That balanced things out enough, I guess.
$2 got me a can of pop and a bag of chips from the vending machines at school, which I was a-ok with!
The other memory actually deals with a quasi-clone of Turtles in Time released on the Sega Genesis.
1992 - Genesis (Konami)
It’s pretty much the same game, but with a few slightly altered levels.
In Grade 4, an old friend who had moved away a year or two prior made a visit to my house for a weekend. If you read my post about The Legend of Zelda, this is the same kid that told me you could climb a tree in that game. I knew he was full of it, and he was barely even considered a friend in Grade 1, but I was nice enough to play along with his visit. Luckily, it ended up being a fantastic time.
To begin with, he had a TalkBoy.
If you saw Home Alone 2 in theatres and didn't walk out wanting a TalkBoy, there was something wrong with you.
We spent the whole weekend recording ourselves talking nonsense, slowing it down, speeding it up. It was a blast! We recorded some game sounds, too, and seeing as how he brought his Genesis, we figured we’d head to Blockbuster Video (ha!) and rent something for it.
I thought it would be fair to rent one game for his Genesis and one game for my Super NES. We ended up renting Hyperstone Heist for Genesis, and Fatal Fury… for Genesis.
Frankly, I was quite pissed – all I wanted to do was show off a great game for my own console that we could both enjoy, and he’d rent a great game for his console that we could both enjoy. Instead, we got two beat ’em ups, one of which I was psyched to see, the other I knew nothing about. Whoopee… never mind the fact that the newly released Star Fox was actually available to rent that night, but we went ahead with Fury anyway.
Don’t get me wrong, Fatal Fury ended up being a decent game. It just left the sour taste of unfairness in my mouth for the rest of the weekend… and apparently, it exists to this day.
The intros and outros to the boss battles had to be included, because I’ve always felt they were just so epic. From the taunt at the beginning to their dramatic defeat, it felt so damn satisfying beating them to a pulp. Kicking the Rat King’s butt was great too, because I had his action figure, along with the toy version of his boat.
Just watching this short little video reminds me of how awesome it all is. The Turtles’ speech before each level (“Let’s… Kick… Shell…?”), the sound of the doors opening before that first battle with Shredder… damn. So awesome.
One note about recording with Fraps is that, when the image shimmers quickly (like it does in some games), it won’t necessarily pick up on the rapidly flashing image. In this clip, you’ll notice images that flicker on and off… in reality, it’s flashing on and off so fast that Fraps can’t make up its mind, and doesn’t pick up on the quick flickering. It’s no huge deal, really, but I just figured I’d at least explain it!
Posted on October 26, 2011
Super C (NES)
This might not be that vivid a memory to cling to, but I am reminded of it every time I drive home!
1990 - NES (Konami)
It wasn’t obvious to me at the time, but Super C is indeed a sequel to one of my favourite NES titles, Contra. To me, the “C” could have stood for anything… after renting it, all was clear, however. Super Clear, in fact.
I can remember sitting in our basement and basking in the glory that was “my little space”. I had a decently-sized television at my disposal, and it was nice and cool in the summer months. The winter got a little chilly at times (I was too young to know how to properly manage the nearby woodstove), but my Mario\Zelda blanket took care of that.
Bill (or Lance, I can never remember) jumps out of that helicopter at Stage 1, and the character models gave it away. If it wasn’t obvious before, Super C was more of the same… and that was just fine with me. It was still difficult, and that well-known Konami code didn’t seem to work.
But wait! I had a magazine with a different cheat in it that just may help me out a bit… I brought it over to my friend’s and… just where did I put it??
Somewhere in here.
Every time I drive by the house now, sure, I find it’s a little big. I’ve seen much bigger, however.
As a kid, though, the sense of awe I had when visiting my best friend Josh was immense. Next to the garage, there was a living room, and a closet nearby with nothing but toys. In the main entry way (where I never went in), there was a spiral staircase leading to the second floor. In the basement was another area with a game room (the adult kind, with pool tables and such) and a spare bedroom we never really went into. I’m sure I never quite saw every bit of the house, and (probably) neither did Josh.
To find this bloody magazine, I had to somewhat look around for it as I hung out with him. I couldn’t be rude and say “I’m here to look for my magasine – step aside!” I did look a few times, but I ended up having to return the game before finding it, which I knew would be a daunting task.
One time several months later, Josh was psyched about an experiment he had tried, so I ran over and checked it out. We both loved iced tea (I still love it, in fact), and he had filled an ice cube tray with the stuff. He also stuck a toothpick into each individual cube before they froze, so when they popped out, they were somewhat like iced tea popsicles.
Score!! Excellent thinking!
The mini-freezer he put them in was downstairs, and next to it was that spare bedroom we never went into. I wonder if… surely enough, there was the magazine on the floor in the corner of the room. How did it end up in there? I didn’t really care, I had it.
One of the lesser-known gaming magazines...
I had somewhat forgotten about Game Player’s Magazine until recently, when I came across my old stash of gaming publications… man, those were good times.
- The most violent grocery store ever.
When doing a Google search for Super C‘s box art, I found the image above. Apparently, Super C is the name of a grocery store chain in Quebec… who knew? Certainly not I!
While Super C adds a few things, eye candy isn’t really one of them. Even when I was younger, I felt that in-between levels in a game was a chance for the story to keep moving along like a cartoon. Instead, all we get is a plain black screen with a score and life counter, along with the Stage number. Kinda bland, really.
Oddly enough, the Game Boy “port” of this game (even though it was pretty much its own entity with unique levels) is actually the better game presentation-wise, and is definitely my favourite of the entire Contra series. I’ll be doing that one in the next few posts!
Posted on October 14, 2011
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (NES)
TMNT III tweaks the formula used in TMNT II, but I have my reasons for enjoying II more than III.
1992 - NES (Konami)
If you had played the NES version of The Arcade Game, then you pretty much knew what The Manhattan Project was all about. The action was still great, the controls were tight, and the graphics were well done. While Bebop and Rocksteady came back as bosses, the cast of opposing characters was quite different – Dirtbag, Leatherhead, and Slash all made appearances, which was quite the treat for a Turtles fanatic like myself.
Still, there was one thing about the game that irked me to no end. Oh yes, I’m talking about the most-talked about addition to the gameplay; the “super moves”.
Each Turtle has their own unique attacks that can be performed by pressing A and B simultaneously. They work incredibly well at disposing enemies, but I was so annoyed that using them depleted a small part of your health bar. Since the attacks were so cool, and you would undoubtedly want to use them as much as you could in dire situations, why couldn’t they just have another meter of some kind? Something like a “Power” bar that would replenish over time… as it was, I felt I needed to conserve my energy, and using the special attack was counter-productive.
It’s all good, though. The game plays great, has a nice variety of levels (surfing from Daytona Beach to New York City only takes a few minutes, apparently) and more than satisfies that Turtle-geek in me.
On the night we first rented The Manhattan Project, there was a Kevin Bacon movie on cable. While playing the game in the living room that night (with the lights turned off for heightened awesomeness), my parents and sister were downstairs in our unfinished basement watching the movie. I could hear them laughing, so it had to be good… right?
This blog post is one degree from Kevin Bacon.
You know how you could leave your game console turned on, but change from channel 3 or 4 and see other (static-filled) channels without disrupting gameplay? Well, I was too curious about this apparently hilarious movie, so I paused my game and flipped over to watch the most confusing thing I had ever seen.
To begin with, the female lead character finds out she’s pregnant… wait. What? How is she pregnant and not have a huge belly? That doesn’t make any sense.
Somehow, the male lead character (Bacon) is quite disturbed and confused with this news, and even faints some time after hearing it. Why isn’t he happy? Why is he worried? It’s not like he had anything to do with it.
During the commercial breaks, I’d flip back to playing TMNT III. I really don’t remember much else about the movie itself other than thinking the female was beautiful… looking back, she was cute, I suppose.
Seeing as how I understand that “process” a lot more (I sure as hell hope so, anyway), I just may go back and re-watch the movie with my wife. I’ll leave my NES off for it, though.
As an interesting side-note, TV series creator Chuck Lorre (Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Dharma and Greg, among others) co-wrote the theme song for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series. As you can see in the intro to this game, they’ve re-created it as best as they—OH MY GOD, SEIZURE FLASH.
(The few times I am required to say the word “seizure” out loud, it often comes out “ceasar”. You really do have to watch out for those epileptic ceasars, though. They can be deadly!)
There still isn’t a whole lot happening between levels, so once again, I had to include the beginning and end of boss fights to make a more-or-less cohesive story out of the movie.
Posted on October 12, 2011
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Super NES)
When talking about some of the most innovative adventure games in existence, you’d have to be pretty crazy not to include this one on your list.
- 1992 – Super NES (Nintendo)
It seems like forever ago, but seeing screens of “Zelda III” didn’t really get me that excited. I mean, I knew I loved the first two Zelda titles, but not quite enough to warrant as much excitement as would a new Mario or Mega Man game. With them, you more-or-less knew what to expect, whereas The Adventure of Link was quite different from its predecessor. Who knew what Zelda III would end up like?
This was fun to play through yet again, so it was fun to make a movie out of. With the Zelda games, there can be countless side-quests and unimportant dialogue, so I had to be picky about what was included in the movie. I usually just stick to whatever helps the plot move along, or helps explain this and that about acquiring certain items.
I always found the fourth Dark World dungeon to be pretty awesome… it was quite a difficult level, but at the same time, what you needed to do to get the boss to show up was brilliant! Bomb the floor in the room above where the boss appears so that the sun shines down to it, bring the “fake” maiden into the room and into the light… poof! Boss battle!
Posted on October 5, 2011
Super Mario Kart (Super NES)
When it first came out, I didn’t feel there was a link between kart racing and Mario characters.
- 1992 – Super NES (Nintendo)
Looking back, I don’t think that mattered. I was sold from the get-go!
- As it turns out, Turbo doesn’t work that great with racing games.
I remember 1992 as being the Christmas of Mario Kart, the AsciiPad, and tons of random baseball and Toronto Blue Jays stuff. They were, after all, WORLD FRIGGIN’ SERIES CHAMPIONS!
No, I wasn’t able to use the controller with Mario Kart, but it worked with so many games oh-so-perfectly. Crank one of those extra buttons to the middle setting, and you could go “turbo” by holding that corresponding button. Crank it all the way to the right, and that button will FREAK OUT on auto-turbo. It seemed to work best when I played Contra III: The Alien Wars, but no Street Fighter II bonus stage was ever left unbeaten after I got this baby.
Until I set out to make this video, I actually had no idea Super Mario Kart had credits. I mean, of course it was supposed to have credits, but I would always race, win whatever Cup I felt like competing for, then turn off my Super NES.
What you see in the second half of the video was completely new to me a few months ago. Strange, but then again, that’s another reason I’m having a blast playing through all these games again!
Posted on September 30, 2011
Contra (NES)
A handful of franchises come to mind when talking about early NES standouts, and this is most definitely one of them.
1988 - NES (Konami)
Contra was one of those games that had actually been ported from the Arcades, but the NES version actually stands out on its own as a vastly superior game… well, at least I think so, anyway. In any case, I have vivid memories of playing both versions.
Remember the days when you’d find Arcade cabinets in random stores, mall hallways or entryways? I really miss those days… in fact, I miss having full-blown Arcades around town. Fredericton used to have 3 all at one time, but they all shut down in the late ’90’s. Before them, however, came the ol’ “Random Game of the Month next to your local grocery store!”
I was only about five or six years old, and barely tall enough to see the buttons, but I could see the screens. As my mom wandered the aisles of the grocery store (called “The Village”), I would escape just outside to the mall and see if there were any new games. One of them was Contra.
Rambo-lady not included.
I know every kid who has ever played video games has done it at least once… you know, let the game get to the demo portion, then pretend to play the game? Yeah, I’d have it memorized to the point where it actually looked like I was playing the game. I mean, there was no music, or sound effects when I was pretending… and my ruse was uncovered every time the demo looped back around to showing the title screen again, right in the middle of my “game playing”… but damn, those were fun, and much simpler times in life.
There were also the rare occasions that I would stash a few quarters in my pocket to sneak in a game or two while mom did the shopping. They were always short-lived, because I’d always find a way to die pretty quickly, but it was much, MUCH better than just pretending to play the game.
As for the NES game, it was while I was playing it that I learned one of those essential “kid lessons”.
Back in Baie Sainte-Anne (I sound like a broken record talking about that place, but hey, it’s my blog!), we would often visit a family we have been friends with forever. The parents were godfather and godmother to one of my sisters, and they had a son who was a good 4-5 years older than I was. He just so happened to love video games, too; he owned a Commodore 64, which I thought was awesome, but he also owned an NES… with Contra.
As we played through the game once, we took turns beating the levels. We made it to the Energy Zone level, and it was my turn… I had never beaten it before, but I was determined to show off my skills! Of course, I get to the level’s boss… who I can only describe as an alien football player…
That's what I always thought, anyway... in retrospect, maybe not so much...
Anyhow, I miraculously avoided his erratic jumping patterns and defeated him. I was overjoyed! It was great! Final level, here we come! Oh man, I am SO GOOD AT THIS GAME!!!
Then, the guy said to me, in good ol’ Acadian French; “Brag pas!”
“Brag”?? What did that mean? I really had no idea. As he told me what it meant, it actually did sink in that it was somewhat rude to do. Evidently, about 20-some-odd years later, it has stuck with me.
For the record, I am not awesome at Contra, or games in general. I’ve beaten it and several other games, but can’t breeze through them like other people seem to be able to. Genuine speedruns make me wonder just how long people have perfected their skills, because I sure wouldn’t be able to pull something off that quickly. I’m a “take your time, eliminate everything” kind of gamer, and I enjoy it that way.
This really isn’t the version of Contra I grew up with, but that’s OK with me. Like many other titles, Contra was localized in different parts of the world, and was even titled differently – Probotector in Europe, and Gryzor in Asia. Unfortunately for us North American and European gamers, Gryzor was a bit more dolled up compared to other releases… there was a lengthened intro, an area map to give a sense of perspective on the island you were navigating through, as well as dialogue sequences between levels.
Thankfully, I was able to find a translated version of the game to record. Check out Bill and Lance as they free New Zealand from the tyranny of the Red Falcon…
…by blowing the country off the face of the earth.
Posted on September 22, 2011
Super Mario All-Stars: The Lost Levels (Super NES)
I have a boatload of Mario games to play through, so I’ll focus on them for the next couple posts.
1993 - Super NES (Nintendo)
Enhanced re-makes and re-releases of classic games seem to be pretty common these days. When Super Mario All-Stars was announced, the idea of a fancy-looking version of three NES classics was quite an exciting concept. Even more awesome was its inclusion of The Lost Levels, the unreleased-in-America edition of Super Mario Bros. 2.
1986 in Japan - NES (Nintendo)
I remember being quite excited to play what was essentially just a more difficult version of the original, and I got that chance on my 10th birthday. I popped it in, chose it from the menu and… I had already played it before.
In the very early 90’s on one of our many trips to Baie Sainte-Anne (I seem to recall them often on this blog), I went with my mother to a small convenience store down the road to rent a game. There were a few cartridges similar to the 31-in-1 game I had played a few times, with the two-piece carts with a blue ribbon sticking out from between them. One of them showed Mario on it with a crew of other characters, and the only thing I could understand from the writing on it was a “2”. We had to rent it… plain and simple.
As I popped it in back at my grandmother’s, it was quite obvious that what I had rented was a scam of some kind. It looked exactly like Super Mario Bros., with the level layouts changed slightly, and a darker “super” mushroom that (after finding out the hard way) was actually poisonous. I was convinced that this was a hack of some kind, and was none too impressed that we’d been duped into renting it. Still, I got a fair amount of enjoyment out of it.
Of course, when All-Stars came around, I learned as I played that very first stage that what I had played that day in Baie Sainte-Anne was 100% legit. Oops!
The fun part about All-Stars is how it embellishes areas we feel we already know (more or less). For this movie, I just wanted to show all the different kinds of backgrounds through the first part of the game, as well as the oddities (like a flag and castle in an underwater level) found in the A to D levels at the end of the game.
Posted on September 19, 2011
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (NES)
Though the actual TMNTII arcade game was much flashier, the NES edition was definitely the superior game with more content.
1990 - NES (Ultra)
The cartridge came with a coupon for free pizza, which didn’t hurt giving this game an edge over its competitors.
Although I have nothing but great memories gathered from playing this game with friends as a kid, the one I share today is rather embarrassing. Epic, but embarrassing.
I’ve mentioned it a few times before, but I was an avid collector of video game magazines. There was no internet to rely on, so flipping through the pages of Electronic Gaming Monthly or Nintendo Power to get the latest tips and cheats was a common practice. With every month came a new issue, and with every issue came new cheats… it was always something fun to look forward to.
In the April of ’90 issue of EGM, one cheat in particular caught my attention.
Well, this is certainly an epic cheat code if I've ever seen one!
Simon Belmont (from the Castlevania series) would be perfect to fight with! The cheat was complimented by two screen shots, one of them showing Belmont lashing his whip at a Foot Soldier. My best friend who lived around the corner owned the game, so with the magazine in hand, I rushed over to give the code a try. It seemed like quite a long process, but it would be worth it!
Well… it was indeed quite the process. For about 30 minutes, we tried to get the code to work as described. We convinced ourselves that, due to the complicated nature of the code, we were messing something up. We gave up, deciding to instead just play the game normally.
As the years went by, TMNTII would inevitably come up in any conversation related to the NES. It was a fantastic game, and it pretty much erased any memory of a somewhat disappointing first title. I would mention this code, and though people wouldn’t remember hearing about it, I was “in the know” because of the magazine.
Last year, I found the issue in question when digging through old piles of gaming publications. Just for fun, I started flipping through pages, and eventually landed on the familiar code.
I then read the caption next to the screenshots.
Oh my.
A.P. Rilphuuls? Is he Danish?
It then hit me like a ton of bricks. April F***ING Fool’s.
For 20 years, I believed it to be an actual cheat for TMNTII. I passed it along as fact to everyone else who mentioned anything about the game. It’s all quite hilarious, but I do blame the gag working on me (oh so well) on a few things;
1. I was still learning how to read in English.
2. Even if I did know how to properly read in English, I was just way too excited to even care about what the caption said.
3. A.P. Rilphuuls? Seriously? I still don’t find it that obvious. “Eh-pee Rilfuels” is what I initially though it pronounced when I re-read it last year.
4. The Fromegem, HA is perhaps an error on the editor’s part, or maybe another attempt at spelling something differently to get the same phonetic sound. Had it been Fromegm, it could have possibly clicked. As it was, I thought perhaps Fromegem was some kind of cheese.
5. I am the most gullible person on the planet. I’ve been burned over the last couple April 1sts, but for the other 364 days of the year, I can be pretty dense.
So, there you have it. I’m hoping a current EGM editor will see this someday and get a chuckle out of it.
Pretty straightforward… I promise these will get more interesting as the consoles they’re played on evolve. Though, you probably already knew that.
Posted on September 16, 2011
Super Mario World (Super NES)
Even though the focus of this post is…
1991 - Super NES (Nintendo)
…the movie I made (posted below) used…
2001 - Game Boy Advance (Nintendo)
I found it had a bit more storytelling material, such as a lengthened introduction.
Super Mario World was a highly anticipated game for me for far, far too long… here’s the why.
I would read Electronic Gaming Monthly on a regular basis, so much so, that on one car trip to Baie Sainte-Anne, I read (out loud) something from the magazine to my mother in English. She was shocked, and very proud that I had taught myself how to read in a language other than French!
I even remember what it was that I read to her – it was the caption under a screen shot of Super Mario Bros. 3, of Mario on a cloudy level (probably World 5), ready to make a jump onto one of those damn red, rotatey platforms… I can even remember which part of the trip it was, too; driving past the jail in Renous. Strange, how my memory works.
Anyhow, in mid-to-late 1990 there was an issue of EGM with some Bonk game on the cover. That didn’t warrant too much attention, other than the fact that the 16-bit graphics for it looked phenomenal. It was just another game for another console I’d never own, anyway (the TurboGraphx-16). Among the other features in the issue… wait… is that… no way…
There was no way I was walking out of the store without this.
I was equally mesmerized by the cape! It certainly made more sense than a Raccoon Tail...
- Perfect for Mario fanatics like me!
Not only did this fantastic NP exclusive include tidbits about every single Mario game in existence (not to mention the ones in which he had a cameo), Mario Mania included thorough level maps and tips for every single stage of a game that wasn’t even out for another month or two… Super Mario World.
Like I said, I chose Super Mario Advance 2 simply due to the amount of content. Like the other Mario games, I had to do a bit of embellishing… aside from the intro and castle-destroying sequences (which I always loved watching as a kid), there’s not a whole lot to show.
By the way, those castles looked a heck of a lot smaller from the outside… wasn’t I just crossing a lava-filled chasm and spiked battering rams for 10 minutes? Here I am, I could have just jumped *over* the castle, but I had to go in it… dammit.