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There's one thing you can never deny: Nintendo knows how to throw a party. Mario's 25th anniversary celebrations have seen special events in Nintendo stores worldwide, not to mention special memorabilia such as limited-edition Wii and Nintendo DSi systems hit the shelves. One item seems to have divided the nation, however, and that item is the Super Mario All-Stars 25th Anniversary Edition. The package launched worldwide as a budget title between October and December and included the Super Mario All-Stars game as well as a Super Mario History collection: a booklet of interviews, facts and designs from Mario's beginnings to the present day, as well as a CD with ten Super Mario tracks and ten sound effects from the original Super Mario Bros. game. Announced as a piece of Mario history, though, it's been difficult to ignore the backlash from those who believe the package to be no more than a cheap cash-in on Nintendo's part.
Anyone who's old enough might recall the original Super Mario All-Stars, which was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1993. The compilation included revamped versions of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, all with new graphics and an updated soundtrack. Japan received the same version, but since The Lost Levels was their version of SMB2, the Western version of SMB2 was released in Japan as Super Mario USA. Either way, All-Stars played a large part in Mario's history as it introduced the West to The Lost Levels just as it did the East to Super Mario USA. Seventeen years later, it doesn't have the same effect, but that's to be expected.
The version of Super Mario All-Stars you buy as part of the 25th Anniversary Edition is exactly the same as the original, even to the point where the copyright is still just 1993. Everything now is as it was back then - nothing has been retouched. In terms of nostalgia, that's not a problem - and, as far as the games were concerned, there was nothing wrong with them in the first place - but it wouldn't have been too much to ask for Nintendo to put a little effort in to remake the menu, sort out the controls and throw in a widescreen mode, surely. Not only that, but superior versions of SMB2 and SMB3 have existed on the Game Boy Advance for a few years now - though, granted, this is Super Mario All-Stars, not "Super Mario Advance Wii", so that can be easily forgiven. You could also find fault (as many have) with the 50Hz nature of the game, but whilst it would have been nice to have had North America's 60Hz version, it really doesn't make a massive amount of difference to the gameplay.
That's not to say there aren't still problems with the games, regardless of the fact that they were also present in the original. Depending on the game, saving partway through a world will take you back to the start when you open up the save file again - a particular annoyance on Super Mario Bros. 3, where the worlds tend to be pretty large. Some games clear your coin count and score when you save and quit, meaning you can't rack up a good high score like you can on other Super Mario titles. Perhaps the most annoying of all is the fact that, on all games except SMB2, saving and quitting reverts you back down to Mario: it doesn't matter if you're Super Mario, Fire Mario or any of the suits available in SMB3, opening the save file after using save-and-quit will see you back to Mario. Sure, this isn't a problem when you consider the fact that you couldn't save at all on the NES originals, but in this day and age, problems like these in a new game would be pretty inexcusable.
For some people, getting Super Mario All-Stars is a no-brainer. It's got four of the best Mario games on it, refreshed for the modern day (as of seventeen years ago), a great collection of Mario history, and stunning packaging. It's a collector's item through and through. The game is absolutely wonderful, and if not for Nintendo's sad lack of effort, it could have been much better. That, sadly, is the problem: with more effort from Nintendo to make it look and play better, it would have been perfect. 1993 Nintendo did Super Mario All-Stars justice, but sadly, 2010 Nintendo fell a little short of the mark.
